Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The children of the night who serve the ideal that the journey is an adventure, no matter where it leads you, always seem to create the best music, as if they not only place themselves in the company of spirits and the bounty of storytellers who see the beauty and strength that comes from being Chased By Wolves and the sensual application of imagination.
It is through the necessity of storytellers that we seek the pleasure of giving ourselves over to the freedom that rebellion provides, whether that is in the arms of going against the system, or finding the place where our minds can rest easy, not paying attention to the drama of others, this in itself is the highest form of self-care and one in which those who feel the urge to be chased by wolves know they will have stories to speak of afterwards.
For Indie Rock band Flight Brigade, the chase is one in which the temptation of the natural musical storyteller, the one immersed in the Progressive, is at hand, perhaps unconsciously, and not in the sense of long overwhelming narratives extoling the virtue of knights and demons, but in terms of laying down a tale and turning into a set of words and song that is both poetic and romantic.
Romance does not have to be found in the slushy or mawkishly sentimental, but it can be exhilarating just the same, and Flight Brigade exemplify that feeling with a strident resilience as they tackle subjects which would fit right into the heroic narrative, the affected of the times we live in and in songs such as Tinderbox, Mutiny, Where Eagles Dare, Alligators, How Your River Runs Through Me and the sublime Creature, this is the Progressive at its most elemental, its most baying, the rock heart pumping but with elegance, with the seizing of the demure.
Chased By Wolves is a set of songs that heightens the link between Rock and the Progressive without ever standing on the toes of either and causing a schism of interests, it is in the ability of the storytellers that such music makes sense and is to be praised.
Flight Brigade release Chased By Wolves on Friday 13th September on Rebel Cinema Records
Ian D. Hall