11:59
THIS IS OUR SACRIFICE OF PRAISE
Original Issue: 1974 Dovetail (DOVE4) Buy it here!!!
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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5
from Revolver USA:
English Christian acid folk band produced as their only recorded legacy this wonderful, pastoral record; an early 1970s album (released on Dovetail Records c. 1974) that has dreamy, moody production values, with special effects (nature sounds like sea gulls and babbling brooks) set against a beautiful landscape of acoustic guitar, soaring mellotron, flute, autoharp and male/female vocals; a couple of up-tempo songs act as a change of pace, but the ballads are the reason to be thankful for this record; and how can you go wrong as a Christian folk band, with actual Psalms as your lyrics? As Ken Scott’s Vintage Vinyl Jesus Music guide says, “turn the lights out, crank it up, and sail away.”
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from Background Magazine:
11.59 was a British Christian group that released one exceptionally rare album way back then. Most tracks have been inspired by Psalms and other passages from the Bible, which speaks clearly from the lyrics that do carry a Message, but with the exception of “Hallelujah Jesus!” that shouldn’t bother anyone. That particular song, however, may be a bit too much of a “hallelujah-gospel-song” (pun intended) for most - even I tend to skip it. The other material brings beautiful progressive folk with quite a bit of Mellotron playing and good (male and female) vocals.
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from Popsike:
7-piece British group who were active in the early 1970s. As you might have gathered from the song titles, 11.59 were a full-on Christian band, working at the folk/rock end of the spectrum.The record is a tad sweet in places, particularly on the female vocal front, and some of the lyrics will raise the hackles of non-believers, notably the jaunty Hallelujah Jesus!, which is, in all honesty, a bit hard to bear. If you concentrate on the music, though, what you get is a nice folk rock album with a bit of Mellotron, which is rare enough in itself to warrant
attention.
All but one of the songs is based on the psalms, the best-known in the secular world being No.23, The Lord is My Shepherd, tackled at the end of the album on one of Kinch's 2 compositions, although strangely, neither of his songs has any Mellotronic content. Speaking of said 'Tron, there are flutes and strings on opener "The Earth Is The Lord's" , then nothing until "By The Waters Of Babylon" , which you may or may not be glad to hear has nothing to do with the later Boney M song, apart from the obvious lyrical content.
Actually, it's one of the nicest pieces on the album, a melancholy, minor-key piece with 'Tron flutes, but sadly, that would appear to be it.
The presence of Mellotron and flute has found This Our Sacrifice of Praise being labeled "prog folk" while river, seagull and ocean sound effects put it in danger of being written off as hippie drivel. And candidly, the scarcity of original LP copies probably has more to do with its elevated collectible status than music contained therein.
Lyrically it's likely a very religious in content and recommended to many folk purists with an innocence about the presentation and a purity about the vocal blend that's refreshing a lot...it's reflective and introspective, an acquired taste but well worth sampling.
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