Granicus - Granicus (Vinyl)

Granicus:  US 70s hard rock band from Cleveland, OH. Formed in 1969, they released their eponymous debut album in 1973. Granicus played a very original mix of heavy rock, progressive and psychedelic rock and although critically acclaimed in certain rock circles the album didn't gain more traction nationally and band soon split up.

Granicus transcends the genre of early ‘70s progressive hard rock, they will thrill somebody hungry for a killer in that department but are so creatively explosive anybody into any brand of hard rock from classic, metal, punk, prog up into the wild beyond will get caught up in the band’s whirlpool of manic energy. You get to relax here and there but most of the time they come at you so decisively you gotta hang on to your brain. For my money these guys delivered an LP on level with the best famous bands of the day, contemporaries like Led Zep, Rush, Deep Purple, Sabbath... based on the power and variety captured here it is clearly only a lack of promotion that kept Granicus off the charts.

It has hard prog moves in spades but also over the top energy with outrageous vocal moves powerful enough to have scored a big bullseye in teenage wasteland America 1973.