Aunt Mary - Aunt Mary & Janus (2003)
AUNT MARY-Aunt Mary & Janus (1970-73) 2003/24bit dig. remastered
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Artist: AUNT MARY
Album: Aunt Mary & Janus (2 discs on 1 cd)
Released: 1970-1973 Norway
Progressive Line 2003-24 bit dig.remastered
Genre: Hard-Prog Rock
Review:
***AUNT MARY***
Self-titled album from the norwegian band Aunt Mary may be considered as one of the first (and, possibly, the best) progressive rock product from this country. Eleven tracks present an interesting mixture of psychedelic, blues and jazz with some prog tendencies. Each track has a memorable melodie with short, but sweet to ears solo part from musicians. Jan Groth with his hammond makes a unique atmosphere on tracks like "Whispering farewell" and "Rome wasn't bult in one day". Alongside with with guitarist Bjorn Christiansen they provide some strong vocal - separetly and together. Their formula of keyboard-oriented progressive rock later will be used by such legendary norvegian groups as Popol Vuh and Titanic, but musicians from Aunt Mary were the first on this way. Great album by a great band! Should be heard by any lover of early prog. - progarchives.com
***JANUS***
Believe it or not, but there has in fact been some good progressive rock bands here in Norway too! Aunt Mary was most of their time a hard rock band in the Deep Purple vein. But on their third album, "Janus", the music took a much more progressive direction. The album is clearly inspired by Yes, Pink Floyd and Emerson Lake & Palmer. Keyboardist Bengt Jenssen had also bought a minimoog which he used in the most tasteful way. The album starts with "Path of Your Dream". The opening riff soon gets into a acuostic vocal part, and the track ends in a disharmonic riff with the moog monotonius just going on and on in the background, and it sounds great! "For All Eternity" is a quite Yes influenced track and also very good. On "Stumbling Stone" you can still hear some of the group`s hard rock roots, but in a much more experimental way than before. "All We got to do is Dream" is a nice acoustic track, and "Candles of Heaven" got some Emerson influenced hammond-work and high vocal harmonies. A great album which gets my vote as the best norwegian progressive rock album ever. - vintageprog.com
Tracklist:
1. Rome Wasn't Built In One Day 2:55
2. Come In 2:25
3. Why Don't You Try Yourself 2:43
4. The Ball 3:52
5. All My Sympathy For Lily 3:41
6. There's A Lot Of Fish In The Sea 4:07
7. Whispering Farewell 4:22
8. Did You Notice 3:29
9. Yes, By Now I've Reached The End 1:37
10. I Do And I Did. 5:14
11. 47 Steps 4:35
12. Path Of Your Dream 4:06
13. Mr. Kaye 2:01
14. Nocturnal Voice 6:07
15. For All Eternity 6:54
16. Stumblin' Stone 6:53
17. All We've Got To Do Is Dream 2:53
18. Candles Of Heaven 5:27
19. What A Lovely Day 5:14
Aunt Mary - Loaded
Tracklist:
1. Playthings of the wind (3:03)
2. Joinin the crowd (3:42)
3. Delight (2:44)
4. Upside down (4:15)
5. Farewell my friend part 1 (3:21)
6. Farewell my friend part 2 (3:21)
7. Blowin Tiffany (7:23)
8. Fire of my lifetime (5:11)
9. G flat road (5:43)
Total Time: 38:43