Friday, July 27, 2007

Taste - Knights of Love (1977)

Taste (not to be confused with Rory Gallagher's Taste) were a highly distinct sounding Australian quartet who cranked out two albums before imploding in 1979. This excellent band brought many influences to the table, creating a diverse blend of glam, prog and hard rock. Their debut, issued in 1976, was a pummeling slab of hard rock that somehow fell on deaf ears. Queen, however, took a liking to the band and began hyping them to the press, bringing more attention to their followup album, "Knights of Love".

Though this album is more diverse, it does lack the fire of their debut. That aside, there are tons of gems here, with sinewy arrangements and angular melodies. The standout is, "Boys Will Be Boys", which became their biggest selling single overseas. In fact, Queen even used the song to preface each of their live shows during this period. There hardly anything here to dislike and it's a tragedy that Taste did not experience the crossover success they seemed poised for in the mid 70's.

The members of Taste chose to go their separate ways in the late 70's, subsequently working with artists like Redhouse, Russell Morris, Planet X, Ring of Fire, Derek Sherinian, Mark Boals, Steve Walsh and Southern Sons. A revamped lineup reunited last year and have issued their new album, "Rock Is Dead" earlier this month. Check out this great example of classic Aussie hard rock!

5 comments:

Residentevil2 said...

Been looking for this thanks. You going to post their first? And more THUNDERMUG please

micksguitar said...

great post. not to shabby for a rocker boy,not too shabby at all. thanx mick.

skids said...

more great Aussie rock :-x

Anonymous said...

Taste reminds to me a bit of Kiss, Queen and Styx etc.
I can understand why Queen supported this band. I do hear bits and pieces of Queen influences in this.
Interesting band, with lots of great songs that takes me back to the good old days, when I had my room all smeared with posters of all the great rock bands on the walls!.
Rock on!

Anonymous said...

Great post...thankz fo the share!!
Got any Ultra?