Lee Abraham, was, as many of you know, the bass player in Galahad for a while, before someone noticed and now he isn't. He has also released a couple of solo albums before this one, one of which, View From The Bridge we reviewed in Silhobbit a few years back.

Yet again Lee has assembled a who's who of Southern Proggers to guest on his album, including Dean Baker (Galahad), John Mitchell (It Bites, Arena, Frost, The Urbane), Jem Godfrey (Frost), Gary Chandler (Jadis), Simon Godfrey (Tinyfish), Steve Thorne (Steve Thorne), Simon Nixon (Neptune's Sofa), Sean Filkins (ex-Big Big Train) and Gerard Mulligan

The album starts off with the atmospheric piece And Speaking Of Which, Lee playing keyboards and guitars over a Gerard Mulligan drum loop. Then Face The Crowd kicks in, much harder with chucky guitars and heavier drums from Mulligan, along with piano by Dean Baker. Sean Filkins provides the powerful vocals on this 6 minuter, and John Mitchell chimes in with a thunderous solo towards the end. Heavy song son!

The Mirror starts by taking the volume down a peg. Or three. This seemingly pleasant, yet sinister track features a great vocal from Simon Godfrey along with a contribution from brother Jem and excellent guitaring from Lexrst. The eight minutes of this seem to fly by! The following track, Celebrity Status, sees the return of Gary Chandler to the microphone. The lyrics biting at the heals of today's Celeb Culture, where people are famous for what? But what is it you're good at? he sings. And what better time would it have been to release this as a single, what with the final Celebrity Big Brother more like a "Who's That?" than anything else! With the "power of the internet" and its millions of websites, chat magazines and pointless TV channels to fill, getting famous has never been easier. All you have to do is sleep with a minor celeb (or get your tits out) and you're on the gravy train! But in 5 years time, when everyone is famous, then what?

So, after 25 minutes we've reached the supposed penultimate track! Luckily for us, the next couple, Black and White take up around 32 minutes! You gotta luv prog, innit! Anyway, Black is 14 minutes of heavy stomping prog, alongside more quieter, reflective moments. Another fine vocal performance from Sean Filkins. This leads into the 17 minute monster that they've called White. Heavy one minute, bombastic the next, but hold on, there's sweet and charming coming round the corner too! Stevie Thorne lends his fine lungs to this song, and the interaction between his and Sean's backing vocals gives parts of the track an It Bites feel. It seems to end several times, and indeed it does, but only to start on the hidded track Simple Song right at the end. Which is a nice and calm way to close the album.

Track Listing

And Speaking Of Which...

Face The Crowd

The Mirror

Celebrity Status

Black

White

(Simple Song)

The album is available from www.progrock.co.uk for under a tenner. That's a tenner well spent, in my book!

Share on Facebook