TRAPEZE THS 2 (-70) UK

 Group formed 1969 by members of two moderately successful UK sixties pop/rock combos - John Jones and Terry Rowley from The Montanas plus Glenn Huges, Mel Galley and Dave Holland from Finders Keepers. After this debute flopped John Jones and Terry Rowley left so their second album "Medusa" became a Finders Keepers album, just under another name. For more on that check  https://monolover.blogspot.com/2016/04/trapezemedusa-ths-4-70-uk.html . Just repeating here that this band must be seen as one of the cradles of late seventies hard rock as Glen Hughes later went to Deep Purple, Mel Galley to Whitesnake and Dave Holland to Judas Priest. Like the follow-up this was produced by Moody Blues bassist John Lodge, but coming out somewhat different. While that has a hard rock idiom way ahead of its time, with long cool cuts much building on guitar riffs backed by distinctive bass and drums, this is more diverse and melodic. More like hard pop, sometimes with a psychedelic touch. The arrangements of "It's Only A Dream", the track that opens and close the album, reminds a lot of contemporary Moody Blues, though with a slightly different core. The intense "Suicide" is garnished with some nice doomsday organ towards the end. The three-folded "Fairytale" comes with tempo changes and again some very nice organ notes. Full album below. To me a very interesting piece of vinyl, hinting the transition of genres from the melodic poppy sixties to the more hard core and proggy seventies, but also presenting early material from musicians that would became a big part of the late seventies and early eighties hard rock scene.  1970 issues also in US, Canada, France, Germany and a couple of South American countries. Japan 2023 CD on Belle Antique (BELLE 233932) in paper sleeve came with six bonus tracks. Premiere UK had label as shown here in a matte fold/out cover.  (DÄRR*)