BLACK STRAT

Kalimera Corfu! The beautiful sun-blessed isle at the northwest frontier of Greece is where these four talented guys hail from. Not much happens on the sleepy Greek island of Corfu, but Black Strat Band are the most exciting thing to happen there since the great naval battle of Arginusae during the ancient Peloponnesian War between the Greek city states of Athens and Sparta. Back to the present day now, and If the name of the band and the striking silver "V" on the album cover conjures up visions of a twin-Strat axe attack of Greek fire and fury - something along the lines of Wishbone Ash's twin screaming diz-busters with their distinctive "V" shaped black Stratocasters - then you may be in for quite a pleasant surprise when you hear Black Strat Band for the first time, with maybe the greatest "Eureka" moment since Archimedes pulled the plug in his bath. This is heavy Blues-Rock that's as cool and laid-back as an ice-cold margarita with a slice of lemon on a sun-kissed Corfu beach whilst reclining in the shade of a beach umbrella. There's no shortage of down and dirty heavy riffing though, so imagine Gary Moore on a Corfu beach with his custom gold Gibson guitar and you'll get the picture. Black Strat is a good solid album of Greek marble with no Achilles Heel, but the real twin highlights of this heavy duty blues-breaking album are the simply sublime "Girl with the Golden Hair" which reaches high up into the stratosphere with music as grand and majestic as the ancient Parthenon in Athens, followed by the anthemic, rabble-rousing grand finale: "Ships of Freedom" which, if you have a vivid enough imagination, brings to mind potent images of Greek galley slaves rising up and breaking free of their chains. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that's certainly the case with the Black Strat Band when they came back with the equally strong "Absence" album two years later. Finally, what do they call a resident of Corfu? ..... A Corfiot. Not a lot of people know that, but you don't need the wisdom of Socrates to know that the Greeks are top dog when it comes to prog.