Wishbone Ash
Illuminations

Throughout the first part of the nineties, Wishbone Ash, without a valid recording contract, managed as best they could with a series of musicians coming and quickly going faster than through a revolving door. A few Live albums, a couple of Best Of compilations, and especially a decent live activity constituted the essential initiatives during those years to comfort and keep the band alive.

Until the stubborn Andy Powell, the only one of the four founding musicians not to have given up on the band's decline and by this point the sole owner of the Wishbone Ash brand, reorganized by recruiting three excellent musicians from America and making do with a small record label to release new, unpublished music.

The resulting work, dated 1996, is astonishing: a great album, in my opinion, among the top three of their career. What ever happened? Astral conjunctions? Who knows... the fact is that the music and sound are just right, no longer bound by the bad rules of the eighties: melodic hard rock in the Wishbone style, meaning lots of guitars, often playing in harmony with each other, and then delightful choral refrains, rhythmic creativity, good production, piercing solos...

The most important added value is probably the entrance, unfortunately one-time only, of a very competent singer, undoubtedly the best voice ever enlisted by the myriad of Wishbone formations, past and future. The worthy fellow's name is Tony Kishman, discovered by Powell while performing with his Beatles cover band (him as McCartney)! A beautiful clear and extensive voice, clean and expressive, not spectacular but with an enchanting quality.

On bass, Kishman is nothing special, and indeed they only let him play it live... On this record, the role is taken by the new guitarist, Roger Filgate, also recruited from the undergrowth of American Beatles cover bands. Like all the previous and subsequent guitarists in the group's history chosen alongside the unwavering Powell, this musician is a better soloist than the latter (there will be only one exception to this, as we shall see in the near future)! A great touch, sober and incisive, and furthermore with marked abilities as a composer, producer, and bassist. A real jack-of-all-trades.

My favorite moment of the album is found in “Tales of the Wise”, which has the eye-catching length of ten minutes and more. It starts magnificently, with sprawling guitars, like a (vaguely) blues ballad, graceful and melodic, made rarefied by arpeggios loaded with chorus and the bass plucking calm half-notes. After three and a half minutes, a drum break changes the atmosphere by introducing a medium/fast tempo, on which the bass becomes invigorated, and the guitars begin with their customary play, alternating between unison and harmony and then exchanging a couple of solos. By the sixth minute, the slow tempo with dragging guitars returns, but instead of resolving in a predictable last verse, it consists of four rich minutes of exciting solo exchange (four times) between the two six-string partners: a true festival of how to play lead guitar, penetrating deep into the hearts and stomachs of aficionados. Especially the fat and masculine sound of the Gibson Les Paul (Filgate) is something priceless, tugging at the emotions.

In the list of the album's excellent tracks, the opener “Mountainside” cannot be missed, a generous ride of over six minutes filled with good melodies, resonant guitars, effective rhythm changes, and great cohesion among the various components.

The next “On Your Own” is a moderately paced boogie with an elegant rhythmic pattern, with slide guitar inserts by Filgate that give it a vaguely "southern" feel, so rounded and appealing. “Top of the World” follows and highlights Kishman's very pop voice, well-controlled, especially when it stretches out and triple harmonizes in a heavenly chorus: a great pop-rock piece, I get exhilarated with these so fully displayed musicalities.

“No Joke” is the only one of the twelve tracks sung by the boss Andy Powell, pleasant and bouncy with the two guitars in absolute rhythmic affinity along with the bass, so much so that its nearly seven minutes go by without any waning interest or lengthiness, including the final segment once again in southern style, this time not relaxed but rather torn and angry in the manner of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Nothing less than positive can be said also for the semi-acoustic “Another Time”, also well-arranged and sung, with an instrumental portion this time virtuously akin to progressive and particularly a great showcase for the new drummer Mike Sturgis, a giant full of technique and good taste, a professional who has had the opportunity to play with everyone (Bowie, Elton John, Asia...) and also found the time to become an appreciated academic percussion teacher.

“A Thousand Years” is pleasant but less pretentious, also very pop-rock, you can tell it was composed by the singer as it has an unusual melody for Wishbone, but here amidst such excellence, it acts as filler. More or less like the subsequent “The Ring”, with the powerful acoustic riff, which for its part rather recalls the way John Wetton of Asia composes vocal lines.

After the pair of more straightforward and accessible numbers, the knotty rock blues “Comfort Zone” fits perfectly, with its heavy and ripped stride, the metallic bass in full evidence, the two twin guitars barking in harmony in the instrumental part. And rock blues vibes still linger in “Mistery Man”, with its catchy slide guitar riff recurring cyclically, supporting the vocal part which appears instead predictable, somewhat unconvinced, and overly orthodox; the slide solo is a gem, how good Filgate!

The last two tracks are short (the only ones under four minutes), the first of them quite insignificant... “Wait Out the Storm” is the only genuinely skippable moment of the album, while “The Crack of Down” (credited as a bonus track, evidently it didn’t fit on the vinyl) is one of those very English instrumentals already heard from Wishbone Ash but always delightful: acoustic guitars embellishing, and above them, the two soloists sketching folk-rock panoramas of castles and rivers, forests and galloping knights, clouds and dampness, lit fireplaces and tankards of dark strong beer.

“Illuminations” is an album title that couldn't be more appropriate, because, in the long pathway of the English quartet, it represents a truly luminous milestone. Twenty-five years ago, with this effort, Wishbone Ash expanded their vast repertoire with a fistful of songs among their most exquisite, well-played, and well-sung.

Five stars then... and it's a pity that this lineup also quickly dissolved, but the replacements will fortunately be up to the task. What a great album!