Folks, let me quote a few statistics that are salient to both me and this review: when I left London in 2014 for Dundee, the local population was reckoned at about 8.5 million, excluding the many “beds in sheds” residents I dealt with on a near daily public sector employee basis. At that time, Dundee boasted just above 140K, and since then the capital of the UK has outstripped my now home town both absolutely and proportionately (if you require numbers, feel free to search this internet that you are currently accessing) year in and year out. However, at the same time, the number of bands I’d be interested in catching live from those two cities has swung in favour of where I live and pay my taxes, not least due to the efforts of local power trio Solar Sons, and this review is dedicated to their latest self-financed/produced/distributed release, ‘Chameleon’.
If you are so dedicated or bored as to have waded through my normal drivel, Solar Sons has appeared regularly, riding high on an undisputed wave of musicianship to earn my praise. With the shadow of lockdown crushing the live music scene, Solar Sons, consisting of a three piece of two brothers and a cousin, exploiting the internet that is so hated by the money grabbing dinosaur presence of the likes of Gene Simmons, has released assorted free live jams to keep the socially isolated entertained, and more importantly, at least to an old sod like me who thinks an album doesn’t exist until I have a physical thing to hold, produced another genre crossing and impossibly “professional for the price” slab of superlative musical skill, namely ‘Chameleon’.
‘No Idle Blade’ opens the album with a full throttle Samurai ballad, driven on by beats that demand heads be banged, albeit at the risk of submitting an exposed neck to a falling katana. ‘Timelord’ follows, full of mysterious pluckings and pummelling riffs. I’ve no idea if this might relate to the most recent incarnations of the famous Gallifreyan as I pretty much stopped watching Doctor Who when Tom Baker regenerated (yes, I’m that old), but I only can say that the track is an absolute banger! Rory Lee explores every fret available to his four strings whilst complimenting the progression with Prog vocals like a master, all the time brother Danny exploiting the range of his Gibson like a virtuoso, the entirety being driven forward by the beats of Pete Garrow, the same frankly epic musicianship flowing unabated into the majesty of ‘Back Again’ and beyond. By the time the instrumental idyll of ‘Molten Mountain’ wanders into the trippy introspection of ‘Reflections’ it is more than apparent that the band is possessed of an arsenal of skills far in excess of their public profile and encroaching into the hallowed heights of Yes and beyond. ‘Captive’ starts with the rural stylings of early Genesis (please, please, forget their later stadium pop sounds; they were a good band once folks), managing to build a whole host of sonic layers somehow being created by a three piece, something they carry on through album dominating instrumental ‘Revenant’. The frankly indecently swift sub-four minute ‘Test of Our Time’ sprints by, entering the poppish jazzy realms of Yes when they professed to being the ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart.’ The altogether heavier and more savage growl of ‘The Wolf’ leads into album closer ‘Beyond The Stars’ where Solar Sons tread the sweeping mellow intergalactic journey that was once the sole realm of a Gilmour dominated Pink Floyd, guitar meanderings that the aforementioned virtuoso could surely only approve weaving through the track.
Bereft as they may be of any label support, and recording what can only be described as less than ideal DIY circumstances, the utter quality of this album is a wonder to behold. If you don’t consider “Prog” a dirty word, and are willing to immerse yourself into the superb skills of this three piece, I cannot recommend ‘Chameleon’ any more highly to you.
(9/10 Spenny)
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