VA - The Colossus of Rhodes - The Seventh Progressive Rock Wonder (2005)

Colossus (The Finnish Progressive Music Association) has been developing new forms of progressive rock concept albums. After the very successful finishing of the Kalevala-project some thought was given to possible sources of inspiration for new and different progressive concept works. One of the ideas was to use a movie as a common theme and having different bands creating original music inspired by the movie. Two different projects were started at the same time: “The Spaghetti Epic” which was the first one of the projects to be released, and after some time also the even more exotic “Colossus of Rhodes” was finished.

In common with both of the projects is Sergio Leone who has directed both “Once Upon a Time in the West” and “The Colossus of Rhodes” which are the movies these two Colossus-projects are based on. Sergio Leone had been writing screenplays in the 1950s for mainly some historic epics - often known also as “Sword and Sandal" films. He was also assisting in making of some of the large-budget Hollywood productions filmed in studios in Rome, and when he made his debut as a director with “The Colossus of Rhodes” in 1961 he already had a good knowledge in making these kinds of movies. “The Colossus of Rhodes” is full of adventure, exotic costumes and lots of swordplay. People of Rhodes rebel against slavery, but after a lot of action and fighting, it is the nature in the form of a storm and an earthquake that help the rebels to win the fight. The happenings of the movie form an interesting and varying inspiration for making a concept album in a form of progressive rock. As a matter of fact “The Colossus of Rhodes”-project created six different concept albums woven into one continuous story.

For the project “The Colossus of Rhodes” was divided in twelve parts and each artist participating to the project chose two consecutive parts of the movie and created a 25-minute suite inspired by the two parts. In the traditional Colossus way and to ascertain the continuity of the sound from suite to suite, the bands were advised to use only original 70’s keyboards (Hammond, Moog, Mellotron, Fender Rhoades, Grand Piano etc.) and no programming, drum machines nor digital sounds were allowed. The music of the suites should be in similar style of the early 70’s Genesis/Yes symphonic style.

As with “The Spaghetti Epic”-project also the six suites of “The Colossus of Rhodes” were soon reserved and the final release has four bands from Italy (Leviathan, Greenwall, Mad Crayon and Revelation), one band from Sweden (Sinkadus) and one from Finland (Velvet Desperados).

As usual, all bands participating to the project were interviewed for the Colossus Magazine, and everybody was of the opinion that this kind of project is a next step in the development of concept albums. It was a challenge to make a long suite inspired by a movie, and to try to think how all suites would fit together was an additional factor in the process of making the music. As a further inspiration, the artwork for the cover of the album was made by none other than Paul Whitehead, and his picture of the Colossus sets the mood for the entire massive concept album. All bands had seen the cover before starting to make their music and many said that the cover was giving them an extra inspiration and that they were proud to be with in this kind of project. Colossus Magazine also had an interview with Paul Whitehead who explained the background for his version of the Colossus statue seen on the cover of the album. He enjoyed the painting of the cover very much and in his opinion it is one of the best covers he has made lately.

Colossus Magazine thanks everybody involved in the finishing of the project and

I hopes that the music of the album fulfils the promise made by the fantastic cover. Of course the best way to enjoy the music is to start by watching the movie the project is based on and only after that to listen to this musical extravaganza.

Raimo Eurasto, Colossus Magazine