“The music needed to be paced differently and we needed a bit more going for us, thematically. We very much realised we needed a new identity to rise above the fray”: Wishbone Ash laid a plan for Argus, and surprised themselves when it worked

Wishbone Ash.

Wishbone Ash didn’t set out to create a progressive concept album – but things took an unexpected twist on their third record, 1972’s Argus. It was reissued and expanded into a seven-disc multi-format box set in 2023, when Prog sat down with Martin Turner and Andy Powell to take in everything from stolen swords and nascent romances to trance-writing and twin guitars.

By the early 70s, under the management of Miles Copeland, Wishbone Ash were two albums into their career and gradually rising – but nobody could have predicted what was to come. Officially formed in 1969, the British blues rockers came into being when former The Empty Vessels vocalist/bassist Martin Turner and drummer Steve Upton hired guitarists Andy Powell and Ted Turner to complete a quartet. They released their self-titled debut in 1970 and Pilgrimage in 1971; but it was 1972’s extraordinary Argus that propelled them to new heights.