Forgotten Gods are a new band based in Oxfordshire who have made sure they will not be forgotten with their remarkably assured debut album. Memories is filled with songs full of power and drama, others dripping with touching emotion. This is a confident, talented band who made a surprise impact at this year’s Prog for Peart Festival in Abingdon in July and followed that up with another outstanding performance at the Summer’s End Festival in October, where they launched this debut release.
Fronted by passionate Scottish vocalist Mark Cunningham, Forgotten Gods have rock solid foundations in Michael Kentish and David Hallett on bass guitar and drums, alongside the talented keyboardist Dave Boland. He also produced this album with impressive touch. Forgotten Gods are blessed with an excellent guitarist in Steve Harris, who previously played in Ark and in the band of ex-IQ singer Paul Menel on their ‘Nomzamo’ tour of 2012. Harris displays equally dazzling skills on the guitar synth from which he conjures up all sorts of surprising sounds live on stage.
Memories commences joyously with the effervescent Alive, based on a memorable motorbike ride through some mountains in Cunningham’s younger days, evoked by rural sounds and a motorbike in the intro. A brief guitar motif sets the piece rolling along on a bed of fluid keyboards from Boland. What is immediately obvious on this opening song is the quality of Mark Cunningham’s vocals, which is all the more remarkable as this is the first band with which he has ever seriously sang with in his more mature years. Nevertheless, this album is about a group of musicians intuitively and smoothly flowing along, and whilst individual members shine at times it is all to serve the song for the whole band. Alive bowls along with flashes of Harris’s guitar skills, and on one ‘chugging’ section one can easily imagine zooming along a mountain road on a motorbike as Boland leads with a perfectly judged synth line whistling in the wind. This is an optimistic opening song, evoking happy memories and is a great live song, putting a smile on your face.
The mood and tempo is totally transformed on the truly epic Pillars of Petra which opens atmospherically with a brooding section featuring Eastern tinged female vocalisations evoking images of deserts and mystery over a synth heavy background and delicate dashes of piano. Apparently, Rob Aubrey, who regularly works with IQ and Big Big Train, and who mixed and mastered this album was also very helpful in helping to embellish and polish the atmospherics of this epic number. Investing in highly skilled contributors can really make a difference, especially for a new band. Michael Kentish underpins the atmosphere with subtle bass, supported by David Hallett’s restrained but evocative percussion and drums, underpinning Cunningham’s stylish vocals. Forgotten Gods show impressive restraint to build and build the opening atmospherically for nearly five minutes, before Boland and Harris build an impressive wall of sound with titanic sounding keyboards under a slithering, sliding serpentine guitar solo. Forgotten Gods ride an enormous desert dust storm of sound, topped by Cunningham’s almost eye watering vocal acrobatics, describing this dark tale of Western exploitation and disastrous interference in the Middle East… something for which we are seeing the consequences all too starkly and tragically right now in that benighted region of the world. The dust settles briefly in the oasis of an acoustic guitar before an insistent martial beat and a morse code rhythm, overlain by archive news clips, takes us headlong into a rising storm as Hallett and Kentish set a furious pace in the rhythm department. Eventually Steve Harris arises from the sonic maelstrom with an extended stellar guitar solo – in a live context this is breath-taking in its brilliance. This fades into the distance as the Eastern lamentations return over spectral sounds and the band recapitulates the atmospheric opening section as the piece goes full circle… as the Middle East seems fated to do over and over again. Pillars of the Petra must be one of the most outstanding progressive epic rock tracks of the year (and sadly so timely), and it is certainly a way to announce themselves as a band on only the second song on their debut album.
Everybody’s Hero changes the tone completely as Forgotten Gods focus on Cunningham’s hero, Neil Peart of Rush, who died of Brain cancer in 2020. Such was his devotion to this legendary drummer and lyricist Cunningham established the excellent annual charity raising ‘Prog for Peart’ Festival in Abingdon every July, and his admiration shines out with his impassioned singing and heart-felt lyrics. After the previous epic Prog extravaganza, it was wise to sooth the listeners with a more restrained melodic rock song featuring tasteful synth and guitar solos, and some lovely harmony vocals.
Memories is an album saturated with emotion, and none more so than on the affecting Vigil. Peter Jones of Camel and Tiger Moth Tales provides a haunting and melancholic whistle version of the folk hymn Amazing Grace in the intro, which sets the scene perfectly for a tale of love and grief by Cunningham, including memories of holding his mother’s hand one final time as she slipped away. (This reviewer does not mind sharing that when he heard those lines sung at Prog for Peart’ he shed a tear for his own mother as he had an identical memory.) Indeed, Cunningham has revealed that every line is inspired with images and memories of his earlier years and his mother, including being taken by a neighbour when he was very small in a wheelbarrow to collect leaves! The opening line refers to a conversation his mother apparently had with a deaf man, while they were on a Caledonian ferry when Mark was 12 years age. She admitted she could not understand everything the deaf man said but told her son ‘that everyone deserves to be listened to’ which inspired the opening lines:
She sounds like a remarkable woman, and such an attitude to life and listening to others seems to have inspired Cunningham, who spent years as a youth and community worker in the North-East. Vigil progresses on a bed of atmospheric synths and Dave Boland’s sensitive piano with Steve Harris’ gently picked guitar drawing the veil back on this elegy, and Cunningham shows impressive control and poise as he sings such deeply felt words. Mark Cunningham has revealed that this intensely personal song includes a darker, more sombre section towards the end which is a veiled reference to a significant turning point in his life when he had reached a very low point in his reactions to his grief for his mother which had taken him to a very dark place. He realised he just had to make a choice between continuing to wallow in sorrow or doing something positive about his future. Thankfully he chose the latter, and all along he knows that in spirit his mother is still there with him. Cunningham has paid tribute to his bandmates for reflecting so intuitively what he was feeling even if he could not fully express it in words – that’s the beauty of music.
There is a risk in such emotive and personal subject matter that the songs could become over sentimental and a bit cloying, but Forgotten Gods frame these narratives in such perfectly suited melodies that they present them in touching but not overwhelmingly sentimental style. Alone is another reflection drawn from Mark Cunningham’s earlier life as a youth and community worker as it recounts his experience in working with a young female who was coming up to do her ‘O’ level exams (about 15/16 years age in U.K.). Sadly, such were her feelings about her deprived and devalued life that all she wanted to do was to get pregnant as she believed this would get her a council house so she could move out of her family home. This desperation in thinking this was her only way of escape left a mark on Cunningham, impelling him to write this gentle but also passionate lament about her wasted life. Once again Boland, Harris, Kentish and Hallett come up with a suitably moving and engaging musical vehicle to convey this sad story. Cunningham sings his heart out for the memory of that ill-fated youngster and Harris ends the piece with an emotive, well-judged solo.
Perhaps wisely Forgotten Gods move in a more energetic direction for the finale Rose and Pink, which was described at ‘Prog for Peart’ as ‘Disco Prog’. The pulsing synth opening has definite overtones of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Welcome to the Pleasure Dome threaded with electric guitar. Cunningham’s versatile vocal talents cope well with a more Holly Johnson-esque (!!) higher pitch, but this is mainly a showcase for the dextrous skills of the band as Boland’s synth effects and their powerful but smooth rhythm unit paint scenes upon which Harris can spray tasteful guitar licks. This is an uplifting and impressive way to bring the album to a close, and in an album filled with reflections on life it is perhaps appropriate that the final word sing is ‘memories’.
Forgotten Gods have come out of virtually nowhere to present one of the most genuine and impressive progressive rock debut albums of 2024. This remarkably mature, melodic, dramatic and emotional album, played with great musical skill, is shot through with intuitive musical composition married to poetic and meaningful lyrics, all shining with a sense of real authenticity and truth… and how often can we really say that these days? Forgotten Gods deserve to live long in the memory with Memories.
TRACK LISTING
01. Alive (5:39)
02. Pillars of Petra (14:35)
03. Everybody’s Hero (7:38)
04. Vigil (10:12)
05. Alone (7:08)
06. Rose And Pink (6:25)
Total Time 51:37
MUSICIANS
Mark Cunningham – Lead Vocals
Dave Boland – Keyboards, Programming, Synthesizers & Backing Vocals
David Hallett – Drums & Percussion
Steve Harris – Lead & Acoustic Guitars, Guitar Synthesizer
Michael Kentish – Bass Guitars, Harmony & Backing Vocals
~ With:
Peter Jones – Whistle (4)
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Independent
Formats: CD | Digital Download
Country of Origin: U.K.
Date of Release: 6th October 2024