Argent ‎– Nexus (1974) -

Nexus is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Argent, released in March 1974 on Epic.

This was the final studio album by the original four-piece lineup of keyboardist–singer Rod Argent, singer–guitarist Russ Ballard, bassist Jim Rodford, and drummer Bob Henrit. Rod Argent and Chris White produced Nexus, and the LP reached No. 149 on the Billboard 200 in the US.

This album shifts the group into a broader keyboard frame. Side one opens with a linked run of instrumentals, then expands further with the eight-minute “Music From the Spheres.” Side two turns toward Ballard’s shorter songs, which bring back a firmer riff attack and a more direct vocal stance. Organ, electric piano, synthesizer color, and Mellotron give the record its widest tonal spread to that point in the catalog.

Background

By 1974, Argent had already moved from the moody song emphasis of the first two albums into a heavier organ-led attack on All Together Now and In Deep. Nexus opens a new phase. The band’s own catalog history places it at the front of a spacier run that continues into Circus and Counterpoints, with longer forms and more elaborate keyboard textures.

The album also sharpens the internal split that had been present for years. Rod Argent and Chris White handle the opening instrumental sequence, “Music From the Spheres,” and “Keeper of the Flame.” Ballard supplies “Love” and most of side two, including “Thunder and Lightning,” “Man for All Reasons,” and “Gonna Meet My Maker.” That division gives the record a hybrid shape: side one builds through connected instrumental design, while side two returns to distinct songs.

Recording

Rod Argent and Chris White retained the production role they held on earlier albums. The original US issue appeared on Epic as KE 32573. Contemporary discographic sources also show the album under forty-two minutes, with small timing variations across listings.

Personnel remained compact. Rod Argent handled organ, electric piano, and the album’s one explicitly credited lead vocal on “Music From the Spheres.” Ballard took guitar and vocals, Rodford handled bass and additional guitar, and Henrit played drums and percussion.

A1. “The Coming of Kohoutek” (3:01) | Argent, White | voice: instrumental

“The Coming of Kohoutek” opens the album with a ceremonial theme and a strong keyboard front. Source commentary identifies a recurring Dies Irae reference in the opening triptych, first stated in a synth-and-Mellotron blend before the full band enters. The piece moves through several sections but keeps returning to the same central motif, which gives side one an immediate structural thread.

A2. “Once Around the Sun” (2:49) | Argent, White | voice: instrumental

“Once Around the Sun” carries the opening design forward in a shorter span. The arrangement rises on keyboard motion and holds the celestial thread without breaking the sequence into a separate song event. Its job is transitional but not minor: it lifts the first instrumental into a brighter register and clears the path for the third piece.

A3. “Infinite Wanderer” (3:42) | Argent, White | voice: instrumental

“Infinite Wanderer” completes the opening triptych with a lighter touch than the first piece. Published commentary describes it as the section that winds up the suite, and that function is clear in its shorter arc and more agile movement. By the end of the track, side one has already established the album’s main change in method: connected keyboard-led development before the first sung number arrives.

A4. “Love” (3:51) | Ballard | voice: Argent

“Love” breaks the instrumental run with the album’s softest vocal entry. Ballard wrote the song, but available commentary on the record identifies Rod Argent as the singer here. Mellotron strings and flutes cushion the ballad, which gives side one a gentler center before the long closing piece.

Love is to belong
It’s a theme in the verse of a song
It’s a word in a rhyme
It’s a line in the news
It’s a game that you win or you lose

Rod defines love as something woven through ordinary life and language. It appears in songs, words, public life, and in the emotional risks people take.

Love is in the smile that you wear
All the while you’re in love
It’s to care and to share in the pain
Be resigned when you find that your love is in vain

Love becomes visible in how a person feels and behaves. It brings joy, care, and shared suffering, but it also requires acceptance when love fails.

Love, love, love, love is a game
That you win or you lose
Love, love, love, love is a game

The refrain reduces love to a contest of emotional chance. It can bring fulfillment or loss.

Love is to forgive, is to trust
It’s for real, it’s to live
It’s to care and to share in the pain
Be resigned when you find that your love is in vain

Rod expands the definition of love into forgiveness, trust, reality, and commitment. Love means living fully while also enduring pain and disappointment.

Love is in the smile that you wear
All the while you’re in love
It’s a word in a rhyme
It’s a line in the news

The closing stanza returns to the earlier images of love as both feeling and expression. It leaves love as something present in the face, in language, and in the everyday world.

A5. “Music From the Spheres” (8:10) | Argent, White | voice: Argent

“Music From the Spheres” is the side-one centerpiece. Rod Argent carries the vocal, then shifts the track into an extended instrumental passage built on electric-piano figures, rhythm-section pull, and a long repetitive coda. Multiple reviews describe it as the album’s cornerstone, and that reads correctly from the structure alone: it is the broadest single composition on the studio LP and the clearest statement of the record’s wider keyboard architecture.

Now the morning star is here to greet us
For so many thousand years he’s been away
But I won’t be afraid

(I won’t, I won’t, I won’t be afraid)

Rod greets the return of a long-absent celestial presence and treats it as awe-inspiring rather than threatening. He declares that he will not respond with fear.

Music from the spheres assails my ears
I hear a distant song, a moving hymn
That grows and breaks across the universe

The speaker hears a vast cosmic music that seems to move across time and space. The sound feels transcendent, powerful, and capable of lifting his mind beyond ordinary life.

Music from the spheres to take my mind away
As it flows throughout the years

All around the world the people trembled
‘God, save us from the Devil’ – was their prayer
But I can’t be afraid

The focus shifts to humanity at large, which reacts to the same event with terror and religious panic. The speaker separates himself from that response and again insists that he will not be afraid.

(I won’t, I won’t, I won’t be afraid)

Music from the spheres assails my ears
Instils a season’s song, a moving hymn
That grows and breaks across the universe

The cosmic music returns, now described as something that plants a deep, seasonal or timeless song within him. It continues to spread across the universe and draw him out of fear.

Music from the spheres to take my mind away
As it flows throughout the years

(Don’t, don’t save us, don’t save us from the Devil)

The closing fragment rejects the fearful prayer for rescue from evil. It suggests that the speaker no longer sees the event as demonic, but as something to face or accept on its own terms.

B1. “Thunder and Lightning” (5:05) | Ballard | voice: Ballard

“Thunder and Lightning” flips side two into Ballard’s camp at once. Commentary on the album consistently describes the track as one of the side’s earthier numbers, with storm effects, a heavier riff base, and a more aggressive vocal attack than anything on side one. The song does not abandon the keyboard layer, but it reorders the balance and places the guitar-led rock frame back in front.

There are times when you’re feeling so good
That the only way to move is down
You’re feeling fine, looking like a king
Then you turn around and you’re painted like a clown

Russ describes the sudden collapse that can follow confidence and success. A moment of triumph can flip at once into humiliation.

Nights you feel you’re about to win
The gold in your pocket turns to tin

Even on nights that feel full of promise, good fortune can turn worthless. The stanza shows how quickly success can decay.

Thunder, lightning, striking again and again and again and again
Thunder and lightning striking me down

The refrain turns that reversal into the image of a violent strike from above. “Thunder and lightning” stands for repeated blows of bad luck or sudden disaster.

You play the game and you just can’t lose
And you’re walking with your feet off the ground
Every ball seems to hit the net
Every penny that you save becomes a pound

Russ returns to a run of confidence and winning momentum. Life feels effortless, prosperous, and fully in his favor.

Just when you find peace of mind
Just look around and what do you find?

Just when calm and stability seem secure, everything changes again. The question points to the shock of finding trouble where peace had seemed certain.

Thunder (thunder, thunder, thunder) lightning (lightning, lightning, lightning)
Striking (striking, striking, striking) again and again and again and again
Thunder and lightning striking me down

The refrain returns with the same image of repeated attack. Success is again interrupted by forces that bring him down.

Well you play the game and you just can’t lose
And you’re walking with your feet off the ground
Every ball seems to hit the net
Every penny that you save becomes a pound

The verse repeats the earlier picture of easy success and rising confidence. The singer remains caught in the same cycle of ascent.

Just when you find peace of mind
Just look around and what do you find?

The return of peace once more proves temporary. Stability again leads straight into another collapse.

The refrain repeats the pattern of sudden ruin. The singer feels battered over and over by forces beyond his control.

The final repetition fixes that cycle as the song’s central truth. Each rise carries the threat of another strike and another fall.

B2. “Keeper of the Flame” (6:02) | Argent, White | voice: Argent

“Keeper of the Flame” returns to the Argent-White side of the album with a larger, more declarative build. JazzRockSoul’s artist overview calls it melodramatic, while later retrospective commentary highlights its organ-led opening and symphonic cast. That combination gives side two its longest ascent and restores the keyboard-centered scale that had dominated side one.

See me, hear me
This is what I am when we’re together
For we are born alone, seen to stumble
Pass the early days in pain and pleasure
Oh, maybe I was lost and sometimes was confused
But I was just a boy then
And I was living, forgiving, making music
Making love with equal pleasure

Rod defines himself through shared experience and intimacy. He looks back on youth as a mix of confusion, sensual discovery, music, and emotional growth.

Remember, remember the winter
When the cold rain on the mystery fell
These years they, they make me my fortune
But my memories serve to make me as well

He recalls a winter marked by hardship and mystery. Time has brought him fortune, but memory still shapes him just as deeply.

We drank the sun, shared the wind
Being part of one increased the wonder
The moment passes, still unreal
Yet frozen in a timeless state of feeling

The speaker remembers a near-mystical period of unity, freedom, and wonder with another person. Even though the moment passed, it remains preserved in memory as something timeless.

I remember, remember the sunrise
Left me breathless streaming ribbons of gold
Now I’m older but still I am watching
Watching breathless as the mystery unfolds

He recalls a sunrise that left him awestruck and says that age has not diminished that response. He still watches life unfold with the same breathless sense of mystery.

And I recall the things I heard would wash me
With a rare and perfect sadness
I don’t pretend to understand the waves of life
That flame and course within us
I’m just the keeper of the flame
And so I will remain while life flows on around me
I’m just the keeper of the flame
Enduring all the pain and lost in joy and wonder
I’m just the keeper of the flame

The speaker reflects on sadness, change, and the deeper currents of life that he cannot fully explain. He accepts a humble role as someone who preserves wonder and meaning while enduring pain and joy alike.

(I’m just the keeper, the keeper)
I’m just the keeper of the flame

The repeated closing lines turn that role into his lasting identity. He remains the “keeper of the flame,” holding onto that inner light through everything.

B3. “Man for All Reasons” (4:44) | Ballard | voice: Ballard

“Man for All Reasons” narrows the frame again and shifts into a march-derived pulse. Contemporary summaries of the album repeatedly describe the song as martial, and later commentary also points to military-drum coloring in the arrangement. Ballard uses that pulse to drive a compact, song-led structure instead of the longer buildup that shapes the Argent-White material around it.

There’s a man who’s in demand
He’s the man who’s in command
Laws are only made for fools
He can break the rules

The song opens with a powerful man who stands above ordinary rules. He represents authority without restraint and the arrogance that comes with command.

There’s a man who’s born of fate
Born to win or made to wait
In the end he will succeed
One who’s born to lead

This man appears destined for success and leadership. The stanza presents him as someone marked by fate to rise and prevail.

And again there’s a man who’s lost
He’s alone and he bears the cost
In a life where bad fortune crossed

The focus shifts to a different man shaped by failure and loss. He lives alone and pays the price for misfortune.

There’s a man who stands alone
All his life will be unknown
But he’s thankful just to live
Thankful for to give

Another figure stands apart from the world in obscurity. Though unnoticed, he remains grateful simply to live and to give what he can.

There’s a man who lives for love
Sees the eagle as the dove
Should the flame of anger rise
He will turn his eyes

This man lives through love and chooses gentleness over anger. He answers conflict by turning away from hatred.

And again there’s a man for war
Who can say what he’s come here for?
He’s a man living Satan’s law

The song then presents a man of war whose purpose feels dark and destructive. He seems driven by violence and aligned with evil.

There’s a man who means to gain
Through a veil of greed and pain
If it lives, it has a price;
He will sacrifice

Another figure pursues gain through greed and suffering. He treats life itself as something to exploit and sacrifice for profit.

There’s a man rules by the sword
Born to hate when evil called
And he spreads the Devil’s word
Where he can be heard

This man rules through violence and hatred. He spreads evil openly and acts as an instrument of destruction.

And again there’s the man of peace
Prays for the day winds of evil cease
Bless the man who’s the man of peace
Bless the man who’s the man of peace

The song closes with the man of peace, who prays for the end of evil. The blessing at the end makes him the moral answer to all the other types of men.

B4. “Gonna Meet My Maker” (4:35) | Ballard | voice: Ballard

“Gonna Meet My Maker” closes the album on a slower, heavier line. Review commentary identifies a simple blues-based riff under the track and notes a more stately pace than “Thunder and Lightning.” Later summaries also point to harmonica color at the close, which suits the song’s darker final stance. Side two ends, then, not with uplift or release but with a heavier closing weight.

Gonna meet my Maker
That’s when my time is here
Gonna meet my Maker
And I won’t shed a tear
Gonna see God and then be born again

The speaker faces death without fear and expects to meet God with calm acceptance. He sees death as a passage toward renewal or rebirth.

Gonna meet my Maker
Then ask the question why
Why some are left alone?
And why the innocent die?

He says that when he meets his maker, he wants answers about suffering and injustice. His main questions concern loneliness and the death of innocent people.

Never been to Heaven but I don’t care
I know, I know one day I’m going there
Gonna meet my Maker

The speaker admits he has never seen heaven, but he still believes he will reach it. Faith replaces certainty.

Gonna meet my Maker
Say ‘Tell me loud and clear’
‘Please, tell me, Maker’
‘Where do we go from here?’

He imagines asking God what comes next after death. The stanza turns from acceptance into a plea for direction and meaning.

If I have to be born again
Only when there’s peace on earth, please, wait till then
Gonna meet my Maker

He says he would only want to return to life when the world has peace. Until then, rebirth would feel premature in a world still marked by suffering.

Impact and Legacy

Nexus stands at the hinge point between Argent’s early quartet run and the next version of the band. It was the final studio album with Russ Ballard, and the material fed directly into Encore: Live in Concert later in 1974, which expanded “Music From the Spheres” and “The Coming of Kohoutek” on stage. Ballard left before the next studio album. John Verity plus John Grimaldi entered for Circus.

Within the catalog, Nexus is the record where Argent most fully commits to the split between side-long keyboard architecture and Ballard’s shorter rock songs. The first three instrumentals, “Music From the Spheres,” and “Keeper of the Flame” give the album its broad frame; “Thunder and Lightning,” “Man for All Reasons,” and “Gonna Meet My Maker” answer with a tougher song-led side. That internal divide is also what makes the album distinct from the earlier records.

Complementary Albums

Nektar – Down to Earth

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – The Good Earth

Utopia – Todd Rundgren’s Utopia

Camel – Mirage

Sahara – Sunrise

Yes – Relayer

Eloy – Floating

Greenslade – Spyglass Guest

Jane – III

Atoll – Musiciens-Magiciens

Tracklist:
A1. “The Coming of Kohoutek” (3:10)
A2. “Once Around the Sun” (2:20)
A3. “Infinite Wanderer” (3:02)
A4. “Love” (3:51)
A5. “Music From the Spheres” (8:10)
B1. “Thunder and Lightning” (5:05)
B2. “Keeper of the Flame” (6:02)
B3. “Man for All Reasons” (4:44)
B4. “Gonna Meet My Maker” (4:35)

Credits:
Rod Argent – organ, electric piano, lead vocals on “Music from the Spheres”
Russ Ballard – guitar, vocals
Jim Rodford – bass guitar, guitar, vocals
Robert Henrit – drums, percussion

Producer — Chris White, Rod Argent

Sources: