TANIT LIVE

Lagger Blue Machine was something like a legend among Belgian rock bands, starting from Itterbeek and featuring a young Christian Duponcheel on keyboards, later member of Dragon.Other members of the early line-up were Jean-Luc Duponcheel on drums, José Cuisset on guitars and Michel Maes on bass.The band was an undisputed live beast back in early-70's and a historical document of a 1970 live performance at Woluwe Shopping center in Brussels (supporting Warhorse and Wishbone Ash) was caught and released in 1988 in a limited number of 500 LP copies.

The sound of the album is very raw and the quality of the recording quite mediocre to present the band at its full potential.The opening ''Test about a rehabilitating personality'' is pretty much the most interesting track in here with a very adventurous sound in a Hard Prog vein, featuring some excellent guitar breaks and complex themes, not far from a cross between WARHORSE and KING CRIMSON or even some Kraut Rock monsters of the time.The quality drops significantly with ''Ode'', where the vocals are really unbearable, while the music is pretty average guitar-led Hard/Psychedelic Rock with some SOFT MACHINE influence in the middle part.With ''Mistake'' the presence of Christian Duponcheel is finally obvious and this is another complex Progressive Rock composition with obscure interplays and some fiery organ throughout, spoiled by the very long middle-part drum solo.The gig of Lagger Blues Machine closed with ''Firedance'', featuring a rough complicated Hard Rock sound with guitars on the forefront, delivering furious grooves with sudden breaks, again a uninteresting solo in the middle wasn't much needed, but these belongs among the activities of a live performance.

Considering the mediocre quality of this live recording along with the fact that these recordings already belong among a future Mellow Records release with all the stuff Lagger Blues Machine ever recorded, thIs LP comes only recommended to die-hard fans of Hard Prog and the strict circle of the collectors' zone.