Spooky Tooth - Cross Purpose (1999)

The eight and final album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

Three guests added keyboards and harmonica.

The band returned again for a final album exactly twenty-five years after their last album. A quarter of a century, in other words.

None of the members from that album returned to do Cross Purposes. Mike Harrison and Mike Kellie from the Witness album is involved in this album on vocals and drums, though.

The music is mostly old style rock'n'roll and has almost nothing at all in common with what this band has previously released on their first seven albums. 

There are some third rate versions of some soul classics here at the end of the album and those versions is pretty horrible.

The vocals is good and that is the only good thing I can say about this album. But not even these vocals can save this abysmal bad album. It is a turkey.

1 point

Ozul - Man on the Shore (2024)

The second album from this one-man-band from Norway.

Ozul is Paulo Chavarria on guitars, electronics and vocals.

Paulo is originally from Costa Rica, Latin-America but he has settled in Bergen, Norway. Two albums has so far been released and I reviewed the debut album last month and awarded it a good rating.

The music on the 2023 debut album Provenance was a mix of art-rock, psych rock and heavy prog. Porcupine Tree and Marillion is two good references here.

That is also the case on this album. There is a lot more electronica and cinematic rock this time around though. Even some djent can be found here.

The music is very much expanded and has a lot more influences.

There is still a melancholic undertone in the music. The music is a mix of mid-tempo and heavier prog. 

The vocals is really good. The absence of some killer tunes is my only gripe with this album. Paulo can go far with this project if he wrote and recorded some even better songs than the ones on his first two albums.

3 points

 

 

 

 

Esquizoide - Cronicas (2024)

The debut album from this band from Argentina.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

Five guests added cello, violin, flute, saxophone and bass.

This is a new band from Argentina who has previously released two EPs in 2016 and 2019 before they released this album. This album is clocking in at fifty minutes.

The band has been labeled as a heavy prog band. I am not sure about that.... OK, they reminds me about a heavy, hard rocking version of Jethro Tull, the version of that band who won them the best hard rock act at the Grammy awards and pipped the likes of Metallica to that price (to everyobody's shock and horror). 

That said, there are a lot more art-rock in their music than heavy prog. There are some Porcupine Tree influences here though and some of the guitar solos has some Iron Maiden influences.

The flute and a lot of the music is also leaning towards Jethro Tull as I stated above. And we even get some tango and Latin - Rock here....

The vocals is good and the band does a good job on some songs who are slightly lacking in quality.

This is a more than acceptable debut album. The sound is good and I am awarding it a weak good rating. The addition of some vintage organ is adding that little extra to this album.

This is an album most prog fans will enjoy.

3 points

Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit (2010)

The 15th album from this band from Norway.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals. 

Three guests added keyboards, trumpet and female vocals on three tracks.

The band continued on from the rather disappointing 2009 album Child Of The Future.

I have been under the impression that Heavy Metal Fruit is one of the pillars in this band's very big discography. So I was looking forward to this album.

The band shows a lot of restraint on this album as they are no longe jumping in all directions. The band has more gone for elegance and subtle expressions.

In the case of this album, that means an understated blend of psych rock and space rock. There is indeed some krautrock here too. And there is even a funky song here followed by some good potent jazz.

The music on this one hour long album has all the Motorpsycho trademarks too. Their sound is pretty unique and that carries over to the music itself.

The music is six long pieces where the longest one is clocking in at over twenty minutes. 

The overall quality is very good indeed and I have really enjoyed the music and the many interesting details scattered along this album.

This is an album psych rock fans should check out. It is an album most prog fans will find interesting too. 

3.5 points

Triumph - Rock & Roll Machine (1977)

The second album from this band from Canada.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars and vocals.

Some guests added keyboards and vocals.

I have come to the second album in my reviews of all their albums. Their debut album did not sound convincing as it is a pretty substandard album.

Rock & Roll Machine turned out to be their best selling album and they even got a hit single here. The hit single is their version of Joe Walsh's evergreen Rocky Mountain Way.

This three quarters of an hour long albums includes a mix of hard rock and some more pastoral rock songs. There are even a ballad here.

The music is pretty youthful and hard. The band were a proto-heavy metal band and that is evident in their music.

This album is an improvement on their debut album and a good album for those into hard rock and heavy metal. I am not but this is still a decent album.

2 points

Gracious - Echo (1996)

The third and final album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

Three guests added guitars and vocals.

The band released their first two albums in 1970 and 1971. They are semi-classic symphonic prog albums. Why Tim Wheatley and Robert Lipson, two-thirds of the 1996 band, returned twenty-seven years later is something I do not really understand.

Nevertheless, they did and the result is this album.

The years of inactivity has meant a change of genre. From symphonic prog to.... well, this one hour long album has a mix of various genres.

The start off point is art-rock. Then we get some psych rock, mainstream rock and......jazz. Yes, jazz. Coser to fusion, mostly but still some minutes with jazz. Confused ? You will be confused by this album.

That is not a bad thing, a musically varied album as this album. The vocals is also good and the band does a good job.

The quality of the music is somewhere between decent and good. It is indeed an interesting album who is sadly overlooked. Undeserved overlooked as it deserve a lot more attention. Check out this album.

2.5 points

Gebarvaterli - Im Tal der Emmen (1978)

The one and only album from this band from Germany.

The band was a seven piece big band with a lineup of congas, drums, bass, guitars, organ, piano, flute, saxes, trombone and bassoon.

This band released this album, then split and the members then got involved in the German jazz scene and became quite prolific in their respective projects and solo careers.

The music here is indeed jazz. But there is some strong krautrock influences here too and it is only fair to label it as a crossover album between jazz and krautrock.

Clocking in at forty minutes, the album has some nice details and twists. There is not that many solos here and the melodies are a bit lacking in quality. 

There are some pretty good saxophone solos here though.

The rest of the album is a bit too pedestrian. The music is still decent and worthy some investigations.

2 points

Lodestar - Zonen (2024)

The debut album from this band from Great Britain.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars and vocals.

I got this album sent to me from the usual promo agent and I was promised a hard psych rock album. Hence me accepting doing a review of this album.

The album starts out as a nu-metal album and then moves over to stoner rock. Hmmm...

 Most of the music on this three quarters of an hour long album is very heavy, indeed. The main genre is stoner rock with some strong nu-metal influences. The guitars are chugging and atonal at times. The vocals are OK throughout.

There are also some more subtle psych rock influences here. Subtle but they are very evident here. 

There are some pretty good pastoral psych rock at the very end of this album. The rest of the album has some decent music. The music is not progressive, but stoner rock fans should get this album. It has something unique to offer this overcrowded scene. 

Check out this album.

2 points

Spooky Tooth - The Mirror (1974)

The seventh album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, clavinet, piano, organ, keyboards, moog, electric piano and vocals.

This is their final album from the 1970s. One more album was released and that album was released in 1999, twenty-five years after this album. A review will follow later this week.

Their previous album Witness was an improvement on the pretty dire You Broke My Heart album from the same year. 

The band has by now returned to their roots as a hard psych and blues rock band.

The music is pretty catchy and bluesy. The vocals is good and ditto for the guitars and the organ sound. 

This forty minutes long album has a fine blend of hard rockers and some more mid-tempo psych rock songs.

The quality is decent throughout and this album is one of their better ones. It is an album well worth checking out.

2 points