VELVET THUNDER

Haze’s most varied and sprawling album to date, as they bring seemingly any influence they may have to the table, with a refreshing freedom to the music which is certainly impressive.

Veteran Sheffield proggers Haze have never been what you might call a prolific band in terms of their studio output – discounting side projects and live albums, new releases have always tended to be something of an anticipated event during their astonishing 46-year history. The seven-year gap between 2013’s The Last Battle and 2020’s Back To The Bones was not an unexpected one, but following that release they have come up with the goods in just four years this time – including a global pandemic, which quite effectively applied the brakes to a great deal of music. This is excellent news, as that 2020 album was a widely praised highlight of their long career, and I am certain I cannot be the only one waiting with interest to see how well they could follow it up, and perhaps more pointedly, in what direction they would go. The Last Battle had been a fairly traditional Haze album – though containing some excellent material such as the sublime Over The River – but Back To The Bones, perhaps reflecting the title, was a much harder edged beast. Despite the presence of Catrin Ashton on flute, the album in general possessed a much heavier, more raw feel to it, as if the band were being given a reinvention of sorts. This follow-up, then, could have gone either way – more of the same, or a return to lighter folk-influenced prog fare. In actual fact, it does both, and a whole lot more. Whatever else it may be, this is Haze’s most varied and sprawling album to date, as they bring seemingly any influence they may have to the table, with a refreshing freedom to the music which is certainly impressive.

The line-up is unchanged from the previous album, with the McMahon brothers Chris and Paul still the frontline Lennon & McCartney (or maybe one might say Noel and Liam, topically) of the band. Paul’s son Danny remains behind the kit, now a veteran of around a decade, and no longer the remarkably young musician who caused problems with Friday night gigs as he had to finish school for the day first, and is a big part of the meatier element to the band’s sound in these more recent times. Catrin Ashton completes the line-up with her impressive flute playing, though she does not appear on every song as it very much depends on the style they are exploring at that time. The physical album contains nine tracks weighing in at a good 64 minutes, though if you get the download from Bandcamp you get an additional 33 minutes bang for your buck (how big a bang I will come to shortly).

Looking at the main album, and having already mentioned the scope of the material, I feel that I must first of all deal with what is simultaneously the centrepiece of sorts, and certainly the most surprising track on display here, the eleven minute arrangement of the traditional folk song The Outlandish Knight. The band open the piece as if they are going full Steeleye Span with us, but as it goes on it becomes clear that they have quickly left Steeleye and headed off into that hinterland of the folk-rock map marked ‘Here Be Dragons’. It’s hard to describe the coming together of the disparate strands of folk, prog rock and crushingly downtuned Metallica-esque metal, and while wrestling with the best way to conjure the picture, my mind was drawn to an old episode of Friends (bear with me, I’m going somewhere here). Now, in this particular show, Rachel is following a recipe for English Trifle when she inadvertently turns over two pages together and mixes it up with a recipe for a cottage pie, with the result that, along with the usual custard, jelly, fruit, cream etc, there is a layer of ‘beef, sauteed with peas and onions’ in the middle. While the general reaction to this announcement is that it ‘tastes like feet’, Joey is alone in consuming it eagerly. When questioned he states that ‘I like it! What’s not to like? Custard – good. Cream – good. Meat – good!’ This is exactly the way I felt as I traversed the folk-rock rollercoaster of The Outlandish Knight: it may put some people off, but the take coming away from it in the end is ‘Folk – good. Prog – good. Metal – good!’ There is a false sense of folk security in an opening which has Chris (his only lead vocal here) intoning about milk-white steeds, ladies fair, and things numbered, reassuringly, thirty and three (trad folk will rarely have any truck with this new-fangled ‘thirty three’ business after all). After this, however, the horse drawn cart is turned upside down as the heavy goods vehicle driven by Metallica steamrollers into it with some sustained riffing brutality which would never have got near to a lute. It doesn’t stay too long, however, as the flute ushers in some more familiar folky tones, and from there we enter a lengthy section in which folk-rock and prog go forward and back between each other, creating a perfect ‘folk-prog hybrid’. Near to the end, however, Metallica hove back into view and make their presence felt by another perfectly timed assault of riffery, as the piece comes to its end. While the band have often had some folk stylings and influences, the sheer chutzpah of this one is audaciously impressive.

It would be foolish, however, to think of the album being dominated by this remarkable piece, as the remaining eight tracks are, for the most part almost as impressive, and on occasion even more so. The opener Flight Behaviour sets your expectations by blending prog , folk and even some Indian influences into a very satisfying, and ambitious, way to get things started. Right up next, however, is the real other side of the coin, as Not Alone is a shorter and more powerful straight rock track packed with uncompromising social commentary with which it is hard to disagree. It also contains one of this year’s most inspired lyrical couplets in ‘Do you think that our democracy has descended into farce / Do you wish our politicians knew their elbow from their arse?’ You really can’t argue with that one. The Waters Rising, up next, is by contrast a beautifully melodic folk-influenced, lighter-waving prog ballad which further ticks the boxes of quality. Following the extraordinary ‘meat trifle’ described above, it is back to something a little more conventional, as the aching yearning of Belong nods to a few Moody Blues influences, with Paul McMahon illustrating just how much he can echo the vocal style and quality of Justin Hayward when the material fits. Who Goes There and Parasite are two more excitingly progressive pieces, with the former having some stirring instrumental action while the latter is a little more edgy in tone, but both are excellent. Just before them, however, comes what for me is the weakest point on the album; the fun but somewhat slight Drinking With The Devil is a funky rock ‘story-in-a-song’ which might have sat nicely on Deep Purple’s Fireball album, with the lyrics straight out of the Ian Gillan book of roguish tales, but while it would have fitted him like the proverbial glove, it suits Haze somewhat less comfortably, and overstays its welcome a little over its seven and a half minutes. It perhaps has half an eye on raucous live performances, when it may come into its own. Happily, the album ends with what will perhaps be the highlight for many listeners, the mighty, slow build of Redemption, which takes you from reflective openings through to a climax which could have a good stab at taking the roof off. I can sense a set-closer at live shows here – and how!

That covers the main album proper, but if you are hungering for more then a trip to Bandcamp can get you the download including four bonus tracks with over a half hour’s worth of extra listening. Now, three of these are less significant perhaps, being worthy if not definitive alternate takes of Waters Rising, Redemption and Belong, but the fourth is an absolute revelation to anyone expecting all ‘nice but inessential’ stuff so common on bonus discs and the like. Changes In Time, running to a whole fifteen minutes, is nothing short of astonishing, and how room was not made for it on the main album proper leaves me baffled. The vocal sections are well done in themselves, but mainly serve to set into relief the outstanding instrumental prowess of the track, which sees the band stretching out and flexing their musical chops with obvious abandon. There is a huge chunk of classic early-mid ’70s Yes fed right through the piece, augmented by simultaneous conjurings of Hemispheres-era Rush – and yet it never comes across as derivative, more of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ as Isaac Newton (not Oasis!) once put it. The massive finale brings to mind the conclusion of Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful Of Secrets, particularly as performed on the Ummagumma live album, and all told it is quite possibly the absolute best thing here. If it had been allowed onto the main physical release at the expense of Drinking With The Devil, I would be running out of superlatives. If you want to make your bonus material indispensible, this is the way to do it.

Had this album come out before, or instead of, Back To The Bones, I feel that it would be lauded to the heavens. It is a mature and genuinely impressive work, and yet it is matched step for step by that preceding album. So, which of these two highlights of the band’s career is the better of the two? Well it depends entirely which version of Haze you want to see and hear – the relatively raw power of Back To The Bones or the sheer range of styles and inspiration washing up on The Waters Edge. Either way, this is a profoundly impressive release from a band now well into their fifth decade, and you really can’t ask for more than that.