The 70s were an incredibly fertile time for music. The decade began with the earlier purveyors of hard rock and metal – Deep Purple, Black Sabbath et al – and ended in a similar fashion with bands like Iron Maiden and Saxon spearheading what had been dubbed the New Wave of Heavy Metal. Somewhere between the two metal-oriented goalposts, funk begat disco and progressive rock roamed the landscape like a giant self-indulgent behemoth; punk inspired a generation to create DIY sounds and the likes of ELO, David Essex, 10cc and Pilot were at the forefront of pop perfection. David Bowie and Marc Bolan bought androgyny into the mainstream and Roxy Music looked and sounded like they’d been dropped to earth by aliens. Looking back – maybe with some rose-tinted glasses – the 1970s seemed to be a time when new musical ground was being broken month after month.
Listen: Honeychain deliver a future classic on new 7″
Honeychain released their debut LP in 2017. Produced by Kim Shattuck, the record often drew parallels with The Muffs in that the bulk of the material straddled a fine line between hard edged power pop and melodic punk. In some ways, the lesser known act showed themselves to be better than Shattuck’s own band in that Hillary Burton’s vocals were often much sharper.
A new full length is expected from the Los Angeles based punks before the end of 2019. In the meantime, the band have shared a single, ‘Go Away’. If the single is a measure of things to come then the second Honeychain LP will be one of the best discs of the year.
NEAL MORSE – Jesus Christ: The Exorcist
Back in the 90s, Neal Morse was one of the most talented people to emerge on the prog rock scene. With elements of Gentle Giant and Yes mixed with the Morse Brothers’ distinctive own style, Spock’s Beard gave prog a real kick up the arse with their first three albums. Their third album ‘The Kindness of Strangers’, especially, marked the band as one of the new breed of greats since it blended some great proggy ideas with the pop charms of Jellyfish and Crowded House to create a record that mixed excess with a truckload of melody. It was a disc they would never better. In the early 2000s, Neal found religion and left the band for a solo career. His albums from then on featured some reasonable music but divided fans due to some very heavy handed and preachy lyrical concerns.
PROCOL HARUM – Broken Barricades
Having gained mass popularity from their 1967 debut single ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, Procol Harum’s career started with such force, it seemed they’d have nowhere to go but down. In the late 60s and early 70s, of course, bands weren’t always expected to follow their success – or even achieve success – instantly and that kind of open minded thinking really worked to Procol’s advantage. Across a series of varied but enjoyable albums released between 1967-1970, Gary Brooker, Robin Trower and company were given plenty of room to experiment. With the quirky pop of ‘She Wandered Through The Garden Fence’ (1967), they showed they could hold their own in the psychedelic world; with huge suites (‘In Held ‘Twas In I’, 1968) and an assortment of themed tracks on ‘Home’ (1970) they more than entertained the hardened prog fans; occasional Vaudevillian tendencies showed they also had a sense of fun and with various classically infused tracks they showed themselves as a cut above most musicians of the era. Prog, rock, pomp and even straight blues – for Procol Harum, nothing seemed off limits and yet their early works all still had a genuine coherency that some of their peers lacked.
An Extraordinary Life: Lavish John Wetton box set to be released this year
Following last year’s exhaustive box set of UK recordings, John Wetton fans will soon have another reason to celebrate. Before the end of 2019, the Wetton estate will release a deluxe box set of various solo materials, accompanied by a hard-backed book.
Although the final tracklistings and some of the small details are currently under wraps, it is believed that a couple of the albums will be expanded to two disc sets and various rarities will join the much loved albums.
More details can be found in the below press release.
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