EKSEPTION

The cover you see here is the American cover, which is obviously different from the Dutch, but still released on the same label, Philips. The songs are all the same. To this day, this is the only EKSEPTION album I have, I hadn't got around to getting their other albums to give a real solid opinion of this band. What I do know is the band wasn't known for a steady lineup, and most people lost interest in the band after keyboardist Rick van der Linden left in 1973 to form TRACE. It seems no matter who was in the band, bassist Cor Dekker was the one constant. This was their first album, which consisted of covers of classical (which they were best known for), one original, and more. They do a cover of Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", entitled "The 5th", which actually became a hit. This is basically a rock version of the famous Beethoven composition, with organ, guitar, bass, drums, and horns. The song starts off with the famous symphony version (sounds like a recording sampled from a real symphony orchestra), but then quickly changes to a rock version. They do a cover of JETHRO TULL's "Dharma For One", which is quite a bit tamer than the original, not so aggressive. They even include the proper, Ian Anderson-like flute where needed (just like the original). "Little X-Plus" is a band original, and a nice piece with some jazz influence and nice use of flute. "Ritual Fire Dance" is a nice number complete with horns, some '60s sounding guitar. They also cover George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", which is truly the album's high point. There's also Bach's "Air on G String", which is the song that PROCOL HARUM borrowed for their hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale". This of course, is the Bach composition done EKSEPTION style, with harspichord from Rick van der Linden, and horns, and you won't mistake this for Procol Harum.

EKSEPTION is one of those bands that don't have much middle ground, you either dig the band or you don't. It all depends how much you like the idea of a band "rocking the classics". I still think this is much better than what Apollo 100 done (Apollo 100 was a British group who gave us the hit "Joy", which was a pop take on Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", and most of the rest of the stuff they did was rock versions of classical songs, and in my opinion, not as good as what EKSEPTION did).

If you do enjoy the music of EKSEPTION, this is a nice album to own.