SUSPENDED ANIMATION

80'S NEOPROG AT ITS BEST .... 40 years later

I'm a sucker for early 1980s neoprog, a magical period in which the British underground 'bounced back' against the dominant musical regime and yielded a great number of bands whose efforts to re-establish the musical language of the previous decade is only partly captured by the official discographies. Aside from the notorious 5 (Marillion, Twelfth Night, Pallas, IQ and Pendragon) a great deal of other bands just published demos, 7", live cassettes while they toured extensively the darkest and grimiest geography of UK's venues. Steering away from the technical dexterity of their forefathers, these bands had passion and power and have thus in part assimilated some of the new blood of the 1980s - they could be taken for postpunkers or new wavers even aesthetically but there is no mistake on where their heart lay, ad those of their audiences. This buried treasure of a scene I have myself briefly participated in when as a sixteener I spend a language school holiday in Cambridge, and every other night could just walk to the local pub and see who was playing that night - Twelfth Night in-between-singer-change, Liaison, Airbridge... Having recently been exposed to Fugazi and fact and Fiction and The Wake I was 'finding my way'. One such bands is Tamarisk, whose legacy is embodied by a couple of unfoundable singles and cassettes, and some CD collections published 30 years later. 'Suspended animation' for what I understand is not exactly new music, and it sounds just like that - and infinite musical enjoyment framed by pinkfloydish guitars, fishy vocals and Orfodian synths. What a joy... since the early minutes into the title track I'm teletransported to some obscure English gig in 1983 and love it. Tracks like PLUS!, The Penetration Gap or Total Coverage (this one I'm sure was played live at the times) are firmly in the Neoprog canon and sound just great. I just wish younger bands, instead of trying to sound reflexively cool and 'contemporary' would stick to this pure passional, never monotonous, fun-DIY sound style. A solid 4 stars for me, veering on 4.5.

A while back, Steve Leigh and I got back in touch with each other again. Some 30 years ago we were swapping letters (back in the days before email) about Landmarq, of which he was keyboard player, and I soon discovered his previous band, Quasar, but while I knew he had been in Tamarisk I did not hear any of that material until fairly recently. With the excellent 'Breaking The Chains' compilation being released, there is now a new Tamarisk on the block which features not only Steve but original singer Andy Grant, Steve's Quasar and Landmarq bandmate, drummer Dave Wagstaffe, along with Ed Rome (who had been guitarist on one of their early cassettes) and guitarist Tom Yetton.

What we have here is unabashed neo-prog, and genre which even some progheads look down on, but for those of us who threw ourselves into that scene in the 80's and 90's it contains a wonderful naivety with that mix of rock and prog which is a delight. Unlike some neo-prog acts who have moved onto different pastures since those days, Tamarisk are all about the time when it was possible to find bands playing this type of material in sweaty pubs and venues, totally under the radar of the media who were doing their best to pretend the music did not exist and would hopefully disappear (spoiler alert, it didn't). The new Tamarisk reminds me somewhat of what Credo were like more than 20 years ago (while "The Penetration Gap" has more than a hint of Twelfth Night) but given the history of the bands it is quite possible that Credo were actually influenced by them as opposed to the other way around. Steve has always had a wonderful touch on keyboards, and here he is in his element, while the rhythm section are tight which allows Tom to either noodle or hit the riffs, and then at the front is Andy Grant. He has lost none of the passion or angst over the years, and apart from the recording quality this sounds very much like something their younger selves could have recorded the first time around.

Both Steve and Andy were in Chemical Alice a million years ago, another band who have reached almost mythical status when Steve's replacement, Mark Kelly, was asked to join Marillion. Their time in Tamarisk had a huge impact on the scene, and with this new album they are back, and the result is a neo-prog delight.