Colosseum-XI (2025)

In 1994, Colosseum reunited after more than fifteen years since their breakup in the late 1970s. During the following years, the band released a series of albums, including "Bread and Circuses" (1997), "Tomorrow's Blues" (2003), "Time On Our Side" (2014), "Restoration" (2022), and "XI" (2025), and toured extensively throughout Europe well into 2015. Although some of their original members, such as Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, passed away during those years (in 2004 and 2018, respectively), the band carried on with new musicians including keyboardist Nick Steed, bassist Mark Clarke, saxophonist Kim Nishikawara, and drummer Malcolm Mortimer. Focusing on their 2025 album, "XI", the group, led by original members Chris Farlowe (vocals) and Clem Clempson (guitar), reaffirms their status as one of the pioneering acts of jazz rock, R&B, and progressive rock. More than fifty years prior, they had released some of the most fundamental works of 20th-century progressive jazz rock. "XI" is an album that is both challenging and nostalgic, where this legendary group sounds less like veterans revisiting old sounds and more like musicians actively questioning a genre that has never gone out of style or been forgotten. The album flows with remarkable ease, and the musicians don't try to showcase their virtuosity, despite possessing it in abundance, but rather adapt to a series of highly accomplished and expressive tracks. Tracks like the excellent "Ot Into The Fields", with Farlowe's intact and notable voice, the rocker "Gypsy", the progressive "English Garden Suite", or the blues "Ain't Gonna Moan No More", "Won't Be Satisfied" and "No More Second Chances", make up an excellent album of great dynamism, where the intensity of jazz, the power of the blues and the progressive arrangements merge magnificently.