VARIOUS ARTISTS

High In The Morning: British Progressive Sounds Of 1973 CHERRY RED/GRAPEFRUIT

This is a fascinating collection, not just as nostalgia but because it reframes what the future sounded like then. The latest in these inspired year-by-year overviews sees “proper” rock acts of the day wising up to glam rock’s reinvention of the single, allowing shrewdly rationed use of the avant-garde to infiltrate the charts and alter the course of previously water-treading careers. So the influences of Bowie, Roxy and T. Rex cause festival rockers to tout their wares via the showcase of sub-five-minute pop gems, and some (like Fantasy’s The Award) succeed gloriously. Yet there was something in the water encouraging stylised, mannered vocals, a theatrical literacy and a desire to make guitars punchy and pinpoint rather than rambling.

Some of these survive as credible anthems that entered the pop culture, from Roxy Music’s Do The Strand and Mott The Hoople’s All The Way From Memphis to Faces’ Pool Hall Richard and Nazareth’s Broken Down Angel.

Three-CD, four-hour set of an era’s rock-pop overlaps.

Then there are halfremembered curveballs: Thin Lizzy’s Randolph’s Tango (where Phil Lynott clearly wants to be

Rod Stewart), Manfred Mann’s Earth Band Joybringer, Stackridge’s daft Do The Stanley. Even Al Stewart wonders if he could surf the wave, offering Terminal Eyes, somehow a rip-off of both The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus and R Dean Taylor’s Gotta See Jane. Caravan, Greenslade and Hawkwind, in truth, just keep on doing their thing, while Status Quo, with Caroline, double down on trusting their own name.

There are genuine salvaged oddities here too. England’s Glory were Peter Perrett’s first band, pre-The Only

Ones, and their Velvet Underground impression is a snarling treat. Perhaps Medicine Head best exemplify the moment, their adorable Rising Sun highlighting their shift from Peel hippies to pop-funk Hot Chocolate soundalikes. Few cared what they’d feel like in the morning: that hit train had to be caught!