The Appearances Can Be Deceptive Review!!!!!

Never judge a book (or a record for that matter) by its cover. I first bought this album on LP from Old Hitz in Newcastle in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s. It was a reissue on the Thunderbolt label in the most gaudy; horrid, yellow badly designed cover I have ever seen. 

To the naked eye the Thunderbolt reissue of Warhorse has absolutely nothing about it to recommend the listener to the music and as consequence as the years drifted past it was given the rarest and most cursory of listens. “Yeah its ok, nothing special, a few nice Hammond organ runs etc etc.” 

And this is where I went wrong because I put the evidence of the naked eye first and I didn’t listen hard enough with the naked ear as a result an Unsung candidate almost slipped under the radar.

Warhorse emerged in 1970 assembled by bass player Nick Simper following his ejection from the Mark 1 line up of Deep Purple. The band itself was initially put together as a backing group for soul singer Marsha Hunt and this initial line up featured Rick Wakeman on keyboards. Simper then decided to retain this line up to realise his post Purple musical vision although Wakeman was subsequently jettisoned to be replaced by the inbound Frank Wilson and the Mark 1 line up of Warhorse was in place. In addition to Wilson and Simper the rest of the line up was completed by Ged Peck on guitar, soul singer and Deep Purple Mk 1 candidate Ashley Holt on vocals and future Gong sticks man Mac Poole on drums.

The band was able to secure a deal with the Vertigo label, also home of Black Sabbath. Strangely enough despite Simper’s pedigree with the Mark 1 line up of Deep Purple, who were infinitely more successful in the USA than in the UK, no USA deal was forthcoming thus removing an avenue whereby the band could have possibly exploited the Simper/Purple connection. 

Warhorse are very much a product of their time – a product of the fledgling UK heavy rock scene of the early 70’s, gritty driving guitar propelled rock with classically tinged Hammond organ work, and screamed vocals at the forefront.

Hang on a second haven’t we seen this formula at work somewhere before? 

Stylistically what Warhorse represented was Simper sticking to what he knew. The easiest way to describe Warhorse is really as a continuation of Deep Purple Mark 1. This album takes Deep Purple’s self titled third album as its blue print and builds on its foundations. It is a direct musical progression from the third album without ever getting as heavy as the Mark 2 Purple lines up did on In Rock. As I said many of the familiar Mark 1 Purple trademarks are in place but this album is better defined than Purple’s third effort, it benefits from stronger production, it has a smoother and much darker sound and above all it has a stronger material. That’s not to diss the third Mark 1 album, which is a fine album in its own right and one of my favourite Deep Purple releases. 

Imagine if you can if Mark 1 Purple had only parted with Rod Evans and had retained Simper in a Gillan fronted line up then this is the sound that Warhorse purveyed on their debut album. In fact Mark 2 Purple actually beat them to the punch on their first release the single Hallelujah, but the style was quickly rejected in favour of the all out aural assault of In Rock.

So what of the music itself — inevitably there are strong parallels between the two groups. In fact Simper even goes as far as retaining some musical ideas from the Mark 1 Purple canon and recycles them to good effect without ever devaluing either the old tracks or the new material. The original LP had 7 tracks, 6 originals and 1 cover. It kicks off with the driving Vulture Blood. This song effectively sets out the style of the album to follow in just over six minutes. Ushered in by some gothic church like organ from Frank Wilson, Vulture Blood is based on a riff that isn’t a million miles away from being a funked up distant cousin of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. Ged Pecks playing is gritty and bears close similarity to Blackmore’s sound in places. Ashley Holt displays enough vocal prowess to suggest that a recount in the ballot to decide the Mark 1 vocalist might have been necessary, as he is more suited for hard rock than eventual choice Rod Evans. He even displays enough vocal agility to throw in a few hard rock screams although he isn’t in the same league as other notable screamers of the era such as Ian Gillan or Glenn Hughes. 

No Chance slows the pace down a touch, its not a blues as such but it casts a forward looking glance to Deep Purples 1972 b side When a Blind Man Cries, again features some fine Blackmoresque guitar work and a superb Hammond organ flourish near the end that Jon Lord would have been proud of. 

Burning picks up the tempo again with a driving riff which owes a clear debt to Bird Has Flown from the third Mark 1 LP. Its fast paced rocker which features a superb Hammond organ flourish and also some driving bass playing from Nic Simper which clearly refutes any claims by his former band mates that stylistically he couldn’t cut it has a hard rock bassist. 

Track 4 — also the single from the album – the Vanda Young song St Louis – follows the Purple/ Vanilla fudge tradition of rocking up a standard. But if this was to be their equivalent of Hush then it fails, at least commercially as it failed to repeat the trend set by Purple covers Hush and Kentucky Woman and trouble the charts. Nevertheless from a musical standpoint it’s a success though. Kicked off by a slight 3 note riff (not a million miles away from label mates Black Sabbath’s Paranoid), St Louis takes the baton and maintains the fast tempo from Burning. However whereas the rest of the album has a dark and brooding feel to it St Louis is bright and upbeat, it’s an unashamedly commercial track. It features some superb keyboard playing from Frank Wilson and some great but altogether too brief wah wah guitar work from Ged Peck.

Next in line is Ritual and this is the track which kicked off side 2 on the original vinyl LP. Its a good mid paced rock work out based on a riff reminiscent of Purple’s Wring That Neck, with Ashley Holt’s rasping vocals at the forefront, Peck and Wilson both take it in turns to solo with Peck edging the proceedings.

Solitude takes this pace down again; a slow brooding number built on a solid foundation laid down by Frank Wilson’s keyboard. Wilson takes a backseat on this track occupying a backing roll whilst Peck takes the honours and pulls off a couple of good echoed guitar solos. Ashley Holt delivers a powerful vocal performance throughout the song but I get the sense that its his least convincing on the album and that he is much better suited to the more up-tempo material.

The final track of the original album Woman of the Devil also begins with a slow keyboard led riff that predates Deep Purple’s Perfect Strangers by some 14 years. The keyboard is soon echoed by the bass, drums and guitar which gradually gathers pace before evolving into an up tempo funk riff driven by Nic Simper whose bass playing is solid throughout. It’s a faster paced song and Ashley Holt’s vocal style is better suited here than on the previous track and he offers up some Gillanesque type screams. Frank Wilson is afforded the opportunity to solo once again and dovetails well with Ged Peck mid way through the track.

The remainder of the remastered CD is given over to bonus material, includes live versions of Ritual, Solitude, Woman of the Devil and Burning which are very faithful to the studio originals. The fifth bonus track is the one of real interest this is Miss Jane a Nic Simper composition. This is the original demo for the band and is totally unrepresentative of the eventual sound of the band being a very up tempo, almost country tinged song with an occasional very slight beat pop feel in places.

And that’s it. Warhorse released only one more LP entitled Red Sea which appeared in 1971 and mirrored its predecessor and was met by commercial indifference, the band soldiered on for a couple of more years before calling to a day in 1974. 

Joolio