TYBURN TALL

Sole album from this Hammond-driven heavy prog, came in a gatefold artwork with a rare copper plate by Merian of the Speyer city in the Renaissance era. This private pressing of 200 copies was produced at low cost, which is rather audible, but there is nothing scandalous either. Their earlier musical direction was very much in the symphonic prog range (The Nice or ELP), but some line-up changes modified that somewhat as incoming organist had a jazzier feeling, more in the Colosseum-vein, especially in the Dave Greenslade sound. The resulting is a symphonic prog that has some Uriah Heep (organ, vocals), Atomic Rooster (Gallo's guitar is inspired of DuCann) and Colosseum (organ).

The four tracks comprising the original album (three of them well above the 10 minutes) are all in the heavy rock domain, dominated by the huge organ sound. Indeed the 13-mins War Games hesitates between Colosseum (Greenslade-like organ twirls) and Uriah Heep (Byron-like vocals, in English, often correctly pronounced), but the whole thing sounds much more symphonic than the average track of those two groups. The 10-mins+ In The Heart Of The Cities is much more guitar-ey, DuCann and Litherland (not Clempson), but the brilliant drums/bass work of the opening track is not as present, and the track ends in a semi-operatic Byron-like yell.

On the flipside, I Am America Too, is a piano & organ piece (the shortest, clocking at 5-mins+) that first takes on Bernstein, before veering hard rock with Heep-like vocals, but you can feel the singer's effort to match Farlowe's range, which of course is too far removed to succeed. The 17-mins epic Strange Days Hiding is pure Hammond galore, Hensley-inspired, unfortunately mared by a long drum solo, which like all of them is terribly boring. The two bonus tracks are both covers of Colosseum, one of them being the famous Lost Angeles, which they manage correctly at best, but certainly no more. The production quality on these tracks is not as good as the rest of the album (therefore they stick out a bit), but again nothing scandalous.

While TT's sole album still benefits from its much sought-after legend, with its wider availability it has lost its must hear or have aura, but can still be seen as an early 70's small unearthed gem, even if by its release, it was already not that fresh-sounding, since their influences had already done their better works. Still definitely worth a listen.

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