Week of January 17, 1999

Janus

The British group Janus was one of the best around!  What a huge disaster that they only gave us one album first time around (the reformation some years ago was just a drag).  "Gravedigger" (1972) relealed Janus' duplicitive nature: side one had the excellent heavy progressive classic "Red Sun" and a couple of other songs coming close to the distinctive British nature of "Parachute" period Pretty Things.  Side two featured the 20-minute title track, full of dark images with acoustic guitars and strings accompanying the sparse lyrics.  The hook line was, "The Gravedigger's arm is waiting for you!"  A fantastic album!  Why didn't anyone bother to release it in the UK?  Janus reformed around 1989 and made a dreadful album (parts of which are featured on the CD reissue listed below, as bonus material - Ed).


Album:

Gravedigger 1972 Harvest 1C062-29433

CD reissue:

Gravedigger 1992 Worldwide Records, Germany, SPM-WWR-CD-0035

Taken from Cosmic Dreams at Play - A guide to German Progressive and Electronic Rock by Dag Erik Asbjørnsen, Borderline Productions, ISBN 1-899855-01-7


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