Argus

About

Wishbone Ash learned their songcraft via English folk and jazz, as well as ’60 British traditions of white-boy blues, American R&B, and later-era Beatles. When their songs evolved, the four-piece became quite capable of honing said influences into a pop premium, and 1972’s <i>Argus</i> (named after a mythological Greek monster) showed they weren’t at all interested in plodding prog or in boring jams and solos. The English music weekly <i>Melody Maker</i> accurately said the band had the “most interesting two-guitar team” since “Beck and Page graced the Yardbirds.” Songs here shift seamlessly between folksy asides (“Leaf and Stream”), ascending anthems (“Time Was”; listen for its fab one-take guitar solo), radio-playable modal pop (“Blowin’ Free”), and ear-bending tempo changes (“Sometime World”). Sword and sorcery imagery plays a minor role (“The King Will Come,” “Throw Down the Sword”), but don’t hold that against them; the band rose out of Britain’s prog movement of the early '70s, and that stuff was also in the imagination of many kids then. It’s a great album, both as a stand-alone and as a timepiece of the era.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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