VALENTYNE SUITE

This album was brilliant at the time of release and is brilliant today. Not exactly fusion, and not exactly prog (judging by today's meaning of the term) but the perfectly blended mixture of blues, heavy rock and jazz comming from the time when nobody new what prog is but everybody were trying to come up with something new, fresh and exciting. Many of them succeded and Colosseum is one of those bands. For the year of release their mixture of styles, their musicianship and their side-long epic were definitely progressive and groundbreaking. As for today I admire their contagious energy and bold delivery on the shorter tracks on first side and more sophisticated but no less enthusiastic compositional skills documented on side two of the vinyl. A masterpiece - essential in the development of the progressive rock genre as it is today or was back then (even if the name for it was to be invented later).