Year: 2025
Label: Bluelight Records

Earlier this year, in our From the Vaults series, we covered British Beltane Fire’s sole album Different Breed (here). Beltane Fire is the fourth moniker of the band, best known and loved as neobilly act The Blue Cats, who with this name released one album and, sadly, quickly went nowhere, at least as far as the label was concerned.

The band themselves had their sights set on album number two, and even recorded a bunch of demos showcasing the direction their music was going in and the songs planned for their sophomore effort as Beltane Fire. Sadly, labels showed little interest, and as such the album proper was never made and the demos ended up gathering dust for nigh on four decades.

Until now. Thanks to Finnish Bluelight Records, who also released The Blue Cats’ Best Dawn Yet (plus a live album and a compilation), these demos finally see the light of day.

We described Different Breed as something different in our aforementioned retrospective. But, let me tell you, that was nothing. For fans of the neobilly sound of The Blue Cats, White Stag goes even further left field. Much more.

Where Different Breed still had inklings of the band’s rockabilly past, White Stag dives head first into 80’s rock territory. True, the double bass remains in the band’s instrument arsenal, but even it does not sound roots-y in the least. No, cast all your expectations of anything akin to the old releases under other names aside.

To go in with anything more than no expectations based on previous releases under any name, from any decade, is to set yourself up for a disappointment. I went in with some expectations, and had a horrible first listen. I couldn’t stand the album.

But then I listened to it a second time. And I saw the light. I kid you not, White Stag is awesome.

The first thing you notice, when you’re past any initial shock, are the melodies and choruses. Songs like album opener Love And Justice, the majestic Where My Father Walked, the anthemic Living Days. The musical form may be different, but the band’s knack for killer melodies remains!

Then you notice the versatility. The Rat has traces of post punk and even goth rock. The hearty tempo and synths of Running To The Light echo Bruce Springsteen. All Things Must Change has an almost folk pop – a very 80’s style folk pop – element to its melody.

The combination is weird, and fascinating. Think Bruce Springsteen meets Midnight Oil meets, I dunno, goth icons Ghost Dance on their considerably less goth, more new wave album Stop The World. Laced with the unique voice and melodic sensibilities of Clint Bradley, whose vocals instantly identify Beltane Fire as part of the “The Blue Cats continuum.”

White Stag is even an epic album. There’s this aching melancholy in the melodies and the lyrics, of yearning for a different world, as embodied by the namesake stag on the cover art, for a perhaps idealized and mythical but more innocent, more free past. Nowhere is this clearer than on Dust Of The Modern Way, where Bradley’s lyrics proudly look back into a different time – not necessarily of Arthurian legend, but of “Rose red mornings on a movie screen/Cowboy heroes and western queens” – that bluesy slide sound isn’t out of place here.

And it’s very, very good. Where Different Breed felt a bit like the band didn’t know in what direction to take their sound, on these demo recordings the concept seems to have crystallized. The band are no longer fumbling in a no man’s land between their old sound and the new one they were chasing, they’ve crossed on over to the other side.

It’s a shame Beltane Fire never got the chance to record an album based on these demos. Already in this form this is a great release – one can only wonder how the actual album would’ve turned out. The song material for a would-have-been-classic was in place, at least.

But on the other hand, there is a silver lining to this tragic injustice. If White Stag had been made, if Beltane Fire had made it big, would The Blue Cats ever have made a comeback and released The Tunnel (1992), the greatest neobilly album ever made? I suspect not. As such, rockabilly fans all over the world came out winners in the end.

As a sort of curious pre-postlude to White Stag, The Blue Cats would revisit two songs from these demos on their already classic 2012 album Best Dawn Yet. The country style Long Road Home is quite similar on it and White Stag, although perhaps the 2012 rendition is a bit more mature. Following Ahab, however, was quite extensively rearranged for the album, to its detriment: I much prefer this energetic 80’s rock version to the later remake.

In conclusion, it’s a crying shame Beltane Fire never got around to make a second album. Based on these demos, it would have been something else. However, in the bigger picture, perhaps it was preordained, considering the even bigger whopper that might not have been made. And even in this somewhat crude, unfinished form, these songs speak for themselves.

Yeah, it’s not rockabilly. It’s not neobilly. It doesn’t sound anything at all like the band’s most classic recordings, under whatever of their many names. But it’s still testament to their knack for great songs. In my mind, this is very obviously their third strongest release, hot in the heels after The Tunnel and Best Dawn Yet. And considering those two are not only classics but iconic albums, that’s saying something.

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