CACTUS CHOIR

The first Solo record from Dave Grenslade sounds like Greenslade and is a beautiful record with (I agree with Steve) the most beautiful Roger Dean Cover. This is one of the records which got competely lost, like so many, in the begining Punk/New wave period and has to my knowledge never been republished.

David Greenslade started here a band owning his full name: David Greenslade instead of Greenslade. He plays all the keyboards, and he hired some musicians to play bass and drums: the refined drums are provided here by Simon Phillips. There are no guitars, except a very low profile one on "Time Takes my Time". The keyboards consist in electric piano, clavinet, organ, piano, mellotron and moog, among others. Greenslade still sometimes sounds like Rick Wakeman, but a bit less than on the "Time & tide" album. The album is still quite progressive, and there are many original keyboards explorations. On the first track of side 2, Greenslade plays a slow wah-wah organ, quite sounding like Caravan's "In the land of grey an pink". The last track has an impressive orchestra playing a dramatic part suited for a movie soundtrack.

The band GREENSLADE ceased to exist by 1976, but main instigator and namesake Dave Greenslade put together another project and released 'Cactus Choir', his first 'solo' LP. Again, lovingly presented in a stupendous Roger Dean artwork (Titled 'The Jade Sea', from memory). To be honest, there's not much difference with the compositions here from his previous band, and his core 'backing' band consisted of Tony Reeves once again (on Bass Guitar, who had ventured into a line-up of CURVED AIR), the mightily impressive session-ace Simon Phillips on Drums/Percussion, and various guests helping out, most notably Bassist John G Perry (on the track 'Country Dance') and lead-vocals on 2 tracks by ex-RARE BIRD singer Steve Gould. The production is very warm and professional indeed. I'm puzzled as to why this is lumped in with the 'Crossover Prog' sub-genre ?? It fits in well with Symphonic Prog. Anyways, the album is made up of mostly instrumental material, with Gould singing beautifully in the catchy Prog-Pop song 'Gettysburg', and the middle section of the excellent title-song, and Greenslade himself handling the mic for the bluesy 'Time Takes my Time', which may have been a slight mistake, but the soprano backing vox of Lissa Gray raises the quality of the tune up a bit. As you would expect, Greenslade utilises no less than 10 Keyboards, and the prowess of the tight rhythm section calls for attention. Best tracks would have to be Cactus Choir (6.14) and Finale (8.36), but overall it is a highly recommended album. 4 stars.

I have never been a devoted "Greenslade" fan.

Their music was far from being original and none of their albums scored better than three stars IMHHO. Still, I was curious to figure out how this good musician would start his "solo" career.

To tell the truth, the result is quite average. In terms of prog, there are hardly great moments to retain. Some confidential bluesy stuff like "Time Takes My Time" is the best you can grab from this album. Nothing too fancy: just a good song with bluesy roots.

One of the best track is by all means the instrumental "Forever and Ever". At least it features some great and passionate keyboards play (which we all would have expected from the first second of this album).

Fortunately, this album ends up on a better way than it all started. I wouldn't tell you that all of a sudden we are faced with a masterpiece, but at least the great keys being played during the title track are sufficient to raise the interest of this album.

Basically, nothing really changed in comparison with his band's work. This first "solo" album is decent, even enjoyable at times. But don't expect too much from this "Cactus Choir" because you might be disappointed.

As far as I am concerned, three stars are the maximum rate I can provide. And I'm generous to be honest. A track as " Country Dance" would preferably be skipped from this work.

The long closing number ("Finale") is by far the most interesting one. In terms of prog, one gets a great keys feel (which was expected from the opening). It sufficiently shows how good a keyboardist Dave IS. Too bad that his writing abilities were not on on par with his great talents as a keyboards player.

A good album. Three stars.

3.5 star really

Dave Greenslade is to me one of the most unnoticed and unfairly forgotten keyboard player in prog music. What he done with Greenslade is absolutely great to my ears, I'm a big fan of this band, not to mention his contribution with Colloseum in his early career. After disbanding Greenslade in mid '70 after 4 superb albums he decided to go solo under his full name Dave Greenslade. The first offer coming in 1976 named Cactus choir, the album graced but one of the best Roger Dean art works ever made on an prog album. With this release Mr. Greenslade move into a more gentle, surrealistic teritory then on his previous band, but aswell keeping a progressive attitude on entire album. Helping hand here is offered by omni present excellent drumer Simon Philips, world renowed bassist John Perry and few more names. The music as I said is gentle, delicate smooth and elegant, he uses vast array of synthesizers, mellotron, moog, etc to create a pleasent atmosphere full of catchy moments. Sometimes he sounding like Rick Wakem around same period. Besides some vocal oriented pieces, the beautiful instrumental , one of the instrumental from the album is definetly Forever and Ever, great and catchy. This debut under his full name is by no means a masterpiece or something close, and for sure is not so inventive as Greenslade albums, but I think is more then pleasent with delicate keyboards arrangements that I think any prog fan can enjoy. I like what I've heared here from start to finish and because of that for me is 3.5 stars album, 3 stars for the music with another half star for the excellent art work.