HARLEY is back.

This eagerly anticipated new studio album, Steve’s first for five years, features ten brand new songs and is Steve Harley at his very best.

“It’s a sort-of protest album.” Steve told me just before it’s release. “I’m sick of the greedy people running the country and the fact that everything is being dumbed down.”

Recorded in East Anglia with members of his long-standing touring band, the album has been a true labour of love for Steve.

One of the tracks has been in Steve’s mind for ten years.

“The single was being played on the radio and my wife said ‘I’ve always loved that song.’.”

“I explained that I’d only just finished the song when I realised that I’d actually been playing it on my piano for the last ten years and hadn’t got round to recording it.”

Steve is one of the UK’s most respected songwriters and performers and has a hold over his audience like no-one else.

His anger and emotion comes across in the lyrics of the new songs like ‘No Bleeding Hearts’ and ‘True Love Will Find You In The End’.

The title track is about life and uses the sea as an analogy.

“It’s not anew idea,” Steve explained. “Samuel Taylor Coleridge used it hundreds of years ago.”

Thoughful use of double-bass (courtesy of Lincoln Anderson) gives the tracks upon which it’s used a totally different feel than if a bass guitar had been used.

Lyrically insightful, musically magnificent.

Harley at his very best.

Absolute Records thru Universal .

CMUP107CD.