People who know the only record of Blast Furnace are surprised how tasteful music contains and excellent songwriting. For me, it is one of the top albums with progressive songs. Only two compositions are longer than 5 minutes (the longest clicks a bit more than 7) but you should listen to them attentively as a lot of interesting things happen there. The term 'songs' is not only due to "not-progressive" time of compositions but also to vocal of Englishman Tom McEwan, strong and distinctive. On This Time Of Year and the bonus CD track Lister Du Omkring Hjorner the singer is Arne Würgler (bass, cello). The vocalist often gives space to instrumental passages where guitar and organ dominate, so compositions are well balanced between vocal and instrumental parts. Musicians vary the compositions by putting delicate sounds into more aggressive fragments. And so, beside the dynamic organ and rough electric guitar you may find flute (Ginger Cake, Long Distance) or delicate piano (This Time Of Year, Toytown). The result is really awesome. Fortunately, this difficult to get masterpiece was reissued by Long Hair in April 2002.

Days: Peter Lindhe (drums), Jørn Anker (keyboards, voc.), Ole Fester (bass), Lars Reinau (guitars, voc.)

There is a problem to get this album as all items released by Spectator are extremely rare and expensive. However, there is a bootleg much the same as original one (even the record number) and the price is reasonable (c.a. 20 €). Don't hesitate if you have a chance to get it. After a few years Days released two more albums of plain rock, far behind their first work.

What a nice surprise! I had no recommendations when I was buying this album but I don't regret it at all. It presents fusion jazz-rock with progressive touches. One side 1 every band member composed one track: Michael Bruun (guitars, moog, solina strings) - Ace of Spades that reminds of Pat Metheny, Kasper Winding (guest musician playing keyboards) - That's It!, Jan Sivertsen (drums, percussion) - Heavy Joke, again you feel Pat Metheny's atmosphere, Henrik Bødtcher (bass) - dynamic Canasta Funk where another guest musician, Anders Gardmand plays sax not unlike Karsten Vogel. The last one Ambrosia is composed by Max Leth jun. (keyboards, vibraphone, marimba). If I mentioned of progressive elements I mainly thought of Leth's compositions. Ambrosia is the most beautiful track on this album mainly due to delicate and tasteful play of keyboards and vibraphone. The whole side 2 covers Symphonia composed also by Leth and consists of 4 compositions - interesting and drawing into, especially the longest Highway Habits. Michael Bruun and Henrik Bødtcher played earlier in excellent Thor's Hammer! The group released another album but, unfortunately Max Leth left the Heavy Joker before that.

TømrerClaus (Claus Pedersen) started his guitar carrier in the late 60's, playing with several Danish bands. In the mid-70's he moved to Christiania where began to play also cello and violin. Being much independent performer experimented a lot, so his music from that period is often surprising. All three TømrerClaus' albums from 70's were recorded and released by himself. That was the beginning of his record label Karma Music. Snydt [Cheated] appeared on tape and was sold in 400 copies. You can find 7 out of 12 tracks on CD reissue. These is very psychedelic instrumental music with Claus' rough fuzz guitar play and experiments with cello. Next self-titled album was released on LP. Hippie atmosphere of Christiania had big influence on artists living there. It could be somehow comparable to atmosphere on Woodstock festival. And when you listen to track Cellokarma where Claus abuses the cello Jimmi Hendrix playing the American hymn comes to your mind! In fact TømrerClaus' play seems to be under big influence of Hendrix and other guitar virtuosos of that time.

The third work Hepar [Liver] was released again on cassette. Next album Savania appeared after a long break in 1993 featuring Claus on acoustic guitar. On his last work En Spade Er En Spade [A Spade Is A Spade] TømrerClaus came back to electric guitar. However, his music is more diverse - you may find his solos in style of Gary Moore, Ritchie Blackmore or Hank Marvin from The Shadows.