Heaven-Brass Rock 1 (1971)

Heaven was a British band that created a visceral mix of styles ranging from blues to progressive rock, with doses of R&B, rock, and more pastoral sounds. They had a strong tendency towards improvisation and enjoyed their five minutes of fame when they performed at the legendary Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, on the very last day, alongside Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Free, Donovan, Jethro Tull, and The Moody Blues. Formed in late 1968, this band can be considered an initial project that didn't continue beyond a single album. Due in part to its large size, the group had great difficulty touring and primarily focused on studio recordings. As the name of their debut album, “Brass Rock 1”, suggests, their music is what you'd expect from a five-piece band playing various wind instruments (saxophones, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, flutes, etc.), along with piano, drums, guitars, and bass, not to mention vocals. With a rather diverse style, Heaven played energetic rock where guitars and drums were the dominant instruments, backed by a furious horn section. “Brass Rock 1” was released as an ambitious double album with a lavish gatefold sleeve by CBS Records, who envisioned them as a next big thing in the vein of Chicago Transit Authority or Blood, Sweat & Tears, both of whom were on the same label. Despite positive critical acclaim, the album had little commercial impact, selling only a few thousand copies, and the band subsequently disbanded.

Rush-Fly By Night (1975)

"Fly By Night" is the first of two releases by the Canadian band Rush in 1975, the second chronologically, and the first to feature drummer and principal lyricist Neil Peart, which in many ways makes it the band's first "real" album. Peart contributed literary allusions, deeply personal and philosophical lyricism, and dynamic, technically virtuosic percussion. Furthermore, the band began to introduce a more sophisticated, progressive musicality into their songs. The production quality improved noticeably. The raw blues-hard-rock of the first album expanded with a more varied musical palette of sounds and styles. The resulting album is in line with the evolutionary path Rush followed in their subsequent recordings. Here we find the band's first epic melody, the eight-and-a-half-minute "By-Tor & the Snow Dog", their first odes to classical objectivism and celebration of the individual with the avant-garde "Anthem", their first radio hit "Fly By Night", and allusions to the narratives and fantastical settings of J.R.R. Tolkien in "Rivendell". Interspersed among these are glimpses of their recent past with the hard rock track "In The End" and the energetic and solid "Beneath, Between & Behind". "Fly By Night" is considered by many to be the true beginning of the Canadian trio, the album that laid the foundation for their legendary career as one of the most important rock bands of the 20th century.

Tempest-Tempest (1973)

Once the first version of Colosseum disbanded, two of its members, drummer John Hiseman and bassist Mark Clarke, joined Allan Holdsworth and Paul Williams (guitar and keyboards) to found the heavy prog band Tempest, releasing the magnificent albums "Tempest" (1973) and "Living Fear" (1974). Released by the Bronze label, the band's debut was astonishing, showcasing the virtuosity and skill of its members in an overwhelming way. The rhythms, composition, and melodies, along with impeccable production, made this first album one of the best considered progressive rock releases of 1973. Highlights on this debut album included the progressive "Upon Tomorrow", the hard rock "Strangeher", the heavy prog "Gorgon", and the hypnotic "Dark House". A year later, "Living In Fear" was released, by which time the band had been reduced to a trio, with Holdsworth and Williams having left and guitarist and keyboardist Ollie Halsall completing the lineup. This second album, while not reaching the heights of its predecessor, maintained a consistently high level of quality, featuring standout tracks such as "Stargazer", "Dance To My Tune", "Waiting For a Miracle", and "Time Around", all powerful examples of progressive rock.

Neu!-Neu! ´75 (1975)

Neu! is one of the fundamental bands of the German krautrock scene, a precursor to, among other things, the famous "motorik" sound, and in just three years they became legends in their native country and across much of continental Europe. Formed after the departure of two original members of the German band Kraftwerk, guitarist Michel Rother and percussionist Klaus Dinger, this duo managed to create a unique style where evocative soundscapes are more stimulating than tranquilizing, with hypnotic melodies, becoming a source of inspiration for many artists in later years, such as Brian Eno. In their brief existence, Neu! released three albums, from their fascinating debut, a masterpiece of experimental rock, "Neu!" (1972), to "Neu! 75" (1975), considered their most accessible and musically skillful work, as well as their most successful release. Their first album contains one of the most iconic compositions in the history of rock music: the monumental track "Hallogallo". After the strange and experimental "Neu! 2", released in 1973, the duo eventually dissolved due to ongoing musical differences and persistent financial problems. Each member pursued separate projects: Dinger founded the band La Düsseldorf, while Rother formed Harmonia with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. In 1975, Dinger and Rother reconciled and reunited for their third full-length album, "Neu 75". This album continued the path begun on their debut, featuring schizophrenic and original sounds a work filled with soft, sweet passages that counterpoint more energetic and aggressive climaxes, reminiscent of proto-punk. Divided into two distinct parts, the first side of the LP contains pleasant, atmospheric sounds, directly evoking the raw beauty of Rother's early solo albums. The first three tracks are crafted as a mini-suite of approximately 20 minutes, beginning with the infectious motorik sound of "Isi", continuing with the evocative "See Land", and concluding with the hypnotic, dreamlike "Leb' Wohl". The second side is a complete contrast, featuring corrosive, amplified guitars, powerful percussion, and chaotic vocals. However, the motorik rhythm is ever-present throughout, as demonstrated in the frenetic "Hero" and "After Eight", or the mechanical "E-Musik". This was the last of the three classic recordings by these legendary musicians, until a decade later when they revived the Neu! project. publishing the predictable and unexciting “Neu! 4”, a mediocre work that did not even come close to the enormous creativity and originality of his first three emblematic works.

High Tide-She Shanties (1969)

Towards the end of the sixties, proto-metal found a niche amidst the pop brilliance of The Beatles, the acoustic sounds of folk, psychedelic rock, and the standards of a musical philosophy that was beginning its sudden dissolution of the established rules. Suddenly, some music became darker, sharper, denser, breaking the mold, and at the same time, music became a dangerous weapon for those who established those rules. Taking the psychedelia of The Doors, but replacing the dominant organ in their sound with the violin, searing guitars, and a schizophrenic voice in the purest Jim Morrison style, High Tides were ahead of their time with a rock sound as heavy as it was powerful on their first and legendary album, "She Shanties" (1969), an absolute classic of psychedelia and dark proto-metal, laden with progressive sounds. With this album, High Tide unleashed a brutal cacophony, beginning with the dense metaphor of "Futilist Lament". The furious guitars become devastatingly heavy in a maelstrom where the violin sounds so sharp it almost cuts off your breath. "Death Warmed Up" follows the same path, while time seems to stand still in "Pushed, But Not Forgotten", offering a respite from this sonic chaos. "Walking Down Their Outlook" evokes the psychedelic sounds of Jim Morrison and his band, leading into the epic "Missing Out", with its distorted melody of bass, guitar, and violin, and "Dilemma", which closes the album with accelerated violin sounds, raw guitars, and a visceral rhythm that leads into more progressive sounds. "She Shanties" is not an album for everyone, only for those who are fans of the hardest psychedelic, mixed with powerful, dark, dense and distorted guitar and violin riffs with blues and progressive metal.

Eric Clapton-Eric Clapton (1970)

In the early seventies, Eric Clapton had an impressive artistic career behind him. His work with The Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie & Friends, and Derek and The Dominos had earned him guitar superstar status, inspiring the famous slogan "Clapton is God". Fed up with it all, Clapton initially wanted to join John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band as just another guitarist, but soon after, he focused on his first solo project. On this debut album, the original repertoire was composed in collaboration with Bonnie Bramlett, Leon Russell, and Steve Cropper, while the J.J. Cale cover "After Midnight" is the only non-original track. For the recording, Eric Clapton enlisted some members of Delaney & Bonnie, a band that had previously opened for Blind Faith, as well as Derek and The Dominos, along with Leon Russell and Stephen Stills, among other prominent musicians from the California rock scene. The songs included here are rooted in rock and blues, and feature the aforementioned "After Midnight," as well as the excellent tracks "Bad Boy", "Slunky", "Lonesome and a Long Way from Home", "Blues Power", "Bottle of Red Wine", and "Let It Rain".