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Druid - Toward The Sun/Fluid Druid 2 x CDs (special)

SKU 23-BGO 285
While they last, this is 50% off the usual price and is a great deal for these two albums, complete in one package and well mastered by BGO who always do a good job.

This is the band's two albums, available on CD legitimately for the first time, I believe, remastered in 2005 and featuring a short but informative history of the band. Not a bad deal! Druid released two albums and then disbanded. This double CD re-issue on BGO has both of them, saving us the trouble of finding these very nice works separately. "Druid has a somewhat interesting story behind them. They won 800 British Pound sterling and a recording contract through a contest run by Melody Maker, the English musical periodical. This obviously led to some disdain, especially from the groups that lost. Druid then produced two fine releases, toured with Yes in England, but in the end they were not spectacular enough to weather the tough times ahead for progressive rock bands, which is understandable. More established and better known acts fell to the same fate. The quick end to the band’s career is really a disappointment. They recorded two very good albums of conventional, yet quite satisfying, symphonic progressive rock before they bit the dust. The first, Toward The Sun, is a Yes-like release with a lot of beautiful, fluid keyboard work, mostly piano, Mellotron and Hammond organ, a real plus in my book. The music is no where near as intricate or technically demanding as Yes’s work, but a lot of this release sounds like the music from Tales From Topographic Oceans, particularly “The Remembering." It evokes the spirit of Yes, but never appropriates their music directly, as Starcastle did. The band also has some moments that will remind you a bit of a band of Yes expatriates, Flash. The second disc in this set, Fluid Druid, has a more mature and individual sound. It is slow moving and quite gentle, and has that mellow energy of the first few PFM releases. I think the second disc is superior to the first in some ways. It allows the band to move further afield from the Yes sound of the first album, and the group displays a more solid, yet more sensitive sound than on the first disc, though the material is not as uniformly strong as that of the first CD. In my opinion, all the songs from the first disc were good and more than half the material of the second disc was outstanding and memorable. This two disc set will provide a great deal of listening pleasure."-Tom Karr/Progressiveworld.net



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  • LabelBGO
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