British Battleshios

Released in 2015, Grapefruit’s 3-CD multi-artist British underground folk compilation Dust On The Nettles was widely praised, with a five-star review in The Times hailing it as “a delight from beginning to end”. A long-overdue follow up to that set, Sumer Is Icumen In tightens the mesh by focusing on the point when traditional folksong and the burgeoning late Sixties counterculture collided, largely courtesy of seminal acts like the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Pentangle.

Three CDs. Four-hour anthology of recordings that anticipated the late 70s Power Pop movement. Featuring Badfinger, Slade, The Move, Stealers Wheel, Pilot, Dave Edmunds, Brinsley Schwarz, Honeybus, The Kinks, The Who, etc. While the early 70s musical landscape in Britain was largely dominated by introspective singer/songwriters, Bubblegum Pop and underground Rock bands, a handful of acts bravely continued to pursue the classic mid-60s group sound. With the aid of increasingly sophisticated recording studios, they majored in crisp, muscular, hook-laden three-minute pop songs, bursting with chiming Rickenbacker guitars, irresistible choruses and Beatles/Beach Boys-inspired close harmonies. A few (Slade, Pilot, the ill-starred Badfinger) found commercial success, but the likes of Starry Eyed And Laughing, Shape Of The Rain and Octopus proved to be the right bands at the wrong time - too late for the British Invasion that had swept America in the mid-60s, too early to hitch a ride on the late 70s Power Pop bandwagon.

With a band patched together from the remnants of Mott the Hoople, British Lions is all swagger and little substance; music performed as though it's very important and vital, but with little in the way of memorable tunes or attitude. That's the late-'70s hard rock mainstream for you, and it's easy to imagine these guys slogging it out in arenas as a support act, which in fact they did for Blue Öyster Cult and UFO…

Crawling Up A Hill is a fascinating document of a genre that, though relatively short-lived, would have a seismic influence on the subsequent development of rock music.