The Industrial Twilight: Surprise - "Assault on Merryland" [1977]

Monday, June 5, 2017

Surprise - "Assault on Merryland" [1977]

Artist: Surprise

Title: Assault on Merryland

Genre: Symphonic Prog Rock

Country: USA

Release date: 1977

Track List:

Eve Of The Assault / Merryland
The Acrobat Between The Stars
Palace Of King Ferris
Tyrangatang
Dance Of The Tarantella
Tournament Of Love
March Of The Squatamaudars
A Day Without Light
The Wonderful Sunshiner / Grand Finale

Rick Bess - acoustic 12 string & electric guitars, bass
Blair Blake - hammond organ, grand piano, mini moog synthesizer, moog taurus bass pedals, arp string ensemble, celeste
Dave Kelly - drums, typani, orchestra bells, gongs, triangles, gyro
Mark Biehl - vocals, flute, trumpet, piccolo

Recorded at Technisonic Studios, St.Louis, Missouri.

Another interesting yet very obscure American prog rock band from the second half of 1970s that released only one full-length album and then disappeared. While it definitely isn't metal, it sounds quite heavy for its time, and the range of instruments used on this album is quite impressive. Some people who reviewed this album on Prog Archives have complained about the lyrics on this album and its overall concept, which they found ridiculous; however, I haven't read the lyrics, so I don't know much about its concept except that it's based on a fantasy story of some sort. Anyway, the music is pretty good. Enjoy:

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About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).