Earworm

Published on 05/10/2024.

My nearest and dearest know how much I love playing the guitar, which I why, to supplement my non-Gary-Moore-level skills, I enjoy lessons every Saturday afternoon. I learn new techniques, my music teacher and I usually jam to some bluesy numbers from yesteryear, and we swap stories about guitar gear or our favourite musicians. I can actually thank Sasa for this post as it was he who turned me onto the ethereal, medieval, rock-blues-jazz geniuses of Wishbone Ash.

The first song to which he introduced me was Life Line. At a first listen, this one can boggle the brain. It starts like a proto-Black Sabbath single before adding second-guitar patterns akin to David Gilmour’s repertoire. A few eerie vocals and a more familiar ’70s rock sound later, and you may just think you have cracked the code to Wishbone Ash. Nice try! At around the two-and-a-half minute mark, the band kicks into high gear and you are left wondering from where the Iron Maiden-esque melodies came.

That is Life Line all over: just when you think you have got a handle on the direction of the song, the band swerves left and takes you down some sequestered musical alley, all in the most gripping fashion.

Life Line is just the first example in the plethora of unparalleled pieces in the band’s prodigious portfolio I was shown, yet retrospectively, it came across flat compared to what was to come. My guitar teacher beamed with delight when he insisted putting on the next few tracks, and I immediately heard why. I was taken on a journey to where the very essences of nature and history seemed to mingle with the aural power of modern music, and all of the songs that succeeded Life Line seemed to hail from Wishbone Ash’s 1972 third album Argus.

I have not spent as much time reviewing individual albums in my articles, except for tackling Ten Years After’s Woodstock 1969 and Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, but since I first heard these English rock pioneers, I have not been able to get their music out of my head. I dare say I even feel duty bound to spread the gospel of their work. As such, let us take a deep dive into everything Argus, including a little background and some suggested listening of my favourite songs.

Argus by Wishbone Ash

Anyone first listening to Wishbone Ash will find Argus a fantastic place to start. As evidence for that, four out of five of Spotify’s ‘Popular’ songs by the band are all from this album – specifically The King Will Come, Leaf and Stream, Blowin’ Free, and Sometime World. Let us have a look at a breakdown of the track list on the album.

Track List

A Side

1. Time Was
2. Sometime World
3. Blowin’ Free

B Side

1. The King Will Come
2. Leaf and Stream
3. Warrior
4. Throw Down the Sword

Live from Memphis Bonus Tracks

1. Jail Bait
2. The Pilgrim
3. Phoenix

Background on the Album

The album was turned around relatively quickly, being recorded in January to March of 1972, with the release date only a month later. It was met with critical and popular praise for its ‘musical grandeur [that] placed [Wishbone Ash] close to progressive rock’ whilst ‘they weren’t strictly prog either’, as according to Udiscovermusic.com.

One of the features of Wishbone Ash’s sound was the soaring twin guitars that went on to inspire the likes of The Eagles, Jethro Tull, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Opeth, Thin Lizzy, and Van Halen. Steve Harris of Iron Maiden was even quoted in a 2011 Guitar World interview as saying ‘I think if anyone wants to understand Maiden’s early thing, in particular the harmony guitars, all they have to do is listen to Wishbone Ash’s Argus album.’ There is no higher praise than that!

What seems to make such a complex vision of an album a success is its understated technicality that is accessible to the listener as well as its lack of pretence. The band know they can play, but nothing on the album feels self-indulgent. Every twist and turn is all for the greater good of the songs, not for the ego of the band. It is also a genre-bending phenomenon that leaves you thinking, even if you have it on repeat like I have the last week or two.

Now that we know a little from behind the scenes, let me get into what I think are the top tracks on the album.

Favourite Songs

I admire nearly every song on this album, but pressed to choose my three favourites, I would have to go with the following:

1. Time Was
2. Leaf and Stream
3. Throw Down the Sword

Time Was

Time Was is the first track on the album and opens with the kind of folk-style acoustic guitar that sounds like theme music to walking through an English woods in early May. It is mellow yet haunting, poignant yet transcendent. This plays out for almost three minutes, which seems to jet by in a blur, before you get that classic 1970s rock sound that would not feel amiss on a Blue Öyster Cult record. Another minute passes and there is a slow breakdown that makes the listener reflect on the lyrics, ending in what sounds like Gandalf having composed a Nokia ringtone before we get back to a raging guitar solo.

The rest of the song meanders much through the same sort of sections before the full 9 minutes and 42 seconds are up. What strikes me about Time Was is the fact that there is no point in this almost 10-minute epic that you are wishing the band would skip to the best part. It is beautifully constructed and grabs the listener’s attention the entire way through.

Leaf and Stream

The second song on the B side of Argus, or track five of the album for those cool cats with CDs or Spotify, is Leaf and Stream. The name alone conjures ideas of the sort of pastoral scenes that John Constable painted, and the musicality provides impressions of a ’70s-English-progressive-rock response to Smetana’s Vltava.

There are less distributaries and confluences in Leaf and Stream, but the sombre trickling of the notes is enough to engage the listener as the current flows through the whole four minutes. The guitar refrain after the solo is gorgeous and one of my favourite parts of the song, but I think it is the introspective lyrics, hearkening for a new spring, that tie the bow on this gift of a song.

Alone I’ve walked this path for many years,
Listened to the wind that calls my name.
The weeping trees of yesterday look so sad,
Await your breath of spring again.

Throw Down the Sword

Last but not least on Argus is Throw Down the Sword. This may not be one of the more popular songs on the album, but it makes my list of favourites for its strong medieval sensibilities that make it sound like the backing track to a perfect D&D quest. The lyrics are the ruminations of a weary warrior when the war is done, and they overflow with hope and nostalgia for a home not long seen.

Throw Down the Sword may be more particularly nuanced than some of the other tracks on the album, but the musicality brings the story into beautiful harmony. The pained vocals and strings at the start give way to a wounded guitar solo that rings within the deeps chasms of the soul before the spectacle of the denouement plays out. It all makes for an epic close to Argus.

Final Thoughts

Wishbone Ash were cooking on gas in the ’70s, but not quite having reached the heights of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, they seem to have slowed to a simmer since then. It seems like a musical crime though. The talent of the band is immeasurable, their songs are lasting works of art, and they ought to be at least on everyone’s classic rock playlist.

For those that may be a bit nervy about listening to music on the more experimental side, fear not! Argus is a fantastic album with which to start your Wishbone Ash story, and you will not regret the hour or so spent giving the full track list a listen. Do yourself a favour and check out Wishbone Ash today.

About the Author

Lewis Brown