Argus
Wishbone Ash's Argus
It’s reappraisal time. When I was younger (so much younger than today) certain bands had a stigma attached to them. Obviously some deserved this, but many others were just as much victims of fashion’s fickle follies.
One genre more than any other suffered and that was so-called heavy rock. Now we’re not talking Heavy Metal, because let’s face it, men who wore drainpipe jeans, white trainers and sported Judas Priest t-shirts had no one to blame but themselves.
I’m thinking of those bands whose very names stimulate cider-infused memories: Uriah Heep, Tangerine Dream and the wonderful Wishbone Ash. Once able to fill arenas, they have been consigned to that dusty corner of the second hand record store where only those with long hair, misty eyes and well thumbed copies of Lord of the Rings visit.
It is one of the core themes of this online music magazine that we don’t give a flying Wild Honey Pie out-take whether a band is fashionable or not. It’s all about the music. And what music can be found on some of these albums.
Wishbone Ash’s Argus is a case in point. The band’s third album and the first one to show their full potential, it was released in 1972 with what has always been an iconic album cover. A Tolkienesque guard stares out over a mountainside, tinged through a psychedelic filter with requisite flying saucer. Barking, obviously; but it’s also both indicative of the music inside as well as being a calling card for its time.
But it’s the music that makes Argus a must-have addition to anyone’s collection. The album sounds like Led Zeppelin would have sounded if they were playing on a relaxed Sunday afternoon: it’s melodic, tuneful and the twin guitar is nothing short of magical.
The folk influences that would come to the fore on the band’s next album, Wishbone Four are here more subtly intertwined through the album’s seven tracks.
Opener, Time Was starts with a shimmering acoustic guitar that glides into Ted Turner and Martin Turner’s close harmonies that are so ethereally beautiful that they should send any boy band back to school, styled hair drooping in shame. Then, after almost three minutes of drifting on gorgeous melodic thermals, the full band soars in and the guitars go electric. Hairs stand up on the back of your neck, a beatific smile crosses your face and all is right with the world. Both euphoric and calming, the track sets the benchmark for the rest of the album.
Blowin’ Free ups the harmony ante from two to three. It’s Crosby Stills and Nash meets King Crimson without the scary bits. And it’s also superb.
The King Will Come stops you in your tracks. The lyric deals with some quite heavy biblical themes, such as the Second Coming; but then it was 1972. If that puts you off, don’t let it. The song simply oozes melodic invention and while the two harmonies sound strangely like Neil Young would sound a couple of years later on tracks such as Cortez the Killer, it’s a song that just demands to be played loud.
Leaf and Stream fully embraces the band’s folk influences and acts as a balm of calming rural soundscapes after the show-stopping previous track.
The album closes with some truly epic guitar playing in a sort of Riders of Rohan jam with Blind Faith kind of way. At the end you feel drained and sated. Then you’ll want to play it again.
Like the landscapes of Tolkien, the album’s epic, spiritual and mesmerising. It’s also largely misunderstood by those who have never actually heard it.
So next time you’re in that second hand record shop, head for the long-haired descendent of Middle-Earth in the corner, politely ask if you can peruse the racks and pick up a copy of Argus. It’s a quest worth the journey.
Or you could order the re-mastered CD from Amazon.
