Titanic — Eagle Rock 1973 (Norway, Heavy Progressive Rock)
Having enjoyed unexpected singles success with "Sultana", an album track from their previous album "Sea wolf", Titanic did what their name implies and attempted to scuttle themselves. Founder Kenny Aas, whose organ playing had been the sole reason for the success of "Sultana", left the band to be replaced by Helge Groslie.
The change was however not the shipwreck that might have been expected, indeed it could be argued that Groslie breathed new life into the band. The opening "One night in Eagle rock", which runs to almost 8 minutes, sets out deceptively as a downbeat affair but quickly transforms into an absolute classic piece of early 70's heavy prog. There are strong hints of Uriah Heep and Deep Purple in the Hammond driven rhythms, the incisive lead guitar, and the high vocal harmonies. The mysterious tale the song tells is complemented perfectly by the subtle complexity of the piece.
While the following pair of tracks are more orthodox heavy rock numbers, "One of your kind" has a structure which varies from driving rock to soft ballad. The first half closes with a brief avant-garde piece of chanting preceded by an amusing phone call.
Side two opens with "Dying sun", a highly melodic number with a brisk pace, a little reminiscent of Uriah Heep's "Look at yourself", especially in view of the Osibisa like percussion which supports the main organ solo. We do however find time to catch our breath during Arica Siggs' ballad "And it's music", on which he sings lead vocal. The harmonica and whistling added to the track show yet another dimension to the band's imagination.
"Richmond express" leans more towards the more straightforward heavy rock which was being developed on the western side of the Atlantic in the early 70's, and is in many ways a "Sing fool sing part 2". "Maureen" sets out as what appears to be a rather drippy love song, before mutating into something altogether more majestic. There is an "I want you/She's so heavy" like guitar section, an organ solo and choral vocals to transform the song into a wonderful mini-suite in six minutes. The album closes with "The skeleton", an extremely out of character jazz piano boogie.
For an album which takes us way back to 1973 and to a country (Norway) which had still to embrace prog to any real extent, "Eagle rock" shows a confidence, competence and maturity which the band's peers in the prog pioneering nations might envy. Make no mistake, this is a mighty album.Review by Easy Livin
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