Tempest - Living In Fear

I enjoy the first Tempest album quite a lot. The music continues where Colosseum ended and has a lot of similarities with Jack Bruce's work especially on Dark House. This is, I believe, thanks to Hiseman's composing. The music is a bit more rock oriented than Colosseum was. The rhythm section Clarke & Hiseman provides a solid ground for the soloists to work on.


Paul Williams left in June 1973, and his later adventures includes playing the music of blues legend Robert Johnson. He was followed a month later by Holdsworth, who joined Soft Machine, and later Gong, UK, Jean-Luc Pontyand also played with drummer John Stevens among other things.

Tempest Mark 2 (June 1973 to June 1974) consisted of

Jon Hiseman: drums
Mark Clarke: bass
Ollie Halsall: guitar, keyboards, vocals

Ollie Halsall had joined on guitar, keyboards and vocals. Halsall had worked with Timebox which developed into Patto, and also recorded with Scaffold and Brian Eno.


The band's music has been claimed to be more jazz influenced on the second album Living In Fear (Bronze ILPS 9267). For me at least the music is not so different from Tempest, though it has clearly moved a step away from Colosseum. Like the first it was recorded at Air London in October and November 1973.


Track listing:

Funeral Empire (Halsall)

Paperback Writer (Lennon/McCartney)

Star Gazer (Clarke/Bottomley)

Dance To My Tune (Clarke/Bottomley)

Living In Fear (Halsall)

Yeah Yeah Yeah (Halsall/Hiseman)

Waiting For A Miracle (Halsall)

Turn Around (Clarke/Bottomley)

The second album is dominated by Halsall's vocals and guitar. The rhythm section continues as on the first album to build complex rhythms for Halsall to use as a trampolene for his improvisations. Another fine album.

After the split
Hiseman organised a new Colosseum II in 1975
Clarke went to play with Natural Gas,  Mountain and Rainbow.
Halsall went on to play with Kevin Ayers, Boxer and John Otway.

Link http://www.mediafire.com/?mi5vykz2n21