Rainbow Theatre - Fantasy of Horses. 1976 Australia

There are few albums that we can truly point to as being wholly original, but Rainbow Theatre’s second album would have to qualify. Not to say it uses made up scales or instruments, but within the common boundaries of what is considered melodic music, Australia’s Rainbow Theatre have most certainly created their own room in the house. An operating 8 piece rock unit (keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, trumpet, sax, trombone and flute) accompanied by a string sextet, Fantasy of Horses makes full use of the large palette of instrumentation available, not to mention that Keith Hoban’s vocals are sung in operatic style. Overall it’s a spirited affair, not an academic high-brow run through, so rockers have much to sink their teeth into. In fact, the drumming is astounding, and propels the album to great heights of intensity. The four tracks presented here, including two lengthy multi-part affairs, chock full of mellotron and high invention, are a progressive rock lovers dream. At least for those who keep an open mind.

As well, an unusual bonus track has been added - a recent full-on classical work written by bandleader Julian Browning, that is the perfect conclusion to the rocked out album proper. I cannot think of too many albums where that would make sense, but naturally it would be apropos here.

Ownership: LP: 1976 Clear Light of Jupiter / RTM. Single sleeve. Gift from Julian Browning himself after seeing my review of the CD (above). A personal treasure because of that. The cover says it's on Clear Light of Jupiter while the label says RTM (Rainbow Theatre Music?) with a different catalog number. 

CD: 2006 Aztec. Beautiful multi foldout digi-pak with a full history and gorgeous artwork. Includes one bonus (detailed above).

The first copy I owned was a bootleg CD (1997).

1997; 10/2/06 (Gnosis); 1/18/20 (new entry)