The Stormcock Community

Well here's my delayed review

First of all, let me state for the record that there is no other album I would rather keep if I had to choose from them all than Stormcock. I have to confess that the anorak in me tried to find the vinyl copy to see what the differences are but sadly it isn't there. I most probably lent it to someone who cherishes it and keeps a guilty pleasure knowing that he purloined it when my defences were down and my brain was under the effluence! Long may he torture himself until he falls at my feet and begs forgiveness whilst I wield the Sharya Sword over his outstretched arms!!!

Havings said that the new digitally enhanced version is so much better. I have a good test of sound in that my digital hearing aids tend to whistle when certain distorting shrieks are emitted from my speakers. Stormcock doesn't do that even in the more complex passages which are rich with aural harmony across the sound spectrum.

I was sceptical about how much of an improvement there would be despite the fact that I am a bit of a techie and I've always believed that the process of digital sampling would render any enhancements of the original analog channels null and void. Roy has certainly gone up even further in my estimation because what he has achieved I liken to restoration of a masterpiece. Removing some of that aged and yellowed varnish to reveal the true colours in a way that we have never seen before.

Some of you may think that is overstated but for me with failing hearing after a lifetime of music, I get quite depressed with the poor quality that the big labels put out from time to time. The level of care being a trade-off between the cost of production and the perceived demand. I haven't a clue how many CD's Roy expects to sell but it would be a travesty if anyone who claimed to be a musician or a music lover didn't have this in their collection.

I'm not going to review each track individually because we have a separate forum for such waxings but when I eventually did get to play the album, SWMBO was singing along and swaying to the rhythm, thoroughly enjoying it without realising that it was the new release and not my home transcibed CD taken from a home made cassstte recording of the original vinyl that got nicked. <breathe now - gasp!!! wheeze!!!>

Sorry about the sentence construction. I was schooled in the old days when my English teacher asked the class "Children can anyone tell me what comes after a sentence?" and I thrust my little arm as high as I could and told her when she pointed at me, "The appeal Miss!". This cost me an hour in the naughty corner and my chalk and slate were confiscated for a term.

In those days, the Dominican Priests would rove the dark corridors in the floor length black vestments looking so much like escapees from Transylvania than St Wilfred's Parish Church. Fr. Eckersley with his nicotine stained fingers up to the armpits would put the fear of god into any child who strayed from the beaten path. Years later I sought revenge when as an acolyte I managed to secrete some aesophoetida into the incense and cleared the church at High Mass in a record time that even the local fire brigade couldn't beat. I was almost excommunicated for my pains, though I tried to justify it as an excellent way of separating the true believers from the masses, when actually all I really managed to achieve was identify those elderly parishioners who had no sense of smell! Enough of my reminiscing before I describe what I did to the Sick Box and why it was removed from the Parish vestibule by men in masks and gloves!

The reason for this diatribe is that the new release of Stormcock ably discriminates people into those who are purist traditionalist and those who know a good thing when it confronts them. I have recently bought a new USB record deck and so the transcription sound quality even at high sample rates says a lot for the primitive nature of the analogue pressings process and the kind of defects that are introduced. When the Decca plant was being demolished in the seventies, I bought one of the ultrasonic solvent cleaning baths for a business I was running at the time and saw first hand what a pressing plant was like. The Glass Masters were usually stored and protected as a significant asset but with the auction sale there were hundreds if not thousands of masters and incomplete pressings strewn about the place. The modern CD manufacturing process is an entirely different proposition.

Roy must have invested heavily in the time and materials to reproduce Stormcock. I only hope that he can recoup his outlay and make a well deserved profit on this masterpiece. I have no qualms about buying it again and in respect of the pleasure the songs have given me over thirty plus years of never being bored with it, the cost is truly insignificant and I feel that I owe a deep sense of gratitude to Roy and Johnny and of course Tracy for their efforts in recreating the single most important record of all time - to date! That's just in case someone says you can't say that because something better may yet happen!

Jimmy Page is absolutely correct when he says there was nothing so significant. As for the packaging, its encouraged me to reacquaint myelf with my optician, something long overdue.

I quote from the inside back cover Roy's own words,

"We are emotion
In our bones
And in our universe

The smoke and mirrors
Of our eyes
Can write
A labyrinth of verse

About beginning
At the end
To end
At the beginning

Of emotion
Emotion
Friend
Or fatal curse

Your choice
You angry man
At heart
Your option
Gentle
Primeval
Art
Emotion"

I think that about says it all!

Respect