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Reviews: Icarus Peel s Acid Reign, The Sweet, Kraut Rock, Fleur de Lys, 70s Classic Rock, Global Village Trucking Company, Duke Reid
by Dave Thompson
Shallow Oceans (CD/LP)
(Billywitch Records)
Mr Peel, of Honeypot and Crystal Jacqueline fame, has been absent from these pages for a while now - indeed, it’s more than two years since his Acid Reign alter-ego last strutted its raucous stuff. But
Shallow Oceans makes up for lost time with one of the finest guitar rock albums of recent memory… and that’s Guitar with a capital aaaaarrrrggghhhh, and Rock with the headful of concrete that Peel is clearly banging against the wall whenever he needs a drum break. (With apologies, of course, to percussionist Jay Robertson.)
It brings to an end a long career that began almost by accident when his Suffolk secondary school science master decided it would be a good idea to create a radio station with his students.
Ray said: “He wanted it on actual radios and we started, for want of a better word, a pirate radio station and I was one of the DJs.”
When he left school Ray found work as a resident DJ at a London venue in Kingston and one evening the management suggested a live band might be nice.
He said: “Being 18 and knowing everything, I said I can get you a band. The only band I knew was Blackfoot Sue, so we had them on and it was packed. He said, that’s great, can you get someone every week and I said of course I can, so I did.