LIVING IN FEAR

After COLOSSEUM broke up, their rhythm section Jon Hiseman and Mark Clark started up this band TEMPEST releasing their debut in 1973 as a four piece with a young Allan Holdsworth on guitar and Paul Williams on vocals. What looked like a promising affair changed when Holdsworth left to join SOFT MACHINE and was replaced by PATTO's guitarist Ollie Halsall who also tried out for that SOFT MACHINE guitarist job. Ollie sings so they are down to a trio here and he adds keyboards and wrote most of the music.

Whatever jazz bits were on the debut are gone here as Hiseman was directing this band into more of a straight ahead, hard rocking group. The opener is a good example of this then with that second song they cover THE BEATLES "Paperback Writer". Just seems like they are going for the gold here. I do like that fourth track "Dance To My Tune" during the instrumental sections, not so much the vocal parts. The title track has a bluesy vibe, piano too. Hiseman impresses here. "Waiting for a Miracle" is a little different, the proggiest piece? Best song is the closer for sure where they actually let their hair down and play. Thankyou!

There's some pretty good rocking music on this sophomore release but not enough to go higher than 3 stars though. A low 3 stars.