Jonesy - Growing (1973)

        The third work released in 1974 "Growing". A sense of existence of Alan Bown becomes strong, and it has changed from a symphonic sound to a funky sound. It is a very yborecedebted and a fine work of a psychedelic content. String music is unlimited and is beautiful. Above all, a stout performance is a masterpiece of the charm. I recommends it for electrification Miles Davis's fan.
braindamage | 4/5 | 2005-12-18 From Progarchives.com
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Incredible music! Lots of mellotron, keyboard, guitar, bass, trumpet and violin parts, with an incredible speed and energy that makes this album worth a listen. Interesting vocals. Nice rythm changes. Wonderful.

Ragnarok - Ragnarok (1977)

RAGNARÖK's first release is an all time folk -prog classic and must be heard. RAGNARÖK blend elements from "Meddle" Era FLOYD, with touches of JETHRO TULL, FOCUS and CAMEL. Their first release was all instrumental and offers loads of acoustic guitar (aka. Seamus), flute and keyboards with amazing musicianship. This album has always given me a feeling of solitude for some reason and is a great piece of music to reflect on life with. This re-release is very well transfered and I am amazed at the sound clarity. Songs are not long or epic in nature but seem to instead flow with cascading perfection short piece by short piece. Many passages are slow and deeply forboding in structure conjuring memories of the most tranquil/spacey PINK FLOYD.

Titanic - Eagle Rock (1973)

Titanic biography
Norway is not precisely the cradle of Progressive Rock, but a band formed in 1969 when the genre was still on diapers, a group of musicians from Oslo, decided to form a Hard Rock band inspired in legends such as LED ZEPPELIN and DEEP PURPLE, but gave a step forward and created a unique sound that blended all this influences with our beloved genre and a strong Psychedelic element.
Extract from: http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=4609

Amon Duul - 1989 - Fool Moon (Robert Calvert)

biography
The British Amon Düül were formed in 1981 in Great Britain by guitar player John Weinzierl (Penguin) and bass player Dave Anderson, who both had been members of Amon Düül 2. They published a few albums during the 80s; sadly most of them with very little information about who played on them; only "Die Lösung" gives some detailed information on the cover. From the information on "Die Lösung" one can see that the line-up was very interesting, at least on this record; besides Weinzierl and Anderson it features Robert Calvert of Hawkwind as singer (he was also responsible for the lyrics), Julie Wareing on vocals, Guy Evans of VdGG on drums and Ed Wynne and Joie Hinton of the Ozric Tentacles on guitar and synths. Their records were of varying quality; I recommend "Die Lösung", which should be something every prog-fan should like, and "Hawk Meets Penguin" for those who are not afraid of free-form improvisation in the style of the early Krautrock.
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High Tide - Sea Shanties (1969)

5 stars Metalised psychedelic rock, the music impacts like nuclear force and settles within you. Led Zep, Deep P, Black Sabbath and assorted bands where supposed to be heavy, but this stands alone (we are talking about 1969) as the predominant ultimate heavy metal attack. Even compared with regular (80's) Heavy Metal (Metallica, Iron Maiden) High Tide has been there, seen it and done it already. Rougher, louder and better at it, if I may add.

Entrenched deep within the psychedelic scene High Tide explores the field in a new direction, forcefull guitar riffing, high paced rhythms (and some slow paced passages thrown in for good measure) makes High Tide stand with one foot in late 60's psychedelica and the other in 80's heavy metal, everything passes by, from The Doors (Walking Down Their Outlook) Iron Maiden (Death Warmed Up), till Led Zeppelin combined with Arthur Brown (Futilist's Lament).

Tully...Sea Of Joy(1972)

Among the important bands of the Aussie 70's Rock scene, Tully were formed in 1968 in Sydney by bassist Jon Blake, keyboardist Michael Carlos, multi-instrumentalist Richard Lockwood and drummer Robert Taylor, all of who played in Levi Smith's Clefs Blues Rock band, joined shortly after by singer Terry Wilson.Although Blake quit in 1969 and the band struggled with a few bassists before settling with Ken Firth, their growing fame led to the ''Hair'' release in 1970, a musical performed by Tully plus four additional musicians, and their Psych/Folk-oriented debut the same year.As they were closely associated with the act Extradition, guitarist Colin Campbell and female singer Shayna Stewart joined them in 1971, at a time when Terry Wilson and Robert Taylor had left Tully.The new core recorded ''Sea of joy''in 1971, a work created as the soundtrack of the film of the same name by Paul Witzig.The album was released on Harvest.

Host - Hardt mot hardt (1976)

 Review by Steve Hegede
PROG REVIEWER
5 stars "Hardt Mot Hardt" was released in 1976, and, compared to "På Sterke Vinger", sounds like it was done by a completely different band. Actually it was done by a slightly different band. Both of the original guitarists left, leaving the bassist and vocalist behind to continue the project. The music on "Hardt Mot Hardt" was mostly written by the new guitarist who seemed to favor complex symphonic prog. His diverse electric guitar playing mixed both 70s hard-rock with local influences (Norwegian melodies and rhythms), and classical music. The vocalist sounds different on this release, but it's the same guy as on "På Sterke Vinger". His voice is stronger and confident here.

Host - På sterke vinger 1974

Review by apps79
Special Collaborator Neo Prog Team
3 stars Høst came from the small town of Knapstad in Norway, originally formed in 1971 by guitarist/songwriter Svein Rønning, bassist Johnny Myhre and drummer Stig Berg.Myhre left the group at its early days and three new members joined, Bernt Bodahl (bass), Ronny Gyllensten (guitars) and Geir Jahren (vocals).In 1973 the band started gaining fame through local live gigs, but again two line-up changes occured, Berg and Gyllensten left and were replaced by Knut R. Lie and Odd Inge Olsen respectively, tha last one replaced by Lasse Nilsen just before the group entered the studio for the first time.At the fall of 74' the group recorded its debut ''Pa sterke vinger'' at Arctic Studios in Trondheim, released on the On label.

Areknames – Areknamès 2003

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website
by dsanful
 5 stars. I don’t really understand why some masterpieces, as this one, haven’t got this label as such. We find in this album all the greatness from the 70′s plus a fantastic production that few bands achieve on their first record.
 Dark atmosphere accompanied by visceral feelings that make you go deeper into your mind. I can’t avoid naming Van Der Graaf Generator as their biggest influence and AREKNAMÉS is one of the bands that approach the unique sound generated by them, just tremendous!

Amon Duul II - 1981-Vortex

 

Three years after audiences left them for dead (after the abysmal and best-forgotten ONLY HUMAN), the Düül return with a surprisingly vital reformation effort in VORTEX. The lineup this time: Karrer, Knaup, Rogner, Fichelscher (he and Renate were members of the then-current lineup of Popol Vuh) and Jörg Evers (on bass), with guest appearances by John Weinzierl, Lothar Meid and...er...Stefan Zauner (relegated to playing keyboards, mercifully not contributing to the songwriting).

Amon Duul II - Pyragony X - 1976

 

Amon Duul II's worst album is still a good album.

Although ADII evolved quite a bit throughout their lifespan, I would not say that they ever progressed. They simply changed from psychadelic krautrock to accessible pop/rock with experimental and psychadelic tendencies...and the evolution is evident from album to album. While songs may differ largely in overall excellence, every track this band ever recorded is easily enjoyable, that is to say they never made a bad song or album. If Pyragony X were my introduction to ADII, I may have been more hesitant to immediately consume all they have to offer, but such was not the case.

Amon Düül II 1973 Utopia [rem 2000] progrock ,Krautrock

 

Here's another Amon Duul II (?!) album - oh, wait a minute - it could be a Lothar Meid solo effort - or, Utopia !! I remember seeing LP's of this lumped in with others by Todd Rundgren's band of the same name - same prices as those common records, too. The songs on this album sound very close to ADII, and the quality is as good. I don't understand why this release isn't favoured here at PA, it features many of the traits which made the 'Mothership' so exciting. The first track 'What You Gonna Do' is a straight-ahead rocker, with Renate Knaup singing, always nice to hear her distinctive voice. 'Wolf-Man Jack Show' is a weird song, with Jimmy Jackson at the mysterious 'Choir Organ' (giving off a stranger sound than Mellotron choirs), which he actually utilised on many tracks to good effect. The Bass riff here is almost snatched straight from Beatlers' 'Come Together', played German style. 'Alice' is a sweet love song. The tune itself is care-free and up-lifting, and has Lothar playing Mellotron flutes. I can't help but be reminded of Kevin Ayers on this one. 'Las Vegas' is a hippy-sounding jam with congas, jazzy sax playing and a nose-flute !!

Amon Düül - Collapsing Singvögel Rückwärts & Co (1969)

 

Amon Düül biography
Amon Düül were a huge musical collective that had a spectacular appearance in a tv-show in 1968. Before they put out their first album they split though, and one half set off to form Amon Düül 2 . The others kept the name Amon Düül and in 1969 published the first Krautrock album ever, "Psychedelic Underground". It was very badly produced, and the music consisted of long improvisations, but after this album no other band needed to have an inferiority complex. Their second official album "Paradieswärts Düül" is much better produced and has a folky touch. The albums "Collapsing - Singvögel Rückwärts", "Disaster" and "Experimente" stem from the same session as "Psychedelic Underground" and are of similar nature; they were published after the band had split up already.

Amon Düül - Paradieswarts 1970 [rep 1997]

 Paradieswaerts Duul is a primitive folk album that dwells in about the same region as the Velvet Underground's third album and Love's Forever Changes, but not as complicated as either of these releases. The album contains only three songs. "Love is Peace" is a beautiful 17 minute long piece that as Julian Cope notes in his Krautrocksampler, bares resemblance to "Sandoz in the Rain" on (Amon Duul II's)Yeti and not much else. This is also true of the third song on the Paradieswaerts Duul, "Paramechanische Welt". Straddled between these two is a guitar and drum instrumental "Snow Your Thurst and Sun Your Open Mouth". In its totality its a beautiful tranquil album that doesn't belong in our modern society. It certainly isn't rock, but it is Amon Duul at their most stunningly beautiful.

Angel'in Heavy Syrup - II (1993)

 

 prog,noise-rock,psychedelic


One of the more unique and melodic bands to arise from Japan's famous noise-rock scene, Angel'in Heavy Syrup (named after canned fruit) specializes in a drawn-out, retro psychedelic style. The all-female quartet formed in Osaka in 1990, produced by Jojo Hiroshige, a heavyweight amongst Japan's noise rockers. Despite "guitar terrorism" being music critics' favorite phrase to describe him, Angel'in Heavy Syrup's sound shares very little in common with that of their producer's.
The band draws heavily on progressive and psychedelic rock while working in a number of jazz influences as well.

Alrune Rod - Sonet Arene 1969 - 72 [Boxset]2CD

Boxset/Compilation, released in 2002

Review by Sean Trane
COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
4 stars! This "compilation" of AR's full works under the Sonet label is their first three albums on two discs with their very first single (non- albums tracks) as an added bonus. Please see the separate album reviews I wrote to get an idea as to the album's respective contents. While it is easily understandable that the debut's artwork gets the booklet cover, I find it a little sad that the two other album's artwork where reduced to small insets on the front cover, forgetting part of them as well. Otherwise, the also features a bunch of b&w pictures of the band in concert.