Warrior

Once a symbol of the Vertigo label's adventurism, Jade Warrior's lack of sales led to their dismissal in 1972, which inevitably resulted in the band's disintegration. However, the Warrior's multi-instrumentalists, Jon Field and Tony Duhig, soldiered on at the urging of Steve Winwood, whose enthusiastic support of the diminished Warrior secured the duo a deal with his label, Island. Floating World was the new-look Jade's debut, a concept album themed around the Japanese philosophy of Ukiyo, with the songs revolving around two interrelated series of compositions. It's a complex set, and helpfully this reissue's excellent sleeve notes assist in making sense of it. The compositions may be interlaced, but the album itself is as diverse as any previous Jade offering…

If Jade Warrior's second album has any overwhelming flaw, it is that its predecessor traveled so far off the conventional beaten tracks of early-'70s prog that anything less than absolute reinvention could only be regarded as a rerun of past glories. To write off Released as little more than a slapdash shadow of Jade Warrior, however, is to overlook the leaps and bounds that the band did make. The opening "Eyes On You" journeys in on a positively spiky guitar and horn duel, while Glyn Havard's vocals have taken on tones that are far-removed from the Jethro Tull-shaped nuances with which they were once most readily compared. Staggering, too, are the almost bluesy guitar work-outs that leap unexpectedly in and out of the mix…

Once a symbol of the Vertigo label's adventurism, Jade Warrior's lack of sales led to their dismissal in 1972, which inevitably resulted in the band's disintegration. However, the Warrior's multi-instrumentalists, Jon Field and Tony Duhig, soldiered on at the urging of Steve Winwood, whose enthusiastic support of the diminished Warrior secured the duo a deal with his label, Island. Floating World was the new-look Jade's debut, a concept album themed around the Japanese philosophy of Ukiyo, with the songs revolving around two interrelated series of compositions. It's a complex set, and helpfully this reissue's excellent sleeve notes assist in making sense of it. The compositions may be interlaced, but the album itself is as diverse as any previous Jade offering…

If Jade Warrior's second album has any overwhelming flaw, it is that its predecessor traveled so far off the conventional beaten tracks of early-'70s prog that anything less than absolute reinvention could only be regarded as a rerun of past glories. To write off Released as little more than a slapdash shadow of Jade Warrior, however, is to overlook the leaps and bounds that the band did make. The opening "Eyes On You" journeys in on a positively spiky guitar and horn duel, while Glyn Havard's vocals have taken on tones that are far-removed from the Jethro Tull-shaped nuances with which they were once most readily compared. Staggering, too, are the almost bluesy guitar work-outs that leap unexpectedly in and out of the mix…

Jade Warrior never scored a hit single and it seems bizarre to think that anyone ever dreamed it could. Buried away on side two of its third album, however, "The Demon Trucker" not only has unexpected smash written all over it, but the words were large enough that the band's U.K. label Vertigo clearly felt the same way. One must sincerely regret there never came a day when a nation's pop kids were ordered to "throw their hands up to the ceiling, get out on the floor and stamp your feet with feeling." Or maybe they were, but only when Slade told them to. Coming from a band better-known for weird flute solos and complicated time signatures, the demand was possibly less compulsive. It's still a great song, though, one of the finest rock & rolling dance numbers of the age and, if the remainder of Last Autumn's Dream doesn't quite match those same pounding, resounding peaks…

In Jade Warrior's second album for Island Records, atmosphere takes center stage over melody, and jam sessions supplant structure. The record consists of a single composition. Parts one and two were needed because it was released in pre-CD days and the song took up both sides of the LP, identifying the entire album under a single title - an unwise strategy. "Waves" has no recurring theme; it opens with a Brian Eno-influenced ambient passage and meanders from there. Listeners find it difficult to identify the strongest passages, but the artists undoubtedly intended that the album be heard in its entirety rather than in small chunks. This might have seemed noble at the time, but it resulted in a nightmare for radio programmers who might have provided Waves with the airplay it desperately needed to push Jade Warrior beyond cult status…

Kites is more layered and complex than Waves, the duo's previous outing. The album reportedly took nine months to record, a long time by mid-1970s standards. The first half is dominated by Jon Field compositions, which are meant to convey the sounds of a kite drifting through skies that range from sunny and calm to stormy and dangerous. Dense and dramatic, numbers such as "Songs of the Forest" and "Wind Song" spotlight unconventional percussive combinations, ethereal wordless choir voices, and Field's gentle flute playing. Tony Duhig dominates the second half of Kites with a group of songs interpreting Teh Ch'eng, the Boat Monk, a traditional Zen story. This is a rare example of intense ambient sound, best realized in "Quietly by the River Bank," which begins with an ominous tone and explodes with the fury of a samurai warrior…

Jade Warrior never scored a hit single and it seems bizarre to think that anyone ever dreamed it could. Buried away on side two of its third album, however, "The Demon Trucker" not only has unexpected smash written all over it, but the words were large enough that the band's U.K. label Vertigo clearly felt the same way. One must sincerely regret there never came a day when a nation's pop kids were ordered to "throw their hands up to the ceiling, get out on the floor and stamp your feet with feeling." Or maybe they were, but only when Slade told them to. Coming from a band better-known for weird flute solos and complicated time signatures, the demand was possibly less compulsive. It's still a great song, though, one of the finest rock & rolling dance numbers of the age and, if the remainder of Last Autumn's Dream doesn't quite match those same pounding, resounding peaks…