''Initiate'' is the second solo album by the Northern Irish singer

Mervyn Spence Mervyn "Spam" Spence (born 1958) is a Northern Irish musician and producer, best known for his work with Wishbone Ash and Trapeze. Musical career Spence moved to Staffordshire from Ireland in the late 1970s, and began playing with bands such a ...

, once again released under the pseudonym "O'Ryan", in 1995. ''Initiate'' contains no original material, instead solely consisting of ten covers of various tracks from Tom Galley's

Phenomena A phenomenon ( phenomena), sometimes spelled phaenomenon, is an observable Event (philosophy), event. The term came into its modern Philosophy, philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be ...

project (which Spence was involved with during its initial stages, and held the rights to at the time), and three re-recorded songs from Spence's debut album, '' Something Strong''. The recordings of "Still the Night", "Did It All for Love" and "No Retreat - No Surrender" found on ''Initiate'' would later be included on the Phenomena compilation boxset released in 2006, 'The Complete Works'. In 2023, Cherry Red Records released a new version of the album, 'Phenomena Recovered', with 2 new covers of Phenomena songs, "Dance with the devil" and "Rock my soul".

Track listing

Personnel

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...

, bass programming, additional guitar * Jason Fillingham - keyboards,

drum programming Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices and computer software, such as sequencers and workstations or hardware synthesizers, sampler and sequencers, to generate sounds of musical instruments. These mu ...

* Huwie Lucas -

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

s * Martin Taylor -

classical guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...

* "Midi Man" -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

* Carl Brazil -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

* Tracey Riggan - backing vocals

Production personnel

* Mervyn Spence -

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

* Jason Fillingham - production,

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

* Simon Hanhart - mixing

References

{{Authority control 1995 albums Mervyn Spence albums 1990s covers albums