This is the album that solidified Uriah Heep's reputation as a master of gothic-inflected heavy metal. From short, sharp rock songs to lengthy, musically dense epics, Demons and Wizards finds Uriah Heep covering all the bases with style and power. The album's approach is set with its lead-off track, "The Wizard": it starts as a simple acoustic tune but soon builds into a stately rocker that surges forth on a Wall of Sound built from thick guitar riffs, churchy organ, and operatic vocal harmonies. Other highlights include "Traveller in Time," a fantasy-themed rocker built on thick wah-wah guitar riffs, and "Circle of Hands," a stately power ballad with a gospel-meets-heavy metal feel to it.

For years, Led Zeppelin fans complained that there was one missing item in the group's catalog: a good live album. It's not that there weren't live albums to be had. The Song Remains the Same, of course, was a soundtrack of a live performance, but it was a choppy, uneven performance, lacking the majesty of the group at its peak. BBC Sessions was an excellent, comprehensive double-disc set of their live radio sessions, necessary for any Zeppelin collection (particularly because it contained three songs, all covers, never recorded anywhere else), but some carped that the music suffered from not being taped in front of a large audience, which is how they built their legacy - or, in the parlance of this triple-disc collection of previously unreleased live recordings compiled by Jimmy Page, How the West Was Won. The West in this case is the West Coast of California, since this contains selections from two 1972 concerts in Los Angeles…

An unusual band from Munich, blending progressive rock and jazz fusion in a similar way to Pell Mell's blending of rock and classical, in fact there is much in common between these two bands, especially in the song style, though the album Nevergreen! is very varied, exploring a different genre with almost every track. Missing Link historically are pretty obscure, although Dieter Miekautsch did later join Missus Beastly and then go on to Embryo.

Adolf Dado Topic, the key figure of the band, left Korni Grupa in mid-1971, moved to Zagreb and with help from Vladimir Mihaljek formed Time. The original line-up consisted of Topic-vocals, Tihomir Pop Asanovic - organ, Vedran Bozic - guitar, Mario Mavrin - bass, Ratko Divjak - drums and Brane Lambert Zivkovic-piano, flute. The eponymous debut album was released in summer 1972, ranking among the very first LP records of rock music issued in Yugoslavia at the time.
For prog fans the first album "Time" is highly recommended for listening. It is one of the best debuts in the former Yugoslavian rock scene and it influenced many generations of musicians.

Present From Nancy (1970). 2008 digitally remastered and expanded edition of the Dutch Prog Rock quartet's debut album, originally released in 1970. Featured on the soundtrack of the film Control (the Ian Curtis/Joy Division bio-pic), interest in the band is at an all time high. Led by keyboardist Robert Jan Stips (later of The Nits), Inspired by the work of Soft Machine and Caravan, the group recorded a quartet of master works. Eccentric, accomplished and unique, Supersister could run circles around almost any other band of the era…

The live follow-up to 1971's Edgar Winter's White Trash finds the group running through a handful of the tunes from their debut album, as well as rocking things up a bit with "Still Alive and Well" (a track later recorded by Edgar's brother Johnny) and "Back in the U.S.A." One of the most immortal lines for any live rock album has to be "People keep askin' me - where's your brother?" The introduction of guest artist Johnny Winter by his brother Edgar sets the stage for a rousing rendition of Rick Derringer's "Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo." The extended version of blues classic "Tobacco Road" is one of the finest moments on this album, which is itself a classic.

Dschinn are a 1970s German Krautrock band with a classic energetic hard rock sound. Their only album was released in 1972, a self-titled release with the artists involved being Bernd Capito on lead guitar, vocals, Peter Lorenz on rhythm guitar, vocals, Uli Mund on drums, percussion, Athanasios Paltoglou on drums, percussion, and Silvio Verfürth on bass, vocals. The music is vintage 70s, with heavy guitars and an emphasis on lead breaks and riffs. The sound is similar to German bands Tea, Popol Ace and Popol Vuh. The band utilise two dynamic drummers and powerful lead vocals. The bass generates solid rhythms and there are passages including harmonica and a rocking Beatles type of sound. The music is primarily upbeat incorporating strong melodic guitars with some progressive elements.

Along with The Matadors, Flamengo were one of the earliest Czech groups that started out in the mid-60's as beat bands and recorded a bunch of singles on legal state apparatchik label. Their then-leader Frantisek Francl was a well regarded fuzzed-up guitarist and wrote most of their track (even if they did a cover of John Mayall's No Reply), but with time, the group changed line-up and with the arrival of the now-legendary vocalist Vladimir Misik and woodwind player Jan Kubik, the group's sound was dramatically affected and started sounding like a brass rock band, with a slightly more jazz twist than the better know US groups. They might be compared best with Colosseum and sometimes Traffic. Their sole album was set to be released in 72 on the state label Supraphon, but apparently was quickly banned by the regime.

Sonny Rollins first album after ending his six-year retirement is a particularly strong effort. The highpoint is a ten-minute version of "Skylark" that has a long unaccompanied section by the great tenor. Other memorable selections include "The Everywhere Calypso" and "Playing in the Yard." Rollins plays soprano on "Poinciana" and is heard using electronics (George Cables' electric piano) for the first time but this music is not all that different from what he was playing prior to his retirement.

In the early 70's, jazz pianist and composer Hiromasa 'Colgen' Suzuki and his self-titled trio (with Kunimitsu Inaba on bass and Hideo Sekine on drums) started working on a project of musicians which should have made a lengthy series of concept albums mixing jazz rock and world music called Rock Joint. Musicians that worked around this albums were more of jazz background and some of the musicians stayed in the line-up of both albums released as Rock Joint projects even though the style of music was slightly different; first 'Rock Joint Biwa' was centered around the japanese instrument biwa, giving a fresh feel to album's early jazz influenced psychedelic rock (conceptually inspired by mythology in the ancient book Furukotofumi), while the second one 'Rock Joint Cither' was oriented around sitar and Indian music (cither being a mistranslation of sitar)…