Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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At one point in the mid-'70s, Horslips seemed poised to become Ireland's answer to Steeleye Span. But they also had a shot at being the next Jethro Tull (only a better hard rock outfit), or maybe Genesis, or even Yes in their folkier moments. Those events never quite happened, but Horslips released half-a-dozen superb albums along the way, becoming Ireland's most acclaimed folk-rock and progressive band.

Horslips were founded in Dublin in 1970 as a quintet playing a brand of folk-based rock music whose only parallel could be found in the early work of Fairport Convention, who themselves had only been together for two or three years. Where Fairport freely mixed British and American folk and folk-rock traditions, however, Horslips drew on their distinctly Irish roots, and were capable of playing straight folk material when the moment called for it, but weren't afraid to turn it up loud and hard, in the best art rock style, on the right songs.

Depending on the moment, Barry Devlin (bass, vocals), John Fean (lead guitar, vocals), Eamonn Carr (drums, vocals), Charles O'Connor (violin, mandolin, vocals), and Jim Lockhart (flute, tin whistle, keyboards, vocals) sounded a bit like either Genesis or Jethro Tull, and actually had stronger original material to draw from than Tull did. Fean, in particular, was equally good at playing soft folk-like passages and loud, ringing electric runs on his instrument, and could easily have held his own in a guitar duel with Martin Barre or Steve Howe, among others. But where Tull (after their first album) became exclusively a vehicle for Ian Anderson's wildman flute antics and complex, pretentious, satiric, and scatological lyrical conceits, Horslips, until their final years, had ample room for each player to show what he did best, and no single member dominated the group. They spent three years gigging constantly in Dublin, tightening and honing their sound to a fine point, and formed their own record company, OATS, to produce and release their debut album, Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part, in 1973.

That first album, with its mixture of traditional Irish folk instruments and a hard art rock sound recalling the Genesis of Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, outsold the work of many established acts in Ireland, and led to a distribution deal with RCA and tours of England and Continental Europe. With the release of their second album, The Tain – a concept album built on Irish mythological sources – in 1973, Horslips began finding an audience on the other side of the Atlantic as well. Their third album, Dancehall Sweethearts (1974), brought them to the United States and Canada on tour, and they followed this up with The Unfortunate Cup of Tea (1975). Neither of these albums was quite as strong as the first two, and both revealed more of a modern rock sound in their music and songwriting. The bandmembers returned to Ireland to take stock of who and what they were and what kind of music they would do.

Horslips returned to their roots with a Christmas album entitled To Drive the Cold Winter Away, released in 1976, which was recorded entirely on acoustic instruments. This record put them back in the center of the folk-rock boom of the '70s, compared favorably with such English electric folk acts as Steeleye Span (with whom they toured) and Fairport Convention. Additionally, as an Irish electric folk-rock band, even though they weren't overtly political, Horslips hooked into the audience of younger Irish-Americans during a period of wide, new ethnic consciousness-raising brought about by the renewed strife in Northern Ireland. They were no more than a cult phenomenon in the U.S., never remotely as popular as the Chieftains (who had a decade's head start and a ton of soundtrack appearances to promote their work), even with Atlantic Records releasing their mid-'70s albums, but it was a bigger cult than they would have had in the late '60s.

In England and Ireland, however, Horslips were a highly successful act, sufficiently popular to justify cutting a double-live album that perfectly captured their repertoire of this period, if not their sound. The group's next studio record, The Book of Invasions (1977), subtitled "A Celtic Symphony," was, like The Tain, inspired by Irish mythology, this time the story of Tuatha De Danann's conquest of ancient pre-Christian Ireland. Released by Dick James' DJM label (which also picked up their earlier albums in England, as Atlantic had in America), this album marked their only entry on the British charts at number 39, and also found a dedicated audience in progressive and folk-rock circles in America. It was an enviable string of releases, but one that they couldn't sustain. Their next album, Aliens, dealing with the lot of the Irish immigrants in America, was less inventive and exciting, and elicited far less enthusiasm from fans and critics. The odds-and-sods collection Tracks from the Vaults, released in Ireland, was a matter of marking time.

The Man Who Built America marked a major change in Horslips, who were now pretty much in the control of Barry Devlin and Jim Lockhart – Carr and Fean, with their more folk-oriented approach to music, took a back seat to a more mainstream rock sound. Two additional guitarists, Gus Guest and Declan Sinnott, turned up on the album, which sounded more American and less like Irish folk-based material than any of their prior works – the title track sounds more like John Cougar Mellencamp, or perhaps even Bruce Springsteen (with Lockhart's flute replacing Clarence Clemons' sax, and some gratuitous swirling keyboards) than the work of the group responsible for "The High Reel."

By this time, they were trying to compete in a wholly different idiom and arena, and there wasn't much left of the original Horslips. Short Stories/Tall Tales (1980) was the last of Horslips' original albums, and was followed by one more concert record culled from their final days, the hard-rocking Belfast Gigs. Carr and Fean later worked together in an R&B-based band called Zen Alligator before reuniting with Charles O'Connor in a folk outfit called Host, and Fean has recorded with Nikki Sudden and Simon Carmody. Meanwhile, Horslips were the object of two retrospective collections released in Ireland and England. Fortunately for Horslips, they retained ownership of their music through the OATS label, and this helped facilitate reissues on compact disc.

Biography by Bruce Eder, Allmusic.com

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Get ready for the ride of your life through Irish folk-rock styles. The opening track of the group's debut album, with its pipes, button accordion, and percussion, could pass for any Chieftains record, but then the electricity kicks in on "Hall of Mirrors," and the rest is melodic rock, not so much folk-rock as folkish rock, recalling early Genesis. John Fean sounds like he's playing folk melodies even as he plays runs on his electric guitar on "The Clergy's Lamentation," and the group follows this with an anthem-like piece of Gaelic rock ("An Bratach Ban") with a dance-like instrumental break. "Bim Istigh Ag Ol" is probably the best track on the album, and "Hall of Mirrors" and "Furniture" remained in their stage act for years, the latter, with its superb middle section – favorably recalling Steve Howe's playing with Yes on their early albums – transformed into a 15-minute epic. And just when you think you've got them pegged as a progressive folk-rock outfit, they deliver the exquisitely languid, almost impressionistic "The Shamrock Shore" and the playful "Dance for Yer Daddy," which sounds like the Chieftains with vocals until Fean's electric guitar kicks in. And Fean's playing on "The Musical Priest," by itself, is worth the price of the album.

Review by Bruce Eder, Allmusic.com

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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The most ambitious and successful of their early albums, Horslips' most progressive creation, and maybe the most successful rock concept album ever done, The Tain is rock put into the service of epic storytelling (or is it the other way around?). Based on the Irish saga Tain Bo Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), part of the Ulster Cycle of heroic tales, it tells of war and carnage brought about over the possession of a white bull, inspired by events estimated to have taken place around 500 B.C. This is a long way from Chuck Berry or Little Richard, but it does rock hard, and unlike a lot of progressive rock, The Tain displays considerable tension and momentum. Some listeners will detect modest similarities to Jethro Tull's work (especially on "Charolais"), but there's a lot less meandering here than there is on Tull albums, the flute playing is better, and the material moves forward in a fairly nimble fashion. It would be easy to praise John Fean's guitar, but Jim Lockhart's flute is just as impressive, Charles O'Connor's violin playing is gorgeous, and Eamonn Carr's drumming is dazzling. And the vocals are quite good too, sweet but earthy and honest, and not self-consciously profound – these boys had ambition, but they weren't full of themselves or too given to pretensions.

Review by Bruce Eder, Allmusic.com

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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At a time when Horslips were rapidly drifting away from their quasi-traditional Irish roots, they unexpectedly delivered this gift-wrapped gem. With the exception of Barry Devlin's electric bass and John Fean's occasional contemporary guitar stylings, this is a solid traditional Irish album and certainly the most autochthonous recording by Horslips. All 13 of the selections are of Irish origin, among them three Turlough O'Carolan tunes including the sprightly "Sir Festus Burke" (it is unclear whether it was ever intended as a Christmas song). It unfolds into a Celtic "wall of sound" featuring Jim Lockhart's harpsichord, with banjo, flute, fiddle and guitar gradually joining in the round. "Thompson's/Cottage in the Grove" is a pair of reels that progress in much the same fashion. This time, the concertina of Charles O'Connor is followed by banjo, piano, whistle, bodhran and bones. The nearest this record gets to familiar holiday carol territory is found in a passage from the hornpipe "Piper in the Meadow Straying," which bears a calculated resemblance to "Don we now our gay apparel" from "Deck the Halls." This was a surprising and risky recording for a mid-'70s rock band, but it definitely rejuvenated them and paved the way for their 1976 tour de force Book of Invasions: A Celtic Symphony.

Review by Dave Sleger, Allmusic.com

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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"That which does not kill me will make me stronger" might well have been the motto that Horslips adopted after the release of The Unfortunate Cup of Tea, their 1975 release. That album, generally regarded as their weakest, somehow gave rise to this, perhaps their strongest. Returning to their original formula of rock & roll, folk, and prog rock, Book of Invasions rivals 1973's The Tain as their most consistent and creative, and established the band as that decade's preeminent purveyor of those three entwined genres. Neither Fairport Convention nor Steeleye Span rocked as convincingly or consistently as they did, and Jethro Tull's fleeting folk fancies didn't qualify them as a folk-rock outfit. Often compared to Ian Anderson's group, Horslips furthered that notion with the opening chord progression of "The Power and the Glory," which is quite reminiscent of Tull's "Locomotive Breath." John Fean's electric guitar playing (especially when in tandem with Barry Devlin's bass) frequently conjures up Martin Barre comparisons. But it would be unfair to infer that this album is anything less than an original. Along with the group's first two albums (Happy to Meet Sorry to Part and The Tain) Book of Invasions: A Celtic Symphony set the standard for how next-generation Celtic rock albums would be judged. The degree to which they incorporated fiddles, concertinas, accordions, mandolin, tin whistles, and uilleann pipes into a rock & roll band was unprecedented in the '70s. This record was and is their crowning achievement.

Review by Dave Sleger, Allmusic.com

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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Horslips - Albums Collection 1972-1976 (4CD) Japanese Reissue 2008

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