Waniyetula - Iron City (Reissue) (2006)

Unreleased studio and live tracks from 1971-1978. All songs written by the band except two tracks which feature the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

WANIYETULA were a band that existed for nearly a decade and a half, but one whose career was marred by bad timing and bad marketing.

The band formed in 1969, but would not release an album (“A Dream Within a Dream”) under their own name until shortly before their demise in 1983. The band did record a full-length studio album in 1975 (with the help of SCORPIONS producer Dieter Dirks), but when it was finally released in the U.S. in 1978, progressive music was already in decline and their label issued the album (“Nature’s Clear Well”) under the band name GALAXY (see that band’s listing also in the Archives).

WANIYETULA followed up “Nature’s Clear Well” with another trip to the studio to compile a thematic project based on the literary works of Edgar Allen Poe. Once again, the band fell victim to poor timing as the ALAN PARSONS PROJECT released “Mysteries & Imagination…” to great acclaim first, and the project would flounder for several years before being realized as the watered-down work “A Dream Within a Dream”. Garden of Delights Records would reissue the album in the nineties, and included three tracks from a discontinued and rare live compilation (“Concert ‘71”), which included the band’s cover version of the DOORS standard “Light My Fire”.

The band’s sound has been compared to other eighties commercially-progressive bands such as SAGA and UK, but their compositions have a decidedly late seventies feel to them, particularly in the dissonant vocals and understated digital keyboards.