Neil Leyton

As the front-man of Conscience Pilate, Neil Leyton built up quite a following of people who shared his passion for glam rock and the trashier side of ’70s music. These days, he’s moving to the beat of his own drummer with a blossoming solo career, plus he still finds time to play guitar in Galore. He’s a busy man. ...From the Brighter Side of the Midnight Sun doesn’t really sound remarkably different from anything else that Leyton has been involved with during his musical career, but that doesn’t lessen the fact that it is probably his most accomplished work to date. It is a vast, sprawling album that tries to follow a similar musical philosophy to the work of Jim Steinman — overblown arrangements and epic guitar solos that aren’t really excessive in context. Leyton’s falsetto vocals are a little bit of an acquired taste, but they fit perfectly with the rest of the music which has a timeless quality in that it could have been written any time in the past 30 years. Which I suppose is the whole idea because Leyton really does have a knack for producing music that sounds exactly how he wants it to. There is some real ambition behind ...From the Brighter Side of the Midnight Sun, yet it will only probably appeal to a small proportion of the music loving population. You know who you are.