Zox

Empire was originally intended to be a new line-up of Flash. The nucleus of the band were guitarist Peter Banks and singer Sydney Foxx. The band never got a record deal and cd's were released in 1995-1996 by One Way Records. The music was recorded in the seventies. Recorded in 1974, this has a few fillers, and it occasionally falls into the prog habit of going six minutes when four would do, but it's still mystifying that this perfectly solid collection would go missing for so long. Empire's sound bridges the West Coast funk of Cold Blood and the jazzy guitar of early Yes, and it works surprisingly well. The charging "Out of Our Hands" has some clever guitar effects thrown in, and a startling moment where Foxx's vocals rise up like a kettle on the boil.