AFTERMATH

Preacher are a band new to me, but apparently they have been around since 2007, and this 2016 release was their second album, following on from 2014's 'Signals', which I have yet to hear. Hailing from Scotland, the line-up is rather unusual in that they are an octet, with two backing singers very much included as part of the band. Martin Murphy's voice is one of the highlights for me, as while he is closer to Roger Chapman and or David Bowie than David Gilmore, his vocals blend the three together in a way that provides real character to the songs. As to the music itself, it would be very easy to say that these guys have been influenced by 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and leave it at that, but to be fair to them they don't always come across as Floyd, but instead have taken a host of different Seventies influences to create a very special classic Seventies rock sound.

These are far more than mere copyists, and any band that writes a song dedicated to one particular recorded medium, "Vinyl", is always going to find favour among people such as myself. They say that they are influenced by Purple, Floyd, Yes and Led Zeppelin, and that may well be the case in their ears, but we all know that it is Floyd that is closest to their heart. But, and it is a big but indeed, they have taken it as a starting point and have moved with it so that fans are getting brand new music for their money, as opposed to just copying what happened all those year before. Highly recommended,