Headcharger Against The Storm

Picture this: a big storm is brewing overhead. You’re careening through the backroads of rural Iceland, trying desperately to catch your flight out of Reykjavik as the skies darken behind you. You’ve just had one of the best songwriting sessions of your life, in a farmhouse deep in the Icelandic countryside, but none of that matters now. You’ve found yourself in a race against time to get all your work to the next studio and continue working on your album—one that just might turn out to be one of the most important of your entire career.

At age 54, Elliott Murphy has been recording albums of his original compositions regularly for 30 years, and unlike some musicians who have been at it that long (such as Neil Young, whose raucous, Crazy Horse-style guitar playing is echoed on this album's leadoff track and whose After the Gold Rush ballad "Birds" is covered under the title "Bird"), he hasn't changed much about his musical or lyrical approach in that time. The Elliott Murphy of 2003 is not very different from the Elliott Murphy of 1973. He still writes semi-autobiographical songs full of poetic imagery and literary references (The Great Gatsby and Samuel Beckett are favorites), and he still sets them to folk-rock arrangements that call to mind Bob Dylan.

Here it is, what is supposedly the final Skylark album which comes 20 years after the band's debut. Soundwise it's a continuation of the previous album Twilights of Sand, meaning a fairly speedy foray into female fronted power-pop metal. It's difficult to name similar sounding bands but think later Nightwish crossed with a little Evanescence crossed with occasional doses of pop that wouldn't sound out of place (production aside) on the latest Taylor Swift album…

The Storm was an American supergroup rock band, formed in the Bay Area of San Francisco during the early 1990s. The band is best known for their first single, the power ballad "I've Got a Lot to Learn About Love", which peaked at #6 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and at #26 on the Billboard Hot 100. The band featured three of Journey's former members (two of whom were founding members) - Gregg Rolie (original lead vocalist and keyboardist of Journey) on keyboards and lead & backing vocals, Ross Valory on bass and background vocals, and Steve Smith on drums. Kevin Chalfant, who had a #12 rock chart hit in 1982 as lead vocalist with AOR band 707 , was the lead vocalist, and Josh Ramos (who cited Journey founder and guitarist Neal Schon as a major influence) was the lead guitarist. Ramos had previously replaced Journey guitarist Neal Schon in one of his other, non-Journey groups Hardline.

The Storm's debut album, self-titled and released in 1991 by Interscope, was produced by Beau Hill. It rose to #133 on the Billboard album chart, scoring two Mainstream Rock radio hits with the #6 “I’ve Got a Lot to Learn About Love” (which also reached #26 on the Billboard Hot 100) and the #22 “Show Me the Way”. Their follow-up album, Eye of the Storm, was recorded for Interscope Records in 1993 but never released by Interscope.

Vocalist/guitarist Roger Hodgson must have really felt stifled toward the end of his tenure in Supertramp in the early '80s – despite co-writing and singing many of the band's biggest hits – because his solo debut, 1984's In the Eye of the Storm, is a remarkable work of explosive creativity…