Comus

***Forged in the creative crucible of 1968's 'Summer of Love', Comus took a darker path than flower-draggled hippiedom, with a prophetic counter-culture vision of ferocious, glowering firepower. Their seminal album 'First Utterence' has continued to mesmerise and subvert since its release in 1971, despite the band violently imploding only two years later. It has influenced a generation of musicians, and was even midwife to the birth of death metal. In recent years the group's fanatical fan-base has spawned exponentially across the web, and in 2008, Comus devotee, Michael Akerfeld from Opeth, persuaded them - against all the odds - to reform for what turned out to be an electrifying, tumultuously received appearance at the Melloboat Festival in Sweden. No way content to simply feed off old material, Comus, since Melloboat, have once again lanced deep into their collective psyche and disgorged a tranche of new material. Comus' current live set seamlessly interleaves these new songs and the old into a coruscating soundtrack for the new darkening age. 'Out Of The Coma' is the much anticipated new album by Comus, their first in over thirty three years. It features three brand new songs, 'Out Of The Coma', 'The Sacrifice' & 'The Return', through which courses the unmistakable, Stygian DNA of First Utterance, plus the only know recording of the band playing their legendary 'Malgaard Suite', live at a college gig in 1972. The new songs all feature in the band's current live set, and have been enthusiastically received by audiences. 'The Malgaard Suite' was planned as the follow-up album to First Utterance, but it was rejected by the band's then-record label. This recording, made on a mono cassette-player, languished forgotten for some thirty years before being re-discovered and given to the band. Is an aural artifact, a grainy, partly-occluded lens through which we can glimpse, squint-eyed, the past, raising tantalising questions as to what Comus might have become, had their ambition to record it not been thwarted. Comus in 2012 consists of five original members, Roger Wootton, Bobbie Watson, Glenn Goring, Colin Pearson and Andy Hellaby, plus reeds-player & percussionist Jon Seagroatt from Red Square. The album was recorded, mixed and produced by Jon Seagroatt.