Ross-The Pit And The Pendulum (1974)

The second and final album from the British band Ross, this time conceived as a concept album based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 novel "The Pit and the Pendulum", which recounts the torments suffered by prisoners during the Spanish Inquisition. While their debut album featured a repertoire steeped in jazz rock, funk, hard rock, and progressive rock, this time their sound becomes more melodic without abandoning some heavier moments and the structures of classic symphonic rock. Recorded by the same lineup as the debut album: Alan Ross (guitar and vocals), Bob Jackson (keyboards), Reuben White (drums), Steve Emery (bass), and Tony Fernandez (percussion). In this second release, the magnificent work of keyboardist Jackson and the brilliant guitar work of Ross drive an excellent album that garnered high praise from critics and the progressive rock community of the time and remains highly regarded today. Replete with haunting and exquisite melodies like "Swallow Your Dreams", "Standing Alone", "Now I See", and "Nearer and Nearer", vigorous hard rock tracks like "Gotta Get It Right Back", progressive instrumentals like "The Edge", pleasant semi-progressive blues like "I've Been Waiting", and jazz and gospel sounds like "So Slow" and "Oh, I'm Happy Now", the album together forms a solid work of great musicality. This would be the epitaph of this ephemeral group, as shortly afterward, guitarist Ross would found The Alan Ross Band, while Bob Jackson would begin collaborating with the ill-fated Badfinger.

Black Birds-Touch Of Music (1971)

Black Birds are one of Germany's longest-running bands. Founded in the mid-1960s, they were still active in 2014. Hailing from Puettlingen, the band was created by guitarist Werner Breining and has seen a continuous succession of members. Their style, brimming with psychedelic sounds, rock, pop, and avant-garde elements, driven by Peter Bely's excellent Hammond organ and heavy guitar riffs, along with Breining's powerful voice, are their hallmarks. In 1971, they released their best work, "Touch of Music", their second album and ultimately their definitive discographic epitaph. At this time, Blackbirds consisted of keyboardist Peter Bely, drummer Charles Sikora, bassist Wolfgang Bode, and the aforementioned Werner Breining, who handled guitars, violin, flutes, and vocals. An album that clearly shows the band's psychedelic orientation with tracks like "Präludium" and "All You Need", while the lysergic rock "Return from the water", the sinister "Give Me Freedom" and the avant-garde "What is Free" and "Come Back", close a meritorious work of inspired germinal psychedelic and progressive rock.

Genesis-Abacab (1981)

Genesis's commercial orientation didn't begin, as many claim, with their 1980s albums. In reality, this trend started rather subtly with Peter Gabriel's departure years earlier, first with the catchy "Ripples" from the 1976 album "A Trick of the Tail", followed by "Your Own Special Way" ("Wind and Wuthering" 1976), a track clearly aimed at radio success, and finally with the pop-rock "Follow You, Follow Me" from the album "...And Then There Were Three..." (1978). Thus, with their next album, "Duke" (1980), the band, composed of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks, delved almost entirely into less complex and ambitious sounds, producing a work that wisely blended a series of semi-progressive songs with others of a distinctly pop-rock nature. A year later, the trio capitalized on the media buzz surrounding Phil Collins and his successful "Face Value" to follow a considerably similar path, with a few exceptions, releasing their eleventh album, "Abacab". From the opening title track, the band completely sheds its past, showcasing an energetic and rhythmic piece where Banks' synthesizers, Rutherford's galloping bass, and Collins' sharp vocals combine to create an epic song with a certain progressive feel. This track, along with the brilliant "Me and Sarah Jane", represents the album's most elaborate moments, though they don't detract from other songs like the infectious "No Reply at All", the eccentric "Keep It Dark", and the dark and dynamic "Dodo/Lurker". The rest of the album consists of a series of songs that sound more like outtakes from Collins' solo work than anything else, such as "Like It Or Not", "Another Record", and "Man on The Corner". Ultimately, this was the group's riskiest proposal up to that point, creating a work full of highs and lows that would commercially achieve several platinum records and more than two million copies sold worldwide.

Sniff 'n' the Tears-The Best Of Sniff 'n' the Tears (1991)

Despite not being as famous as other contemporary new wave bands, Sniff 'n' the Tears were always characterized by their infectious and vibrant music across their four albums released during the 1980s. A hallmark of this British group was their beautiful album covers, designed by the band's songwriter, singer, and frontman, Paul Roberts. Their debut album, "Fickle Heart", released by the independent label Chiswick in late 1979, featured their biggest hit, "Driver's Seat", an irresistible song driven by catchy bass and drums and engaging electric guitar riffs. While not quite reaching the heights of this track, this debut album also contains other noteworthy power pop songs such as "Sing", "Slide Away On", and "The Thrill of It All". Over the next three years, the group released "The Game's Up" in 1980, "Love/Action" in 1981, and "Ride Blue Divide" in 1982. Despite featuring an exquisite selection of songs with atmospheres similar to "Driver's Seat", these albums failed to achieve the expected success. However, tracks like "The Game's Up", "One Love", "The Driving Beat", "Snow White", "That Final Love", "Hungry Eyes", and "Ride Blue Divide" became staples on many radio stations and in numerous nightclubs across Europe. Shortly after the release of their last album, the band disbanded, and Paul Roberts embarked on a solo career that didn't garner much attention. Meanwhile, in 1991, Chiswick Records released the compilation album "The Best Of" as a sort of epitaph. A few years later, "Driver's Seat" resurfaced after being featured in European commercials and subsequently on the soundtrack of the film "Boogie Nights", and later in the television series "The Walking Dead". A subsequent reunion, prompted by the renewed success of the song "Driver's Seat," led to the release of several albums, though these were far removed from the creativity of their earlier work.

Rick Derringer-All American Boy (1973)

Rick Derringer is a legendary American guitarist, creator of monumental works such as his debut album "All American Boy", a true classic of American rock, as well as his numerous collaborations with other artists including Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Steely Dan, Joe Bonamassa, and Donald Fagen, his albums with The McCoys, and his own band, Derringer. Although his musical career is primarily oriented towards hard blues rock, in his early days Derringer explored intense hard rock with The McCoys and on his first solo albums. His first solo recording came in 1973, produced by the renowned Bill Szymczyk, and featured the invaluable contributions of a lineup including Bobby Caldwell, Edgar Winter, Joe Walsh, Joe Vitale, Toots Thielemans, and Joe Lala, among many other musicians from the American rock scene. Thrilling rock songs like the opening "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo", pretentious displays of his mastery of the six strings "Joy Ride", passing through the dusty southern rock "Teenage Queen", the lively country rock "Cheap Tequila", the emotional soul "Hold", the catchy "Jump, Jump, Jump" or the galloping hard rock "Slide On Ever Slinky", gave rise to a fruitful career full of works of enormous quality that have kept him at the top of American rock for four uninterrupted decades.