Released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Leaf Hound’s highly collectable Growers Of Mushroom, the proto-metal band’s critically-acclaimed 2007 album Unleashed makes its heavyweight vinyl debut
- Leaf Hound’s critically acclaimed 2007 album debuts on vinyl
- Resequenced for optimum listening enjoyment
- Mastered for vinyl by Nick Robbins at Sound Mastering
- Includes a full colour insert with song lyrics
Morphing out of blues-orientated Black Cat Bones in the late 60s,
Leaf Hound were a London-based heavy rock band whose debut album,
Growers Of Mushroom, has long been prized by collectors, with an original copy recently fetching £11,000 at auction. Their self-titled LP was originally issued on the German Telefunken label in truncated form, and later released on UK Decca in October 1971 as
Growers Of Mushroom. Alas, by that point the band had split up, adding to their mystique and assuring the album’s cult status into the bargain.
Following the album’s reissue on Repertoire in the mid-90s, increasing attention prompted vocalist and founder member
Peter French (Cactus, Atomic Rooster) to put together a new version of Leaf Hound with young guitar virtuoso
Luke Rayner. This line-up featuring French, Rayner,
Ed Pearson (bass) and
Jimmy Rowland (drums) performed regularly throughout Europe during the early 2000s, releasing their album
Unleashed in 2007.
With hard-hitting tracks the likes of ‘Barricades’, ‘Stop, Look And Listen’, ‘One Hundred And Five Degrees’ and the spell-binding ballad ‘Nickels And Dimes’, it was clear that although decades may have passed, Leaf Hound were back with a wealth of dynamic material and winning new fans the world over. Atomic Rooster’s ‘Breakthrough’, closes the album by way of a tribute to French’s sometime bandmate Vincent Crane.
Released here on 180g purple vinyl with a resequenced running order,
French describes Leaf Hound’s music as: “Classic 70s-style rock. Add a dash of Hendrix, a little Cream and Zeppelin and shake it up with a pinch of Free and you get freshly cooked Leaf Hound.”
