Split

Release Date: 1971
Genre: Rock
Label: Caroline
Total Time: 39:52

Artist: The Groundhogs
Rating:
Styles: British Psychedelia, Heavy Metal, Prog-Rock/Art Rock
Track Picks: "Cherry Red," "Split, Pt. 1"
Similar Albums: The Best of Mountain, Back into the Future, Tasty, In for the Kill!, Demons and Wizards, The Last Puff, Led Zeppelin III, Squawk, Budgie, Master of Reality, Paranoid, Black Sabbath

Review

As the Groundhogs' best example of their gritty blues-rock fire and unique form of guitar-driven music, Split reveals more about Tony McPhee's character, perseverance, and pure love for performing this style of blues than any other album. Based around the misunderstanding and mystery of schizophrenia, Split takes a raw, bottom-heavy recipe of spirited, spunky guitar riffs (some of the best that McPhee has ever played) and attaches them to some well-maintained and intelligently written songs. The first four tracks are simply titled "Part One" to "Part Four" and instantly enter Split's eccentric, almost bizarre conceptual realm, but it's with "Cherry Red" that the album's full blues flavor begins to seep through, continuing into enigmatic but equally entertaining tracks like "A Year in the Life" and the mighty finale, entitled "Groundhog." Aside from McPhee's singing, there's a noticeable amount of candor in Peter Cruickshank's baggy, unbound percussion, which comes across as aimless and beautifully messy in order to complement the blues-grunge feel of the album. Murky, fuzzy, and wisely esoteric, Split harbors quite a bit of energy across its eight tracks, taking into consideration that so much atmosphere and spaciousness is conjured up by only three main instruments. This album, along with 1972's Who Will Save the World?, are regarded as two of the strongest efforts from the Groundhogs, but Split instills a little bit more of McPhee's vocal passion and dishes out slightly stronger portions of his guitar playing to emphasize the album's theme.~ Mike DeGagne, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track Title	iTunes	Composers	Performers	Time
Split, Pt. 1		Tony McPhee	The Groundhogs	(4:30)
Split, Pt. 2		Tony McPhee, Tony McPhee Band	The Groundhogs	(5:15)
Split, Pt. 3	...	Tony McPhee	The Groundhogs	(4:30)
Split, Pt. 4	...	Tony McPhee, Tony McPhee Band	The Groundhogs	(5:44)
Cherry Red		Tony McPhee	The Groundhogs	(5:43)
A Year in the Life	...	Tony McPhee	The Groundhogs	(3:15)
Junkman	...	Tony McPhee	The Groundhogs	(5:02)
Ground Hog	...	Tony McPhee	The Groundhogs	(5:47)

Credits

The Groundhogs (Main Performer), Martin Birch (Engineer), Peter Cruickshank (Bass), Tony McPhee (Arranger), Ken Pustelnik (Drums), Tony McPhee Band (Guitar), Tony McPhee Band (Vocals), Tony McPhee Band (Producer)

History

A split was initially done on vinyl records, with music from one artist on one side of the record and music from a second artist on the opposite side. As vinyl records have declined in popularity, this format has been done on CDs. Although there are not multiple sides to a CD, the idea is still the same. From the early 1980s through the present, the format has been used widely by independent record labels, and artists in punk rock, hardcore, grindcore, black metal and indie rock circles.

Advantages

A split allows more than one artist to split the production costs for one release instead of handling all of the expense by one artist. The same can also apply to the promotional costs of a single release. Splits also allow bands to expose their music directly to another band's fanbase. Usually, the bands that are on a split are of a similar genre.

Examples

Many EPs of the noise band Melt-Banana are splits with another band

Red Wave album (1986), first official international release of Russian rock, feat. 4 bands from Sankt Petersburg

"Here She Comes Now" is among the few split singles that Nirvana did early on. "Here She Comes Now" is a split single with The Melvins

One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels A split EP between Bright Eyes and Neva Dinova.

The BYO Split Series is a series of split albums released by BYO Records. Albums have included The Bouncing Souls with Anti-Flag, $wingin' Utter$ with Youth Brigade, Alkaline Trio with One Man Army and NOFX with Rancid, with each band covering the other's songs.