Lyrian was formed in Oxfordshire in 2006 by three wrinkled halflings. John Blake plays lead guitar, guitars and sings; Alison Felstead plays bass and sings; and Paul W. Nash plays keyboards, guitars, woodwinds, percussion and sings too. In 2009 the band was joined by legendary percussionist Edgar (Ed) Wilde. All the songs are written by Nash and Blake. The band name is derived from Lyra, the Latin lyre, with its associations with lyric poetry and music. It is also (almost) “librarian” without a bra. The members of the band have all worked as lybrarians. Their first concept album, Nightingale Hall, appeared in 2008. A single, Sick Roses was released on 1 June 2011. Lyrian’s second major recording, a double concept album entitled The Tongues of Men and Angels, was released in 2012. Their third full-length CD was – guess what – a concept album, The Jester’s Quest in the City of Glass, launched upon a brutal world on All Fools Day 2016. A romantic EP, The nightingale and the rose (based on Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale) can be heard and downloaded for free here.

The band is working on four further albums (in a race to see which will be completed first). The next, due for release in 2022, is entitled Seven Puzzles, and will bear eight progressive songs, seven of which contain puzzles of some sort ... Another will be the next concept album, provisionally entitled A Grammar of the Language of the People of the Moon; yet another is a more light-hearted album of tributes and parodies (cover versions and cover perversions); and the fourth is a tribute to Johannes Gutenberg, based on the songs Mendelssohn wrote for the celebrations of 1840. In the mean time, songs can be heard on MySpace and Soundcloud, and there are videos for Lyrian's “covers” of three great songs, Van Halen’s Tattoo, Motorhead’s Orgasmatron and Ultravox’s Vienna, now available on YouTube. Three extra-special epic songs Fabula Mirandae, Evagor and The nightingale and the rose can be downloaded for free from Soundcloud and Hearthis.

Lyrian can be found at MySpace and ProgArchives, and have a splendid Bandcamp and ProgStreaming presence. The band was featured in the ‘Limelight’ column of PROG magazine number 27, and also appeared on the free CDs issued with numbers 24 and 46 of the same organ.