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Rewind: Levellers - Shadow On The Sun

Posted on the 27 October 2018 by Rw/ff @rwffmusic
One of the most underrated songs from this seminal band. Featured on the 'One Way Of Life' compilation, released 20 years ago this week on 26 October 1998. After scoring a number of big selling albums and hit singles in the 90s, as well as becoming legends on the festival circuit, the Levellers had released their Mouth To Mouth LP the previous year in 1997. The album went to number 5 in the UK charts and spawned another three Top 40 singles. However, the group's mainstream success had peaked, and by 1998 they found themselves at a crossroads. A press release detailing the 2014 Levellers movie 'A Curious Life' refers to the band disappearing "in a train wreck of drink, drugs and creative drought" at this point, yet to the outside world things seemed to be so positive at the time.

But maybe this explains why the band were relatively quiet during 1998 and 1999. China Records wanted them to release a Best Of album in order to keep the momentum going, so they grudgingly agreed. Two new songs were recorded for the package, one of them being the superb 'Shadow On The Sun', another darkly infectious folk-rock treasure that bizarrely never got a release as a single. The other song was the single 'Bozos', an odd techno punk track that was a cover of an obscure 1988 single by Flik Spatula. A couple of years later, the group would return with the strange and hugely divisive 'Hello Pig' LP, a fantastic and underrated record that split fans but received more critical acclaim than any other Levellers album.

Celebrating their 30th anniversary with this year's John Leckie-produced acoustic album 'We The Collective', the folk punk heroes will be touring the UK next month in November.

Read an interview with frontman Mark Chadwick from a few years ago HERE, where he looks back at the the history of the group. Chadwick also recently played a superb acoustic solo show in Trowbridge on October 19, and a review can be found HERE.



Rewind: Levellers - Shadow On The Sun

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