Patto: Hold Your Fire [SOMMOR]

Why you'll love it

This Sommor reissue rebuilds the original fold-out cover, with three flaps that combine into eight cover variations, plus a four-page insert on the band. Inside is Ollie Halsall's jazz-flavoured guitar at full stretch, from the title track to "Give It All Away."

This edition

• Original fold-out cover with three flaps
• Four-page insert
• Hype sticker

About the album

Few albums come with a game on the front. Hold Your Fire's sleeve, drawn by Roger Dean to the band's design, is based on the old "consequences" drawing game: three flaps you fold independently to swap heads, bodies and legs, for eight different covers before the needle even drops.

The music matches the mischief. Patto were Mike Patto on vocals, Ollie Halsall on guitar, piano and vibraphone, Clive Griffiths on bass and John Halsey on drums, and Muff Winwood produced them at Island Studios for Vertigo in 1971. The title track rides an extended groove into a long closing solo, "You, You Point Your Finger" and "See You At The Dance Tonight" swing with rock muscle, and Halsall's own "Air Raid Shelter" leans furthest into jazz, with vibraphone and piano weaving around the rhythm section. "Give It All Away" holds the solo guitar fans tend to bring up first, fluid and fast and full of surprises.

Engineers Brian Humphries and Richard Digby Smith caught the band's live spark, and guitarists still trade Halsall's solos like treasured family recipes. Eight covers for the price of one is also the best value proposition we've come across this year.

Also at Kops: more Patto on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Sommor (cat# SOMM118), a reissue of the 1971 album.