John Fischer – The Cold Cathedral

Really solid Xian folk/pop lp from late 60’s West Covina, CA. Seriously, this guy could kick both Jonathan & Charles’ ass’ & still have the strength left to sit down & write a nice jazzy Jesus folk ballad about it. I know it is the spirit of the times to call stuff like this “psych”, or “psych pop”, but honestly, there is nothing super trippy about this one. And to enjoy it you probably need to have love for Simon & Garfunkel somewhere deep down. Which is not a bad comparison as a lot of the arrangements/instrumentation are reminiscent of Bookends era S&G. The better tracks have a jazzy quality to them, driven by Fischer’s acoustic guitar and vocals. Another good thing about this one is that the arrangements never get to overblown with strings/brass, which can trouble the efforts of lesser Jesus troubadours. And, speaking of the lord, you will find him duely praised while Fischer tackles some hard hitting questions about Christian hypocrisy. Here we clearly have a man not afraid to raise issues.

“Born To Die”
[audio:john_fischer.mp3]