CZAR

Originally known as Tuesday's Children, this British outfit belong to the one-shot club of progressive groups who made just a single album before vanishing into the deep dark hole of rock 'n' roll obscurity. Happily, however, Czar's self-titled debut is a real treat. Fans of heavy(ish) prog, organ-baked psychedelia and colourful early-seventies rock should no doubt warm to the album's seven powerful tracks, the combination of singer Paul Kendrick's cod-operatic vocals, Mick Ware's crunchy riffs and Bob Hodges meaty organ(!) not unlike an acid- dipped jam between early Deep Purple and fellow one-off heavy proggers Aardvark. The album starts strongly with the catchy histrionics of 'Tread Softly On My Dreams', one of those pieces that sounds like it should be a lot more famous than it actually is, whilst Hodges thickly-layered organs coat the slow-burning 'A Day In September' with an almost Pink Floyd-style ambience. Elsewhere, 'Today' fires up a nice mixture of mystical blues and lysergic pop melodies, whilst the excellent 'Dawning Of A New Day' features some scintillating guitar shredding from Ware. As we all know, the oft-used tag 'lost classic' is banded about all too readily in these post-CD, 21st century reissue days, and half the time the album's were 'lost' for a reason. 'Czar', however, deserves it's readmission into the musical arena after thirty-odd years of obscurity and comes highly recommended. Ballsy, energetic and highly enjoyable hard-edged prog, its a pity that Czar didn't get the breaks they needed first time around. A real pity.

STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012