ARK 2

My late father was a great record collector of mainly Classical Music albums, but he also liked in the sixties to buy some of the singles which were played in some AM Rock and Pop radio stations in my city, mostly sung in English by some British bands and by some artists from Europe and the U.S. Most of these singles were bought by him for us, his sons, and we liked most of them very much. I remember than in the early seventies, when I finally learned to read, I liked to see the record labels of these singles to read who wrote the songs. I remember seeing the names there of Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley as composers of some British Pop and Rock Hit singles from the sixties. Yesterday, I was visiting youtube and I was looking for some rare albums which can be listened to there. So, I found this album there, and I listened to it. While I was doing this, I looked for information in the web about this album, and I found an article in Wikipedia about it and the band called Flaming Youth. I also found there the link to an unofficial website about this band and this album, and Wikipedia also linked Ronnie Caryl`s website address. So, I visited both websites and read about this band and this album

This band started their career under the name "Hickory" playing some covers of songs by other bands. By 1969, Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley wrote a concept and songs for a conceptual album about "space journeys", maybe inspired by the Moon Landing of July 1969. So, they offered "Hickory" the opportunity to record their project for an album. The band changed their name to "Flaming Youth" and recorded the album titled "Ark2" which was released in October 1969 in the Fontana label in the U.K., but it also was released in the U.S. and in other European countries. The album had some critical praises but not chart success. The band presented the album in concert sometimes, and even a TV programme was done about it in 1970. But that was all. The band split and Phil Collins some months later successfully auditioned for Genesis, but Ronnie Caryl also auditioned to fill the guitarist role in that band, but without success. Anyway, both musicians are still friends and since 1996-97 Caryl has played guitar in Collins`s solo bands.

This very rare album was really more interesting for listening to it while I was looking for it than when I was actually listening to it. With Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley being mostly composers of Pop Rock tunes and musicals, well, I really didn`t expect something Progressive from their work and from this band. The presence of a very young Phil Collins on drums (and some lead vocals by him in some tracks) is the main "hook" to listen to this album. But after listening to it, well, I can see why this album is almost forgotten. Yes. It is a conceptual album about "space journeys". It also has a "suite" titled "The Planets" like the classical music work which Gustav Holst composed, but this "suite" has nothing in common with the classical music work that Holst composed, other than the use of the titles. Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley only used the titles of the sections of that classical music work to compose their Pop songs around them, but that`s all. The music style of the album as a whole is simple Pop Rock from the sixties, somewhat "pretentious", with some "pompous" orchestral and choral arrangements added to the musical pieces recorded by the band. There are some Psychedelic influences in some places, but this conceptual album also sounds a lot of influence by musicals. and there also some good "Proto-Prog" arrangements played by the band, but there are very few "Proto-Prog" moments in this album. The members of the band were good musicians, but obviously Collins showed a lot of talent to play the drums since then and his vocals are also good but still sound a bit inmature.

This album, in my opinion, sounds very dated, and is mostly of historic interest to know and to listen to a young Phil Collins for maybe his first appearance on an album, and nothing more. Like the "From Genesis to Revelation"album by Genesis from the same year, this album, while showing some talent from Collins, still doesn`t show how his musical style would change and develop in the future. As history showed, his best place to be in a band was with Genesis, a band in which he developed his talent a lot and he helped to survive after Peter Gabriel left the band in 1975.