Crowing Once More

Nine years after their unexpected reunion, Atomic Rooster have returned with their first studio album in more than 40 years. The spooky Circle The Sun shows off an Edgar Allan Poe-inspired gothic vibe with an updated line-up that fans say takes them right back to the 70s. Prog catches up with guitarist Boltz Bolton and drummer Paul Everett find out more.

- Dave Ling

When it comes to coverage in Prog, timing and circumstance were never friends to Atomic Rooster and it’s truly dumbfounding that this is our first interview with them since the magazine began back in 2009. Then again, over the last half-century or so, the existence of Atomic Rooster has been deeply fractured, and a new studio album, Circle The Sun, is the first in a whopping 42 years to bear the group’s name. Case dismissed, m’lud.

Formed in 1969 by keyboardist Vincent Crane and drummer Carl Palmer following the pair’s exit from The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, the latter’s tenure lasted just a year. Fuelled by Crane’s Hammond dark and eerie organ technique, Atomic Rooster went on to make some of the most dramatic and fascinating music of the 1970s, breaking up and reuniting at the dawn of the following decade, though their ambitions of the big time were soon thwarted. On Valentine’s Day 1989, believing he had let down himself and the world, the 45-year-old Crane shifted from this world to the next when he died by suicide. Atomic Rooster were over... or were they?

Almost a decade ago and very much against the odds, the band rose from the ashes, galvanised by a pair of what opponents would probably dismiss as ‘bit-part players’. Guitarist Steve ‘Boltz’ Bolton had been a Rooster from 1971-'72, appearing on the album Made In England, while Peter French fronted the band for a similar amount of time, documented by 1971’s In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster. In fact, the duo featured in the same lineup for a very short space of time.

Reactivating the band, Bolton and French sought the blessing of Crane’s widow, Jean.

“I believe that Jean passed on recently, bless her,” recalls Bolton. “But we'd sent her a message and Nine years after their unexpected reunion, Atomic Rooster have returned with their first studio album in more than 40 years. The spooky