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Patto - Hold Your Fire (1971)

Track listing:
  1. Hold Your Fire 8:06
  2. You, You Point Your Finger 4:35
  3. How's Your Father 4:46
  4. See You at the Dance Tonight 4:57
  5. Give It All Away 4:11
  6. Air Raid Shelter 7:07
  7. Tell Me Where You've Been 3:49
  8. Magic Door 4:25
  9. Beat the Drum 5:10
  10. Bad News [Bonus] 4:39
  11. Air Raid Shelter [Bonus] 7:03

Notes

Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Patto's second album, "Hold Your Fire", presents a great collection of songs that explores somewhat more complex musical territory than the debut album, "Patto". There are still relatively straight-ahead songs like the title cut and "You, You Point Your Finger". But the album contains a lot more experimentation, with unusual time signature changes present in nearly all of the tunes. There's plenty of great rock, and the jazz influence still presents itself in many of the songs, particularly in Ollie's Air-Raid Shelter.

In just a year, Ollie's guitar playing improved incredibly since the debut album, having perfected his legato hammer-on/pull-off technique. His fast, fluid, and inventive playing is the star of this album. Nearly every track on "Hold Your Fire" includes extraordinary guitar playing that these words cannot possibly do justice to, and he had only been playing guitar for four years! If you are into great guitar playing and you haven't heard this album, you are urged to rectify that situation as soon as possible.

Muff Winwood's production on "Hold Your Fire" is not as minimalist or in-your-face as it is on "Patto". More time was spent on overdubs. John's drums have a fuller sound. Ollie's keyboards are more present throughout the album. There are also more backing vocals. "Hold Your Fire" is a fine sounding album with impressive songs and musicianship of an extraordinary caliber. It is a shame that it has not been discovered by more rock music and guitar enthusiasts.

Despite the relatively poor sales of the debut album, "Patto", Vertigo/Mercury did not skimp on the packaging for "Hold Your Fire".

The UK cover was designed by the band and was based on a game known as consequences. The game involved a group of people drawing characters - one draws the head, the next draws the body, etc. The band had created a bunch of their own consequences drawings and gave these to Roger Dean to use for the cover. Roger proceeded to lose them all and had to create his own for the album cover.

The front cover of the album was cut into three sections, allowing the flaps to be individually lifted up revealing parts of the three characters printed on the inside of the gatefold. Different combinations would produce up to 8 different sets of characters.