Fantastical Journey
Voted Prog’s Best Unsigned Band back in 2021, Brightonbased proggers Azure have spent the past two years crafting their magnum opus, Fym. We meet band founders, vocalist Christopher Sampson and guitarist Galen Stapley, to hear the inside story of its fantastical, complex tale.
Words: Alison Reijman Images: Felix La Mer
Shaz Dudhia, Galen Stapley and Dan Haysom: bards at work and play.
Close to Brighton’s bustling city centre is a church graveyard that Christopher Sampson and Galen Stapley consider the perfect peaceful place to discuss with Prog the finer points – and there are many – of Azure’s third studio album, the seismically dynamic Fym. The pair are exhausted but elated.
It’s been three years since Of Brine And Angel’s Beaks helped them scoop the Best Unsigned Band accolade in our annual readers’ poll and it’s not hard to understand why it’s taken this long. Fym hopes to build on that success with a serpentine storyline that sees the title character – an introverted, learned historian living in a jungle – embarking on a perilous quest to retrieve shards of a shattered mystical weapon. Mythical creatures, sorcery and dungeons lie in her path. It’s all brought to life through the panoramic score delivered on an ambitious scale akin to Dream Theater or Haken.