Weave your way through the wind swept crags of the Sheeps Head peninsula in West Cork, pause to reflect on the wondrous beauty, and listen. Listen closely and you will hear it. A storm is coming, menacing and pulsating with intent to sweep away all in its path. In its eye there is a force, a raiding party, lustful, brooding and terrifying when it strikes. It carries not sword, nor musket, but thunder is its voice and lightning is its gaze. It will lay waste those who look upon it, and yea, will they forever speak of the day The Armada landed upon their shore.
Former Tea Party front man Jeff Martin and legendary percussionist Wayne Sheehy are on a mission.With their newly formed rock'n'roll powerhouse, The Armada, the dynamic duo are set to launch an attack on the aural landscape, mixing the captured audio slaves of numerous campaigns into a set of wholly new material for release in the Autumn. Drawing on the pairs vast experience of both studio and live performance, this album is a declaration of intent. Yes, the culmination of months of work, but only the beginning of the real campaign, getting out on the road and storming the gates of complacency. This is where east meets west, past meets future, now meets then, light meets shade, they shake hands and slug it out.
Following on from his time as band leader with Canadian three piece THE TEA PARTY, Jeff Martins move to Ireland has yielded a creative spurt in the seminal guitarists psyche. Blending his love of balls to wall rock with his enduring fascination with middle eastern, Indian and Turkish music, the spark blossomed to a flame once his new studio, Kingdom, was completed. Nestled in the hills overlooking Dunmanus Bay, Jeff has created an analogue wonderland, free from the computerised enhancements of so much of todays music scene. Old school mic techniques, an array of exotic instruments and good ol' performance capturing is what makes this place tick. And it ticks like a time bomb.
And when the bomb goes off, the sound you will hear is the thundering drums of Wayne Sheehy.Having cut his teeth with cult Irish band Cactus World News, and following up with an illustrious career as skin man to the likes of Ronnie Wood and Bo Diddley, Waynes awesome force behind a kit is the perfect compliment to Jeffs searing guitar work. Even as an acoustic two piece (the pair having been touring with this set up for the past two years), they are a sight and sound to behold. No half measures here, every gig is a flat out tornado of passion, refined in its content, raucous in its delivery.
Work on the new album is soon to be completed, with a forthcoming tour in the planning, and this is a show not to be missed. With the line up beefed out to include a bass player / keyboardist (yet to be announced), THE ARMADA are coming, run for your lives, but toward the storm, it will wash your soul clean, blow away the cobwebs from your mind and leave you wondering where they came from. Is it heaven, is it hell, who cares, who can tell.