The Fat Angel Sings

Out of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal in the early ’80s came two world famous bands – Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. But the lost heroes of that golden age were Diamond Head. The band was formed in 1977 in the Midlands town of Stourbridge by guitarist Brian Tatler, singer Sean Harris, drummer Duncan Scott and bassist Colin Kimberley. They took their name from a solo album by Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, and took their inspiration from Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.

In Brian Tatler they had a master of riffs, comparable to Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, and in Sean Harris they had a singer who came on like a young Robert Plant.One British critic proclaimed Diamond Head “the natural successors to Led Zeppelin”. Sounds writer Geoff Barton added to the hype by boldly stating: “There are more good riffs in your average single Diamond Head song than there are in the first four Black Sabbath albums.” For all that hype, this was one great band that never made it big.

While Iron Maiden and Def Leppard went on to superstardom, Diamond Head missed out. But with three great albums in the early ’80s, Diamond Head were one of most influential bands of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal era – and a huge influence on one band in particular. As Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich would say: “Diamond Head was fifty per cent of what ended up being Metallica. We got the whole thing about riffs and structuring from them. The other fifty per cent was Motörhead.”From the start, Tatler and Harris were the dominant figures and songwriters in Diamond Head. The pair were still teenagers when they created the song for which Diamond Head would always be remembered – “Am I Evil?”

Tatler recalled : “I loved Sabbath’s Symptom Of The Universe, and my goal was to have a riff even heavier than that.” Adding to the heaviness was an intro lifted from Gustav Holst’s Mars, The Bringer Of War. In this epic song was so much ambition, but for the 17 year-old Tatler, emulating Zeppelin, Sabbath and Purple seemed an impossible dream. “I thought I had to be a brilliant guitarist like Ritchie Blackmore,” he said. “I’d have to practice in my bedroom for fifteen years!”For Tatler, and so many young hopefuls in the late ’70s, punk rock was a revelation.“Seeing the Sex Pistols on TV, playing three chords, was a lightbulb moment,” Tatler said. “I didn’t want to play punk rock, but I thought, ‘Let’s go!’

It spurred us into action.” In this moment, Diamond Head were not alone. Across the UK there were other young heavy metal bands inspired by punk’s DIY ethos, cutting demos and self-financed singles, playing in pubs and clubs. By 1979, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal was in full swing. Diamond Head were in the right place at the right time. What they lacked was the heavyweight management that Def Leppard had in Peter Mensch and Cliff Burnstein – whose clients included AC/DC – or that Iron Maiden had in the aggressive Rod Smallwood. Diamond Head were managed by Linda Harris, Sean’s mum, and her partner Reg Fellows, who bankrolled the band with profits from his cardboard box business. As Leppard and Maiden signed to major labels, Diamond Head missed out. “We had Sounds raving about the band,” Tatler said. “I wondered, how come record companies aren’t knocking on the door? It was extremely frustrating.”

Their answer was to make a self-financed album on their own label, Happy Face. It was recored in a week at the Old Smithy studios in Worcester, and featured four songs later covered by Metallica: “It’s Electric”, “Helpless”, “The Prince”, and “Am I Evil?“

Also included was “Sucking My Love“, with a riff that was later echoed in Metallica’s Seek & Destroy. The album was titled “Lightning To The Nations”. The initial pressing of 1000 copies had pure white sleeves with no band name or title printed, hence its alternative name, ‘The White Album’. “Lightning To The Nations” was one of the defining albums of the NWOBHM. In 1980, with the movement at its peak, debut albums arrived from key bands including Leppard, Maiden, Angel Witch and Girlschool. Only Maiden’s was as great as Diamond Head’s.

In Sounds, writer Paul Suter said of Diamond Head: “They’re going to be stars.”In July 1981, Lars Ulrich, then 17, travelled from Los Angeles to London on a pilgrimage to experience the NWOBHM first hand, and at the Woolwich Odeon in London he saw his favourite band on stage. “I finally experienced the mighty Diamond Head face to face,” he recalled. “This was the pinnacle – true heavy metal heaven!” After the show, Ulrich schmoozed his way backstage and befriended the band. And after he returned to California, he kept in touch with Tatler, writing to him in late 1981 to say that he had formed his own band, named Metallica. Tatler later admitted: “I never dreamed that this kid and his band would conquer the world.”

Living On Borrowed Time

Eventually, Diamond Head got their major label contract with MCA Records. At the company’s insistence, the band’s second album “Living On Borrowed Time” featured a new version of “Am I Evil?.” There was also a song that was written to order as “the single”, in the style of early Foreigner, titled “Call Me”. Most impressive of all was the album’s opening track, “In The Heat Of The Night“, with echoes of Zeppelin in its measured power.

In March 1982, when “Borrowed Time” entered the UK chart at No.24, it was, Tatler recalled, “a fantastic moment for us”. Even so, Diamond Head were at this point playing catch-up to the NWOBHM’s two leading bands. Def Leppard had already started to make waves in America with their second album “High ‘N’ Dry”, and Iron Maiden had a huge hit with their third album, “The Number Of The Beast”.

In California, Metallica’s early club shows would regularly include as many as four Diamond Head covers. But there was no backing from MCA for Diamond Head to tour in America, or even Europe. Instead, after 14-date British theatre tour, and an appearance at the Reading Festival in August 1982, the band began work on a new album. The intention, as Tatler said, was to “push the boundaries”.

In doing so, they opened up a Pandora’s box. “The difficult third album,” Tatler admitted. “A cliché, and it was true for us.”Diamond Head were fast outgrowing their heavy metal roots. As Tatler explained: “We loved The Police, U2’s War and Siouxsie & The Banshees. We tried to pull in everything we could.” They were also reaching for the kind of sophistication that Def Leppard achieved with visionary producer Mutt Lange on the 1983 album “Pyromania”, which elevated arena rock to a new state of the art.

Diamond Head’s producer Mike Shipley had served as engineer on “Pyromania“, but the way that he and Lange worked with Def Leppard – “perfection mode”, as Tatler called it – was for Diamond Head a major problem. “We would struggle to play to a click track,” Tatler said, “and that started to fracture the band.” During the recording, bassist Colin Kimberley and drummer Duncan Scott departed. “Colin quit, and we fired Duncan,” Tatler confirmed. “It was terrible, really. We should never have done it. We were under pressure. Debts were mounting. But we lost something when Colin and Duncan went.

Canterbury

We had three complete songs “To The Devil His Due” “Makin Music” and “Knight Of The Swords” all either recorded live or demo’d on Sean’s four-track, which had been bought by our manager Reg. We set about writing more songs so we had enough for a full album. We had rough versions of “One More Night” and “Ishmael” , but they went through some hefty re-writes. It seemed that as soon as we signed to MCA our good material began running out.

We demo’d eleven songs, nine of which made the album. Sean was by now a perfectionist and something was either “brilliant” or “shit”; there was no middle ground. Once we had enough songs, we de-camped to the rehearsal room. We had the place all to ourselves, we could leave our equipment set up and spend every day working on song arrangements. The downside was that it was a bleak out-building with no heating other than a little wood-burning stove which our roadie, Andy Kitchen, kept stocked during the cold winter months of January and February. Lunch consisted of pork sandwiches from the butchers next door. We worked diligently on the new songs trying to perfect them for the album that was originally intended to be produced by Mike Hedges, but when he pulled out we decided to use the renowned engineer Mike Shipley to jointly produce it with ourselves. Recording began on 28th February 1983.

The band fell apart after that.”The band’s third album, named “Canterbury”, was completed with bassist Merv Goldsworthy (later of AOR band FM) and drummer Robbie France (later a founding member of Skunk Anansie). The recording budget came in at a hefty £100,000. On a purely artistic level, “Canterbury” was a triumph, a hard rock album both modern and classic. “To The Devil His Due” had the pomp of Zeppelin’s Kashmir. The title track had shades of early Queen. And if there was one song that should have made stars of Diamond Head it was “Makin’ Music”, the flagship single, a euphoric anthem that sounded like the future of rock.

“It was a very bold and adventurous, album,” Tatler said. “We probably tried too hard. Too much too soon.” But the music was not the problem. The real problem was a manufacturing fault that rendered the first 20,000 vinyl copies of “Canterbury” unplayable – jumping all the way through. All but a handful of copies were returned to retailers, and in September 1983 – just a month after Diamond Head played to an audience of 60,000 as the opening act at the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park – “Canterbury” duly limped into the UK.

By the end of 1983, as Metallica were revolutionising heavy music with their debut “Kill ’Em All,” Diamond Head had been dropped by MCA. They recorded demos for a fourth album, tentatively titled “Flight East”, and with a beautiful song, Today, that sounded like U2. But among the big labels there were no takers.

In 1984, Metallica’s version of “Am I Evil?” was released as the b-side to the single “Creeping Death”.

But in early 1985, Diamond Head quietly disbanded. “I felt that Sean was aiming to go solo,” Tatler said. “And really, we needed a break from each other.” In the late ’80s, Tatler led a new group, Radio Moscow, but failed to get a record deal. Sean Harris teamed up with guitarist and former Kerrang! cover star Robin George as a duo named Notorious. The debut Notorious album was made at huge expense, but a stinging review in Kerrang! – in which writer Jon Hotten goaded: “Never in a million years, boys” – proved prescient. The album was deleted three weeks after its release in 1990. “A complete disaster,” Tatler said.In the wake of these defeats, a Diamond Head reunion was inevitable. An album begun in 1990 was eventually completed in 1993, with Tatler and Harris backed by drummer Karl Wilcox and bassist Pete Vuckovic, who went on to lead the band 3 Colours Red.

Death And Progress

The album, titled “Death And Progress“, had all the hallmarks of classic Diamond Head – power, melody, riffs aplenty. It also featured guest appearances from two big names. Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine, He too a Diamond Head fan since the days when he was briefly in Metallica, played on Truckin’. Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi co-wrote and played on “Starcrossed (Lovers Of The Night)“,

Another figure instrumental in Diamond Head’s comeback was, of course, Lars Ulrich. The multi-million selling Metallica album – aka ‘The Black Album’ – had made them megastars, and for a huge open-air gig at Milton Keynes National Bowl on 5th June 1993, Ulrich chose Diamond Head to open the show. “It was our biggest ever gig,” Tatler said. “And it turned into a nightmare.”

The band was under-rehearsed. Tatler, suffering from a bout of shingles, could barely move on stage. And having wisely chosen to begin their set with “Am I Evil?” – the Diamond Head song most familiar to Metallica’s audience – they blew it when Sean Harris appeared, to general hilarity, in a Grim Reaper costume complete with a cardboard scythe. “It looked ridiculous,” Tatler groaned. What Tatler later discovered was that Harris had already decided before this show that he wanted out, and that the Grim Reaper act was symbolic.

As Tatler explained it: “His message was: ‘Diamond Head is finished, I’m moving on. “Death and Progress.’ So that was that.”

There was another brief reunion in the early 2000s. Tatler and Harris recorded a new album with Wilcox again on drums and Eddie Moohan on bass. The band laid down some strong material – the heavy “Medusa’s Gaze” a throwback to the early days, “Music Box” a lighter track reminiscent of the “Canterbury” era. But the album was never released, and Tatler eventually decided to move on with a new singer.In 2004, another Midlands-based vocalist, Nick Tart, got the gig with Diamond Head.

The new-look band toured with Megadeth and Thin Lizzy, and recorded two solid albums – “All Will Be Revealed” (2005) and “What’s In Your Head?” (2007). In 2014, Tart left the band by mutual consent, and was replaced by Swedish singer Rasmus Bom Andersen. Two years later, on the album that was titled simply “Diamond Head“, Andersen proved an inspired choice, with Tatler still conjuring up riffs that Metallica would kill for. This was followed in 2019 by another powerful studio album, “The Coffin Train”.

Tatler has since taken a new role as guitarist with fellow New Wave Of British Heavy Metal survivors Saxon. But he’s not yet finished with Diamond Head. As he explained to Planet Rock: “I do it because I want to, not because I have to. The Metallica royalties have made a huge difference to me and my lifestyle. Buying a house. Not having to work.” Metallica also brought Tatler and Harris together again in 2011. As guests at Metallica’s 30^th anniversary event in San Francisco, they joined their hosts on stage for a blast through four classic Diamond Head songs.“I don’t think of Diamond Head as a failure,” Tatler said. “But in life you make your own luck. Metallica had back luck, but they just moved forward. And that’s what Diamond Head should have done in the ’80s, instead of throwing in the towel too quickly.”There are, Tatler said, many other great bands that never made it big. King’s X was one. Lone Star was another – their album “Firing On All Six” was world-beater, but it just didn’t happen.”

What Brian Tatler takes from all his years in Diamond Head is a hard-earned wisdom.“ We were labelled ‘the new Led Zeppelin’. I mean, wow! But it was a blessing and a curse. There could never be another Led Zeppelin just like there could never be another Beatles.“ Not many bands get to the top,” he said. “Talent is not enough. You need what Lars had, that will to succeed. We just didn’t have enough of that in Diamond Head.”

British heavy metal icons Diamond Head release the animation video for “The Messenger”. The track is the second single taken from the upcoming live album “Live and Electric” out this week. 

“‘The Messenger (Live at the Cambridge Corn Exchange)’ Is a very powerful track. It started life in my head when I was watching Cradle of Filth live on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise” remarks founding member and lead guitarist Brian Tatler. “They played a song with a fantastic groove which reminded me of Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens. I thought to myself ‘that’s brilliant, I will try and come up with a riff for a groove like that’ and so I came up with “The Messenger” riff (everything comes from somewhere). We recorded it for the album “The Coffin Train” and played it live on the 2022 UK and European tour opening for Saxon. It always sounded good live, even next to classic Diamond Head songs like ‘The Prince’ and ‘In the Heat of the Night’. We recorded all the shows on the UK tour and thought this version at Cambridge was the mightiest. Heavy Metaaaaaaaal!”

 With a thunderous crunch and genuine ‘in-your-face’ production that places the PA up against your ears, “Live and Electric“, is a live album that delivers every nuance of that four-letter word thanks to a song selection that covers Diamond Head’s seminal career, and a sound that leaves you breathless in the stalls and smelling the sweat and leather of a classic British Heavy metal night. 

Recorded in 2022 on the band’s tour with Saxon, “Live and Electric” takes in performances from Aberdeen, Blackburn, York, Cambridge, Cardiff and Bexhill, creating in the process an unmistakably British energy which is superbly recorded and mixed by Jay Shredder, with singer/frontman Rasmus Bom Andersen mastering. By now, the rock and metal scene knows all about Brian Tatler, whose riffs have genuinely defined a genre as well as influencing one of the world’s biggest-ever rock bands, Metallica, but the contribution of Andersen to these Diamond Head performances is explosive as he bursts with power, presence and personality.

The first single taken from “Live and Electric”, “Helpless”, is released today. Founding member and lead guitarist Brian Tatler recalls of the song: “In September 1979 the song “Helpless” began life as a riff I was playing by an obscure punk band. I was playing it at the 5th fret and singer Sean Harris said ‘play it at the 2nd fret but play it faster’ and the song took shape. It has always been a powerhouse live and one of the songs that has never left the set list. Metallica covered “Helpless” on their “$5:98″ EP in 1987 which introduced it to a whole new set of Metal fans.”

The seamless way in which old classics such as “The Prince” and newer stormers like “Belly Of The Beast” thunder down the tracks is a testimony to the lock-tight no-nonsense foundation that Paul Gaskin (bass), Andrew “Abbz” Abberley (rhythm and lead guitar), and Karl Wilcox on drums add to the alchemy and the balance of respect plus reinvigoration for treasures “It’s Electric”, “Helpless” and “Am I Evil?” is electrifying. 

“Live and Electric” is a true roots representation of Britain’s metal communities, and a wonderful live celebration of Diamond Head’s distinctly British heavy metal music which feels as fresh, vital, and important now as it ever has before.

Charlotte Cornfield’s new album “Hurts Like Hell” is out later this month, and the third single is “Lost Leader,” which features Christian Lee Hutson. “This is a hard song,” she says. “But I also think it’s a little bit funny. Tragicomic maybe? It’s about a tormented frontman character whose personal demons and poor behaviour are getting the best of him. The story is told in second person but there are two perspectives represented here: the struggling artist and the disappointed fan. Christian Lee Hutson sings the part of the ‘lost leader,’ and though he only has a few lines he delivers the hell out of them.”

Cornfield is a sharp-eyed songwriter, who, like her contemporary Courtney Barnett, is particularly adept at both reinforcing and undercutting the emotional core of her narratives with quotidian detail and slacker silliness: “Music is my bread and butter,”

Cornfield began identifying the thesis statements of her favourite albums at a young age. Growing up in Toronto, Cornfield describes herself as a “real CBC kid”: Her father worked at the Canadian public radio station as a jazz and classical music radio producer, while her mother worked as an editor at a parenting magazine called Today’s Parent.

By 2019, Cornfield had already released two critically-acclaimed records, but she decided it was time to pursue music full time. She quit her day job and released 2019’s “The Shape of Your Name“, a breakthrough for Cornfield in Canada followed by her 2020 EP “In Your Corner”. 

From the album “Hurts Like Hell”, out March 27th, 2026 on Merge Records / Next Door Records.

Scottish indie greats Trashcan Sinatras are back with their first new music in nearly four years and “The Bitter End” is as sweet as the rest of their catalogue.

The veteran Ayrshire jangler pop release an instant classic single… oh yes it is! Just over three minutes of burbling, pumping later period energy, this track finds Frank Reader and his compadres older, maybe a bit more frayed at the edges (but then they always were, in a good way…) singing of regrets but tinged with hope as well. And is it true that this is their first new music release since 2016? And “more new music” is promised…

A timeless guitar chug/riff starts things off, more instrumentation is added and the vocal kicks in – a timeless melody redolent of TFC, The LAs but most of all The Trashcans themselves – “In memory of a friend, I’ll meet you again…”. A great roaring guitar solo, a touch of strings, Christ what else could anyone possibly want for a pure pop orgasm…? Well?

It is another triumph from one of Scotland, and the world’s, most underappreciated bands – as ever there is adversity but out of it come such beautiful melodies, harmonies…

Iggy Pop turns up on a lot of other artists’ records these days, but it’s usually in the form of gravelly spoken word. So it’s nice to hear him belt it out, duetting with the awesome Anna Calvi on this new single. Anna’s always had a little Siouxsie Sioux in her DNA, and she really lets that melodrama fly on this glammy, gothy stomper. She and Iggy sound great together, and it’s almost like he and Siouxsie are joining forces and mixing their own iconic versions of “The Passenger,” just in a brand-new song.

Anna Calvi – “God’s Lonely Man (feat. Iggy Pop)”, taken from the EP ‘Is This All There Is?’ out on 20th March 2026 on Domino Record Co.

Rumours of their demise as a band continue to be exaggerated, and even though Guided by Voices haven’t played a show in over two years, they are still cranking out records at a typically prolific pace, with their 44th album due out this May. “We Outlast Them All” sounds like a reaction to those rumours that GBV were calling it quits, or at least a challenge to all comers.

“We refuse to fall,” Robert Pollard sings. “Standing firm and thick of skull / Knocking harder-headed pricks up against the bricks / Of the playground wall.” Pollard has denied the song is about them, but whoever the subject is, “We Outlast Them All” is another classic GBV rock earworm.

Plus, the Matador Records-era compilation “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates” is now available

releases May 29th, 2026

How do you feel about the accordion? It’s an instrument that might make you think of genres like Zydeco or Polka, or cities like Paris or Dublin. Or maybe Weird Al. Finn Manning, who plays accordion in Irish band Cardinals, wields his instrument with subtle panache — it’s central to their sound, but never used in a way that feels clichéd or predictable. His playing is melodic but textural, adding deep crimson and violet notes to Cardinals’ dark, romantic sound. Hailing from Cork, Cardinals are not the first band to mix post-punk and alt-rock with traditional Celtic elements, but rarely does it feel as natural as it does on their debut album. Finn’s brother, Euan — who leads the band — says they purposefully avoided “diddley eye” music but otherwise had no restrictions on their style.

Despite being a very young band — both in time together and in age — Cardinals seem to have their sound fully cemented on “Masquerade“, an extremely assured album that’s miles ahead of their already terrific 2024 self-titled EP.

The strongest Irish element on “Masquerade” is swagger — an unfakeable quality that’s in abundance, whether it’s on their swoonier, poppier material like “St Agnes,” “She Makes Me Real,” or the title track, or their darker, angstier songs like “Barbed Wire,” “Anhedonia,” or “The Burning of Cork,” which owes a little to Nirvana.

Those sides of the band are neatly divided across the two sides of “Masquerade” — envisioned as a vinyl album — which has been expertly sequenced. Finn’s accordion and Euan’s character-filled lyrics and impassioned delivery tie it all together. In an era where albums tend to front-load the best songs, “Masquerade” saves some of its strongest moments for Side 2. Not that there’s a bad song here — with 10 songs across 34 minutes, there’s no fat to trim, and every track hits. Ireland has been a hotbed of talent recently; Cardinals are not the “next” anything — they’ve already carved out their own unique and compelling path.

Heavenly formed in 1989 from the ashes of legendary Oxford band Talulah Gosh, in which all four original members – Amelia Fletcher (vocals/guitar), Peter Momtchiloff (guitar), Rob Pursey (bass) and Mathew Fletcher (drums) – had played. Cathy Rogers joined later on keyboards/vocals. They released five singles and three albums on Sarah Records and then, after Sarah ended, a final album on Wiiija/K.

After a smattering of reunion tours over the years, indie-pop heroes Heavenly are back to save the day. On “Highway to Heavenly”, their first album in 30 years, the band that formed out of C86 mainstays Talulah Gosh slashes through a litany of hell-raising, punk-inflected anthems taking aim at the manosphere and technocrats, without forgetting the good old romantic quandaries that have always made twee-pop sing.

Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey are British indiepop royalty, having made music together for 40 years across various cultishly loved groups. But they’re best known for their ’90s-era band Heavenly, whose mix of sweet janglepop melodies and often serious lyrics was dismissively labelled “twee” by UK journalists, but embraced in the US by both the riot grrrl scene and what Beat Happening/K Records founder Calvin Johnson dubbed “The International Pop Underground.”

This is Heavenly’s first album in 30 years and it’s as lively and pointed as their ’90s material, standing confidently beside their previous albums while feeling neither like a manufactured antique nor a “hello, fellow kids” play to new fans. There are odes to Heavenly-friendly cities (“Portland Town”), witty takedowns of various strains of toxic masculinity (“Press Return,” “A Different Beat,” “Scene Stealing”), and a touching tribute to Matthew (“That Last Day”), all set to truly wonderful melodies and playful arrangements. Then there’s “Skep Wax” — also the name of Amelia and Rob’s label — which celebrates the joy of music itself: “Songs take you unexpected ways / And break your heart on every single day… Tick tock, twelve o’clock / No time for sleep / When there is still more music to be heard.” “Highway to Heavenly” isn’t Remember When.

It’s a brand-new, wonderful chapter.

9 months since the release of “Six Lenins”, The Proper Ornaments are back with “Mission Bells“, a sombre but uplifting record that began its life while they were on tour earlier this year, when new ideas emerged in different soundchecks around Europe.

James Hoare, Bobby Syme and Max Oscarnold, the founders of the group, recruited Nathalie Bruno as a bassist for the tour, and then the four.piece began recording in the summer at Hoare’s home studio in Finsbury Park, London, using the same 16 track Studer tape machine as on their previous record, but this time they incorporated a moog sequencer and other electronics instruments.

On these recordings, meticulous attention to detail is never deployed as an end in itself but always with the song and sound in mind. As the “Mission Bells” sing, echoes of black albums Velvets, Swell Maps, Spiritualized and Cluster might reach inside your brain, but the truth is that it’s hard to pinpoint influences on an album that is the fifth in the life of this band, as they have been becoming more and more themselves, not needing to look elsewhere for inspiration.

This is not a retro band, they just happened to like playing guitar, a preference that began, at least for James Hoare and Max Oscarnold, when they were 9 years old. Whoever is familiar with their previous records might agree that “Mission Bells” has a lot of the innocent elements (drum machines underneath simple songs) of their first record, “Waiting For The Summer”, the melancholy of ‘Foxhole‘ and their heavy live sounds, as drummer Bobby Syme points out. But it’s the lyrical maturity that is the real achievement on this record. The words can be read as a William Burroughs cut up experiment on what it is to live in these Dystopian times.

“Mission Bells” is a majestic achievement, a musical maelstrom, its harmonies drawing the inclined listener into an irreversible somnambulant state, caught between dreamland and waking hours. The beauty of it is, you won’t want to escape, even though the door is flung open as your postmodern life awaits you outside..

The Eagles will celebrate the 50th anniversary (a little bit late) of their “One of These Nights” album with a new deluxe edition featuring previously unreleased music.

The expanded set arrives May featuring a new mix of the original album, plus Dolby Atmos and high resolution mixes as well. An unreleased 1975 concert featuring a previously unreleased 16-song performance by the legendary group rounds out the upcoming set.

The previously unavailable recording preserves the Eagles’ performance at the Sunshine Festival in Anaheim on September 28th, 1975. Recorded at the end of the tour for “One Of These Nights“, the show features Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner, Bernie Leadon, and Don Felder. Their set includes songs from that album as well as hits from the group’s first three records.

The show also finds the Eagles in a significant transition period, as it also marks Leadon’s final performance with the band in the classic era, while Joe Walsh, who would become an official member months later, joins the group for the encore, performing his song “Rocky Mountain Way.”

The band had been gaining momentum thanks to heavy touring and a steady stream of popular singles in the first few years of their career. But 1974’s “On the Border” took things up a notch, as they scored their first No. 1 single, thanks to “Best of My Love.”

The band was able to build on that positive development when “One of These Nights” arrived in June of 1975. The album soared to the top spot of the Billboard album charts, even as the seasons were changing within the group. It was the first full record for new recruit Don Felder, who had joined up in the closing moments of the sessions for “On the Border”.

The group as a whole, were also continuing to evolve. “We like to be a nice little country-rock band from Los Angeles – about half the time,” Don Henley said in 1975. “We wanted to get away from the ballad syndrome with ‘One of These Nights.’ With Don Felder in the band now, we can really rock. He’s made us nastier and did a great guitar solo on the single.”

But “One of These Nights” also ended up being the swan song for multi-instrumentalist Bernie Leadon who made his exit after touring in support of the album.