You can trust Louder
Despite the ongoing dispute between the founder members the band’s twin-guitar-driven rock brand is still strong enough 40-something years on to flourish in any of the line-ups.
It was ever thus. Andy Powell was the only surviving founder member when this album was recorded with Swiss precision in a newfangled high-definition sound. The new band – guitarist Roger Filgate, bassist Tony Kishman and drummer Mike Sturgis – cope well in the unforgiving digital glare.
They are at least comfortable with the newer material from Nouveau Calls and Strange Affair but they get an audible kick out of playing the four tracks from Argus, and an extended medley of the first two albums.
Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 50 years. Actually 61 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.