Label: Steamhammer / SPV Records
Release date: 28.02.2020
Production: Andy Powell
Album length: 58.58 min
Genre: Hard Rock / Art Rock
Rating: 9.0 / 10
Wishbone Ash are rock legends. No need to go on about that. Their cult album “Argus” sits in every household in this galaxy that gives even a pinch of a damn about rock’n’roll. Their long-lived career, and let’s not forget the band put out their self-titled debut fifty years ago, is one of those with the “pioneer” label, one that inspired above all the generation of musicians who put heavy metal on its feet in the true sense of the word (read: the N.W.O.B.H.M. and beyond). The third-based harmonies that run through their phrases, the unique blend of hard rock, blues, progressive elements, plus a dash of folk and pastoral music on the other side, count as a unique recipe in the rock’n’roll universe, while the noble voice of Andy Powell gives the band its stamp and recognizable character. Wishbone Ash were in fact the first band to develop the formula of combining guitar phrases with harmonized third-based embellishments.
“Coat Of Arms” is the new studio album. Their twenty-fifth already. Six long years have passed between it and its predecessor “Blue Horizon” (2014), and in that time the band went through yet another lineup change, though it still works in the traditional four-piece format. The leader and original founding member of the band, singer and guitarist Andy Powell, brought a new partner in crime on guitar into the fold, Mick Abrahams. Second in seniority after Powell is bassist Bob Skeat, who has been with the band since 1998, while the master of time in the camp remains the excellent John Crabtree, who has also been in the band for a good thirteen years, and “Coat Of Arms” is his fourth album for Wishbone Ash.
The newcomer, guitarist Mick Abrahams, has thus replaced the experienced Finnish guitarist Muddy Manninen, who seemed to be tailor-made for Powell, and with whom the band’s picturesque twin-guitar setup seemed cemented for good. Well, nothing lasts forever, and Powell had nothing but good things to say about Abrahams. Not only does he have a vivid fingerstyle technique, but Abrahams, a considerably younger guitarist than Powell, played along to Wishbone Ash music as a teenager, spinning their albums while playing guitar, and so, as a huge fan of the band, he gradually soaked up the famously distinctive and fundamental genetics of the vocabulary of this great rock’n’roll outfit.
“Coat Of Arms” is an album that, after a six-year gap, still follows quite logically from its predecessor “Blue Horizon”. Wishbone Ash already served up a sentimental piece of work on the last album, one that effectively combined the essence of the past with the then-current chemistry in the band. It echoed with retro nostalgia and had a heap of tunes that spoke straight to the hearts and feelings of nostalgics deeply immersed in the band’s discography from the late seventies. “Blue Horizon” brought more subtlety, more refined arrangements and a “softer” overall sound than the slightly more frontal “Eleganth Stealth” (2011). “Coat Of Arms” largely holds on to that subtlety and pours it into the essence of a lineup for new times, even though the opening track We Stand As One doesn’t signal that right away. Built on the classic rock anthem format, which We Stand As One shows vividly, it is joined near the end of the album by When The Love Is Shared. The latter should really have closed the album, but the band decided to tack on the lucid Personal Halloween at the end, which brings a more direct bluesy “New Orleans” classicism into the vocabulary and so adds a slight stylistic detour compared to the rest of the new record’s musical substance. It even stirs up some funky kinetics, and so it’s even an experiment from a band that, after five decades in business, tried out something new.
The opener We Stand As One, whose lyrics lean on the latest ecological disasters, the kind caused daily by human faintheartedness and greed, which we’re all prisoners of and which calls for unity, since the planet is already swinging its tail back at us hard, is the album’s most bristling moment. The opening guitar phrase signals that. Everything is suddenly there. The third-based harmonies soaring above the lead phrase, Andy Powell’s exceptional, nostalgic vocals, breathing a magical charm and mystique into the band’s music. From there the album boasts more softness and subtle arranging. Powell and Abrahams keep weaving colorful “spirals” of twin-guitar interplay, firmly locked on the harmonized third-based melodies, and Wishbone Ash really let loose in the longer passages within the mid-eight sections, which can be stretched out at will, jumping between moods (modulations), and given how compact the band keeps its songwriting, it all just confirms what an experienced band Wishbone Ash are. Abrahams’ contribution is noticeable. The guy has definitely brought a lot of freshness, and you feel it especially in the parts where the two guitarists never run out of the red thread of nonstop, colorful ideas for ornamenting the phrases. One of the highlights of the whole album, which doesn’t hide its progressive elements either, is the sixth track, It’s Only You I See, written by Abrahams himself as a reflection on the Wishbone Ash classic You Rescue Me from the cult album “New England” (1976). Folk elements also come in more intensely on Empty Man. Keep in mind that the new Wishbone Ash sound very “Celtic” too. Special attention is also due to the gentle, delicate, balladic and melancholic Deja-Vu, which, thanks to its arrangements, with guitars contrasted against generous sustain effects coloring the background, and the harmonies too, even evokes some “Hackett-era Genesis” or “Hackett solo” mystique. Brilliant. Surely one of the album’s peaks, lifting the dynamics and bringing drama and theater to the unfolding of events on this record.
After creating so many compositions in their rich and colorful history, Wishbone Ash always face huge expectations for fresh material, and rightly so. “Coat Of Arms” is another superb studio achievement from a legendary band that stays true to its traditional (chiseled) style. On the new album, Wishbone Ash radiate expressive freshness, creative sparkle and even a cheeky playfulness, slaloming masterfully through the elements of the musical recipe that has always given them a unique place in rock’n’roll. The album never gives the feeling that the band had to copy from themselves. Powell and the gang simply made an album along musical guidelines they handle with feather-light ease, and on this musical proving ground they remain first-class masters of their craft. “Coat Of Arms” stands proudly on its own next to the most prominent Wishbone Ash achievements and is an excellent successor to its no less excellent predecessor “Blue Horizon” .Seen from the start of their career to the late creative period. An album that longtime fans of the band will be more than thrilled with, and one where you can feel the band enjoyed playing it through in the studio. An album that, let’s hope, will also get plenty of live stage treatment from the band, because it more than deserves it.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
01. We Stand As One (4:16)
02. Coat Of Arms (7:55)
03. Empty Man (5:17)
04. Floreana (5:14)
05. Drive (4:55)
06. It’s Only You I See (7:35)
07. Too Cool For AC (4:51)
08. Back In The Day (4:46)
09. Deja Vu (4:07)
10. When The Love Is Shared (4:21)
11. Personal Halloween (5:38)
Lineup:
Andy Powell – guitar, vocals
Mark Abrahams – guitar
Bob Skeat – bass guitar
Joe Crabtree – drums
