Functioning as both the soundtrack to the group's disastrous feature-film documentary and as a tentative follow-up to their career-making blockbuster, Rattle and Hum is all over the place. The live cuts lack the revelatory power of Under a Blood Red Sky and are undercut by heavy-handed performances and Bono's embarrassing stage patter; prefacing a leaden cover of "Helter Skelter" with "This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles, and now we're stealing it back" is bad enough, but it pales next to Bono's exhortation "OK, Edge, play the blues!" on the worthy, decidedly unbluesy "Silver and Gold." …
A very special deluxe edition of the 1969 recorded debut of guitar legend Tommy Bolin performing with his first major act, the blues rock outfit Zephyr!
Newly remixed and remastered audio created under the supervision of founding member David Givens and with 2 bonus discs of never-before-heard live material and studio improvisations!…
Returning with a largely revamped lineup, Swedish power metallers Sabaton narrow their thematic focus on their seventh studio album, Heroes. Rather than tackling the large-scale battles they have in the past, the band focuses their lyrics on individual feats of wartime heroics…
Emerson, Lake & Palmer's most successful and well-realized album (after their first), and their most ambitious as a group, as well as their loudest, Brain Salad Surgery was also the most steeped in electronic sounds of any of their records. The main focus, thanks to the three-part "Karn Evil 9," is sci-fi rock, approached with a volume and vengeance that stretched the art rock audience's tolerance to its outer limit, but also managed to appeal to the metal audience in ways that little of Trilogy did…
Graced with cover art of a grotesque gorilla sporting the Stones' trademark leering lips, GRRR! doesn't quite have the classy veneer usually associated with a 50th anniversary collection. Frankly, that's a good sign for the Rolling Stones: they're celebrating their half-century together but refusing to take themselves too seriously, even when they're assembling a mammoth retrospective that's available in three different incarnations…
Digitally remastered and expanded three CD edition of the Liverpool band's 1983 album. The bonus CDs includes non-album tracks, remixes, radio sessions and more.
China Crisis main men Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon were great songwriters searching for that one song that would make a difference. "Working with Fire and Steel" was that song. Although they had hits before, and they would have hits after, no other song defined China Crisis' essence more. With its percolating beat, Daly's hiccupping vocals, and a smashing chorus, it was the perfect modern pop song. With that said, there was also so much more to China Crisis than that one song. This, their sophomore album, features songs cut from the same cloth as "…Fire and Steel," including "Animals in Jungles" and "Hanna Hanna," but also reveals a band with deeper meaning and ambitious ideas…
Esoteric Recordings are proud to announce the release of a newly re-mastered and expanded edition of the classic 1968 album by Procol Harum. Released in the UK in December 1968, "Shine on Brightly" followed on from the huge international success in 1967 of the band's debut single 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' and the follow up single 'Homburg' and built on the creative path begun on Procol Harum's self-titled debut album issued in January 1968. Gary Brooker (voice, piano), Robin Trower (lead guitar), David Knights (bass guitar), B.J. Wilson (drums) and Matthew Fisher (Hammond organ) took the music of the band to new heights with this, their second album. Dominated by the 17-minute epic suite 'In Held 'Twas in I', Procol Harum re-wrote the rule book of popular music with the material written and recorded for "Shine On Brightly"…
Esoteric Recordings is proud to announce the release of a new re-mastered four disc deluxe expanded boxed set limited edition (comprising 3 CDs and a DVD) of Futurama the legendary 1975 album by Be Bop Deluxe.
Recorded in the first two months of 1975 at Rockfield studios (with some sessions also taking place at SARM studios in London), Futurama was the second album by Be Bop Deluxe and the first to feature the line-up of Bill Nelson (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Charlie Tumahai (bass, vocals) and Simon Fox (drums). Produced by Roy Thomas Baker (who at the time was also working with Queen), Futurama was an album of immense musical inventiveness and creativity and was a huge leap forward in creative terms for Bill Nelson…
There was no shortage of good psychedelic albums emerging from England in 1967-1968, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is special even within their ranks. The Small Faces had already shown a surprising adaptability to psychedelia with the single "Itchycoo Park" and much of their other 1967 output, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake pretty much ripped the envelope. British bands had an unusual approach to psychedelia from the get-go, often preferring to assume different musical "personae" on their albums, either feigning actual "roles" in the context of a variety show (as on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), or simply as storytellers in the manner of the Pretty Things on S.F. Sorrow, or actor/performers as on the Who's Tommy…
Recorded in the Autumn of 1975 at Abbey Road studios (with some sessions also taking place at AIR studios in London), ‘Sunburst Finish’ was the third album by Be Bop Deluxe and the first to feature the line-up of Bill Nelson (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Charlie Tumahai (bass, vocals), Andy Clark (keyboards) and Simon Fox (drums).
It was also the first Be-Bop album to be co- produced by Nelson and John Leckie. An album of immense musical inventiveness and creativity, ‘Sunburst Finish’ was one of the finest albums of its era, a perfect cohesion of ten classic songs written by Nelson (featuring his highly imaginative guitar playing) and a stylised and striking artwork package. Including such classic tracks as ‘Heavenly Homes’, ‘Crying To The Sky’, ‘Sleep That Burns’, ‘Life In The Air Age’, ‘Crystal Gazing’ and ‘Blazing Apostles’, the album also spawned the hit single ‘Ships In The Night’ and launched Be-Bop Deluxe as one of the major breakthrough acts of 1976…