JANUS

Achtung! JANUS were another British band based in Germany (just like Nektar), so they could almost be considered a Krautrock band, especially in regard to their spaced-out psychedelic music. Janus were formed in the German town of Krefeld way back in 1969 by guitarist and keyboard player Colin Orr. The band were named after the mythological Roman God with two faces who looks to the future and to the past at the same time, and we're looking back almost half a century into the proggy past now at the rare Janus "Gravedigger" album from 1972. It's quite literally an underground rock album that was never likely to be played on the radio in 1972, and even less likely to be played on the radio now in the Chinese Virus year of 2020. It was to be their only album from the golden era of prog until Janus looked to the future and reformed many years later with a whole string of ten album releases between 1990 and 2017. Their classic "Gravedigger" album is also quite literally an album of two faces, with Side One occupied by four far-out psychedelic excursions and Side Two containing the trippy 20- minute-long "Gravedigger" suite. It's time now to unearth this long-lost album treasure from the archives because we're about to go Star-Trekkin' back in time with the six-man skeleton crew of Janus.

"Beam me up, Scotty", back to the golden year of 1972 on Planet Prog, because we're travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on the hippie trail, head full of zombie for our opening number, "Red Sun". Yes, it's all aboard the brightly-painted Magic Bus now for this 9-minute-long glowing red giant of a song that shines as brightly as Betelgeuse, the largest known star in the Milky Way. This is a song designed to trance-port the listener on a hallucinatory journey beyond the 13th floor of psychedelic elevation to a higher state of consciousness, only without the aid of any illegal substances. This psychedelic phantasmagoria is more tripped out than a plateful of magic mushrooms at a flower-power hippie commune. The song features a deceptively laid- back and dreamy opening, but be prepared to be taken on a Roller Coaster ride of Levitation and Reverberation in the style of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators as "Red Sun" suddenly explodes into life with fire and fury like a supernova, or like a 3-year-old toddler noisily throwing his toys out of the pram in a temper tantrum. It's not hip to be square, so if you're looking for fun and Feelin' Groovy, dare to wear some flowers in your hair and don those brightly-coloured bell-bottomed flares for a psychedelic pleasure trip back in time to the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco in the Summer of Love year of 1967. There ain't No Way you'll have the Bell Bottom Blues from listening to this joyously exuberant Purple Haze of late-1960's nostalgia.

It's time to pop the champagne cork now for "Bubbles", a sparklingly effervescent blend of fuzzy acid guitar riffing, heavenly harmonies, and featuring swirling echoey vocals constantly phasing in and out of the mix. One can almost smell the Incense and Peppermint. Is it a Dream of Innersense, or a Twilight Zone nightmare!?? One thing's for sure, the stoned-out-of-his-mind singer sounds like he's in an altered state of reality where The Doors of perception are constantly blurred (like Riders on the Storm in an Aldous Huxley or H.P. Lovecraft novel). If you listen to this spaced-out music very intently, you might just Break on Through to the Other Side. It could be that the singer just had Too Much to Dream Last Night after eating too many Electric Prunes and he forgot to set his Strawberry Alarm Clock for his appointment to Sit with the Guru. Either way, he sounds like he's flying on a Jefferson Airplane where he's seeing an hallucinatory White Rabbit moving around the chessboard, or maybe he just needs Somebody to Love, a bit like this prog reviewer. Come on Baby, Light My Fire!

You can forgive the bad spelling of the next song "Watcha' Tryin' to Do" and even the mildly irritating repetition of the song title by the singer, because this fairly run-of the-mill bluesy number still sounds better than most of what passes for music on the radio today, where it seems any soap opera star can become a wannabe pop star, if they should be so Lucky, lucky, lucky (Kylie & Jason, anyone?). "Watcha' Tryin' to Do" might not have the far-out freakiness of the first two songs on this album, but the manic singer still sounds like he's on the verge of having the men in white coats coming to take him away in a straitjacket at any moment. There are some fiery outbursts of pounding machine-gun percussion too from the always impressive drummer, who could have given Bonham, Powell & Moonie a good drum run for their money.

Prepare to batten down the hatches and take cover now for the pounding percussive artillery barrage of "I Wanna Scream". This proto-Heavy Metal number is a storming salvo that's locked and loaded with so much pulsating sonic intensity that it sounds *almost* as thunderously raw as Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". There's even a recently-made YouTube video to go with the song, featuring the band themselves in all of their glorious sonic splendour, proving that Janus are still able to raise the rooftops with their stupendously manic energy after all these years. The video comes with a warning to beware of flashing images. It should also come with a warning to beware of the singer, who sounds so angry he could SCREAM the house down!!

And now we come to the fifth and final song on the album, the 20-minute-long title track, "Gravedigger". This song has definite shades of the Moody Blues with its dreamy Mellotron sound and gloriously lush sweeping harmonies. It may not quite reach the magnificent majestic heights of Nights in White Satin, but this is still a marvellous piece of music, and makes a very pleasant contrast to the manic intensity of the sonorous songs on Side One of the album. In fact, this epic masterpiece is in such stark contrast to the four previous songs, that one could almost believe it's by a different band entirely. There's even a brief classical guitar interlude featuring Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King. The peaceful soothing music of the "Gravedigger" suite is overall very calming and relaxing, accompanied as it is by the sound of gently lapping waves in the background. The restful music conjures up tranquil images of bathing in warm, tropical blue seas in an exotic Pacific island paradise, only without the risk of being stung by a jellyfish, or accidentally standing on a stonefish, where there'll be so many people offering to wee on you to help ease the dreadful stinging agony, it'll feel like you're starring in a German porn film. And besides which, it's not the kind of thing you'd want on a romantic honeymoon for two anyway, when what you *really* need is vinegar to ease the searing pain of a jellyfish or stonefish sting, even though you'll end up smelling like a fish & chip shop.

If you want to follow the hippie trail to Kathmandu without the danger of being attacked by the Taliban in Afghanistan, or meeting an Abominable Snowman in the Himalayas along the way, then you could do a lot worse than unearthing the "Gravedigger" album by Janus for a late-1960's/early 1970's nostalgia trip of sonic nirvana for the mind, body and soul. This album is a bountiful musical paradise and it's far safer than travelling to a tropical island paradise of calm turquoise seas and swaying palm trees where you can find out what it's actually like to be half-eaten by a shark. Yes, this album is a virtual reality backpacker trip back in time through the land of the Ayatollah and the lower tollahs without the need of a brightly- painted Volkswagen Kombi, so don those flared trousers, put on that old Afghan coat and light a joss-stick for the musical journey of a lunchtime!

Is this a Paul Phoenix solo album titled Janus? Or is it a Janus album.featuring Paul Phoenix?.Seems to be a conspiracy of sorts. Having contributed to Janus' work as far back as 1990 this is Phoenix's first full-on album with Colin Orr & Co and Janus has never sounded as rounded and fluid. By definition, not really a progressive rock album per se, Janus Paul Phoenix does possess musical transgressions and anomalies peculiar to the progressive rock form.

An entrancing Latin Choral center piece, Libra Me Domine displays Phoenix's masterful vocals which can only be attributed to years of dedication in the discipline. Preferring to play it safe for the most part, Phoenix remains true to his scholarly craft. You would think that an acclaimed world class tenor making a foray into a rock medium would sound just as agonizing as Celine Dion and Anastacia hacking their way through AC DC's You Shook Me All Night Long but this is not the case here as Phoenix approaches these Janus compositions with tact, drive and artistic genuineness. His trained voice virtually morphs into an instrument in itself when fused with Janus'top flight musicianship of Colin Orr ( guitars, bass guitar, keyboards ) and original members, Keith Bonthrone ( drums ) and Roy Banan-Yates ( acoustic guitar ) along with veteran sax man Dean Houston who is no stranger to Janus sessions. Rikki-Hanson Orr also joins Paul with her sirenic vocals on several tracks.

Diversity has always been an essential on Janus albums..Each track unto itself. That's the beauty of Janus recordings.You never know what is going to transpire within each piece. On this collection of songs we hear nods to Celtic lore, Middle Eastern motifs and suave jazzy saxophone stylings. Arguably the stand out tracks are High Road , an emotion soaked ballad and My Sacrifice a slow rocker that appropriately opens the album acting as a synthesis for a myriad of musical ideas that follow. A couple of stabs are made at pop songs in the form of The Night Train and One Backward Glance. Desolation is a extended darker piece with an exotic world beat feel to it. There are reflective ballads where Phoenix really shines, Watching You Being Beautiful, I Should Have Known and All Those Second Chances as well as a sweet acoustic folk-like tune about a struggling busker. Holding On. My personal favourite, As I Awoke, is an evocative ode with Celtic inferences that recalls separation and lost loves in the days when tall ships ruled the waves.

Colin Orr's multi-dimensional musical faculties and studio wizardry cannot be overstated here. The album is meticulously engineered and produced with searing guitar passages, pristine saxophone treatments, unusual orchestrations and utilization of harmonics that reveal the mosaics of this elaborate work. Nothing has been overlooked and everything happens where and when it should. This flawless jewel is positively not a one listen concern.

All conspiracy theories aside, the union of the all-embracing music of Janus and the vocal power of Paul Phoenix make this offering arguably one of the most accomplished Janus recordings thus far.

Will this Gravedigger guy ever die? Last time he crawled out of his catacomb was on the 1993 Janus album Innocence after bidding farewell on a beach in 1972 on the cover of the original Gravedigger LP after which the Janus creature went into death throes only to reappear in 1990. House Calls harkens back to that 1972 album with dark brooding themes, heavy metal madness and even a wacked out song about greasy food. Despite all this disorder Gravedigger House Calls, while not sounding anything like it's 1972 ancestor it is yet another superb work from an oft overlooked band. Those familiar with previous work from the 90s and 2000s will not be disappointed with this latest jewel from the a restless psyche of Janus.

House Calls kicks off with an acid sodden hard rock discharge , Let's Go Down To The Beach and culminates with a Latin hymn ( Sanctus ) sang in plainsong as if there were some transcendental divine intervention which leaves the listener with some weird after thoughts..Sort of reminds me of early seventies albums from the Dutch band Focus that were all over the musical map.What really holds this Frankenstein together though are the common song themes which are not all that happy. I guess one would presuppose this from the grim reaper with his spade at the ready and The Fall of the House of Usher-like manor on the cover. Even the title itself is an understatement

Exploiting formidable musical and compositional facility, the redoubtable Colin Orr ( guitar, keyboards, composer, engineer ) is also joined by vocalist extraordinaire Paul Phoenix, original 1970s Janus alumni , Roy Yates ( acoustic guitar ) and Mick Peberdy ( bass ) as well as Rikki Hanson-Orr ( vocals, clarinet, keyboards ) and Thea Hanson-Orr ( vocals ). By it's nature House Calls appears more like a musical risk than a band because of the stylistic fluctuation from track-to-track Each individual composition also holds it's own revelations both musically and lyrically which makes House Calls such a delight.

Better known for his meticulous choral work with the King Singers, vocalist Paul Phoenix is just a at home in the prog rock domain as he is singing A capellas and gives House Calls a convincing tone Although he is not by any stretch a Ronnie James Dio, Paul Phoenix gives a solid vocal performance outside of his discipline. Even if the listener is not aware of his formal credentials as an accomplished tenor, a trained voice is evident. On the heavier more derisive tracks, My Top Hat, On Your Knees, Watching You Dry and Winter's Tale accompanied by angry keyboards and heavy guitars a comparison to the late John Wetton with the '72-'73 King Crimson.is undeniable. Phoenix is positively at the top of his game everywhere but really shines on Wooden Spoon, a mournful l refrain composed by Colin Orr that touches on old fashioned ideals and values augmented by a poignant clarinet melody played by Rikki Hanson-Orr. Even with it's dismal perspective House Calls is often allegorical and there is some fun to be had listening through the 13 selections.Two ethereal laments, Walking On Splinters and Sit Down and Listen feature the female vocalists, sisters Thea and Rikki respectively who offer compassion and lucidity. Both songs explore emptiness, loss and soul searching and are accompanied with pensive musical arrangements. The young ladies also appear on backup vocals on Sinner's Blues, with lead vocal by original drummer Keith Bonthrone that conjures up images of tumbleweeds, saloons and wild west justice replete with ghostly harmonica. It doesn't really harmonize with the rest of the album but neither does the psyched out Chewing The Fat that sizes up unhealthy eating habits. With Hammond organ and furious guitars it's a throwback to the glory days of heavy psychedelic prog rock and echoes the track Red Sun from the original Gravedigger LP from 1972.There is also a lonely short instrumental track that appears just before the end of the album with the abstract title Slightly Deranged Onyx which has a '70s Floydian hue to it. One to burn the midnight oil to.

Unbeknownst to many this is indeed Janus' 10th full studio album. It is whimsical, bitter, heartbreaking, dangerous and solemn. All the hallmarks and peculiarities that have made up Janus' inner sanctum throughout an eclectic and sometimes precarious musical odyssey.

The debut album in 1972 from British band Janus is an occasionally successful fusion of hard rock with heavy psych, classical and blues elements. It has plenty in common with many proto-prog bands from the same period that were slowly finding their feet developing new sounds that would later resemble proper progressive related styles. `Gradigger' consisted of four shorter pieces on its first side ranging between two and nine minutes, sometimes along the lines of Black Sabbath, Amon Duul 2, heavy metal and blues. Better yet was the lengthy 21 minute floating title track on the reverse, yet it has to be said that the two sides sound like entirely different bands! Perhaps this inconsistency hinders the album and certainly shows a band unsure of their own identity yet, but musical skills were certainly already on display, as well as a gutsy rocking sound with a nice contrast between hard and soft passages.

Chugging opener `Red Sun' plods along trying to capture a Black Sabbath feel, but the slightly forced vocals aren't nearly as good as Ozzy. The middle section is thankfully stronger, when a repetitive Krautrock passage full of Colin Orr's panning feedback drenched electric guitar droning and Mick Peberdy's sludgy bass that brings a nice sleazy dangerous sound. Seeing as the band were operating out of Germany at the time, it's no wonder that hypnotic Krauty sound infiltrated their music a little! `Bubbles' could almost be a cross between the Doors on the verses (plus a dash of psych-pop) with the scuzzy riffing and ranting deranged vocals from an Amon Duul 2 album elsewhere. The stop/start `Watcha' Trying To Do' twists bluesy guitar mangling grooves back and forth. Sadly `I Wanna Scream' is a rubbish heavy metal rocker, but thankfully it's barely over two minutes in length. The album sleeve states that it's actually been re-recorded here due to the master tapes not surviving, but although it still sounds just like it would have from the time, the track is so throwaway that the band may as well have saved the time and not included it at all.

Fortunately it's the second side that offers the most exciting moments. The drifting almost 21 minute `Gravedigger' is highlighted by gentle chiming acoustic guitar and nimble solo runs, sighing wordless harmonies, sweeping orchestral passages and the lightest of Mellotron veils that cover the piece instantly call to mind the Moody Blues. Spanish and classical themes weave throughout the arrangement, a somber lead vocal, delicate piano and very subdued light Hammond organ. It's perhaps a bit overlong and repeats a little too much, but it sure it is a lovely dreamy mellow if melancholic come-down, and if the band were to survive in the 70's from this album, expanding on this direction would have been very advisable, as it's more distinctive and memorable than the hard rock first side of the album.

`Gravedigger' has now been reissued in a lavish double CD set that includes various bonus unreleased tracks, remixes and singles. According the Colin Orr's own admission in the booklet, the studio album sounded very different to how the band sounded live, with most of the the members being unhappy with the finished results. He also mentions that despite coming across like it on the album, the band live were `loud and aggressive, classical, angry and mournful, but never psychedelic." As far as I'm concerned, perhaps this was producer Rainer Pietsch simply trying to do what he could to make the material more imaginative. The band shouldn't be so hard on themselves, it's a decent little album that has developed a nice cult following since its release.

It would take 28 years before Janus recorded a follow-up album, so it's a shame that they didn't really get a chance in their heydey to build on their yet to be fully realised potential. Undemanding heavy rock fans will likely find something to interest them here, as well as forgiving heavy psych fans, but there are so many endless other solid rock albums along these lines from the same period that should be easily recommended over most of what is on offer here.

Three stars.

More 2013 releases and now it's time for Janus "Under the Shadow of the Moon". Janus is an English rock band formed in Germany 1970 and they did one high rated record before they disbanded. From 1990 and forward they have done eight records which not seems to have got so much attention. "Under the shadow of the Moon" is Janus' tenth studio record. I look at the picture and it seems to be showing a night scene where a circus is resting. The band consists of Colin Orr(vocals, guitars, bass, drums, keyboards), Rikki Hanson-Orr(vocals, clarinet, keyboards), Thea Hanson-Orr(saxophone), Dean Houston(saxophone), Ben Stafford(keyboards), Rachel Luxon-Robinson and Pam Hodkinson(backing vocals). It's seems it's primarly the first man which is "the band" and the others are guests.

This record gave me some interesting and pleasant times. I hadn't complained if the record just had been the first track "Under the Shadow of the Moon". That is almost "an epic" and is without competition the best song. That track also made me disappointed of the rest. Here you have wonderful melodic prog rock with great guitar and a very competent vocalist in Rikki Hanson-Orr. Different styles is blended here and the track is like a journey. Both soft and hard moments touches you here(8/10). Then comes "Dark dark", a bland and dark, dark track(5/10) and then "How many times" with a nice rock sound and great guitar(6/10). "Promised land" is the album's second best track(8/10) with a beautiful darkness and something Asian is the melody and the track "Save America" is stripped but not so interesting(6/10). "Feeling" then (6/10) and "Maybe I was the fool"(6/10) are okey soft rock songs. "I'm not made of plastic" turns better(7/10) with some passages I really like and "If I'd listened"(6/10) also is quite nice but not so much "to hang in the christmas tree"(Swedish expression).

Over all Janus' "Under the shadow of the moon" was a disappointment, mostly because the first track was so good. Listen to the title track and perhaps number four and skip the rest. Over all the album was Ok but nothing more.

Colin Orr of Janus has crafted an unexpected addition to the band's legacy with Under the Shadow of the Moon. The epic title track was apparently first conceived in 1973 in the wake of the release of Gravedigger, but it's clear that it has undergone substantial work since then, since the production standards on the album are very modern and Orr shows no hesitation in working much more recent textures, instrumentation, and techniques into the album.

The end result is a progressive rock album which at one moment could have emerged from the genre's golden age and within a second can switch on you to show a very different and very modern sound. This impressed me a lot on its initial release, though it's diminished a little since, not least because the vocals at points feel a little strained and the title track ends up a little repetitive.

Gravedigger by Janus finds the band playing in a psyche-tinged style of early progressive rock still entangled in the genre's roots in the 1960s underground - and emerged just as that style of prog was going out of fashion in favour of more polished and complex material, to the band's misfortune. It's an enjoyable enough album if you like the early prog style - dramatic opener Red Sun is particularly enjoyable - though I wouldn't say it's solid all the way through; in particular, the brash introduction to Watcha Trying to Do?, aside from being irritating, is also tonally inconsistent with the rest of the album, as is the rest of the song itself - it feels like someone else's song parachuted into the middle of the running order. In fact, with such a weak first side and a side two epic that doesn't really stand up next to the sort of material their peers in Van der Graaf Generator or Genesis was producing, the album isn't so much a neglected classic as it is a second-tier release which got about as much attention as it deserved.

Just listened to UTSOTM - what an amazing album..... The title track is a 21 minute masterpiece which on first hearing sounds confusing and erratic - but after 3 or 4 times it starts to make sense and flows beautifully with very dark undertones throughout! Some of the other tracks are worthy of radio promotion - especially track 7 - "Maybe I was the fool" is amazing!!!! Well worth a listen - and then another - and another - and by now you will also agree that this is an album that may be long delayed - but well worth the wait!!!!

Keith Parry OBE

The Anti- Alice In Wonderland

Janus' music oftentimes has pre-occupied itself with dark ruminations featuring audacious fusions and musical combinations rarely heard by popular audiences ever since it's not-so-humble beginnings in 1971. Latin plainsong and primordial aboriginal rhythms bolted together with wailing Gibsons, ballads with sweet, soft female voicings, hard rock as well as the utterly absurd are among the idiosyncracies that have characterized this brainchild that has never seen any boundaries.

This latest Janus creature, "Under The Shadow Of The Moon ", has it's origins back in the early seventies when prog ruled FM radio waves. When bands would write unmitigated miniature free-form symphonies based on one cerebral idea in unorthodox jazz time signatures spewing out barrages of mind-numbing philisophical lyrical elucidations and, heaven forbid, cultivated learned musical facukty and versatility much to the delight of audiences who wanted to think a little bit. Meanwhile the bands unwittingly threw themselves to the mercy of unimmaginative critics who ate their work alive with horrific reviews as if they had committed appaling and unforgivable atrocities against rock 'n' roll music and everything it stood for..

''Under the Shadow Of The Moon " manages to commit just about all those artistic crimes associated with this classic era of progressive rock whithin it's 21 minute running time and what is so interesting about this modern throwback to that ghastly era is that it doesn't sound anything like the modern bands who are adopting and embracing early progrock pardigms. Rather than a relic that was miraculously unearthed in a record company vault and remastered ( think "Mahavishnu Orchestra The Lost Trident Sessions" ) it is more like a lost Mozart concerto that has never been played. Difference here is that the piece was actually composed and rehearsed back in 1973 but never made it onto the record cutting press for some dubious reasons ( think sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll ). Janus mastermind and perpetual architect Colin Orr toyed around with resurrecting Janus as a progrock endeavour back in the late '80s but quickly abandoned it realizing how dated and burnt out progrock musical methodology sounded. Alas, it had run it's course. One track, "How Many Times", is nonetheless re-worked here that dates from those experiments. It has an AOR sound to it with a cool guitar lick towards the end that seems to be sadly wasted here ( sorry to say this ). The Janus entity then went on to record 7 albums in various guises and now over 40 years after it's genesis the title epic '' Under The Shadow Of The Moon " creeps from the womb of time. Unable to escape until....

It was retrieved from Orr's memory by unknown forces. In 2013 " Under The Shadow Of The Moon " turns out to be dark & "Cimmerian", embodying all kinds of 70s progrock hallmarks. Although it is presented as a suite, Orr chooses not to name the individual sections as if to leave it up to the listener. A neo-psychedelic passage forms the main theme but develops into a sureal maelstrom of dreamy Floydian orchestral sections with nylon string guitars, spectral female vocals and nonsensical carnival-like interludes that are reflective of the underlying theme of the protaganist being on the verge of psychosis. Whether the inclusion of transmissions of Neil Armstrong to mission control stepping out into the unknown a represent some sort of consolation or at least a resolution to all the madness that occurs during this eccentric piece of music, one does not knowfor sure. I got a weird feeling after being confronted by the work and after first listen and said to myself, "what the freak was that?" Certainly a great track to listen to blasting on the headphones staring at Edvard Munch's " The Scream ".

At First, I wondered why the shorter, more recently composed tracks were positioned after the first tripped out extended conflagration. They all follow mournful themes that continue to use "darkness" as a unifying metaphorical device.

Dark Dark is sort of an addendum to the main piece. It has a sepulchral ambience achieved by reversed reverberation combined with a spooky bluesy hollow body guitar outro. One of the most beautiful rock ballads I've heard comes in the form of the painful mostly acoustic lament " Maybe I Was The Fool " with lush female counter harmonies and string arrangements. Actually it's something that could have been penned by Fish ( the ex-Marrilion Fish ) and reminds me a bit of " Kaliegh ". Two other tracks, '' I'm Not Made of Plastic " and " Promised Land " are more representative of Janus' ecclectisisms of the 90s, the latter being a metallisque, angry freakout against government greed again using some cool studio effects and showcasing Orr's electric guitar. By far the heaviest excursion on the album. Saving America is a short forlorn "cri de coeur", an unanswered prayer if you like accompanied by piano and voice that addresses the plight of the United States and its role in this crazy spiral-bound planet It is followed by an upbeat bluesy ballad called " Feeling ", the happiest expression that will be experienced here. "If I'd Listened", a re-worked ballad that had appeared on the 1991 Janus album " Journey " concludes the work which in a sense could even be considered a concept album of sorts.

Even though this is Janus at +40 ( and counting ) the music still sounds remarkably fresh and youthful. Colin Orr, along with his technical studio prowess and multi-instrumental skills ( he plays most instruments and did all the production ) with help from his talented daughters and session man Dean Houston on sax and others, seems more like a stoned hippie / madman stuck in a 70s time-warp than a 21st century Derbyshire sheep farmer here. Orr has created something unique here that is not unlike waking the dead.

So, is this the Janus album that never was from 1973? Well, yes and no. Best summation would be : Contemporary progrock with enough nuances, anachronisms and adventurous excitement of the prodigious early seventies to annoy any frustrated 21st century Rolling Stone columnist.

Treating The Dead With Respect : Exuming A Classic

I'm not too crazy about re-masters, re-mixes, anniversary editions, box sets, BBC Sessions etc and it seems that everyone has been doning it since the Elvis gold box sets of the seventies came out followed by Spingsteen in the eighties and then in the nineties when Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin turned it into an epidemic.I see it only as a way to milk, re-hash and scrape a product over the coals for the almighty $.

I'll have to admit, paradoxically, that I was probably one of the first owners of the King Crimson and Gentle Giant CD box sets that started appearing in the late nineties for the very reason that I am sick for the progressive bands of the glorious seventies. But for the most part I am happy with my vinyl originals of which I prudently bought multiple copies back when they were on the wane and plentiful. I originally pulled my copy of Janus' legendary Gravedigger LP out of a second hand shop in Montréal for $2.50 in 1977 on a whim. Even by that time Janus was in the " where are they now?" file but thanks to the internet this unusual album has acquired a mystique being bootlegged over and over both on CD and vinyl and fetching ridiculous prices on collector sites and eBay without anyone even being aware that the band continued on in one incarnation or another between 1989 and 2005!

It seemed that the Gravedigger album was destined to become the band's epitaph until original members Colin Orr and Bruno Lord discovered recently that EMI ( Germany ) still had most of the master tapes in their possession after tearing up Janus' contract 40 years ago amidst dodgy Spinal Tap-like events. Truth be told, that through all the blur they discovered that the final product, engineered by technicians used to recording classical music, wasn't to their satisfaction and not representative of the way they really sounded. But, as a young band were more than happy to get a record out none the less. Unfortunately the engineering flaws would haunt them for 4 decades.

After reconciling with EMI a definite remaster and a complete remixing of the album took place in the summer of 2012 with two tracks ( I Wanna Scream & Suma Manatilly ) being completely re-recorded because the original masters could not be located. For this guitarist Colin Orr used the his original 1962 Gibson SG Junior in order to re-create the tracks how they should have sounded back in 1972 and substituting modern back-up harmony vocals on Suma manatilly courtesy of his two daughters Rikki and Thea along with Ben Stafford.

I was knocked over when I first heard the re-mix. Not only do the heavier tracks have a sharper more mertallic edge but everything has been brought up front right in your face. The 21 minute showpiece doesn't seem plod along as much even though the tempo remains unchanged. The whole album sounds like it has been put under a sonic magnifying glass and to tell the truth, I don't think that I'll ever listen to my vinyl LP edition after hearing this state-of-the-art rework. Also Included are two tracks from the one and only Janus single from 1972, I'm Moving On / I Don't Believe in remastered form making this a definite Gravedigger edition. Everything here ( with the exception of the two re-makes ) is taken from 1972. This certainly makes the deleted 1992 SPM-WWR Gravedigger CD release redundant and excludes it's bonus tracks which were recorded in 1990 and had nothing to do with the 1972 EMI sessions.

Despite my disdain for this sort of package I thought it was a good idea to include a remaster of the original album for comparative purposes or just in case for some weird reason the remix is not to the satisfaction to fanatical analog purists. Also, of course, for fans of the resurgence of progressive rock in many parts of the world. The only nit I would have about this superb project is directed at EMI and not to Janus mastermind Colin Orr who oversaw this brilliant effort. I think EMI could have done a bit more with the iconic artwork. The 1972 image of the skeleton in the top hat crawling through the sand seems to say " I'll be back someday, but bye for now folks".I think some sort of a tongue-in-cheek play-up would have have been cool.

Otherwise a stellar effort in setting the record straight on an unusual classic work of progressive rock from the glorious seventies 40 years after the fact! Pristine job here.