Storm Force 10 [Import, Original recording remastered]

Steeleye Span | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 13, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Bgo - Beat Goes on
• ASIN: B0000011P1
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,419 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Awake, Awake

2. Sweep, Chimney Sweep

3. The Wife of the Soldier

4. The Victory

5. The Black Freighter [From "The Threepenny Opera"]

6. Some Rival

7. Treadmill Song

8. Seventeen Come Sunday

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The final album Steeleye Span made before their initial breakup finds their lineup in serious transition--the great folk guitarist Martin Carthy had returned to the band after six years away, but several longstanding members had left, and punk and disco had become their Scylla and Charybdis. Consequently, Storm Force Ten is their most experimental album, centered on a pair of long tracks that go rather far afield from the British folk tradition: a strangely glossy cover of the Brecht/Weill classic "The Black Freighter" (from The Threepenny Opera), and "The Victory," a multi-part song about Lord Nelson with a gorgeously harmonized chorus and an L.A.-inflected arrangement. --Douglas Wolk

Product Description

1996 reissue on BGO of the British folk rock group's 1977Chrysalis album, a collection of covers of mariner's rhymes& classical works. Digitally remastered from the originalmaster tapes with faithfully restored artwork, it containseight tracks, including 'Awake, Awake' and 'The BlackFreighter'. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars it has its faults, but is generally underrated, March 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Storm Force 10 (Audio CD)

An underrated album. An earlier reviewer suggested that the band had lost its way at this point. On the contrary, Storm Force Ten(and Live at Last, the following year), if anything, *redeemed* the reputation of Steeleye Span. They really DID seem to have lost their way on the previous album, Rocket Cottage, which was a very hit and miss affair. After that mediocre offering, Peter Knight and Bob Johnson left the band, to be replaced by stalwart folk musicians Martin Carthy and Jonn Kirkpatrick. This line-up, during their all too brief existence, came up with some lovely arrangements of traditional songs that are substantially more authentic sounding and pleasing to the ear than some of the material on the previous album (Bob Johnson was always more rock-orientated than anything else and, even though he did compose some Steeleye classics, he had an irritating propensity for re-arranging old traditional songs into nothing more than pop/rock numbers, e.g.,James the Rose, on Rocket Cottage, is just a throwaway rock song, completely robbed of any traditional `feel`). It`s great to hear Carthy`s vocals again on a Steeleye album, and Kirkpatrick`s accordion playing makes a welcome change.
I like all of the songs on Storm Force Ten. My only `complaint` would be that it is perhaps a little over-produced. I recommend this album and the other album of this line-up, Live at Last.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What do you mean, not their best?, August 30, 2007

By 

Gregory Zeigerson (NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Storm Force 10 (Audio CD)

"Storm Force Ten" is among the very best Steeleye Span albums. Every song is extremely interesting to me, and gets under my skin. I visualize the characters: the proud chimney sweep who only plans to work for the gentry, the miserable treadmill prisoners/laborers, the ecstatic girl about to turn 17, the army widow...What the band does with the interlaced voices and harmonies, and electric and acoustic guitars interweaving, is improve these ancient songs from mere folk ballads (and Brecht's strange theatrical songs) into something more ambitious. Some songs on earlier Steeleye Span albums, like "Thomas The Rhymer," while catchy, are essentially very simple, repetitive, rock treatments of their source. The songs on "Storm Force Ten" are more developed, with sophisticated experiments that work in every case to bring them alive. I am shocked that critics in the past, and many Amazon reviewers today, consider this a lesser work by this great band. My suspicion is that creativity and change of style aren't prized by many traditional folk music fans. But if you are simply interested in music that is magical, lyrics that cinematically transport you into the dramatic or whimsical or romantic or joyful or miserable stories of past souls, and into the sunny or dark atmospheres of places in distant centuries, and you don't mind--even appreciate--that the band uses different instruments than they did in another album, this is a not-to-be-missed selection of songs. This album, and the collection "The Steeleye Span Story (Original Masters)," were the first two Steeleye Span albums I bought, and they remain my favorites. If you like Dickensian tales, or shows like "Oliver!" or "Mary Poppins" or "Threepenny Opera," this album is recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant return to form, November 24, 2003

By 

mianfei - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Storm Force 10 (Audio CD)

After the commercial failure of Rocket Cottage, Steeleye Span regrouped seriously for the first time in their history, rerecruiting Martin Carthy and adding accordionist John Kirkpatrick for "Storm Force Ten".

Though this might have seemed a fatal mistake, in fact "Storm Fore Ten" was a surprising return artistic form, with Kirkpatrick's accordion adding a touch that had not been seen beforehand, notable at the end of the beautiful, complex Bertolt Brecht tale "Wife Of The Soldier", which Maddy, John and Martin turn into exemplary folk-rock. The next song, the epic "The Victory" was an amazingly enchanting epic of ever changing mood that yet managed not to repeat the same line in its eight minutes. The alternating lines of fuzzed-out rock and mystical folk - and everything in between - enchant in a way Steeleye had not done since "Sheep Crook and Black Dog."

The album's other Bertolt Brecht piece, "The Black Freighter," featured even more prominent accordion work and a tearfully slow chorus that actually fitted the mood of the faster sections of the song. Maddy's amazing voice here has more range and clarity than one might even suspect from previous Steeleye works. Martin Carthy's melodic solo reminds one of the things Tom Verlaine was praised lavishly for at the time of "Storm Force Ten"'s release.

After those two amazing epics, the simple "Some Rival" sounded like a return to earth, but Maddy's melodic and pure voice cannot let the song down. The a capella "Sweep, Chimney Sweep" showed that Steeleye's voices had developed on a par with the band's ability to produce original and challenging interpretations of traditional folk songs, a point reaffirmed yet again by "Treadmill Song" with its quasi-danceable beat and vocal inflections.

The closer "Seventeen Come Sunday" showed how well the accordion fitted into traditional folk songs, and the joyful voices sounded utterly quirky, and by no means serious. John's accordion produced a long yet brilliant melody that recalls the band's best years when it interplays with the fiery guitar at the end of the song.

Though overlooked for many years by both listeners and critics, "Storm Force Ten" is a blend of classic folk-rock and unconventional song structures that sounds like nothing you will ever hear. Though sounding more modern than Hark! The Village Wait or Below The Salt, it was the first time since then that the band was really on form - and at their best Steeleye has few rivals in the 1970s.