Angel Air Records (label)
06 September 2010 (released)
06 September 2010
Contraire to what the cover might suggest, this is not a rock version of ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ but the band in which T.Rextasy’s Danielz used to sing before he went Bolan.
Tarazara emerged in 1883, when founder members Jeff Williams and Simon Henderson had aspirations to form a melodic rock band influenced by bands such as Queen, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, The Sweet and… T.Rex. Enter Danielz who, thanks to his powerful voice and flamboyant appearance, landed the position of lead vocalist after an audition for Henderson and Williams.
While Danielz was obviously cut out for the rock n’ roll business, Tarazara never rocketed to super stardom, despite getting positive press from magazines ‘Sounds’ and ‘Kerrang’ for a while. Playing support to Gary Glitter and a gig with the original Eddie & The Hot Rods, as well as London gigs at The Marquee, Dingwalls and The Embassy caught the attention of Atlantic Records and also the smaller label FM Records. Naturally, Tarazara went along with Atlantic but the final deal fell through in the end. Nonetheless, the band soldiered on and was invited to play on the Channel 4 live-TV rock show ‘ECT’ and also on the ‘Radio One Friday Rock Show’ for hard rock DJ Tommy Vance. However, by 1985 the band was still without a record deal and therefore decided to change tactics. Some new songs were written and recorded that sounded less power rock, but steered more into direction power pop. It proved to be the wrong turn and in 1986 Tarazara finally decided to call it a day. Out of the five members, only Simon Henderson and Danielz remain in the music biz, with the former successfully producing Thai rock bands and the latter fronting one of the most sought after tribute bands in the UK – T.Rextasy, playing the music of Marc Bolan. It turned out to be the right decision for Danielz, seeing how T.Rextasy are going successfully since he formed the band in 1992.
So much for the Danielz/Tarazara story. Now on to the songs which, thanks to Angel Air Records, can be heard on disc well over 25 years since their initial recordings.
As already mentioned, the emphasis is on melodic rock and there are indeed some catchy tunes amongst the 15 tracks (plus two bonus tracks). Having said that, it’s the slightly harder sounding songs like ‘Master Of The Deadly Kiss’ or ‘Love Comes Easy’ that stand out, while ‘Send Me Your Love Tonight’ boasts a rather addictive chorus. On the rock ballad front, it’s the mellow ‘All Too Late’ that particularly highlights Danielz great voice and probably is the most beautiful track on the album (depending on ones personal taste of course).
‘17’ and ‘Sweet Suicide’ work perfectly ok as pop songs, but that’s not what Tarazara wanted to be about and so the two numbers seem at odds with the rest of the album. The same goes for ‘Turning Away From You’, although out of the three, it’s the rockier tune. One can hear that this is the point when things took a turn for the worse, for these songs belong to a different territory altogether.
‘Shoot Away The Memory’ is loosely based on Phil Lynott and while this is inspired and touching, the composition lacks the edge and rawness to make this a fitting tribute to the wild Thin Lizzy frontman – loosely or not. It sounds too safe to underline the darker lyrical content of the song.
The title track and ‘Fantasy’ are successful examples of what the band tried to achieve when they spoke of a fusion of various musical influences, namely commercially orientated melodic rock. The sonic quality is vibrant throughout the album, and a particular bonus is the richly illustrated info booklet that comes with the CD.