Saturday May 11th 1974

Formed in 1970 around ex-Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper, Warhorse were understandably close to early Deep Purple in their blend of keyboard-colored progressive rock and early heavy metal.

The group coalesced when Simper left Deep Purple in 1969 to lead soul singer Marsha Hunt's backing band, which included Rick Wakeman on keyboards for a while. The backing band formed the nucleus of Warhorse, which recorded a couple of albums for Vertigo in the early 1970s. With their early hard rock/metal sounds and a singer (Ashley Holt) who could roll into over-serious, high stentorian vocal phrases, the group have also been compared to early Black Sabbath, although they lacked the hooks necessary to achieve the same level of success as Sabbath or Purple.

Echoes of Yes (in the keyboards) and perhaps Uriah Heep can be heard as well. Warhorse broke up in 1973, with drummer Mac Poole joining Gong, and Holt and drummer Barney James (who briefly replaced Poole in Warhorse's final days) going to Rick Wakeman's band. .

Warhorse's self-titled debut was a progressive rock-heavy rock meld that was even less humorless than that of Deep Purple, let alone Black Sabbath, the band that they got compared to most frequently.

There's a bit of art rock in the Hammond organ, and an operatic earnestness to Ashley Holt's lead vocals.
Titles like "Vulture Blood," "Burning," "Ritual," "Solitude," and "Woman of the Devil" are indicative of the group's desire to set a menacing mood, although the songs don't really forcefully hit the mark for which they were probably targeted.

A cover of an Easybeats song ("St. Louis"), of all things, is the only non-original.
Angel Air's CD reissue adds bonus live versions of four of the album's songs, as well as a demo, "Miss Jane," of a tune that didn't appear on the original LP.
www.allmusic.com

Warhorse's second album was basically more of the same prog rock-proto metal.
Sometimes it sounded a little more mainstream rock, as on "Confident But Wrong" or the cover of the old soul ballad "I (Who Have Nothing)."

Ashley Holt was tending to hit more annoying high notes, though; the warbles on "Back in Time," for instance, were unconscious models for the kind of singing so ably parodied by Spinal Tap.
The CD reissue on Angel Air has six previously unreleased bonus tracks, including a live version of "Ritual" (a song from the first Warhorse album) and five demos of Nick Simper compositions that do not appear on the two Warhorse LPs.
www.allmusic.com

16.10.2009. 08:03

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