England’s Glory

England’s Glory

City Of Fun / Shattered Illusions

Hozac

***We've had some pretty crazy moments with the HoZac Archival series, and this is by far one of the most impressive feats to date. ENGLAND’S GLORY was the first performing band lead by UK songwriter PETER PERRETT, later known across the world for his work with the critically-acclaimed ONLY ONES, and a band somewhat still shrouded in mystery due to a lot of misinformation between previous releases. Recorded in late 1971, "right before the holidays" according to Perrett, the privately-issued album later coined The Legendary Lost Album was released in an edition of only 25 copies, given to friends and family, and quickly languished into obscurity before it's immediate effects could be realized. The album sounds like quite nothing else of the era, avoiding the folk rock glut as well as the country-rock impulses, this album soars through the highs and lows of the real heartbeat of 1970s rock'n roll and sounds startlingly modern, even over 40 years later. One thing that does ring similarly right off the bat of course, is how close it sounds like the Transformer-era Lou Reed material, and that's not exactly incorrect, but if you re-examine the fact that this material sounded like Transformer, while Reed was still yet to reach that settled-in style is another point to be examined. Could Ronson & David Bowie have got ahold of one of the 25 copies and figured it'd be an easy template to swipe? Yeah, Bowie never copied anything else from anyone, so we doubt it.