Customer Reviews

Strange New Flesh

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

i've got a few of the Colosseum cd's and i've never been terribly impressed with them...but this incarnation of the band is something else entirely. they take a much more rock approach and prog it out with fantastic results. the pace is driving and speeds along with purpose and supreme musicianship. every song is full of intricate time changes, killer solos, and great vocals. the second disc is a fine addition to the original. there's no sign of a filler cut...it's all outstanding stuff! a nice surprise, overall. i'm hooked!

I've been sniffing around this group for a few years now. It was originally their albums "Electric Savage" and "War Dance" that made my watch list, but they usually proved to be too costly. (I've since found some nice vinyl copies reasonably priced.) Then I see this newly remastered two-fer called "Strange New Flesh" a few months ago. I bought it. I played it. I fell in love...

This is part of a really cool vein of music that includes a group called Tempest (with Allan Holdsworth and Ollie Halsall on guitars) and, of course an earlier incarnation of a few members of this band, which was simply called Colosseum. The great liner notes that come with this cd are filled with a remarkable bounty of other band names and personnel that seemed to have touched this band in some fashion or other: John Mayall, Rick Wakeman, Cozy Powell, Gilgamesh, National Health, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, and many more.

Frequently compared to Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra, their music has a bit more gutsiness and progressive flavor than either of those two great (GREAT) bands. Band leader Jon Hiseman is an incredible drummer in an original style, and Gary Moore shreds on this like few other guitarists of the era could. Don Airey plays some great and varied keys. The production on this re-master is flawless. A few songs into this cd and I was thinking to myself "Where the heck has this fantastic music been all my life?!" It just felt so right to me. It felt like home. I was in love...

Look, you have to hear this stuff to believe it. I can't explain it to you in print. And you get 13 (!) previously unreleased tracks, including the complete BBC In Concert session from 1976. This is primo stuff. Highly recommended to progressive rock/jazz fusion fans. ESSENTIAL. Essential.

I value interesting music that is played and recorded well. This cd's rating was based on:
Music quality = 9.3/10; Performance = 9/10; Production = 9.5/10; CD length = 10/10.
Overall score weighted on my proprietary scale = 9.4 ("5 stars")

It's the 2005 reedition - digitalized and remastered, but this time in 2 CDs - of the 'first work,' "Strange New Flesh", of Colosseum II dating back to 1975-1976 (first CD). The first and second CD present also 10 'demos' recorded a few weeks after the release of the album (June-July 1976)and 3 'live' pieces performed by the English group in concert for 'BBC Radio' in June 1976.
There isn't much more to add - to what has already been said and written -about the value and worth of the album: in substance, we are dealing with a promising and decisevely good work, which launched Colosseum II on a large scale, in the mid seventies,among the best and better known groups of then 'jazz-rock' music scene, even if - apart from the splendid piece 'Winds'(10:25) - the other tracks of the album appear at a notable and appreciable level even if not superlative.
What deserves to be valued mostly - of the recent and current publication of 'Castle Music' - is the proposition of the 'unpublished'(13 in all between 'demos' and 'live performances'), which indisputably prove that this group could have left a wider and deeper trace in the history of 'progressive music' if it had been able to safeguard for a longer period of time this first and original 'line up' (towards the end of 1976, in fact, both the bass player Neil Murray and the singer Mike Starrs left the band and were replaced only by the bass player John Mole in the two album that followed of 1977 and 1978, 'Electric Savage' and 'War Dance').
Out of these 'unpublished', 5 pieces are to be regarded, by all means, as exceptional: 'Walking in the Park' (7:05), 'The Awakening' (11:43), 'The Scorch' (4:39), 'Interplanetary Strut' (5:32)and the 'live' 'Siren Song' (12:13), where - on everything and everyone - shines and excels the drummer Jon Hiseman, absolutely unrestrainable and devastating in his inconfoundable 'drumming' at the height of power, speed and elegance with performed results of such a level which - at least in the 'jazz-rock fusion' - not even Billy Cobham of the early Mahavishnu Orchestra (1971-72)and of his first 'solos' album (1973-74) was probably able to achieve.
An excellent addition to any progressive music collection: 4,00/4,50 stars.

Strange New Flesh was Colosseum II's first and best album. This new Expanded edition adds 2 great tracks that might get this up from 4 start to 5 stars.

The original Strange New Flesh was 41 minutes long. It was a mixture of British progressive jazz, blues and progressive rock. The featured Jon Heisman, from John Mayall Bluesbreakers (home of Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac), Gary Moore (between stints with Thin Lizzy) and Don Airey who would later play with Black Sabbath and is now in Deep Purple.

The group had a horrible lead singer, Mike Starrs whose grating vocals almost ruined many of the songs. He would leave after this album to go to Lucifer's Friend where his screaming type vocals were more appropriate. After this, Colosseum II would do mostly instrumentals.

IS THIS WORTH BUYING FOR THE BONUS TRACKS?

There certainly is a lot of bonus material. The first CD is now 67 minutes long and the second is 76 minutes. Most of the bonus tracks are demo's to try to get a record contract. The last three tracks are live, from a BBC show.

There are 2 great bonus tracks which I think are the best things Colosseum has ever done. The first is a studio version of Walking in the Park, which used to be part of the original Colosseum's live shows. The second is a live versions of Sirens.

In general, everything on the first CD is very good. There is an original 11 minute version of Castles. This song is much better than the shorter version that ended up on Colosseum's third album, War Dance. However, it is almost ruined by Starrs vocals. The advantage the War Dance version has is that Gary Moore does the singing, and that part of it is better.

Gary's Lament was redone for Colosseum II's second CD, Electric Savage. It is better here.

The second CD starts out with a bunch of uninteresting demos. Rivers and Intergalaxy Slut were reworked and included on Electric Savage. Intergalaxy Strut (as it was retitled) was about the only really good track on Electric Savage. Rivers is an annoying vocal.

It ends with the three very good live tracks. They take up 34 minutes. It is unfortunate you have to listen to 40 minutes of the lesser demos to get to them.

It is amazing to me that Colosseum II and Strange New Flesh would warrant an expanded edition. The band struggled to make and were never very popular. They are probably more popular now than back when the albums were first released. It is probably on the strength of Gary Moore that there is new interest in Colosseum II. There was even a Colosseum II compiliation disc that was attributed to "Gary Moore with Colosseum II".

After Strange New Flesh did not sell very well, the group started playing around with the format and eventually had to find a new record company. I think the group made comprimises that made Electric Savage a boring CD. The group started to get back on track with War Dance.