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Album link [Release date 15.09.23]
With their Steampunk ethos adding a nice twist to their individual take on rocking prog, Doris Brendel and Lee Durham have created and fruitfully harvested their own niche.
Seen most recently both opening for Fish and with Brendel as his backing singer, the core duo has certainly been mixing in the right circles and with shows with Wishbone Ash, their touring cavalcade the length and breadth of the country has put them in front of the right audiences.
Whilst their shows are always visually arresting, it’s always been the music that matters most and this, fifth, release is their strongest yet.
With the suitably soaring title track kicking things off, the sweeping prog a perfect vehicle for the singer’s wonderfully husky vocals and Durham’s glorious fretwork, the following ‘Better the Devil You Know’ bringing a heavy slab of AOR feel to proceedings that mixes 70’s hard rock with the sweep of the keys.
Given that Brendel and Durham have created their own sub-genre, they have the skills and palette of sounds to create whatever they want and the album is an ever-changing kaleidoscope that draws on a whole world of influences. Here, the dirty rocker with melodic and lilting chorus in ‘Fighting Fire With Fire’ sits nicely next to the smoky late-night blues of ‘Good Deed Of The Day’ that could have been born in New Orleans French Quarter.
Things get even stranger as you head down the rabbit hole to the world-warping storytelling of ‘Ghost’, the Led Zep meets Radiohead twisted thunder of ‘I Saw You’ and the strutting funky soul they bring with ‘Rock And A Hard Place’. Whilst they certainly know how to put the hammer down, it’s when the pair ease back that they’re at their most potent, the soul in Brendel’s voice and finesse in Durham’s playing coming to the fore.
Most strikingly on this release, the swaying folk meets pastoral Pink Floyd of ‘Rorschach’ and breath taking closer ‘White Rose’ are heights in just how to put together something that touches the soul gently but with a steady hand. Along with the stunning ‘Still Waters’ and the furious maelstrom of ‘Truth Needs No Colours’, the whole of ‘Pigs Might Fly’ is a sublime exercise in invention.
A wholly fascinating dimension to find yourself in, ‘Pigs Might Fly’ is a sound retort to anyone saying there’s nothing new in the world these days and shows just how powerful imagination and the talent to pull it off can be. Sublime. ****1/2
Review by Paul Monkhouse
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