Coley - Goodbye Brains (1972 England). A very crazy, and creative, horn rock band with a strong jazzy progressive feel. Some great wah wah fuzz guitar and fuzz bass which plays well against the trumpet/flugelhorn (from well known jazzer Henry Lowther) and saxophone solos. Some weird narration and flute passages. Much more complex than your average horn rock band - in the McLuhan and Probe 10 higher echelon of the genre. There’s a couple of missteps like the country rock song and the final narrative piece, but overall this one is a winner and would love to see a CD reissue.
Brut - s/t (1970 England). Brut were a major label horn rock band (on Philips) that failed to make much of their one opportunity. Pretty much standard blues based horn rock, with a few good guitar leads to keep it at least a little interesting. There’s a distinct gospel tinge to the music, which doesn’t work here. For those that like some of the US major label horn bands like Chelsea Beige or Sod. Nothing to get too excited about here I’m afraid.
Emergency - s/t (1971 Germany). And with this, I’ve now heard all 4 Emergency albums. I first heard “No Compromise” and “Entrance” as far back as the mid 1980s, as their albums were reasonably easy to find back then - except for this debut. Emergency were Germany’s number one horn rock export, surpassing the Brain label’s Creative Rock and Harvest Record’s Round House in popularity. Brain later signed Emergency to supplant Creative Rock as their horn rock representative. Honestly, they had about one good album in them, that they unfortunately spread across 4 discs. Each album has at least one barn burner track, with tight horn charts and excellent fuzz leads. Followed by slow blues, insipid pop and other twaddle. The vocalist is right out of the Blood, Sweat and Tears school of “whoa whoa whoa” isms. I suppose if I had to pick one album out of the batch, as a representative of their sound, it would be this one. If this sounds up your alley, the German label CMP have reissued both of their CBS albums, this included.