Bonus Epilogue Tears of Tess

The Tears of Hercules continues the late-career renaissance of Rod Stewart the singer/songwriter, marking the fourth consecutive album he's largely written either on his own or in collaboration with his producer Kevin Savigar. Time, the first of these, arrived in 2013 when Stewart was fresh from penning his 2012 memoir Rod: The Autobiography, so it carried a measure of introspection. The Tears of Hercules came out in 2021, nearly a decade removed from the publication of his autobiography, and Stewart is in a decidedly looser frame of mind. While there are quieter moments here, such as a tribute to his late father on "Touchline," they're overshadowed by the return of Randy Rod. He opens the album asking a lover for "One More Time" before they break up, reasoning that "the sex was immense," he eulogizes Marc Bolan as a pioneer of boogie and sensuality…

Recorded in 1971, Tears of Joy is a Don Ellis classic. The sheer musical strength of this ensemble is pretty much unparalleled in his career. The trumpeter/leader had backed off - a bit - from some of his outlandish and beautifully excessive use of strange and unconventional time signatures, though there is no lack of pioneering experimentalism in tone, color, arrangement, or style. This double LP/CD features a string quartet, a brass octet (four trumpets, tuba, bass trombone, trombone, and French horn), four winds, and a rhythm section boasting two drummers, a percussionist, a bassist, and the Bulgarian jazz piano wizard Milcho Leviev…

An atmosphere of early morning in the Shoyama mountains of Japan. The sun rises above a mountain crest. A monk rings the bell, signalling the time for prayer. It is in such surroundings that Kosei Yamamoto takes his saxophone and warms up on filigree improvisations, to a background of natural sounds. His friends Hiroki and Takashi used a digital MTR and mixer to record this sound, which tunes in to the earth’s gravity.

Don't be fooled by the heavy riffs and scratchy semi-throaty vocals. The Lake of Tears of "Greater Art" are the same ones that would later bring excellent retro-gothic albums like "A Crimson Cosmos" and the masterpiece "Forever Autumn". What happens is that here the influence of Celtic Frost and Black Sabbath is still very long, and the true personality of the band was yet to emerge. A somewhat raw production, too ethereal lyrics and a similar structure in almost all the songs do not help too much either. In any case, if you enjoy doom-gothic metal with progressive and seventies touches, you can give this "Greater Art" a try, although without a doubt the best of the group was yet to come.