Titanic - 1973 - Eagle Rock

Titanic

1973

Eagle Rock

01. One Night In Eagle Rock

02. All Around You

03. One Of Your Kind

04. Heia Valenga

05. Dying Sun

06. And It's Music

07. Richmond Express

08. Maureen

09. The Skeleton

CD bonus tracks:

10. Rain 2000

11. Blond

12. Macumba

13. Midinght Sadness

- Roy Robinson / vocals

- Helge Groslie / keyboards

- Janne Loseth / guitar

- Kjell Asperud / percussion

- John Lorck / drums

- Arica Siggs / bass

All the power of the heavy Hammond organ is present during these fantastic eight minutes (almost). This band has a real sound of his own even if their style are quite reminiscent of the great hard/heavy rock bands of the era (I already pointed this out in a previous review of their work).

Not only is the rhythmic and keys superb: Janne Loseth delivers an excellent and wild guitar break. This track is full of energy and again it reminds me lot of the great ''Atomic Rooster'' (but not only). ''One Night In Eagle Rock'' is a gigantic track.

The band was also quite successful in terms of hit singles, and ''All Around You'' is a good example on how good the band was in writing catchy songs. This one is on the rocking side to say the least. A vigorous beat all the way through, convincing vocals and a great backing band. Not bad, right?

The heavy sounds are back again with ''One Of Your Kind''. Seriously psychedelic, it demonstrates all the strengths of these guys. Gosh! Having developed such type of music in these ancient times (they started in '69) in a country as Norway is quite remarkable.

One also has to listen to this track and succumb to the charm of the mood changes: from wild to melodic and harmonious in a couple of seconds. Impressive to say the least. This is another very good song (but so far, there aren't any weak ones).

The fully heavy-prog oriented ''Dying Sun'' is definitely another highlight from this work. It is a wonderful kaleidoscope of crazy percussions and admirable Hammond organ (yes, I 'm quite found of this). IMO, it is really one of their top ten songs that deserves to be listened to. I will soon upload some MP3 so that you can share the experience and enjoy.

''Titanic'' was also the type of band who were writing some fine rock ballad to break the overall heavy mood: ''And It's Music'' is such a song. The band is back to its roots though with the energetic ''Richmond Express''. A killer rock song that kicks quite a bunch. Helge Groslie on the organ is really performing a great job and the percussions (another genuine characteristics form ''Titanic'' ) are closing the track jolly well.

It could also apply to ''Maureen'' but this song is more elaborate and is much more than just a rock ballad: there are several theme changes, great instrumental interplay and as always, this convincing and warm vocals from Roy Robinson (who reminds me of Gary Brooker from''Procol Harum'').

D release offers four bonus tracks of which ''Rain 2000'' shares some similarities with ''Sultana'' (percussions mainly). This one is no instrumental though. Some sort of Norwegian samba! A nice experience by all means.

This song was released as a single in 1972 and was backed by ''Blond'' which is a decent rock ballad. Maybe somewhat mellowish, but that's another side of their work. Fine organ anyway (but at this time, this is no surprise) and moving vocals.

The other two songs were released on an EP in 1973 (together with ''Richmond Express'' and ''Rain 2000''). As far as I know, it was only released in Mexico (the band was quite popular in Latin America).

As its title indicates ''Macumba'' is quite a rhythmic tune with serious Latin accents. Don't expect any ''Sultana'' but it is not a bad song (although the ''chants'' are not really great).

No need to tell you that ''Midnight Sadness'' is totally different. The smooth ''Titanic'' side is shown here (very close to ''Procol Harum'' again).

If you consider that only two short tracks would have been best avoided (''Heia?'' and ''Skeleton''), this album sits perfectly between their great debut and their good sophomore work.