OK, a quick brain teaser to start. How many artists produce their best work some 25 years into a career that promised so much at the start the start, but leaves the overwhelming impression of criminal disinterest by the big wheels in the music biz? Answers on a postcard.

In the late 80’s the Prisoners created a template from which so many often inferior British bands would cut their cloth. The Solarflares are the latest incarnation of the real deal from the Medway delta.

If John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townsend, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Barrett and Steve Marriott had made a pact with the devil that the fruits of their unholy union would have the talents of each, they wouldn’t have been disappointed with their love child Graham Day. The thread running through this album is of Day coming to terms with the fact that commercial success arrives in inverse proportion to his talent as a guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Opening with the blistering ‘State of Mind’, it would be easy to step through track by track extolling the virtues of each, but as this album contains 12 sparkling exemplars of Hammond driven Power Pop at its best, with no fillers, it would be a pretty long and dull (if enthusiastic) review. The pace never slackens, to extent that you are numbed to the sheer quantity of quality. Go back and listen to the tracks separately and the beauty of this record is truly revealed.

‘In Your Hair’ bears more than a passing resemblance to the Beatles ‘Rain’, but after it has had its head kicked in by the Who. Day ponders:

“There’s no need to be afraid, cos it’s your destiny
We tried too hard to find a decent place in history
When you realise how insignificant we are
It will set you free before you push yourself too far”

Quite.

Next up ‘Feet the Wrong Way Round’, an authentic Northern Soul stomper for people like me who dance like Douglas Bader. ‘Watch from Shadows’ is a darkly acid tinged romp through the psyche of a voyeur. In ‘Hold On’ Graham laments that “It would be easy to sink without trace” as he does no such thing whilst whipping up a riff that surrogate papa Jimi would have been proud of.

Finally on the deliciously psychedelic ‘Reflections’ we have a treatise on the self destructiveness of obsessive perfectionism set to a rambling Doors-esque organ part by Parsley the Lion. Can you see reflections of your mind? Here is your perfection, now you’re blind.

There still time for one more defiant swipe at the outside world before an album packed with the type songs that a charlatan like Jack White can only have wet dreams about draws to a breathless close … and as a bonus it features quite possibly the worst album artwork this side of the 70’s.
Les_Jun 3, 2006 @ 18:04