2026 January 02 • Friday

One of the most exciting record labels around right now is Riding Easy. My favorite releases from them tend to be these rescues of long lost, sometimes never before released recordings of heavy psych/prog/rock music from the early 1970s though they also release recordings by current bands.

For an example of something brought back from the distant past, check out thie Granicus LP!

It starts strong with the aggressive "You're in America" and "Bad Talk", both loud, fast and hard-hitting songs in a Black Sabbath/Led Zeppelin.

Then strings come in for a mellow instrumental called "Twilight"—think the intro to "Collage" by James Gang—followed by a monstrous 11-minute song called "Prayer", which is also very pretty mellow several minutes before the fuzz box gets stomped and the drums come crashing in.

They were originally from Cleveland but moved to New York, where they recorded this album and the song "Cleveland, Ohio" has a repeated line "I'm getting out of Cleveland, Ohio".

"Nightmare" starts as a trippy, spacey, laidback number before picking up speed, followed by the headbanging, Zeppy "When You're Movin'".

The last song, "Paradise", is another long one, at a little over seven minutes, and is an intense, mostly up-tempo rocker that has trace elements of Hendrix as well as the stirrings of hard core and metal.

Seriously, this record is great. Check it out!