April 16th were around towards the latter half of the 1980s before disappearing. The band’s guitarist got in touch recently and kindly send me a copy of their Epitaph CD.
Whilst April 16th were active back when the New Wave of British Heavy Metal tag was applied to any band with the ability to come up with a riff, Chris says they thought of themselves as hard rock.
NWOBHM, hard rock – decide for yourself after listening. Either way, on Epitaph are fourteen excellent tracks of enjoyable, honest to goodness rockers with some scope to them too.
Occasionally with a blusey feel, occasionally straight-out heaviness, occasionally a bit proggy, occasionally a bit melodic.
The songs are all real “growers” too. Found myself getting more and more in to it the more I listened. In particular the guitar work.
The band recorded a debut album back in the day – Sleepwalking –and on Epitaph we have the original studio masters of that and the Cherry Jam session.
She’s Mean starts it off. Excellent strong, powerful blues-tinged hard rock with a kick to it. Have a listen:
Thursday’s Child and Midday Man follow in similar style. Then Don’t Drink becomes a brooding, slow burning almost semi-rap with tongue-in-cheek lyrics.
Clapham Wood clocks in at just over seven minutes. A bit of an ethereal, eerie affair to start with before it takes off in to a dark place somewhere between a bit of prog and a doomy feel to it – and powerful with big riffs and time changes. Broodingly brilliant!
Other highlights include the cutting riff of The Dealer and an epic near seven minute extended guitar freak out of Survivor. Jaw dropping stuff. Almost sounds like an extended jam session which works oh so well.
All in all first rate stuff which rewards the ears further with each listen.
As far as I’m aware, Epitaph isn’t on general release though for you digital music types I think it is on Spotify?
However if you check out the April 16th Facebook page you might get lucky. Here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/85429856021
Do check it out. April 16th go down as yet another of the many, many bands from the NWOBHM days who had it all bar the breaks.
Thanks again to Chris for sending the CD. So pleased you did.