HEARTBREAK HILL [AKA: STARTING OVER]

Heartbreak Hill was recorded in 1978 and was intended as the follow-up album to Deadlines. However, due to problems with the record company and management (and eventually the demise of the band), the album was not released at the time. Not until 1995 did the original Heartbreak Hill recordings see the light of day on an official release. In the meantime the reformed band had released two further studio albums in the 80's and early 90's, one of which featured re-recorded versions of three of the songs from the then unreleased Heartbreak Hill sessions (Let It Rain, We Can Make It Together, and Something For Nothing). According to the band's official website, the 1995 CD version of Heartbreak Hill were not taken from the original master tapes, but instead from some inferior source. The 2006 "Platinum Edition" of Heartbreak Hill (on which this review is based), on the other hand, was taken from the original master tapes which by then had been retrieved.

For Prog fans the seven and a half minute title track and the 11 minute Staring Over are of special interest. These two tracks qualify among the most progressive ones since the Ghosts album from 1975. The former is an excellent piece of music! Though (partly) more progressive than most of the stuff they did during the second half of the 70's (from Nomadness to Deadlines), most of rest of Heartbreak Hill consists of the same type of rather conventional Rock with only slight touches of Folk Rock and Prog Rock.

Better than some of the albums that actually got released by the band during the second half of the 70's!

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