Following the Seth Man’s excellent reviews of two early Hawkwind albums, I felt the time was ripe to rescue fellow Greasy Trucker’s Partygoers Man from the dustbin of retro history. The orthodox critical line on Man nowadays, if they are even mentioned at all, is that they “fitted firmly into the progressive rock mould” (see Record Collector’s A‑Z of British psychedelia). However, as “Rhinos…” amply demonstrates, to bracket them alongside the over-educated likes of Caravan or Hatfield and the North does them a gross injustice, as they actually had far more in common with West Coast acid rockers like Quicksilver or the Grateful Dead.

After two over-wrought but occasionally compelling late 60s albums on Pye and Dawn respectively (“Revelation” and the irreverently titled “Two Ounces Of Plastic With A Hole In The Middle”), Man ditched their tight but bottom-heavy rhythm section of Ray Williams and Jeff Jones and recruited Martin Ace on bass and Terry Wiliams on drums. Their eponymously titled third album on Andrew Lauder’s consistently ground-breaking Liberty/UA label — which also boasted Can, Neu!, Hawkwind, Amon Duul II and the Groudhogs on its roster — found them stretching out towards a far more fluid, improvisational sound, influenced not only by the likes of The Grateful Dead but also by Krautrock outfits like Amon Duul II and Can, with whom Man frequently shared bills during the four-week German tours that enabled them to survive in England, where they had a much smaller following at this point.

Attemps to capture their onstage chemistry in the studio improved throughout their subsequent three UA albums, but “Rhinos…” represents their most successful attempt to translate their spontaneous mayhem of their live shows to vinyl. The album opens with “Taking The Easy Way Out Again”, a trundling boogie which sounds fairly unremarkable until midway through, when the guitar solos kick in, recalling the euphoric amphetamine rush of the first Moby Grape album. It’s followed by “The Thunder And Lighntning Kid”, a chugging country-rock shuffle in the vein of “American Beauty”-era Grateful Dead, featuring drug-damaged lyrics which summon up any one of your favourite scenes from “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas” set to music. Halfway through, the song suddenly shifts gear, becoming far more intense as the narrator (in this case keyboard player Malcolm Morley) moves onto the second stage of the trip. Keyboards and guitars intertwine seamlessly in the manner of “Morrison Hotel”-era Doors, before a descending riff from Mickey Jones segues directly into the next track. “California Silks and Satins” is an luscious acoustic comedown ballad in the vein of Jefferson Airplane’s more introspective side (think “Wooden Ships” or “Triad” and you’re halfway there).

Track 4, “Four Day Louise” starts off with an indelibly simplistic two-chord boogie riff before veering off into slightly jazz rock-influenced territory, reminiscent of Zappa or Kevin Ayers before they both lost their respective senses of humour. However, unlike many UK prog bands such as Yes or Genesis, there is not a single wasted note or nuance here. Even the guitar solos fit neatly into the overall structure of the song, without ever sounding gratuitous or ego-driven.

Side 2 opens with a brief instrumental “Intro” before seguing into “Kerosene” whose borderline-misogynistic lyrics are, for me, the album’s only low point, betraying a chauvinistic insularity towards female sexuality that’s typical of the double standards practised during its era. Nevertheless, the Airplane-style harmonies are exquisitely lovely, and the guitar solos recall Country Joe and The Fish’s Barry Melton at his stinging, unpredictable best. However, the album’s undisputed climax is “Scotch Corner”, which starts out with another two-chord riff in the vein of “Four Day Louise” before erupting mid-song into a guitar duel between Mickey Jones and Deke Leonard of such screeching, white-knuckle intensity that it’s almost enough to give the listener the goosebumps when heard in a particularly, shall we say, susceptible frame of mind. Words can barely describe this — it’s nothing less than all the highest points of Television’s “Marquee Moon” condensed into two minutes, and released a year before Television even existed.

As “Scotch Corner” demonstrates, these guys were no effete hippie slouches. They could rock almost as hard as any metal band (check out “It Is At It Must Be” from “2 Oz of Plastic…) and simultaneously scale the heights of proto-punk catharsis, combined with a melodic deftness that betrays their 60s origins in harmony-pop quintet the Bystanders, often within the same song. Side 2’s opening theme is then reprised as “Outro”, followed buy a macabre descending waltz-time finale that leaves the listener feeling ravaged and dirtied. 

“Rhinos…” along with Man’s entire UA output, is currently available on CD from BGO Records. Try this first, perhaps followed by “Be Good To Yourself At Least Once A Day” then decide for yourself whether the rest is worth investigating. Regardless of whether you do decide to delve into deeper waters, “Rhinos…” won’t disppoint you. As Robert Christgau correctly pointed out in his “Consumer Guide to 70s Rock”, “Rhinos… is the best album to come out of San Francisco since ‘American Beauty’ ”, no mean feat from a band who originated from the Merythyr Twydfil / Llanelli area of South Wales.