Thursday, October 12, 2017

RHAPSODY – Rhapsody (Tyfon, 1978)

International relevance: **
English vocals

I've never quite understood why Rhapsody (also known as Rhapsody Sweden) are included in Tobias Petterson's ”The Encyclopedia of Swedish Progressive” when, for example, Neon Rose aren't. While Petterson states that ”Rhapsody” do has a couple of progressive moves in ”Belly Dancer” and ”Take to the Highway”, this is mostly run-of-the-mill mid 70's heavy metal. It's competent enough and ought to interest hard rock and heavy metal buffs, but it's irrelevant to anyone else.

However, it's curious for a Tyfon release as the label mostly released Swedish dance band music, which is a far as you can possibly get from heavy metal, and as far from anything you'd ever want to expose yourself to. (The cover looks a dance band gone wrong though.)

The album was reissued on CD as "Strange Vibrations" with new covert art and bonus tracks.

Full album with bonus tracks
at

2 comments:

  1. Sir Lord DoomOctober 17, 2018 at 8:25 AM

    I would call this a true melodic hardrock piece without any progressive elements. Straight, memorable, just awesome (to me) songs. My buddy Ray Dorsey of Chaos Fanzine fame once turned me on this record and I love it since the late 90s now. Cool Blog,mate

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  2. SwedishProggBlogDecember 15, 2018 at 11:09 AM

    Thanks for you appreciation! Yes, most of it is indeed straight hard rock but I think there are a couple of progressive elements in the songs I mentioned in particular. I featured it mainly because it has an entry in Tobias Peterson's book, and also because I have a broad definiton of what progg is and could be.

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