TYBURN TALL

Although the lineup changed considerably during the band's six year run, the quintet that appeared on this album featured Stefan Kowa (bass), Hanns Dechant (drums, percussion), Klaus Fresenius (vocals), Werner Gallo (guitar) and Reinhard Magin (keyboards). The original vinyl remains one of those highly collectibles with only 200 copies having been pressed and approximately half of those having been destroyed in a fire. The album has also been notoriously horrible in the production department and since the master tapes went missing the 1999 CD reissue on Garden of Delights was lifted from the original vinyl.

As far as the sound is concerned TYBURN TALL was sort of a more hard rock version of The Nice with its classical infused organ riffs which were the dominant of the feature of the band. The guitar, bass and drum triumvirate were primarily blues rock based with an extra dosage of energetic performance thus allowing the band to fall under the umbrella term of early 70s hard rock. The original vinyl featured four tracks, three of which raced passed the 10-minute mark. The music was basically extended jamming sessions that incorporated classical keyboard riffs and hard rock bravado. The CD reissues feature an extra two bonus tracks which makes the entirety of the TYBURN TALL experience available around an hour of music.

Despite being released in the peak prog year of 1972, TYBURN TALL sounded a couple years behind the prog game. The organ tones are similar to those of Cressida and the late 1960s and this style of rocking the classics was very much en vogue with The Nice in the late 60s before the 70s were ushered in however there were a few hold outs including the other German band called The Pink Mice which existed from 1970 - 1973. TYBURN TALL gets kudos for their energetic performances as they must've put on one excellent show and many Germans who still remember them from those days claim as much however the band lacked creativity and the production is fairly blah.

Basically this is an album's worth of heavy blues rock that adds classical organ runs however the aspect i appreciate the least on this album are the goofy vocals of Klaus Fresenius who sounds like a precursor to those famous heavy metal screams and wails of the 1980s. Sounding like a less competent Klause Meine of the Scorpions at times, he didn't quite have the vocal stamina or the ability to obtain the correct pitch at key moments. The guitar soloing is also fairly generic. In fact the album makes me think of some generic band that played at Woodstock in 1969 as the vibe is very much rooted in that timeframe. Overall there is nothing really bad about this album but it does sound rather amateurish and considering the band had already existed for three years before this was released doesn't make me believe that they ever really got their act together. As it is, an interesting relic from so long ago and not much else.

Reinhard Magin pretty much calls the shots here, even if the other members of the band were pretty good too. But his Hammond is the main instrument and he is a very accomplished musician. Guitarist Werner Gallo provides some nice solos and licks and the rhythm section is tight. Singer Klaus Fresenius is the weak link here: the man has a good voice but his insistence in delivering high pitched vocals, which is clearly beyond his range, is quite annoying. A real shame since when he stays at the lower registers he sounds much better. The four compositions that were released with the original LP are proof that they could have gone very far: not very outstanding, but nice anyway, with nods to all those aforementioned bands I noted above. The two bonus tracks are Colosseum II covers that do justice to the originals, but don´t add anything special either. In other words, it was a nice, albeit nothing special, start. The only real bad move they did here is the drum solo at the end of I Am America Too. It is understandable in a live album, and they are boring enough, but those on a studio offering were never a good idea, and dated badly. Fortunately it is not a very long one and the remaining music compensates for this mistake.

Rating: 3 stars. This one is recommended for heavy, Hammond-drenched prog lovers who don´t mind the lack of originality. Good, but not essential in any way.

Tyburn Tall were basically a guitar/organ-driven Hard Rock band with progressive flavors in their music, having a heavy and often demanding sound, influenced by the likes of URIAH HEEP and DEEP PURPLE.Not only the Germans seemed to have been influenced by the British school of Hard Prog, but the vocals are also in English with singer Klaus Fresenius having a high-pitched, screaming style of an acquired taste.Three very long cuts along with a shorter one is the musical content of the original album, quite typical of the style.Hammond organ and guitars are the kings here.Fiery solos, hard grooves, long keyboard runs and stretched jamming passages characterize the approach of the band, split between catchy vocal parts and loose instrumental crescendos of little originality.The sound of the recordings is mediocre and the overall feeling is that Tyburn Tall fell into obscurity, because they had nothing new to add to the German scene, though their music was played with endless amounts of energy and passion.The CD reissue comes with two extra tracks, recorded live and covering two well-known Colosseum tunes.

Things are simple.If you starve for organ-driven Proto-Prog stuff in the vein of DEEP PURPLE or URIAH HEEP, Tyburn Tall is your band.Otherwise you will be hardly impressed by their music...2.5 stars.

Anyway "Live...and Passion" concert disk includes live version of 2 songs from TT's debut album, 2 completely new compositions & 8 covers of well known prog-rock or mainstream rock artists.

1. "Fanfare for the Common Man" - album starts off with Aaron Copland's classical composition which became famous after ELP's prog-rock version placed on "Works Vol. 1" LP. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with original so I can only say that it's very similar to ELP's highly energetic version but it's significantly shorter. Anyway I would never guess that's Tyburn Tall here, sounds very much like symphonic power trio (synthesizer, bass, drums) not heavy-prog formation from their 70s days. P.S. Reinhard Magin's keyboard sounds almost completely the same like Emerson's Yamaha GX-1!

2. "Peter Gunn" - jazz standard which has been also often played by Emerson, Lake & Palmer in their late 70s concerts. I can't hear any "original touch" of Tyburn Tall but that's ok. Synthesizer sounds very similar to Yamaha GX-1 again.

3. "America" - Leonard Bernstein's fantastic classical composition is the next track here. It's also very faithful to Emerson's version (played be him in 60s during the years in "The Nice") but it's shorter. For the first time on this recording we can hear Magin's Hammond organ skills. They seem to be as good as back in 70s!

4. "In The Hoof of The Cities (Broken People)" - it's the first track where they start to sound like hard rock/heavy prog band, not keyboards-oriented symphonic trio. In fact "In The Hoof of The Cities" is just a new version of "In The Heart Of The Cities" from their sole studio album (dunno why they changed the name of this song?). Anyway I don't like it too much, instead of bashing organ from the original one we have only piano here which sounds totally out of place for me. Better stick to previous version.

5. "I Am America Too" - another track from studio album which has been completely re-arranged for this concert. Instead of powerful organ-drenched tune from "Tyburn Tall" LP, we have a rather lame ballad here. No organ again, only simplistic piano & some occasional burping synthesizer sound. Klaus Fresenius tries to sound "soulful" but after all it's more like a gospel song here. And as far as I have nothing against gospel songs (I'm a christian after all!), I don't think it suits prog-rock concert...

6. "Brandenburger Concerto no. 3" - my favorite piece of thee album! Truly amazing version of Bach's composition which was also covered by first band of Keith Emerson - The Nice. I don't know, maybe it's because of better production technique but I really prefer Tyburn Tall's "Brandenburger Concerto" than The Nice's one! Magin's Hammond C3 organ sounds just beautiful here, very deep & powerful. His synthesizer also mimic string orchestra very well.

7. "Black Magic Woman - Gypsy Queen" - I've read that "Black Magic Woman" was written by Peter Green, but I'm only familiar with famous Santana's version. Tyburn Tall's attempt on this classic song is rather good. Nothing very original, Cirillo and/or Gallo can't match with Santana's guitar skills of course but overall it's really OK cover. I also like this warm Hammond background similar to Gregg Rollie's performance.

8. "I'm a Man" - another cover, this time of R'n'B song written by Spencer Davis Group. I don't know if original is better (never listened to it) but I surely don't like Tyburn Tall's version. Sounds very amateurish and messy. Guitar/organ quasi-interludes in the middle are disjointed and tiresome. I'm not a big fan of R'n'B too (except good old Graham Bond of course!) so maybe it doesn't let me appreciate this song.

9. "Prelude" - heavily classical influenced composition written by the band (only available on this very album) which sounds more like collage of fragments taken from some other artist's work (but I'm not sure about it). Lots of digital sounding piano & eerie guitar solos. Halfway between Rick Wakeman & Pink Floyd. Nothing spectacular or original. However I like the middle part where Reinhard Magin switches to his trusty Hammond C3 to play brief fragment of J.S. Bach's "Fugue". It's a pity it lasts so short.

10. "Gimme Some Lovin'" - another song originally written by Spencer Davis Group. This one sounds more mature & enjoyable. Klaus Fresenius sings melodic, Stefan Kowa's bass is booming just as it should and Magin adds some heavy organ chops. Not bad at all, but female, soul-like choruses are disgraceful! Especially those gospel like screams in the middle are awful.

11. "Child in time" - Deep Purple's "Child in Time" is definitely my favorite heavy prog epic along with Uriah Heep's "July Morning". Tyburn Tall's cover is really a top notch work, fully professional. Magin perfectly imitate Jon Lord's famous organ melodies, while guitarist tries very hard to play as crazy-fast solo as Blackmore did. Even Klaus Fresenius is in a perfect shape here 'cos he's vocals are truly great, maybe not matching Ian Gillan's but still very solid. Only the last 3 minutes are strange, instead of famous crescendo of wild instrument's and orgasmic screams, we have a long improvised guitar solo which incorporates many well-known themes (even "O Sole Mio" :-).

12. "Friday" - last song is Tyburn Tall's own composition called "Friday". In the beginning it sounds like some soft-rock ballad with acoustic guitar & background organ waves, but later reminds me Uriah Heep's work, especially high-pitched harmony vocals. Something like "The Wizard". Not very memorable but it's a pretty decent ending.

Overall it's a very inconsistent work. Seems that these guy's main idea was to please everybody, so we have pompous organ/synth-driven instrumentals ("Brandenburger Concerto no. 3", "America", "Fanfare for the Common Man"), jazz standard ("Peter Gunn"), R'n'B/pop songs ("Gimme Some Lovin'", "I'm a Man") and heavy-prog epics ("Child in time"). All in all this concert is too disjointed, sound like victim of copy-paste formula, it's just lacking any clear direction. Maybe if they decided to include more of their own material like my favorite "War Game" from their debut LP, it would be better. In general it's not so bad, there are many very entertaining moments (especially those organ runs are great), so I can give it 3,5 stars.

Best track: "Brandenburger Concerto no. 3"

3,5 stars from ozzy_tom

1. "War Game" - album starts off with truly splendid epic track which is a real highlight here. First few minutes are occupied by magnificent version of J.S.Bach's most famous composition "Fugue & Toccata in D Minor" which is mostly played without any supportive drum beat. I know that this composition was covered by so many other prog-bands, that some people may already feel sick and tired about it, but for my it's one of the best performances out there (along with Trikolon's version). Anyway about 3rd minute this "introduction" is over and Klaus Fresenius shows up with his vocal section. And here starts a first problem 'cos this guy's voice is more then controversial, to be honest it's terribly strange and for some people unbearably goofy. Sounds like wailing of psycho-maniac who used to sing blues but right now he's trying to sound as cocky/rocky as it's possible to please all heavy metal fans. But don't mind him (in fact he's not so bad...after couple of repeated listenings), he's not going to spoil all fan 'cos the real treat of this track is extremely sharp, heavy-as-hell & frenetic organ playing of Mr. Magin. I bet you didn't hear so many & so crazy Hammond solos from a long, long time!

2. "In The Heart of The Cities" - this one is much more vocal-oriented so we can listen to bigger amount of cheesy sounding screams of lead vocalist who seems to have some real problems to keep his voice in-key with the main melodies, but I suppose it's just additional fan of listening to Tyburn Tall... Thankfully in the middle of the song we can witness some long, psychedelic organ & guitar solos. In general it's a rather good track, slightly more guitar-oriented than the rest of these guys material but we still know that keyboardist is the boss here. While the first track reminds me Emerson's formation - The Nice, "In The Heart of The Cities" sounds more like Beggar's Opera inspired.

3. "I Am America Too" - the shortest song on "Tyburn Tall" begins with some busy, up-tempo organ & piano section but soon Klaus Fresenius joins again to scream his head off to convince us that he's America.... Yeah, if you say so... Never mind, the most important is probably best Reinhard's Hammond solo which appears soon after vocal part. Oh man, this is a really cool organ performance, very melodic & clearly classical influenced. ELP, Triumvirat, Collegium Musicum - all of them spring to my mind when I listen to it.

4. "Strange Days Hiding" - the longest track includes only few vocal parts because it's mainly extended rock jam. As usual I really like Hammond solo hear, this time it's very similar to Jean-Jacques Kravetz's style (Frumpy's keyboardist) - wild & gritty. Werner Gallo also presents us some energetic electric guitar solos a la Ritchie Blackmore. However the biggest mistake was including tiresome 5 minutes drums solo which seems to last forever. When I listen to this staff I can clearly imagine that it's early Deep Purple Mark II recording, in the beginning of their career they also used to play such lengthy but truly dynamic instrumental jams.

+ Bonus from CD version:

5. "Lost Angeles" - as a bonus CD edition of "Tyburn Tall" includes 2 covers from Colosseum repertoire. "Lost Angels" begins with 3 minutes instrumental "intro" driven by mad organ chops & psychedelic bass/drums beat. But vocal fragment of the song isn't so satisfying. Klaus Fresenius tries so hard to sound as goofy & unbearable as Colosseum's vocalist - Chris Farlowe and unfortunately he succeeded... But I still think that this version is better then original. Really!

6. "Bring Out Your Dead" - 2nd track originally recorded by Colosseum is a great instrumental composition filled with memorable Hammond B3 leads over very tight, jazz-like rhythm section. Fantastic performance which can be easily compared with original without any shame.

To sum up: Tyburn Tall's sole studio album is a real treat for fans of organ-drenched heavy prog with few symphonic influences. Highly recommended for fans of such bands as Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Atomic Rooster and Birth Control, but more technical music played by The Nice or Quatermass isn't far away from Tyburn Tall too. If you like such music I can also advise you to check other 70s German bands: Frumpy, 2066 & Then, Trikolon/Tetragon, Murphy Blend and Amos Key.

If not those goofy vocals and 5-minutes, dragging drum solo in "Strange Days Hiding", I'd give 5 stars rating for this effort. But such flaws are quite visible there so I can only give it 4,5 stars. Anyway it really deserves larger recognition in prog-rock world.

Best track: "War Game"

P.S. In 1997 Tyburn Tall re-united for one concert recorded as "Live ... And Passion". But it's not so good as their debut album (not tragic, just average I'd say), so be warned.

Fully deserved 4,5 stars from ozzy_tom

The album only contains only one old song and two new ones, all in all lasting only a mere 23 minutes. The rest is a collection of intricate murders of boring and bored covers, ranging from Peter Green's/Fleetwood Mac's 'Black Magic Woman' (yawn...), Deep Purple's 'Child In Time' and two Spencer Davis Group classics, to several washed-up Americana-turned-progrock by The Nice and ELP.

I loved the CD re-issue from Garden of Delights of their eponymous debut from 1971, but *LIVE...and passion' lacks both direction and integrity, and is nothing but a piece of sloppy work of a band that simply didn't have it in them anymore.

Best avoided!

Credits:

Bass Guitar, Keyboards, Synthesizer, Vocals - Stefan Kowa Drums, Percussion - Hanns Dechant Lead Guitar, Vocals - "Pino" Cirillo Lead Vocals, Percussion - Klaus Fresenius Organ [Hammond C3], Keyboards, Vocals - Reinhard Magin Rhythm Guitar, Acoustic Guitar - Werner Gallo

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.