 genre: hard
state: switzerland
quality: lossless (ape, cue, log, covers, 280 mb)
time: 45'22"
Crack in the Cosmic Egg:
Swiss hard-rock band formed by members of the original Brainticket, Toad's history is obscure and largely undocumented. Really, when considering their roots, it's surprising as to what Toad were, however they were principally the vehicle of guitarist Vic Vergeat.
Their debut is pretty much in the British heavy rock style, with blues edges and a few nods to Krautrock, particularly in the freakier instrumental sections. After this their lead singer Benjamin Jäger went on to Island. With Vic and Werni taking over the vocal roles, a lot of dual vocal elements as heard in bands like Jane and Harlis, became the focus of their second album TOMORROW BLUE which was even straighter hard-rock than the debut, akin to Sperrmüll, with notable Hendrix and (especially) Status Quo feeling.
With the addition of keyboards, on DREAMS, a more mellow stance was taken, with a few more progressive touches too. Vic Vergeat - the leader of Toad - also made two albums with Harvest/EMI in 1981/1982. We have no idea what the reformation album is like, but we guess it will be more of the same!
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 genre: psych, underground
state: uk
quality: lossless (ape, cue, log, covers, 236 mb)
time: 39'58"
wikipedia:
Third World War were an English rock & roll band formed in 1970 by manager and producer John Fenton together with songwriters Terry Stamp and Jim Avery. Fenton came up with the band's name and provided a large part of its musical direction; Phill Brown, the recording engineer on the band's first album, quotes him as saying, "I want a no-bullshit, working class band—I've had enough of all this pseudo peace crap."Due to this attitude, the band's raucous sound and its revolutionary lyrics, they have been described as "England's first punk band."
In 1970 the band recorded their first album, Third World War. Largely, the themes of the album espoused far-left political sentiment. It featured Stamp on rhythm guitar and vocals, Avery on bass, Mick Liber on lead guitars and Fred Smith (drums). Tony Ashton also added piano on some of the tracks, and Jim Price (trumpet and trombone) and Bobby Keyes (saxophone), American musicians who were playing with the Rolling Stones, provided some horn parts.
At the time the album was released, the band had yet to play live. In the summer of 1971 Avery, Fenton and Stamp reconfigured the group to get "the 'best' live grouping," which was Stamp, Avery, John Hawken on piano, John Knightsbridge on lead guitar, and Paul Olsen on drums. 1971 also saw the release of the band's two singles, "Ascension Day"/"Teddy Teeth Goes Sailing" and "A Little Bit Of Urban Rock"/"Working Class Man", both of which appeared on Fly Records.
By the time Third World War went into the studio in 1972 to record their second album the management at Fly Records were becoming unhappy with the band's lack of commercial potential. Hoping to guide the group towards more mainstream acceptability, the label demanded the song "Coshing Old Lady Blues" be removed from the album. Fenton refused to release the album without that track, so Third World War II came out instead on The Who's Track Records label. Personnel on the record was the touring group from the previous summer, except that Craig Collinge replaced Olsen on drums. During the recording of the album, Fenton ran out of money and could no longer pay the musicians, and once the record was finished the band broke up.
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 genre: prog
state: uk
quality: lossless (wv, cue, log, covers, 400 mb)
time: 57'24"
Tapestry of Delights:
Here it's difficult not to run out of superlatives, as this sole album of a bunch of relative unknowns beats almost everything in the UK progressive field. Side one is a sheer delight with natural, yet deeply moving melodies over a background of lavish but tasteful mellotron, supported by an able rhythm section, in which the drummer employs uncommon military rhythms in an inobtrusive but very effective way. The vocals are extremely personal but never self-indulgent. These are a blissful 15 minutes. Side two doesn't reach quite such a high standard, but is still very enjoyable and never less than good. This album could defend the right to exist for the whole genre. Most strongly recommended.
Ray Martinez went on to Gypsy and Pique Withers later found fame and fortune with Dire Straits. ~ (Marcel Koopman)
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 genre: psych
state: us
quality: lossless (wv, cue, log, covers, 227 mb)
time: 39'04"
wikipedia:
The fourth album by the American psychedelic rock group Spirit. It was produced by David Briggs, who is best known for his work with Neil Young. It peaked at #63 on the Billboard 200 in February 1971—the band's lowest charting album to that point—and spent 14 weeks on the chart. However, with strong catalog sales it also became the band's only album to be certified Gold in the U.S., achieving that status in 1976. "Nature's Way" became one of Spirit's signature songs, but was not a big hit at the time, peaking at #111 on the Billboard pop charts in 1971. In 1973, the B-side of "Nature's Way", "Mr. Skin", also charted, peaking at #92.
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 genre: prog
state: italy
quality: lossless (flac, cue, log, covers, 230 mb)
time: 35'37"
ItalianProg:
A sort of supergroup, as most of their members came from well-known bands, Samadhi were formed after the split of Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno by singer Regoli and guitarist Civitenga, along with keyboard player Sabatini (from Free Love and Kaleidon), Aldo Bellanova from Teoremi on bass and drummer Ruggero Stefani (L'Uovo di Colombo), and two other members.
Despite the impressive pedigree of the musicians the album is nice though not a masterpiece, mixing good prog influences with some jazz and even pop, the best of the seven tracks being the closing L'ultima spiaggia with religious text. The beautiful lyrics were written by poet Enrico Lazzareschi.
The band split soon after the LP due to the absolute lack of interest both by press and public.
Sabatini and Stefani later formed Mediterraneo with former Flea bass player Carlo Pennisi and guitarist Francesco Bruno (from Kaleidon and Toni Esposito group), but this shortlived band only recorded some tapes for a never released album around 1977.
Guitarist Nanni Civitenga was even involved in the short-lived Crystals project, he later appeared on a latin music library album, Original movie themes by New age group (Fonit UST 7016) released in 1978.
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 genre: hard
state: uk
quality: lossless (dlac, cue, log, covers, 320 mb)
time: 44'26"
wikipedia:
Fifth studio album, released in 1972. It was the first to be produced by the group themselves, and their first on the Vertigo label after their departure from Pye Records.
The album's only single, "Paper Plane" (by Francis Rossi and Bob Young), with the b-side "Softer Ride" (written by Rick Parfitt and Alan Lancaster), was to become the first in a sequence of thirty-three Top 40 hits on the UK Singles Chart when it peaked at #8 after its release in November 1972. The b-side would later be incorporated into the band's following album, Hello!, released the following year.
The album itself was released in December the same year, and reached the highest position of #5 in the UK charts, spending 37 weeks there.
In their retrospective review, Allmusic applauded the album as both crowd-pleasing and moderately intellectual, commenting that "Despite the name, most of the music on Piledriver is varied and subtle enough to be interesting." They particularly praised "A Year" and "Big Fat Mama".
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 genre: rhythm'n'blues
state: uk
quality: lossless (ape, cue, log, covers, 237 mb)
time: 40'47"
wikipedia:
Blue Matter is the third album by the band Savoy Brown. Teaming up once again with producer Mike Vernon, it finds them experimenting even more within the blues framework. Several tracks feature piano (played by Bob Hall, guitarist Kim Simmonds, and vocalist Chris Youlden, who even plays guitar here) as well as trombone.
This album featured a mix of live and studio recordings. The live tracks were recorded on December 6, 1968 at the now defunct City of Leicester College of Education because the band was scheduled to tour the USA and needed additional tracks to complete the album in time for the tour. The booking at the college represented their only chance to record the extra tracks in a live venue before embarking on the tour. An offer to perform the concert free of charge was accepted by Chris Green, the college Social Secretary, who had made the original booking, and the concert was duly recorded, a number of the live tracks being added to the album.
Due to the fact that Chris Youlden was suffering from tonsillitis, Dave Peverett stood in as lead vocalist on the live tracks.
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 genre: hard
quality: lossless (ape, cue, log, covers, 237 mb)
time: 40'47"
wikipedia:
In support of their Lonesome Crow album, Scorpions appeared as the opening act for the British rock band UFO. At the end of the tour, Scorpions lead guitarist Michael Schenker was asked to fill an open position as UFO's guitarist and accepted the role. Schenker's departure temporarily resulted in the breakup of the band but Rudolf Schenker and later Klaus Meine ultimately merged with the band Dawn Road which consisted of guitarist Ulrich Roth filling Michael's role, as well as drummer Jürgen Rosenthal, and bass guitarist Francis Buchholz. The new line up resumed under the Scorpions name and recorded Fly to the Rainbow.
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