Second Tier early 70s UK Progressive Rock Bands

I will throw Frumpy into the mix; "Frumpy 2" is one of the best albums of 1971, and that's saying something. here a video of them playing "Take Care of Illusion", my personal favorite of the 4 tracks of that great album

why the Swedish flag is shown at the beginning of this video is a mystery to me; Frumpy were a German band

I can tell for instance that First Utterance is as high placed as #19 on the top 160 all-time albums list, I've made in 2019, based on all the ratings on RYM and PA (only 1 album per band included, though) while It'll All Work Out in Boomland surely not that high but still on 85th place.

And not to forget that, this album was selftitled.

 

That last one is Australian ...

 

Sean Trane - thanks for the contribution to this thread and your contributions on PA. I am a constant reader of your album reviews for many years now. I wish I could write as good as you.

You are absolutely right. All these bands were called proto-prog back in the 90s on rec.music.progressive newgroup and later on original PE. Since the term means different things to different people, I don't want to use it.  "Second tier" fairly well describes those bands and they are no longer obscure, thanks to PA and world wide web. They were totally unknown to me in the 90s too, with the exception of Rare Bird and Gracious. Rare Bird was pretty popular in Poland in early 70s because of the hit single "Sympathy". Polish record label "Polskie Nagrania" released Rare Bird's compilation album (songs taken from first 2 albums) in 1975 or 1976. Gracious was played on Polish radio few times in 70s, but every time the same song - the suite "The Dream" from the debut. BTW, after moving to USA and few years later after purchasing my first PC and connecting to WWW, Gracious twofer on BGO Records was my first online CD purchase. That was probably in 1996. I remember that too well, waited long enough to hear their 2 albums in entirety. Well, there was no YT back then. 

Beggars Opera - Waters of Change

Decameron - they made 4 albums but never made much impact

Fresh Maggots - lots of acoustic guitar but also acidic lead guitar

Forest- like a kinder gentler ISB

Third Ear Band - "The Magus" was recorded in 1972 and not released till 2004.  It would have been revolutionary at the time

Amazing Blondel - maybe too prolific to be called obscure - Elizabethan folk rock

Paul Brett Sage - first album is great

Dancer - Tales of the Riverbank - another one from 70s not released until 2000s

Fuchsia - debut from 1971 was their only album until 40+ years later when they released a 2nd album that I actually think was better

Nigel Mazlyn Jones - "Ship to Shore" is excellent

Magna Carta - peak was "Lord of the Ages"

Pererin was around at the end of the 70s but the style is quite earty 70s with some Runrig thrown in.  First 2 albums are exceptional

Strange Days - sole album is really good

Tir Na Nog - Tear and a Smile is excellent

Bran - precursor to Pererin - Hedfan and Ail Ddechra are both good

Fruupp - 4 albums I think, all good

Gracious - 2 good albums

Jade Warrior - used to be obscure, but now it's unclear.  debut is highly recommended

Jonesy - they have appeared on the occasional best prog albums list which they in no way deserve, but they are good

Loudest Whisper - Children of Lir is good

Salamander - Ten Commandments is decent

Sallyangie - sole album made by the teenage Mike and Sally Oldfield

Spriguns - decent but not very undistinguished UK folk rock

Spring - their s/t isn't really obscure anymore