| | Ambrosia CD Ambrosia Discography of CDs
 (14 Customer Reviews)
Although they would become better known for smooth AOR ballads like "How Much I Feel," Ambrosia first made their name with this album of progressive rock with a pop music twist. Its songs skillfully blend strong melodic hooks and smooth vocal harmonies with music of an almost symphonic density. Good examples of this crossbreeding are "Drink of Water," which sounds like the Beach Boys tackling a Pink Floyd space rock epic, and "Nice, Nice, Very Nice," which utilizes a combination of stately close-harmony vocals and dynamic instrumental breaks to put forth a clever lyric derived from a Kurt Vonnegut novel. The complexity of the music is further highlighted by its crystal-clear sonic landscape, mixed by Alan Parsons, which highlights unique touches like the use of a Russian balalaika ensemble and 300-year-old Javanese gongs on "Time Waits for No One." Despite this prog rock ambitiousness, the group is smart enough to avoid letting their instrumental chops take precedence over their music's melodic content: They keep their songs succinct and punchy (nothing extends over six-and-a-half minutes) and they infuse tunes like "Lover Arrive" and the radio favorite "Holdin' on to Yesterday" with a delicate sense of pop songcraft that makes the group's cinematic sound easy for listeners to assimilate. The end result is an album that is intricate enough to please prog rock addicts but catchy enough to win over a few pop fans in the process. Though Ambrosia would go on to score bigger hits later in their career, this is definitely their most cohesive and inspired album. ~ Donald Guarisco
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Recorded at Mama Jo's, North Hollywood, California. Includes liner notes by Freddie Piro.
Personnel: David Pack (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Joe Puerta (vocals, guitar, bass guitar); Christopher North (vocals, keyboards); Burleigh Drummond (vocals, drums, percussion); Chuck Girard, Fletch Wiley, Daniel Kobialka, Andy Toth, Keith Johnson, Splash Price, Jim West (violin); Ian Underwood (saxophone); Ruth Underwood (marimba).
Recording information: Mama Jo's, North Hollywood, Cal.
Arranger: Us.
Ambrosia: David Pack (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Burleigh Drummond (vocals, bassoon, drums, percussion); Christopher North (vocals, keyboards); Joe Puerta (vocals, bass).
Engineers include: Chuck Johnson, Billy Taylor, Tom Trefethen.
Ambrosia Music | List Price | $6.97 (You save $0.88) | | Category | Rock Albums, Pop CDs, Rock/Pop, Progressive, Art Rock, Enhanced CD | | Label | Warner Bros. (Record Label) | | Orig Year | 1975 | | All Time Sales Rank |  1611  | | CD Universe Part number | 1102344 | | Catalog number | 47565 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Feb 01, 2000 | | Studio/Live | Studio | | Mono/Stereo | Stereo | | Producer | Freddie Piro | | Recording Time | 38 minutes | | Personnel | Ian Underwood - saxophone
David Pack - vocals, guitar, keyboards
Ruth Underwood - marimba
Joe Puerta - vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Burleigh Drummond - vocals, drums, percussion
Christopher North - vocals, keyboards
Daniel Kobialka
Jim West - violin
Keith Johnson
Keith Johnson
Fletch Wiley
Andy Toth
Splash Price
| | Additional Info | Remastered |
Ambrosia Music Review Average Rating: (4.8 out of 5 stars)   List All Reviews missed
a really good cd that i've missed for years
Submitted by a44red (ch'ville va) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
a Must have
For any Ambrosia fan this is Mandatory
listening
Submitted by harpdawg1 (Burton, Mi, USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No West-coast romantics
Ambrosia call this their love-project,and it surely is. Beautiful songs and good handiwork crossed with a
brilliant production makes this an album worth having.
Submitted by a reviewer (Oslo,Norway)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No As good as I remember
It's great to hear this classic again. A needed CD to your Prog collection.
Submitted by a reviewer (Newburgh, IN)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No a masterpiece
Emmanuel from France
i think this is the best album of Ambrosia;
in 1975 the sound is great and the music is very nice, powerful and harmonies vocals,
a rock melodic terrific, original, wonderful, a must-have when you love music !
Submitted by speedmanu (FRANCE)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No List All Reviews | Have you heard this album? |  |
Purchase Ambrosia CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Ambrosia Life Beyond L.A. CD (1978) Remastered
Ambrosia album
 $6.09   
Ambrosia's third album (and first for Warner Bros.) is more commercial and less conceptual than their first two releases, Somewhere I've Never Travelled and the self-titled Ambrosia. The album opens effectively with the title track, which is about life, or the lack thereof, in Los Angeles. The better songs on this album, including the title track and the top ten single "How Much I Feel," were written and sung by lead vocalist/multi-instrumentalist David Pack. ~ Tim Griggs
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Originally Rel.1978
Recorded at Mama Jo's, North Hollywood California.
Personnel: David Pack (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Joe Puerta (vocals, guitar); Christopher North (vocals, piano, keyboards); Burleigh Drummond (vocals, ...
| | Ambrosia Anthology CD (1997)
Ambrosia CD music
$6.29
For various legal reasons, no Ambrosia recordings were released on compact disc in America until 1997's Anthology, and while it's an imperfect collection, it does offer a reasonably thorough overview of the group's career. It only briefly touches on their early art rock records, choosing to concentrate instead on their early-'80s soft rock hits like "Biggest Part of Me," "You're the Only Woman," and "How Much I Feel." As a result, dedicated prog rock fans will find this collection inadequate, but for most casual listeners, it will contain everything they need and then some, since the disc is padded with three new songs that are pleasant. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
For various legal reasons, no Ambrosia recordings were released on compact disc in America until 1997's Anthology, and while it's an imperfect collection, it does offer a reasonably thorough overview of the group's career. It only briefly touches on Ambrosia's early art rock records, choosing to concentrate instead on the band's early-'80s soft rock hits like "Biggest Part of Me," "You're the Only Woman," and "How Much I Feel." As a result, dedicated prog rock fans will find this collection inadequate, but for most casual listeners, it will contain everything they need and then some, since the disc is padded with three new songs that are pleasant but unremarkable. [In 2004, Warner reissued Anthology as Greatest Hits. Apart from a paper slip that wraps over the CD and says the album is called Greatest Hits, the disc is identical -- the same artwork, same remastering, and it even reads Anthology on the spine ...
| | Ambrosia Somewhere I've Never Travelled CD (1976) Remastered
Ambrosia music CDs
$5.95
After achieving moderate success with their self-titled debut, Ambrosia decided to up the ante by going for a bigger, more symphonic sound on this follow-up outing. To achieve this goal, they enlisted Alan Parsons, who mixed their first album, to produce and Andrew Powell (arranger for the Alan Parsons Project) to do full-blown orchestral arrangements on a number of the tracks. The resulting album lacks the careful fusion of pop and prog elements that characterized Ambrosia, with songs tending to fall into either progressive or soft rock categories. Just the same, it is a strong album with a number of sonically arresting moments. The finest songs are the most overtly progressive, the most dazzling being "Danse With Me, George," a tribute to Chopin that leads the listener through a bewildering array of styles (classical, jazz, and pop, to name just a few) in just under eight minutes. "Cowboy Star" is another knockout, bringing its tale of a city dweller who dreams of cowboy glory to life with a beautiful orchestral mid-section that is strongly reminiscent of Aaron Copland. None of the straightforward pop songs are as catchy or instantly memorable as "Holdin' on to Yesterday," but "Runnin' Away" presents an appealing blend of carefully arranged harmonies and acoustic sounds, and "We Need You Too" provides the album with a suitably stately ...
| | Ambrosia Live At The Galaxy CD (2002)
Ambrosia songs
$12.25
| | Ambrosia Road Island CD (1982)
Ambrosia album
$9.69
On their final album, Ambrosia forsakes the airbrushed AOR sounds that defined Life Beyond L.A. and One Eighty in favor of a strong, rock-oriented sound. They are aided in this aim by a gutsy production from James Guthrie (a producer better known for his work with groups like Judas Priest and Pink Floyd) that takes the group to a new level of sonic firepower. Songs like "For Openers" and "Still Not Satisfied" reverberate with a newfound sense of rock & roll muscle: The drums kick, the basslines throb, and the guitars and Hammond organ wail with abandon. Even Ambrosia's trademark ballads benefit from their newly beefed-up sound: "Feelin' Alive Again" features the airy harmonies and delicate keyboard shadings expected from this style of song, but it also gains an added sense of dramatic weight from Burleigh Drummond's thick drumming and piercing, emotional guitar solos from David Pack. The group also revives their early progressive sound on "Ice Age," an impressive epic tune built on a militaristic drum pattern, heavy power chords, and Pink Floyd-styled sound effects. The end result is an album that harkens back to the blend of slick musicianship and prog rock imagination that characterized Ambrosia's early work. ...
| | Queen Sheer Heart Attack CD (1974)
Ambrosia CD music
$11.99 
SHEER HEART ATTACK is widely considered Queen's best pre-"Bohemian Rhapsody" album. Containing their first global hit single, "Killer Queen," it certainly qualifies as one of Queen's best all-time releases. Just prior to the recording of the album, Queen was making very important inroads in America by opening a US tour for Mott the Hoople, but had to cut it short when guitarist Brian May became seriously ill. Instead of moping, the band immediately began writing and recording SHEER HEART ATTACK while May recovered. Upon its release, fans were pleasantly surprised to witness Queen's growth--although there were still plenty of hard rock numbers, other musical styles were tried and perfected, while the energy of their live show shined through in many of their new songs.
The album's other popular single, "Now I'm Here," would prove to be a concert staple for years to come, while the opening "Brighton Rock" is a superb showcase for the many talents of May. Perhaps most significantly, singer Freddie Mercury really came into his own on SHEER HEART ATTACK, having no problem handling ragtime tunes ("Bring Back That Leroy Brown"), sounds from the Caribbean ("Misfire"), unaccompanied piano ballads ("Dear Friends"), or raging heavy metal ("Stone Cold Crazy," "Flick Of The Wrist").
Queen II was a breakthrough in terms of power and ambition, but Queen's third album Sheer Heart Attack was where the band started to gel. It followed quickly on the heels of the second record -- just by a matter of months; it was the second album they released in 1974 -- but it feels like it had a longer incubation period, so great is the progress here. Which isn't quite to say that Sheer Heart Attack is flawless -- it still has a tendency to meander, sometimes within a song itself, as when the killer opening "Brighton Rock" suddenly veers into long stretches of Brian May solo guitar -- but all these detours do not distract from the overall album, they're in many ways the key to the record itself: it's the sound of Queen stretching their wings as they learn how to soar to the clouds. There's a genuine excitement in hearing all the elements to Queen's sound fall into place here, as the music grows grander and catchier without sacrificing their brutal, hard attack. One of the great strengths of the album is how all four members find their voices as songwriters, penning hooks that are big, bold, and insistent and crafting them in songs that work as cohesive entities instead of flourishes of ideas. This is evident not just in "Killer Queen" -- the first, best flourishing of Freddie Mercury's vaudevillian camp -- but also on the pummeling "Stone Cold Crazy," a frenzied piece of jagged metal that's all the more exciting because it has a real melodic hook. Those hooks are threaded throughout the record, on both the ballads and the other rockers, but it isn't just that this is poppier, it's that they're able to execute their drama with flair and style. There are still references to mystical worlds ("Lily of the Valley," "In the Lap of Gods") but the fantasy does not overwhelm as it did on the first ...
| | No Stars, Just Talent CD (1999)
Ambrosia music CDs
$4.49
| | Cyber Core Compilation CD (1994)
Ambrosia songs
$14.15
| | Reubens Accomplice Bull, The Balloon & The Family CD (2004)
Ambrosia album
$9.89
Like the Weakerthans southerly, desert-bound (Phoenix, to be specific) cousins, Reubens Accomplice play angular and smart pop songs built on a sunny outlook to tweaker trailer park culture, strip malls majesty, and spacious adolescent plains. The band is markedly stronger on their more propulsive numbers -- take "Big Apple, Small Heart," for instance, which crunches power pop, Jimmy Eat World bombast, emo-psychedelia (points for new genre) and waves of noise all into the same song. The country-pop twang of "Underneath the Golden Grain" sounds like Limbeck, and "All Chorus" recalls the more McCartney-inspired moments of Saves the Day's In Reverie, but with an epic grandeur that band never really aims for. The Bull, the Balloon and the Family is not a perfect album, but Reubens Accomplice has made good on the promise of their debut, and created a record that is not only as melodic and moving as the average emo fare, but more rocking and more true to themselves and their experiences. ...
| | More Music From Films Of Steven Spielberg Music From The Films Of Steven Spielberg CDs (2005) Original Soundtrack
Ambrosia CD music
$16.09
Silva Screen Records, which specializes in re-recordings of film music, usually (as here) performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, has had occasion to consider the music featured in films directed by Steven Spielberg before, and this compilation draws from a similarly titled 1997 collection in its Hollywood Directors series, as well as releases featuring the work of composer John Williams. Williams, of course, worked with Spielberg consistently starting with the director's first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974), and he is responsible for all but five of the 28 cues heard here. A bushel of Academy Award nominations and several statuettes have resulted, and the box office success of the films has helped such Williams themes as the ones from Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial enter the long-term memories of filmgoers across the decades. The orchestra ...
| | Lydia Mendoza La Alondra De La Frontera Con Orquesta Falcon CD (2006)
Ambrosia music CDs
$14.49
The legendary Tejano singer and guitarist Lydia Mendoza, known as "the Lark of the Border," is heard here accompanied by a small orchestra, including accordion and mariachis, ...
| | Tiesto In Search Of Sunrise Vol. 5 CDs (2006) (Import) Germany
Ambrosia songs
$16.99
Trance maestro DJ Tiesto returns for the fifth installment of his ...
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