Beyond The Pale Horizon: The British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1972 (Cherry Red Records)

Cherry Red Records have just released their third collection of Progressive Pop sounds this time covering 1972. The 3 CD set contains 65 tracks from the year including not just well known entries such as Silver Machine from Hawkwind, Virginia Plain by Roxy Music and America by Yes but also lesser known songs from well known bands and a lot of stuff that you might not remember or heard of at the time given the limited outlets to listen to music back in the day.

The set kicks off with Theme One from Van Der Graaf Generator and one of the two songs that got me into Prog Rock Hold Your Head Up from Argent albeit the single version. I went out and purchased my first ever LP, All Together Now to get their extended version with church organ solo!

Family are another band who peaked my interest the Prog Rock Genre and the first ever single I ever got was from them but this collection includes Burlesque from their Bandstand album another early purchase for me as a schoolboy!

There are a couple of surprising entries in this collection which I like but would not have included as "Prog" including Wonderin' Y from Slade and Paper Plane by Status Quo. Minor point though really.

There's a lot of the usual suspects like Nazareth with Fool About You and Uriah Heap's song Traveller In Time. The latter were always an "album" band who I regret never having the opportunity to see in concert. Whoever chose the songs added one of my favourite groups the highly under-rated Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band with King Of Scurf. Always thought they deserved better commercial success than they did.

Sixties band The Troggs make an appearance as do Medicine Head, Caravan and The Moody Blues.

There's plenty of bands I'm not familiar with which is always interesting even if a couple of tracks are't that great but it's always worth exploring their output on You Tube or Amazon Music. Also featured are The Move and there's a Roy Wood "solo" track Wake Up.

Did I mention Lindisfarne, Ralph McTell, Rare Bird and Bombadil? There's also another Tolkein inspired outfit Hobbit.  

This like the previous albums in this series (see below) is a worth while purchase. 

Available from: www.cherryred.co.uk