Here's one of those rare progressive rock recordings that little is known about. Bram Stoker were a British band, who originally released this album back in 1972, and to this day, only the name of the keyboard player is known, that being T. Bronsdon. Heavy Rock Spectacular is a Hammond shred-fest so to speak (if you can label something from 1972 as that!), kind of like the bastard child of a union between Deep Purple, ELP, Black Widow, and Atomic Rooster.
There's a great mix of progressive-tinged hard rock, as on the rampaging opener "Born to Be Free", the doomy and atmospheric "Blitz", the raging "Idiot" (which sounds amazingly like a leftover from a classic Van Der Graaf Generator album), plus Hammond organ fueled testosterone as on the instrumentals "Ants" and "Fast Decay." If you like creepy, gothic hard rock, there's the near 8 minute "Fingals Cave", another organ driven instrumental that also features some ripping guitar leads. The band comes very close to Atomic Rooster or Arthur Brown territory on "Extensive Corrosion", and "Poltergeist" is just downright eerie, with some spooky vocals and haunting Hammond textures.
If you dig any of the rare Hammond featured prog albums from bands like Bodkin, Zarathustra, or like any of the bands mentioned above, this will suit you just fine. Some fine listening going on here, and as always Akarma manages to dig these rare recordings out of the vaults and present them in a nice little mini-LP package.
Track Listing
1) Born to Be Free (3:43)
2) Ants (3:48)
3) Fast Decay (3:49)
4) Blitz (5:33)
5) Idiot (4:28)
6) Fingals Cave (7:42)
7) Extensive Corrosion (4:19)
8) Poltergeist (4:33)
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