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Lukas Tower Band (Germany): After Long Years (Lukas Tower Band LBTCD03, Germany, 2004)
Progressive
Angela Maier (principal vocals), Ricki (occasional vocals)
Apparently the band’s debut album (despite the catalogue number), this got its title because it was released a full 20 years after their formation. It consists of eight songs recorded between 2001 and 2003 and three ‘bonus tracks’ cut in 1993 (though with vocals overdubbed in 1998 and 2001). The main body of the disc consists of relaxed, very understated, mid-paced prog with folky and jazzy edges, and lyrics mainly taken from poets like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Walter Scott. For the closing cut, the band offer a completely different (and much inferior) setting of ‘Thomas The Rhymer’ that bears no resemblance to Steeleye Span’s more celebrated interpretation. The three bonus tracks (one featuring a different female singer credited only as ‘Ricki’, who was presumably Angela Maier’s predecessor) are in a slightly more mainstream rock style, but are also not bad. As a footnote, the band claimed that in the early eighties they were fronted by a vocalist called Brigitte Schmidt who sounded like a cross between Sandy Denny and Janis Joplin, although I find that almost impossible to imagine. GRADE: C+.
Lukas Tower Band (Germany): Albedo (Transformer, CDR, 2010)
Folk/Rock/Progressive
Angela Maier (lead vocals), Silvia Szekely (violin), Ursula Wilpert (whistle)
Whereas their first was a progressive album with folk edges, this is more a folk/rock album blended with mainstream seventies-style sympho-prog. It’s a varied set, too, taking in everything from Celtic to Arabian influences, and contains several moments of brilliance. GRADE: C+.