Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Diagonal
Diagonal
(Rise Above, 2008)
The sound of vintage Vertigo reborn!
The summer of '76 saw punk's reductivism strike a savage blow against the notion of musical accomplishment, transforming 'prog' into the most pejorative of terms. Brighton's hirsute septet Diagonal will have no truck with this foolish notion, proudly reclaiming the term on this frenzied, brain-scrambling debut and declaring 'prog' to be more iconoclastic in its boundary-shattering aesthetic than punk ever was. Then again, a number of punks would have agreed with them back in the day; Johnny Rotten was, after all, a massive Peter Hammill and Hawkwind fan, while Captain Sensible has never hidden his admiration for Pink Floyd and Egg.
Musical polemics aside, Diagonal's debut is refreshing in its open acknowledgement of the band's influences. Produced by Liam Watson at his Toe Rag studio and released on Cathedral frontman Lee Dorrian's label Rise Above, this five-tracker marries the jazz-rock complexity of Soft Machine, Nucleus and Colosseum to the fiery Hammond-soaked approach of Deep Purple circa 1970 (specifically the cantering work-out of Wring That Neck. The result is both expansive yet taut, a point exemplified on the bombastic 10-minute-plus opener Semi Permeable Men-Brain, and the reflective jazz-flecked Children Of The Thunder God. The odd dud moment aside (Alex Crispin's vocals on the intro to Deathwatch are flatter than a pancake), Diagonal's first outing is daring, rewarding and ambitious.
The group's most recent recording consists of their contribution to the second instalment of MOJO's Pink Floyd tribute, The Wall Rebuilt, where they delivered an inspired and sophisticated re-working of Stop. A second album appears overdue, although this debut provides audible proof that, over 30 years on from punk's Year Zero, the term 'prog' need no longer be considered a four-letter word.
Phil Alexander
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 18/01/2010
Further Listening
Soft Machine – The Soft Machine (Probe, 1968)
Colosseum – Those Who Are About To Die Salute You (Vertigo, 1969)
Astra – The Weirding (Rise Above, 2009)
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