Stray-Saturday Morning Pictures (1972)

Stray were a legendary British hard rock band from the early 1970s. Formed in the mid-1960s in London by singer and guitarist Steve Gadd, who, along with bassist Gary Giles, drummer Ritchie Cole, and guitarist Del Bromham, earned respect within the London blues rock scene. Thanks to their incendiary live shows, they secured a contract with Transatlantic Records, with whom they released their self-titled debut in 1970, an exuberant, guitar-driven album with progressive influences. On "Suicide", released a year later, they achieved better production, and although it lacked the raw power of their first work, they created a formidable progressive hard rock album brimming with the sounds of the Mellotron and Hammond organ. On "Saturday Morning Pictures" (1972), the album we're discussing here, the band placed much greater emphasis on composition and arrangements, with a more prominent role for synthesizers, resulting in their most progressive and melodic work. Tracks like the ambitious "Move That Wigwam", the shimmering hard rock "Our Song" and "Leave It Out", the melodic "Queen of the Sea", and the complex "How Could I Forget You" brought their first era to a close with a superb album of great British hard rock.