Known not only for his dark brooding good looks but his dark brooding good music too, Jeff Martin – former lead man of The Tea Party – is about to make a triumphant return to the forefront of rock music. He brings with him The Armada, his new heavy duty rock outfit that incorporates the deep, dark, swathe of moody blues and fuses it with Middle Eastern influences, not forgetting of course a huge crash of rock and big swell of roll. The result is achingly ballsy and beautiful, just the kind of music we’d expect to hear from Martin.

‘I would describe it as being The Tea Party at its height of musical prowess and creative peak and then taking a page out of that book and moving it forward,’ Martin said of his new project, The Armada. ‘It’s a three piece band and is a culmination of a lot of those things I had explored with The Tea Party as the songwriter for that band. It’s a very heavy rock band with a lot of world music influences.

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‘With The Tea Party we set the bar pretty high back then and the one thing I had to make sure of was that if I was going to go back into rock and roll and play in a rock band again I had to come in at that bar. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. It’s taken me three years to go back to the rock and roll circus but I’m very confident about the outcome now.’

When The Tea Party broke up in October 2005, Martin moved to Ireland – Sheep’s Head Peninsula in West Cork, to be precise. If that sounds ominous… well, it is. It was here that Martin was joined by the living legend that is Wayne Sheehy, a studio drummer unlike any other. When you listen to The Armada’s debut album, that wall of sound that crashes over you is thanks to Sheehy, a master percussionist who has played on Van Morrison records and the studio albums of Robert Palmer.

Together the pair of them began work in Martin’s new haven, his analogue recording studio aptly titled Kingdom. ‘It basically took some time for me to get it together in Ireland but I think it was completed in October of last year,’ Martin says of his recording studio. ‘It’s kind of like if I’m the mad scientist then that’s my laboratory. It’s all directed and designed to fulfil all my needs.

‘Most recording studios are in the middle of cities so that if you’re sitting at a recording console you’re staring at a brick wall,’ Martin continued. ‘Whereas with my studio there’s a bay window where my console is and I’m overlooking the ocean. It’s very beautiful. It’s a very magical setting. There are no distractions there, so when we’re in that studio that’s all we’re there for. There might be a pub down the lane but there’s not much nightlife going on. There’s a couple of sheep, some goats and a farmer… and that’s all there is.’

Of the end result – The Armada’s self titled debut – Martin says the album is, ‘a big open analogue sound’, one very reminiscent of early Led Zeppelin records. ‘The best rock and roll records from the ’70s have what I call nuances – and what other people might call mistakes – but they’re what bring the sex into music,’ Martin concluded. ‘When you hear this record you’ll be able to tell: it breathes.’

The Armada is out now, although hurry: there’s only 10,000 copies available worldwide! However, stay tuned to January 1 2009 when The Armada unleash their next wave of attack. Until then, a live appearance from them at The Fly By Night in Fremantle on November 28 and 29, then Scarborough on November 30, should tide you over.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell