Ever since Trojan Horse’s brilliant self-titled debut, this magazine has championed them, and here is the grand payoff.
The Duke Brothers and drummer Guy Crawford have made a spectacular follow-up worthy of their Salfordian musical heritage, as well as their 70s prog forebears. Opener Jurapsyche Park is a weaving, eccentric monster, with a wig-out keyboard solo that’d be at home in a Mars Volta track, and plenty of twists and turns. Sprawling live favourite Scuttle comes across every part as huge on record. If the political overtones of their first album were writ large, then World Turned Upside Down is a step further; inspired by “lives lived under the foul austerity policies of an unwanted government”, on Hypocrite’s Hymn and Death And The Mad Queen the lyrical wit is as sharp as the riffs. It’s not all heavy rock – there’s the multi-part, harmony-heavy title track as well as acoustic interlude See Me At The Crow Bridge. Mostly though, track breaks are largely an arbitrary notion; the album flows beautifully and is best experienced as a single piece. Trojan Horse have again brought together everything that’s great about both classic and modern prog.
