As the World Grits [lossless] plus Rare Birds and Rock and Roll Madness, limited time only

From discogs:

Washington, D.C. based band in existence from 1970-1980. They had a diverse mix of influences, including jazz, hard rock, progressive, symphony, opera, and country. The four members of Grits were classically trained and grew up in musical families. Founder and keyboardist Rick Barse, who wrote and arranged the material on the CD, studied piano starting at the age of eight. Guitarist Tom Wright (10) began playing violin as a five-year-old. His classical studies included training at the Oberlin Conservatory. He picked up a guitar in junior high school so he could play rock music with friends. Wright later played viola with Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Bassist/vocalist Amy Taylor (2) sang as a child and took up the violin at the age of nine. Bob Sims studied with a National Symphony percussionist, but found the raps more fun.

Here's a band well known from one album, Rare Birds, but who actually made a superb less known masterpiece in the CD As the World Grits, ostensibly from 1975, which achieves heights of brilliant progressive rock and Zappaesque flights of creative fancy that have rarely been heard before or after.  Similar to the Tracks from earlier, but with elements of Dopojam in their best moods (not their dumbass silly ones), or perhaps like Locals Young Lovers (recall that one?), they clearly absorbed and recomposed a master class in the technique.  You've read they all had conservatory or post-graduate musical educations and boy does that shine through dramatically in the aforementioned, a work that should be a Ph.D. dissertation for the field, well worthy of being considered by Swedish Seniles for a Nobel prize of prog, especially when you recall that even mediocre losers like Bob Dylan, nowadays, can win those.

The album Rock and Roll Madness is I assume a new album, composed in the recent era and released in 2008 (unlike Rare Birds, which is a recording made live in 1976), and in fact the change is evident--I think. Assuming that it is recent. If it's not recent, and was recorded back in the 70s, then it's also disappointing. Doesn't make much of a difference, really.

I'm going to vehemently disagree with the review of apps on rym here, for once, with some well chosen examples of the music on As the world Grits.  And indeed I must GRIT my teeth when I note the reviews on that site give this cd a lower rating than the inferior Rare Birds album. The detraction though is that when the vocal tracks come up with the female singer, I do tend to agree they get a bit irritating and are, occasionally, close to generic. But each song usually also contains some kind of original idea or hook that takes it past the ordinary. And I mean we're not asking for perfection here, a good album is one with at least 3 good songs, while a masterpiece, by definition, has at least 5 great songs, if less than 3 minutes. 3 songs, if more than 5 minutes. A really precise definition indeed.

Consider Hyattsville Hospital:

Scared So:

The most motherly Zappa track is clearly Beef the Diver, and I just love listening to the way the guitar soloing complements the unusual chords underneath, plus the sudden changes in melodic speed so typical of the digressive style of the Frankish master genius:

Overall, just a wonderful 33 inch slice of lost rock.