Heavy Leef: Heavy Leef

David Noel has been in and around the music scene for decades - not that you’d know it. Back in the early 80s the guitarist, singer and songwriter began concocting his own music, most of which remained unreleased. Telling his first band Phantom 309 that their proto-grunge sound wasn’t up to much led to Noel being dismissed just one show into his tenure with them, before he and few others formed Orphans Of Rock, a band whose debut supposedly shifted the grand sum of zero units, so underground was their presence. More hard work for little pay-off was to be found in the marginally more successful outfits I Almost Saw GOD and Plastic Overlords, but when the latter folded so Noel headed back to his roots and his early recordings to craft Heavy Leef. A debut that is equally difficult to find anything about online due to either their lack of profile, lack of PR or simply a name that results in just about every other topic under the sun than David Noel to come to the browsing surface.

Anyway, enough of then this is now - well the album seems to have been completed in 2021, released in 2023 and finding its way to me in 2024 but let’s not get into that. Along with a few helpers - drummers Scott Randall and Brad Johnson, bassist Mike Steverson and drummer, guitarist ‘bridgertronics’ chap James Bridges - David Noel really has let loose here. A ‘four-sided’ album (on one CD…) with 16 tracks is a little daunting as debuts go but in truth, this is a hell of a ride taking in a whole host of influences and ideas from the late 60s and early to mid 70s and making them sound completely believable. From Zeppelin to Sabbath, from Floyd to The Stones via Uriah Heep and much in-between, this is a hard rocking, psychy, spacey, proggy, maybe even ever so slightly doomy rock album that nods its hat quite marvellously to a time that Noel obviously loves a great deal.

“Electric Kings� opens, a strangely early 70s-ified Judas Priest sound hitting like Halford and the boys jamming with early Uriah Heep. It should make no sense, but with some excellent guitar work and vocals from Noel, it certainly does. From there highlights come thick and fast, “All Alone In You� leaning more heavily into the Heep sound, “Perfect� pulling from early Stones, but maybe with Bono singing(!), whereas “Stealing From The Opal� feels like Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac floating along - something the excellent cover of “Green Manalishi (With The Two-pronged Crown)� confirms. Add in the powering Zeppelin strut meets Bowie pout of “Down And Out On The Beat� and the bases being covered here are wide, varied, familiar and yet challenging nonetheless.

Personally, while David Noel has waited a long time to get these songs off his chest, I can’t escape the feeling that he’d have been better paring this CD down into two different, shorter albums. As it is, there’s a lot here to love and lot to get to know that reveals a true depth once you do, and in truth, who can argue with that?

Track Listing
1. Electric Knights
2. All Alone In You
3. Dreams Make A Scene
4. Lonely Eyes Look For A Sign
5. Green Manalishi (With The Two-prong Crown)
6. Can’t Believe A Woman
7. All In All Is All
8. Highway To The Sun
9. Take Me There, My Odyssey
10. Perfect
11. Visionary Girl
12. Stealing From The Opal
13. Down And Out On The Beat
14. Seventh Song
15. From On High
16. Goodbye To Ecstasy

Added: May 24th 2024
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Heavy Leef @ bandcamp
Hits: 398
Language: english

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