Saturday, 21 April 2012

Patto - Hold Your Fire (Rare Progressive Rock UK 1971)




Size: 113 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped By: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Japan 24-Bit Remaster


Patto's second album, "Hold Your Fire", presents a great collection of songs that explores somewhat more complex musical territory than the debut album, "Patto".  There are still relatively straight-ahead songs like the title cut and "You, You Point Your Finger".  But the album contains a lot more experimentation, with unusual time signature changes present in nearly all of the tunes.  There's plenty of great rock, and the jazz influence still presents itself in many of the songs, particularly in Ollie's Air-Raid Shelter.  


In just a year, Ollie's guitar playing improved incredibly since the debut album, having perfected his legato hammer-on/pull-off technique.  His fast, fluid, and inventive playing is the star of this album.  Nearly every track on "Hold Your Fire" includes extraordinary guitar playing that these words cannot possibly do justice to, and he had only been playing guitar for four years!  If you are into great guitar playing and you haven't heard this album, you are urged to rectify that situation as soon as possible.


Muff Winwood's production on "Hold Your Fire" is not as minimalist or in-your-face as it is on "Patto".  More time was spent on overdubs.  John's drums have a fuller sound.  Ollie's keyboards are more present throughout the album.  There are also more backing vocals.  "Hold Your Fire" is a fine sounding album with impressive songs and musicianship of an extraordinary caliber.  It is a shame that it has not been discovered by more rock music and guitar enthusiasts.


Despite the relatively poor sales of the debut album, "Patto", Vertigo/Mercury did not skimp on the packaging for "Hold Your Fire".  


The UK cover was designed by the band and was based on a game known as consequences.  The game involved a group of people drawing characters - one draws the head, the next draws the body, etc.  The band had created a bunch of their own consequences drawings and gave these to Roger Dean to use for the cover.  Roger proceeded to lose them all and had to create his own for the album cover.
     
The front cover of the album was cut into three sections, allowing the flaps to be individually lifted up revealing parts of the three characters printed on the inside of the gatefold.  Different combinations would produce up to 8 different sets of characters. 


01. Hold Your Fire        
02. You, You Point Your Finger        
03. Hows Your Father        
04. See You at the Dance Tonight        
05. Give It All Away        
06. Air Raid Shelter        
07. Tell Me Where You've Been        
08. Magic Door        
09. Beat the Drum[Demo Version]        
10. Bad News [Demo Version]        
11. Air Raid Shelter [Alternative Version]

1. https://rapidshare.com/files/3521611286/Patto.rar
or
2. http://uploadmirrors.com/download/9LM3ETYJ/Patto.rar
.

4 comments:

snakeboy said...

Thank you for the post.

Anonymous said...

Love it when album cover art is designed specifically for people who are smoking pot while listening to music for the first time. Late 60's to early 70's prog covers are especially good in that regard ;-) Cheers and thanks.

tony said...

It's a shame how underrated the talents of this extraordinary band were. Not only was the late Mike Patto one of the UK's gifted singers but the real treat was the amazing guitarist Peter "Ollie" Halsall – one of my all time guitar heroes. Halsall later played with Tempest and Kevin Ayers.

Doug said...

An amazing album.Ollie's guitar playing is spectacular.