(((O))) Review: Mandalaband – Legacy: The Story Of Mandalaband 1975-1978

Let’s take a trip back into the fall of 2010. Now you may ask yourself, where were you when you first heard Mandalaband’s music? Back then, I was still a student in Houston Community College, and I was going through either the Kinesis website (which is now defunct since 2018) or Syn-Phonic Music, I can’t recall. And I remember buying Mandalaband’s 2-CD set entitled Resurrection which included the 2010 remixes that David Rohl did.

Championed by John Peel and Alan “Fluff” Freeman, Mandalaband’s music was very different beyond from what ELP, Genesis, and Yes were doing. There were the symphonic textures, the Tibetan lyrical atmospheres, nods to the Tolkiensque universe, and taking the genre of progressive rock to a whole other level.

Their first two albums Mandalaband (1975) and The Eyes of Wendor: Prophecies (1978) were very much like an alternate movie inside your head whenever you put those albums on from start to finish. Now in a 4-CD set which covers their time when they were signed to Chrysalis Records, the box set includes the original mixes, bonus tracks, and Rohl’s 2023 mixes for the albums. So, it is time to revisit the band’s parallel universe once more.

From the moment the four-part suite of ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ begins, it made me understand how much the music was so far ahead of its time. There’s the ambient scenario from the intro before bursting through the flood gates between Tony Cresswell’s drumming, Durant’s operatic vocals, Mulford’s energetic guitar sections, and the nods between the Buddhist mantras, and Tibet’s national anthem.

You can’t make this up! Then comes the Gershwin concerto which speaks of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ Vic Emerson does on his keyboards before it flies into the clear, blue skies in a Fruupp-like waltz that would have made it a spectacular moment in Disney’s cult classic, Fantasia. And what’s this? Did Mandalaband predict the beginnings of King Crimson’s THRAK-era for the battlefield to start on ‘Determination’?

I would say that’s up to the listener to decide. Mulford doesn’t get the recognition when he goes from a complex riff and straight into a train-chugging chord section. This is heavy, brutal, and the start of a revolution is upon the soldier’s response to fight until the bitter end, thanks to Mulford’s wah-wah improvisation.

And let’s not forget The Eye of Wendor: Prophecies which was two years in the making and considered members from The Moody Blues, 10cc, Steeleye Span, and Barclay James Harvest. The album itself was recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, England. Yes, it didn’t get the recognition it deserves when it came out in 1978, but it sure beats out Tales from Topographic Oceans like an epic animated opera brought to life.

And we ain’t talking about cute, cuddly little Disney flicks ladies and gentlemen, think of the underrated animated classics The Swan Princess and Don Bluth’s Anastasia. Animation done right if Rohl thinks of doing The Eye of Wendor as an animated rock opera. I’ll be the first to admit, listening to this album again many years later, there’s some weird stuff going on. But I love me some weird stuff, mind you.

Why do you think ‘Almar’s Tower’ is a direct nod to Tom Newman’s Faerie Symphony-era? The percussion’s, electro drum beats, early ‘80s score to Wendy Carlos’ TRON? They were predicting the future on what is to come. Plus, the music takes a direct turn into Jeff Wayne’s territory with its orchestral ride towards Middle Earth in a ‘Ride To The City’.

Phil Chapman’s sax blares out into the night before the Hallé String Quartet brings in the dramatic chorus to set up the thunder and what will happen next. Then it’s a calm after the storm as Maddy Prior’s gentle and high angelic vocals, calling to the gods as her portrayal of Princess Ursula sets up this scenery of being free from all of the training and wanting to live a normal life, instead of doing all these big things a princess must do by riding ‘Like The Wind’.

Meanwhile, over the horizon, Justin Hayward brings this romantic waltz to the Wendor universe by dancing into a new form of life for the ‘Dawn of a New Day’ as the sounds of 10cc from the original line-up of Gouldman, Stewart, Godley, and Crème, lend Rohl a helping hand. Hearing ‘Florian’s Song’ that Eric sings, it almost brought me back to the memories of playing World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck during the Sega Genesis years.

There’s the acoustic galloping ride off into the night, percussion bossa-nova grooves, soothing ballad, and pop-orientated medieval arrangements that 10cc brings into the composition. Both ‘Elsethea’ and ‘The Witch of Waldow Wood’ pushes you into the edges of the cliff by witnessing the dangers of the queen of the waves who rule the rivers with an iron fist and returning to a blaring symphonic roar from Godley’s high-energetic vocals brings forth the dangers of what is underneath those hidden passage ways at Waldow Wood.

As I sit here, closing up this review, replaying both the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Gotham Knights on my XBOX Series S, I felt like being back at Houston Community College once more, going through Mandalaband’s music on my original iPod classic during that time frame.

I think Mandalaband were way ahead of their time releasing some of the greatest music during that time frame in the height of the progressive rock movement in the 1970s as it was starting to decline in the mid-to-late ‘70s as punk and disco were heading in.

There’s no denying that this box set which you have in your hands is something fresh, something peculiar, something classical, and something weird. And that goes for those first two studio albums that’ll hit you like a massive battering ram coming at you, 50 miles per hour.