Mosaik – No. 1. (1977 Germany). Mosaik are yet one more fusion group from Germany. There were so many great bands from that era in Germany, and we’re just now learning about many of them. Kraan and Embryo were the knowns. If you really were into the scene, you may have learned about Missus Beastly, Moira and Munju, possibly even Aera. Through CD reissues, we then learn about bands like Morpheus, Frob and Skyline. And still we find out the surface is just being scratched. Ceddo, Nanu Urwerk, Sun, Syncrises, Surgery and many more keep bubbling up. For my ears, Mosaik is in the top tier of these groups. The guitar work is superb (like Frob) and there’s some really nice melodic sax playing throughout. They’re clearly informed by bands like Soft Machine and Passport, but add their own ingredients. Another group that hopefully Garden of Delights or Long Hair gets to in the near future.
Versylus - s/t (1982 USA). New Jersey based group who put out this “hedged” progressive LP and held out hope that the AOR/commercial songs would take hold and send them to the big time. That strategy never did work. The progressive cuts are nice, showing an almost neo approach to the early Genesis sound (guessing here that the band wasn’t aware of what was going on in the English underground at this time). There’s also some nice Gentle Giant chorus-counterpoint bits to grab hold of. Pretty decent for a self produced album. I think there were no covers - just released in generic white sleeves. Never been reissued.
Granmax - Kiss Heaven Goodbye (1978 USA). I don’t usually write much about straight ahead hard rock albums, but this one struck me as better than most (unlike their debut “Ninth Alive”, which is far more tepid). For 1978 this rocks hard and has some riffing that you may have only found on a Judas Priest album (”Stained Class”) at this date. Pretty much non stop heavy rock, and no pub and boogie rockers to drag it down as is typical for albums such as this. Would be an obvious candidate for Rockadrome Records to reissue. Bootlegs exist.