📰 T. Rex Triumph – Review : Dec. 1970

A glowing one-page album review in NME celebrates T. Rex’s self-titled LP (HiFly 2) as a major artistic leap, praising its electric energy, songcraft, and the maturing vision of Marc Bolan.

The piece highlights the album’s blend of raw power and melodic beauty, positioning it as a confident step beyond the band’s earlier acoustic folk phase.

This December 12, 1970 NME review captures T. Rex right on the cusp of their explosive breakthrough, already showing the spark that would ignite full glam stardom in the months ahead.

🗞 New Musical Express

📅 Date: December 12, 1970

⏱ Length: 5 min read

📰 Key Highlights

• Strong praise for the album’s electric guitar work and overall production

• Recognition of Marc Bolan’s development as a songwriter and band leader

• Highlighting of standout tracks including “Ride a White Swan” as a “great British public proposition”

• Appreciation for the rhythmic drive and melodic quality across the record

• Positive comparison to the band’s previous acoustic work, noting significant growth

📰 Overview

Published in the December 12, 1970 issue of NME, this review assesses T. Rex’s self-titled album during a pivotal transitional period. The band was moving away from the Tyrannosaurus Rex folk sound toward a fuller, electric style, and the reviewer clearly senses the commercial and artistic potential of this new direction.

📰 Source Details

Publication / Venue: New Musical Express

Date: December 12, 1970

Format: Album review

Provenance Notes: Verified directly from the preserved page; large headline “Acceptance for T. Rex at last” and prominent black-and-white photograph of Marc Bolan.

📰 The Story

The review opens by noting the album’s strong electric guitar work and Bolan’s increasingly confident songwriting. It describes the record as a “great British public proposition,” singling out “Ride a White Swan” as a standout track that could bring the band wider success.

The writer praises the rhythmic drive, melodic quality, and overall production, suggesting that T. Rex have finally found a sound that balances their earlier whimsy with a more powerful, road-ready edge. Bolan and Mickey Finn are credited with delivering a cohesive and exciting set that points toward a bright future.

📰 Visual Archive

Large black-and-white portrait of Marc Bolan dominates the page, paired with dense columns of review text under the bold headline “Acceptance for T. Rex at last”.

Caption: Marc Bolan featured in the NME review of T. Rex’s self-titled album, December 12, 1970.

📰 Related Material

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📰 Closing Notes

This December 1970 NME review is an important early endorsement of T. Rex’s evolving sound. Written just weeks before “Ride a White Swan” would begin its chart climb, it shows critics already recognising the spark of something special in Bolan’s work — a crucial stepping stone on the path to the glam explosion of 1971–72.

#TRex #MarcBolan #NME #1970 #RideAWhiteSwan #GlamRock #ElectricWarrior

📝 Copyright Notice

All magazine scans, photographs, and original text excerpts referenced in this entry remain the property of their respective copyright holders. This Chronicle entry is a transformative, non-commercial archival summary created for historical documentation and educational reference. No ownership of the original material is claimed or implied.

ACCEPTANCE AT LAST FOR T. REX

review by Nick Logan

T. REX (Fly stereo HIFLY 2 42s 6d)

I DON'T know how much it is down to the Great British Public moving to meet Marc Bolan, or Marc Bolan moving to meet the Great British Public, but one thing "Ride A White Swan" and the new T. Rex album prove is that they have definitely met. T. Rex the group, it should be said, is now a commercial proposition; "T. Rex" the album the finest work the duo has presented to date.

With our Marc pulling no punches on electric guitar and pulling out surprises in the arranging department, it's an immensely enjoyable album that sits firmly on the road the duo have pursued since those past, unwanted days.

Electricity has had a dual effect of strengthening the rhythmic and melodic qualities of Bolan's com-positions and after five albums it must be a source of satisfaction to him to be able to pull out such good songs.

colour Then again, his guitar playing, delicate little riffs, edgy bursts and descriptive fragments, around the melodies perfectly in a style that owes little to anyone other than Marc Bolan.

On Jewel, against Micky Finn's pounding drums, there's even a dash of feedback stirring down there in the clearing. This is one of many strong tracks which could have made singles.

The orchestrations are part of the surprises and while I was in two minds as to their effectiveness in Diamond Meadows, the use of strings to sweeten the really dirty riff in Beltane Walk works splendidly. The latter track is an album standout. Its riff borrowed from Jimmy McCracklin's The Walk, I kept getting bizarre visions of Bugs Bunny doing a camp gangster routine to its absurd swing.

The Summertime Blues T. Rex get a look in too. Is it Love, Marc doing his Eddie Cochran count in, and One Inch Rock, one of the best of the duo's earlier singles and redone here to take into account their musical changes, are pure rock and roll. The last almost has a sha-la-la chorus, except that it's more shoo-ti-too-ti-t-i-to.

All-acoustic numbers are now part of the group's past, but the load is lighter in The Visit and Suneye, both good melodies, while pixiephone, producer Tony Viscon-ti's recorder and wah wah pedal get in on the act in Root Of Star and The Time Of Love Is Now. So do Mothers Of Invention vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Voorman in Seagull Woman.

Apart from the two fragments of The Children Of Rarn, which Marc intends to develop on a future album, the set closes with The Wizard, the song which was Marc's first single as a solo performer back in 1965. The album version is a longish one that breaks out midway through into eight minutes of sniffle beat, toe-bopping improvisation.

Performed as an acoustic high-light of their act for the past two years it has now been dropped, and was included on the album as a kind of curtain closer to that part of T. Rex's development. Marc's own comment is that playing it acoustically would no longer be satisfying. "I would want bass on it now."

Of the album as a whole, he comments: "In the same way as 'White Swan' was the most direct single, so this is the most direct album. It communicates. I can feel incredibly satisfied and detached from it.

Do you have this NME review in your archive? Did T. Rex ride the white swan into your heart? Share in the comments!