UK artist John Irvine and his The John Irvine band has been a part of the UK progressive rock scene for 15 years or thereabout as a recording venture, and are best known for their instrumental albums that blends progressive rock and jazzrock into a tasteful and compelling brew. “Take Me to Your Leader” is their most re4cent studio production, and was released through Irvine’s own label Head in the Door Records at the start of 2026.
The challenges of life have led me to coming to this album rather late, but I’ll have to say that this is quite the enjoyable affair. This is the first of John Irvine’s albums I have come across that feature lead vocals, and the style and expressions explored are also vastly different from the previous material I have encountered by The John Irvine Band.
Pop music sensibilities is a phrase that defines a lot of this production, with engaging and flowing songs that zoom in on either mood and atmosphere or tempo and energy to captivate the listener, with most songs coming with a set of associations towards one direction or the other. Or at least that is the case as far as my own experience is concerned.
While the opening ‘Wheel of Time’ strikes me as being a bit of a bridge back to the previous albums by the band, with some subtle jazzrock details sneaking into the song alongside neo-progressive rock tendencies and futuristic sounds, explored inside of a broadly appealing framework that also introduce the pop music sensibilities that runs like a red thread throughout this album.
As the album moves on, the associations come one after the other. Early 80’s Genesis and arguably Asia are associations I get for some of the earlier tracks here, and as we move deeper into the album mid 80s Yes, the ELP side project 3 and Rush from the “Hold Your Fire” era are all associations that came to mind at some point or other. And the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe album and to a certain extent possibly even Vangelis struck me as possible associations at some point.
This doesn’t say all that much about the individual compositions of course, but might be regarded as slight indicators of the types of songs and moods you will encounter prior to exploring the starkly contrasting and more creative title track at the very end of this journey.
For me, this is a production that strikes me as a solid and thorough trip into the more pop-oriented and broadly appealing parts of the progressive rock universe, with futuristic sounding moods crafted by the keyboards are as much of a defining feature hre as the pop sensibility nature of the songs themselves. An album to seek out if a more melodic and broadly appealing variety of progressive rock is music you tend to enjoy.
Rating: 80/100
Links:
https://johnirvine.co.uk/