VELVET THUNDER

Camden on a Sunday afternoon is crowded at the best of time, but the scorching weather meant that locals, Londoners and tourists were all out in force milling around Camden Market or making their way with food and alcohol towards a packed Regents Park. Bucking that trend was a band of loyal prog fans, turning their backs on the glorious sunshine to spend an entire afternoon underground. Were they drawn indoors by the civilised décor of The Camden Club, or maybe by the hearty lunchtime menu? Well, that helped for sure, but of course the main attraction was the music. An album launch gig always has the feeling of something special about it, but this gig gave punters two for the price of one as both Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate (HOGIA) and Ghost Of The Machine (GOTM) launched their latest releases.

This was a gig for dyed-in-the-wool prog fans. Forget all that post-rock, prog-adjacent, folk-prog nonsense. These were two 100% prog bands, happy to write long songs, complex songs, and to talk about complex subjects. HOGIA certainly favour the latter, with the album they presented entitled The Uncertainty Principle. Physicists are allowed to nod their heads knowingly at this point, recognising the reference to Heisenberg’s 1927 theory. GOTM’s release, Empires Must Fall, is also a concept album, and is a continuation of the story in its predecessor Scissorgames in which the hero overthrows a tyrant, only to become the tyrant themselves in this new opus.

The venue was packed to the rafters within twenty minutes of doors opening and the afternoon started with a Q&A session with HOGIA’s guitarist/singer Malcolm Galloway and GOTM’s singer Charlie Bramald. This thankfully was no dry sales pitch, and Galloway’s opening comment of ‘I’m delighted there are so many people here, and I assume most of you just got the wrong venue and meant to go to the Roundhouse over the road’ set the tone, as did Bramald’s cheeky reply ‘You told me we were playing the roundhouse!’ Despite getting onto more serious subjects, the comedy style continued with Galloway asking Bramald ‘when you’re writing your songs, which comes first- do you start with the concept, or the music ……..or the choreography?’. The serious answer was that the music came first, and often keyboardist Mark Hagan was the initiator. In contrast Galloway said he usually starts with a lyrical theme and builds from there. Maintaining the light mood, the Q&A ended on a humorous point with Galloway referencing Bramald’s busy schedule by saying ‘there is quite a short list of albums you’re not on!’

After that entertaining Q&A session, GOTM took to the stage. The choreography was indeed curious with several band members wearing bright Hawaiian shirts, and others dressed more soberly (maybe it was the hat, but bassist Stuart McAuley looked a dead ringer for a younger Van Morrison). As expected, the set consisted of the new album, Empires Must Fall, played in album order. Keepers Of The Light was a great way to kick-off proceedings and showcased the strength of the band – energetic guitar-driven prog with big fat synth themes emerging at key points. There is no Floydian atmospheric doodling in GOTM’s music, and it’s nearly all high energy stuff, almost with an American brashness about it.  The Days That Never Were continued in a similar energetic vein, if anything veering towards pure hard rock. On stage, Bramald was the focus. His bandmates were somewhat static and would never be described as flashy in their playing, but Bramald fluid movements and expressive use of his hands combined with constant eye contact with the audience demanded attention. He reminded me very much of Fish in his prime.     

GOTM’s concept album about the inevitability of the fall of all empires might seem simplistic compared to HOIGA’s fare, but they got the prize for the most esoteric sounding song title with Panopticon (it’s worth Googling!). Here GOTM spread their wings in a longer and more varied piece that moved from a quiet synth and guitar opening through to Genesis-inspired keyboards during the main part of the song. It was an outstanding piece of prog music, and the audience really warmed to it judging from the enthusiastic round of applause when it concluded. The following Fall Through Time proved to be another highlight thanks mostly to the epic closing section with Bramald repeatedly hurling out ‘How did it come to this?’ over a pummelling chord sequence on keys and guitars. The short The One was a little disappointing, losing some of the delicacy of the studio version, but GOTM finished in style with another lengthy prog piece, After The War. As it concluded, the audience spontaneously stood up and applauded wildly. Without doubt a triumph.

The setting looked strangely spartan when HOGIA took the stage. They may have one of the longest band names in prog, but there are only two of them! Mark Gatland on bass continued the Hawaiian theme, albeit tempered by his shirt being partially concealed by a rather elegant waistcoat. Malcolm Galloway as always looked like a university professor, perhaps necessarily so since it would be hard to take seriously someone singing about Heisenberg and friends while wearing a Hawaiian shirt!

HOGIA not surprisingly opened with Certainty, the first track from The Uncertainty Principle. The contrast with GOTM couldn’t have been stronger with HOGIA‘s focus being more on Floydian-sounding landscapes and some quite beautiful soulful guitar playing. There was a change in pace with the following One Word That Means The World (Arkhipov) which was a more upbeat number with a very catchy chorus. That song is the tenth track on the new album so it was clear that HOGIA weren’t going to play the material in album order, and in fact they didn’t play the complete album, instead cleverly interspersed one or two older numbers with the newer songs.

Two other very different tracks from the new album were highlight for me. For the first of these, Galloway took to the electric piano (while Gatland sat on the floor and watched) and sung the gentle ballad Between Two Worlds. In the Q&A, Galloway had said he could never write a love song. Well, here’s one if he ever feels like changing the lyrics. In contrast, the title track of the new album was a near ten-minute opus that got into a tremendously good groove and again demonstrated some beautiful guitar work from Galloway.  Flautist Kathryn Thomas joined HOGIA on stage for that song and remained for the encore, the well-established number in HOGIA’s set, Century Rain. 

Satisfied fans streamed out from the Camden Club into the late afternoon sunshine, squinting Gollum-like to adjust to the bright light. Yes, they’d missed the sunshine in Regents Park but from the smiles on their faces I reckoned not one of them had regretted their choice.