Alan Reed - Honey On The Razor’s Edge album review

The best of Prog you can get this month

By Jo Kendall
( Classic Rock )
published
Cover art for Alan Reed - Honey On The Razor’s Edge album

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He fronted Pallas for 25 years, but was elbowed out in 2010, stating: “This is not a situation of my desire or choosing.” In 2012, his solo debut First In A Field Of One tested the water. Pallas might have washed their hands but an enthusiastic reception awaited Reed’s Caledonian-steeped solo work. Phew. So, five years on (and a little held up by his day job for BBC News), Reed flings open the doors to new album Honey On The Razor’s Edge with a no-holds-barred My Sunlit Room. Old band buddy Mike Stobbie provides oodles of buoyant keyboard from the get-go as neo scales further shed for Frost*-like pastures. It’s a perky listen, with poignancy in the ballad Leaving (duetting with Magenta’s Tina Booth), plus Fish-like ire in The Covenanter. Guests Steve Hackett and Lazuli’s Legolas-alike Claude Leonetti add quality and kudos, but Reed can be confident that, once again, he’s carried it off.

Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall

Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer with 23 years in music magazines since joining Kerrang! as office manager in 1999. But before that Jo had 10 years as a London-based gig promoter and DJ, also working in various vintage record shops and for the UK arm of the Sub Pop label as a warehouse and press assistant. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!), asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit, and invented several ridiculous editorial ideas such as the regular celebrity cooking column for Prog, Supper's Ready. After being Deputy Editor for Prog for five years and Managing Editor of Classic Rock for three, Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, where she's been since its inception in 2009, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London, hoping to inspire the next gen of rock, metal, prog and indie creators and appreciators.