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> Login to your account > RegisterWishbone Ash
From page 82 of Classic Rock Magazine June 2011
Cover of June 2011 issue.
Reissues Prog-rock stalwarts’ back pages revisited.
“The lyrics were penned on an old paper bag while driving through
the USA,” Ash guitarist Andy Powell recalls of the genesis of the song In Crisis , in the sleeve notes of its parent album, 2007’s Power Of Eternity .
The same breezy good humour blows through all of that record, the follow-up to Clan Destiny . Opener The Power nods to the classic Ash of Mountainside , while Happiness is a funky tip of the hat in the direction of Steve Miller. The spirited twin-guitar assault of Growing Up , meanwhile, suggests this is a band just having fun being in the same room together.
Which brings us to Argus: Then Again Live , a version of their 1972 masterpiece recorded live in Washington in 2008 (at the suggestion of XM Satellite Radio) and book-ended with a number of Ash classics. If the subject matter seems more quaint than cosmic almost 40 years on (the title refers to the 100-eyed giant of Greek mythology), the slick delivery and speedy-fingered musicianship are reminders that Wishbone Ash’s longevity owes more to Andy Powell’s enthusiasm and the band’s sheer natural ability than to the fickle finger of fate.
Paul Moody
