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This album is seen by many as being the watershed point of Blyth Power, a mixture of old and new that would see an end to one direction and the band setting a new course of navigation. Back at Trinity Heights studios, where so much of their good work had been done in the past, the band finally began to be Blyth Power again, after several years' blundering. All of a sudden things went right. There was Fred again, Steve Maden's brilliant 3D artwork, which had been languishing since the album Karpov Crosses The Border got shelved, and most of all, there were no frustrated songwriters with hidden agendas trying to steer things in different directions. From beginning to end, Out From Under the King has the strength of its convictions. Released on CD only, the band finally worked out that cassettes were as big a waste of money as vinyl. The brief was Alnwick & Tyne with keyboards that was what main man Joseph Porter had been looking for. Trying to regain the sound of the early days, the Blyth heyday and reinvent it by bringing new girl Annie Hatchers keyboards to the fore. It is however often seen as the last truly Blyth Power sounding album that they made, from then on there was a lot of treading musical water with only a few brief flashes of their former genius. Long-standing Bassist Martin 'Protag" Neish was still firmly in place providing that telling intricate bass work that helped define the band. One guitar John Rutherford provided the raw power that retained their edge, but it was not to last, soon the spark would be gone, as well as half of the band and Out From Under a King remains the last firm foot hold on the Blyth Power path.
As soon as Gods Orders starts it becomes obvious that some things will never change, Porters ability with the pen and the lyric sheet will never be in doubt. Rutherfords guitar sets the pace of the song with a great opening riff, reminiscent of earlier works such as General Winter, and the punk edge seems to have been replaced with a fatter rock sound, the keyboards waft through the back ground and tales of crusading knights doing their duty under the direction of the almighty fill the track.
"On God's orders to their sleepless desert lair
The knights from their commanderies bore
Cold Christian soldiers seasoned prepared
Standing guard behind me in the campfire glare
Until the gold dawn rose kneeling in prayer"
But this is not a song about the crusades and the Templars at all, this song is about being in Blyth Power. What do you mean
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This album is seen by many as being the watershed point of Blyth Power, a mixture of old and new that would see an end to
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