John Irvine Band - Take Me To Your Leader Progressive Voyages Review PV113
John Irvine has been making music for rather a long time and yet oddly enough This is his first album that has vocals, Admittedly John sticks to providing Guitar Bass and Keyboards and leaves to vocals to Gordon Robertson and Emma Jean, who both work together extremely well and most satisfyingly.
The promotional blurb says that the music takes its cues from The Buggles, Collins era Genesis, Supetrramp with a sprinkling of Zappaesque humour. hich I think you will agree sounds like an Agreeable collection of influences. So let's dig and so what is to be made of this interesting premise, The album commences with the song Wheel Of Time, which is about the Sanskrit Kalachakara (The Wheel Of Time), As one who has recently bought the Deluxe box set of Yes's Tales Of Topographic Oceans, These concepts are not entirely alien to me, The concept that Time is Cyclical and never ending is an intriguing one that has given a lot of people much to consider as indeed it does here, an interesting song with some great guitar lines woven into the sound. A good opening track.
Chosen One is next and this concerns itself with both opportunity, Chance and fate, Here again we have the great vocals of Gordon and Emma working and gelling together, alongside the excellent almost funky guitar lines fromJohn, the song has a good chorus that elevates the song most splendidly, there are good keyboard sounds and textures that supplement the song well, I like this track its a fine track the guitar lines towards the end are also great.
Artifical General Intelligence (AGI) is next this is a fairly fast paced track which has a touch of New Wave to its sound, The song is about a lonely man who builds a Artifical person not a chatbot but someone he can spend time with, The song specifies that he is not a perver or deviant, Rather he is very lonely, this song is quite humorous in style. Although it doesn't turn out quite how he had hoped somehow nonetheless interesting track once again.
SIddartha is next, this is about the man who through his searching and wanderings finds and attains a state if enlightnent, This is his story of his journey to Spiritual enlightenment and the way that he left for others to follow when he became The Buddha in the eastern religion of Buddhism, The song is based on the history of Buddhism With Siddaertha Guatama being a real historical person.The song is excellent with some great guitar lines and sounds amongst the swirling synths and has a real punch to its rhythm that makes a great impression. The sound is excellent with some great sounds in the mix of the track. A great guitar break enlivens the track. I really likevthis very strong track.
One Small Step is next, This is an unusual look at the space race and specifically the tendency to concentrate on the male involvement rather than the females who were involved, This has a sprightly upbeat keyboard dominated sound, here you get the Zappaesque humour to the forefront, All whilst making an important point about the treatment that women in space have been largely overlooked unfairly in favour of the men.
Man In The Moon is next and somehow I'm put in mind of Nik Kershaw especially in the vocals, The songs seems to be asking questions about your place in the world and looking for answers to the questions of life, the chorus of the song is very good, I like this song and its dynamics, excellent track.,
Penultimate track Assembly Line which relates to the banality of life and living in in days of deep dissatisfaction with the working life, the song is very much in the vein of Devo, All synths and new wave sounds, it is a pretty bleak track really despite its energy, it addresses the vacuousness of life by comparing it to an assembly line that makes cars, but twhere he worker is not valued or treated well.
Final song Take Me To Your Leader imagines a tale where a spaceman is travelling with his ship carrying cargo and is accosted and ensnared by a large Android Alien who contually asks to be taken to your leader, and when the spaceman is unable to do so is denied access to heaven by the alien Robot.
Once again this is a pretty bleak song without any apparent hope available to the spaceman and suggests that the future may not be as bright as expected
It rounds off what has proven to be an intell8gent and thinking album with some excellent music and fine performances from Johnn and the rest of the team, its certainly a little different but is most entertaining to listen to.
It's on Bandcamp for you to listen for yourself here:Take Me To Your Leader | The John Irvine Band https://share.google/1qYpO39Y7taxp01RAuthor John Wenlock-Smith
Monday 23rd February 2026