VALENTYNE SUITE

The Valentyne Suite is often seen as the peak of Collosseum's career. The styl is classified as fusion. In this case it's a fusion of brassrock and hardrock; a mixture of Chicago and Deep Purple flooded with solo's of guitars, saxophones, flutes and keys. This fusion sometimes comes close to progressive styles like eclectic prog or symphonic prog. For 1969 this belongs to the first wave of progressive rock together with King Crimson, Renaissance e.a..

-Side one- The first side is filled with four songs with styles differing from hardrock (The Kettle) to brassrock and also some jungleflute parts. While I'm not so fond of the vocalist I do admire the direct sound of the many solo's and the variation in sound.

-Side two- Just one long track - the titletrack: the Valentyne Suite. Someone could expect a romantic track because of the title, but this is not the case. The Valentyne Suite is just a long jazzrock/brassrock track with a nice theme and lot's of jams. The structure could have been more intellectual, but the solo's are great. This is one long instrumental piece.

This record has a great production for it's time and the musicians are highly skilled. If the songstructures were more intellectual this could have been a masterpiece.