Round 1

Round House are an Japanese five piece instrumental progressive rock band, with roots firmly in Camel although they do use the twin guitar interplay to fine effect and even manage to come across as Wishbone Ash at times. The debut album was originally released at the end of 1978, with the first three tracks recorded in a studio and the other two recorded 'live' (for this reissue there is one more track from the same period). The sound quality does very somewhat, and isn't as good as it could be at times (the bass is particularly low in the mix throughout), but when they are blasting out as on "Tour Of The Deep Ocean" then this is very fine indeed. The mix between prog, jazz, and more straight ahead guitar interplay shows that this band could cut it inside either genre, and if all of the songs had the recording quality of the first three then this would be extremely highly recommended.

Italian band Merry Go Round first appeared back in 1985, then using the moniker Storks. They never released any official albums back then, but they released a demo tape and was an active live band, among the highlights of those early days was opening for legendary UK band The Pretty Things in 1988. Storks went into hiatus in 1990 when Michele Profeti and Stefano Gabbani decided to join Daniele Caputo and his new band Standarte. In 2012 Storks reunited, and expanded the line-up with guitar player Sandro Vitolo and vocalist Martina Vivaldi. This new and expanded version of the band was named Merry Go Round, and they released their self-titled debut album in 2015 through Italian label Black Widow Records. Their music is plain old school heavy rock with a very ballsy female vocalist. The music rocks hard and is loaded with electric guitar, roaring Hammond and vintage Mellotron, and some Moog too.

Round House are a five piece instrumental progressive rock band, with roots firmly in Camel although they do use the twin guitar interplay to fine effect and even manage to come across as Wishbone Ash at times. The debut album "Jin.Zo-Ni.N.Gen" was originally released at the end of 1978.
"Wings To Rest" (2002) was released after the band had already broken up. This was a collection of previously unavailable material that had been recorded in 1978 and 1979, and show the band in a much more jazz fusion vein. The twin guitars are still very much to the fore and any fan of good guitar will love the opener "A Red Rose And Whisper Of A Devil"…