Hard Meat The Space Between - The Recordings 1969 - 1970 (3-CD Box-Set)

(Cherry Red Records) 25 tracks, digisleeve in gatefold box, with an illustrated booklet with an essay and interviews.

- with all albums of the progressive rock band HARD MEAT. incl. one unreleased albm from 1969. all remastered from the original WarnerBrothers and session master tapes - first official release on CD

In the late 1960s, when the progressive rock and heavy rock movements were experiencing their first flowering, bands of both stripes - and many that straddled both - mushroomed, with some flourishing for decades and others only fleetingly found on the back pages of rock. One of the latter examples was the excellent Hard Meat, a progressive rock trio that recorded an unreleased album in 1969 destined for Island Records and released two albums for Warner Brothers in 1970.

Hard Meat, consisting of brothers Mick Dolan (guitar, vocals), Steve Dolan (bass, vocals) and Mick Carless (drums), came together in late 1968 and attracted the attention of producer Sandy Roberton, who in turn referred the band to Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records. The band released the single "Rain" (an excellent cover of the Beatles classic) and "Burning Up Years" on the label, and subsequently recorded an album to be released on Island. However, for various reasons, the band was dropped by Island and the excellent recordings were not released. In 1970, Hard Meat signed with the British division of Warner Brothers and released their self-titled debut album shortly thereafter.

The album and the band's live performances in the UK and the US (where they opened for acts such as the Flying Burrito Brothers) were so critically acclaimed that a follow-up album, the excellent Through A Window, was released by Warner in late 1970.
However, the band broke up in early 1971, leaving behind two good but unfortunately commercially unsuccessful albums that only surfaced many years later as low-quality bootlegs on CD as the band's music was gradually rediscovered.