Customer Reviews

Electric Savage

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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Everybody's got that one album that took the blinkers off them; the one that damn near killed you on first listen with the excitement of whole new vistas opening up. In my case, that was this record, almost 25 years ago. I'd been into heavy rock for a few years when I bought this album, by a band whose name I'd never seen before. Needless to say, it blew me away with its instrumental fury and virtuoso playing....it sounded as though Colosseum II (Jon Hiseman, Don Airey, John Mole & Gary Moore) wrote and recorded these tracks specifically to please ME. Not quite jazz/rock. Much more like rock/jazz, driving and heavy but layered, intricate and absorbing in its (at the time) complexity. Of course, about a billion all-instrumental albums later, ELECTRIC SAVAGE doesn't stand quite as tall as it once did, but this is the one that doomed me to a life of searching obscure catalogues and haunting secondhand bins for that next knockout punch out of left field. (It's still true today. You can't complain about the sad state of rock if you're gonna let MTV, Rolling Stone and Top 40 radio determine your musical options...you've got to pack a lunch, grab a compass and go out searching if you want to find greatness). One Way Records (bless em) have released all 3 Colosseum II LPs on CD: this one, its antecedent STRANGE NEW FLESH (which features some vocals), and their masterful finale, WARDANCE. All are musts. Among the many highlights on SAVAGE, the lead tradeoffs of Moore and Airey throughout the album never sound less than vibrant, inspired, crackling with voltage. And for all of Gary Moore's recent success with his blues retro, he never approaches the mournful/blazing fire of his solo on 'Am I', one of two ballads here. Drummer Hiseman, whose first version of Colosseum never sounded like this, is more on and energized than he'd been in many years. Excellent and distinctive cover art, too. Well, what are ya waitin' for? BUY the damn thing already!

In the history of heavy sounding or hard-rock guitar there are few that can match the fire, passion and feeling of Gary Moore. And his peers know this well enough. After all, who did Jack Bruce & Ginger Baker choose to take the Eric Clapton spot when they decided to re-form a power-trio a few years ago calling it BBM in the process? But even BBM didn't quite cut it for me. They tried to be too slick, too commercial, too formulaic. The problem with listening to Gary Moore (which BBM should've corrected but didn't) is that he's quite often featured in songs without the requisite musicianship & bands without the proper chemistry to do his amazing guitar playing justice.

Well, as hardcore music fans who seek out obscure & underappreciated recordings have known for years, Moore's 3 mid-'70s fusion/prog-rock oriented records with Jon Hiseman's Colosseum II feature the pinnacle of his playing within a context sophisticated enough to synergize into legend, a small legend talked about only by the few initiated but a legend nonetheless.

For me it all started when I played a fusion-fanatic friend in high-school Moore's incredible solo on his remake of "Shapes of Things" on one of his old '80s heavy-metal solo albums. Listening, a grin surfaced slowly on his face & he informed me that yes, that solo was good, but if I wanted hear real musicianship around it rather than silly heavy-metal kid-stuff, to go find & buy all 3 Colosseum II albums. I did & 20 years later I still listen to these albums! The main reason is that this is fusion leaning very heavily on the rock-side, not too far from the mid'70s Jeff Beck stuff, & played with a lot of soul. The soul that often gets lost in fusion of a highly technical nature (as for example in some of Al Di Meola's electric recordings)is definitely not in short supply here. Aside from Moore, Jon Hiseman's the main reason for this, the driving force, the engine, as his amazing, ferociously showy but always fully controlled post-Cobham-White drumming sets-up the parameters within which Don Airy, Moore & John Mole, the bass player, operate par excellence. If you've ever liked the drumming style of guys like Neal Peart, Carl Palmer or Lenny White, then Hiseman's style will also floor you. From the scorching opener "Put It This Way," to the loud, bass-percussion driven ambience of the super-cool laid-back atmospheric groove in "All Skin & Bone" to the heart-felt ballad "Rivers" (the only song with vocals or lyrics, admittedly sung a bit weakly by Gary Moore, who was never a great singer, but the quality of the tune more than makes up for it), to the majestic wired sky-ripping firestorms of "Scorch," "Desperado" & "Intergalactic Strut" to the beautiful slow. loud pure-rock melodic grooves of "Lament," & "I AM," "Electric Savage" is one of those '70s fusion beasts that cannot be denied by reason of pure force, you know, just how amazingly cool it sounds blasted up to maximum volume. If you like virtuoso ROCK with fusion chops & I stress the word ROCK in the fusion equation, then this one is a sure bet to please

I agree with almost everything the previous reviewer stated. I heard Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever before Colosseum II. They were both awesome, but it all came together with Electric Savage. This is without a doubt the most fiery display of musicianship ever recorded in the jazz-rock-fusion genre. Gary Moore is the shredder on guitar. He started his career playing the blues, then played with Thin Lizzy before joining Colosseum II, which is a revamped version of the original Colosseum with Jon Hiseman on drums and John Mole on bass. And also on keyboards was the great Don Airey, who along with Gary Moore rip throughout the whole cd. My favorite track is -Put it This Way-. If you love jazz or rock or just great music, you need to get this cd. It is a masterpiece.

With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to dismiss Gary Moore as a purveyor of supercharged bendy guitar histrionics, albeit on the blues scale. There's more to Belfast-born wizzard than that, however, as can be heard on this top-flight 1970's jazz rock album by Colloseum II, where Gary Moore foregoes the blues and ventures into jazzier pastures with equal assurance and feist. But Colloseum II is a team effort rather than a vehicle for rock stars' sideline indulgences. And Gary Moore isn't even the star of this line-up. That position is held by Jon Hiseman - the drummers' drummer and founding member. But fans of 70s rock might be intrigued to hear the Don Airey (Rainbow, etc.) supplies keyboards - with many of those wispy string synthpads - while Bass duties are handled with reassuring dexterity by John Mole (who, the sleeve takes pains to inform us, plays the Fender Jazz bass and no other, thank you very much). The musical pedigree of this group is reflected in some of the collaborations - John Mole,for example, played on Julian Lloyd Weber's South Bank Show theme tune.
The album is a glistening slab of prime 70s jazz-rock, that frazzles with energy but manages to be cool at the same time. This is a mostly instrumental album, but what vocals there are - namely on the ballad Am I - are supplied by Gary Moore with good results.
Stand-out tracks include the opening groove, Put it This Way, with the band laying down the law like a like a kind of jazz-rock declaration of intent. Jon Hiseman's crisp drumming comes to the fore in Intergalactic Strut, while All Skin and Bones has a kicking afro flavoured highly danceable beat (shades of Santana here). The overall feel is smooth - this is a good late night record - and there's a kind of laid-back jazzy feel. By no means groundbreaking in the way that say, Herbie Hancock, was, but if a tight jazz rock combo (with the accent on rock)firing on all six sounds interesting (let's avoid that aweful word, fusion) then Electric Savage is highly recommended. And if you like jazz-rock supergroups, you might want to check out Brand X's back catalogue with Phil Collins making significant contributions. But that's another story.

Colosseum II's second album "Electric Savage" came out in 1977 on MCA Records and it marked the first major personnel shift in the band with both singer Mike Starr and bassist Neil Murray departing. Instead of adding a new singer, Gary Moore (guitar) stepped in to do the vocals while John Mole arrived on bass. The director and drummer Jon Hiseman as well as keyboard player Don Airey remained for the album's recording sessions which happened in late 1976 in London's Morgan Studio 1.

Throughout the album you can hear the influence that guitarist John McLaughlin and his band The Mahavishnu Orchestra had on the group yet at the same time, they add a unique touch. The new line-up brought a new direction to this LP, now leaning towards instrumental compositions. Out of the eight songs featured, there's only one vocal track. Opinions about the song-writing structure employed throughout vary. Some people think it's great; others think it's repetitive...I personally think it's great! I really like how certain instrumental themes are repeated...it reminds me of SNES video game music, especially the spaceship games like for example Gradius III. If there's a style of music that could be considered a precursor to some video game soundtracks, then the jazz-fusion of this album is it! The repetition gives the songs a catchiness more commonly associated with vocal pop songs! It's really cool...
The somewhat dark sounding opening number "Put it This Way" is filled with powerful drumming from Hiseman, the band's trademark moog synth/guitar melodies, a short but scorching guitar solo from Moore, and an explosive coda!
Track number two "All Skin & Bone" is mostly a showcase for Hiseman who makes full use of his extensive drum kit hitting gongs, china cymbals, some latin percussion, and inventive drum rolls. On top, Moore provides a catchy guitar line that repeats while Airey adds some textural synth effects. Very enjoyable, especially if you are a big fan of Hiseman...I am! After its fade out the sole vocal composition on the LP "Rivers" (Moore/Hiseman) begins with some gentle notes on the piano from Airey. Moore's voice is an acquired taste, but for me he's fine here! In the middle he plays a trippy backward guitar solo before playing a lead melody that mimics the vocal line. I have always appreciated the spiritual lyrics. For example in the verse there's a line that goes like: "Feelin' the beauty I am seeing today"/"It was always there". The chorus goes like: "Don't let the rivers of our love run dry/"Don't stop the flames we have from burning"/"Don't stop our world from turning". That's excellent!
What comes next is a thing that Moore and Airey wrote and I consider one of the album's masterpieces: "The Scorch". Here the band brings forward a mixture of jazz-rock with classical music and it's amazing. It features a stellar 1-minute synth solo from Airey at the beginning which makes me feel like running to the music store to get a Minimoog synth, the ARP Odyssey, the Solina String Ensemble well...his whole kit acutally! This track would have been right at home on the soundtrack of the SNES video game Gradius III! Hiseman is on fire utilizing the dual bass drum technique in a few sections and delivering some intense drum fills.
An unexpected turn occurs with "Lament", a traditional composition arranged by the four group members (Hiseman/Airey/Moore/Mole). It has an anthemic feel and the major scale based melody that Moore plays gives off a Celtic flavor. Airey adds great texture with his Hammond organ/string synth/tubular bell accompaniment. In the middle, the main melody is taken to a higher key with Hiseman anticipating it with a quick snare drum/tom tom attack. The highlight comes at the end when Moore breaks free from the song's established lead melody and delivers some bluesy melodic lines that always manage to send shivers down my spine despite having heard this a dozen times! Definitely the LP's second masterpiece, too bad it fades rather quickly! There's no need to worry though as "Desperado" quickly comes in with its fast beat and an interesting guitar/moog four note pattern. A few moments later other killer synth/guitar melodies appear but the thing that always gets me here is that fast three-chord pattern played by the four members in unison. It sounds reminiscent of the intro in the Iron Maiden song "Invaders" from the 1982 LP "The Number Of The Beast"! Continuing down the line, Airey introduces the electric piano and plays an inventive solo on it and Moore answers him with some lead guitar lines that achieve near shred speed! But wait, before it's over, bassist Mole comes in to play a cool bass solo with distortion playing some Arabic inspired notes! Amazing!
The direction shifts considerably in "Am I"; an Airey composition. It's haunting, moody, atmospheric and slow. There's good cymbal work here from Hiseman. The intensity increases in the middle somewhat as Moore comes in to play a killer bluesy solo but before it finishes, the introduction theme is reprised. Listen carefully here, as Moore successfully imitates the sound of a violin with the guitar! Definitely one of the most underrated! Another Airey composition "Intergalactic Strut" brings the LP to a close and musically the fast moog/guitar lines are back. Hiseman steals the show here with this usual fast drumming. It's a good ending!

In conclusion, Colosseum II and their three albums are great examples of underrated jazz-fusion, and if you like the genre, then you should give this excellent band a try!
Thanks for taking the time to read!
Later...

1977
MCA Records
Songs Include :
"Put It This Way"
"All Skin And Bone"
"Rivers"
"The Scorch"
"Lament"
"Desperado"
"Am I"
"Intergalactic Strut"

THIS IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A GROUP CHANGES ITS MUSICAL STYLE AT THE DEMAND OF A RECORD COMPANY.
Colosseum II's first ablum did not sell well. There was pressure from the group's producer and record company to change the music to make it more radio friendly. Instead of long flowing compositions, they went for shorter pieces with repeated themes.

Make no mistake, these are good musicians. Gary Moore is a flaming guitarist and Jon Hiseman is one of the better jazz drummers, almost in the class of Billy Cobham. Keyboardist, Don Arey has some very nice solos.

The problem with this album is that the compositions are weak. Each track will start out with a theme that is repeated several times, then there will be a switch to a new riff that is repeated several times. Then the group will come back to opening theme and repeat it again several times. Somewhere in the middle there will be a quick solo, that will be incidiary, but won't last very long. It like 2 minute compositions were stretched to 5 or 6 minutes.

There are only two good tracks on this album. It is jazz fusion, similar to Return to Forever or Mahavishnu Orchestra. There is one vocal track on this album that is pleasant, but not great. The album is just over 40 minutes and the sound quality is good.

Colosseum II is a British jazz fusion band. Jazz fusion was a direction that many British progressive artists took after the progressive rock movement started dying out in later seventies. Colosseum was a progressive rock band that had more blues and jazz leanings. It came out of John Mayall's Blues Breakers (as did Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac). When the band broke up, Jon Hiseman formed Colosseum II. They released three albums.
The first, Strange New Flesh, was half vocals. Electric Savage is the second album. The third, War Dance, has better compositions.

I would get rid of this CD, but I like the cover too much. It reminds of my wife before she had 3 kids.

NOTE THAT THERE IS NEW EXPANDED RE-ISSUE OF STRANGE NEW FLESH THAT FEATURES DEMOS OF COMPOSITIONS THAT WOULD EVENTUALLY BE RECORDED FOR ELECTRIC SAVAGE.