From the Vaults: Trollheart's Album Reviews Thread
 

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Over the course of my ten or so years here, I've reviewed a few albums - I reckon it must come close to in the region of 2,000, between threads and journals - but most if not all of them are now buried so deep in the forum that you'd need a strong bathosphere and a good supply of oxygen, plus a lot of time on your hands to even find them. My journals, in addition to being submerged in the lower levels now of the system, are like old, dilapidated houses left to rack and ruin. Broken video and image links, hundreds of pages of material just waiting to be read but never likely to be.

It's a lot of work, and represents really almost a sixth of the time I've been on this planet, and though I loved doing the reviews back then, I've moved on now and with a few exceptions - my Prince journal, my Iron Maiden thing, and of course the History of Prog Rock - I no longer write album reviews, nor do I intend or want to. But it seems a shame that all that work should go to waste, as it were: lost, hidden away, unread by human eyes, so I've decided to start salvaging it.

Here I'll be collating all my album reviews, from journals and threads I no longer update. My tastes are not as eclectic as some - and there are those who would and will say they're downright boring, and maybe they're right, but after all it's in the eye (or in this case, the ear) of the beholder - but in my time I reviewed everything from prog rock to... prog metal.

No, seriously: my journals were the only place where someone once said (think it was me, but however) you could find a review of an album by Pixie Lott followed by one on Black Sabbath. A prog and metal head from the start, I was turned on to other music by people here, and accordingly reviewed a lot of it, so you will find pop, metal, prog, country, folk, even classical in my reviews. I even tackled the odd musical. So with a bit of luck there should be something here, at some point, to interest everyone.

I never only reviewed albums I liked (or hated), but tried to give a decent flavour of my record collection, and very often I would review an album I had not heard at the same time as I was listening to it for the first time, so some of my comments are interesting to say the least, as I listened to and learned about an album, with no idea as to whether I would like it or hate it. I did, however, always try to give every album a chance, and seldom rejected anything out of hand.

You'll find different styles and formats surfacing here, as I'll be taking reviews from everything from The Playlist of Life (my original and main music journal) and Trollheart's Listening List to Love or Hate? and Trollheart Listens to Every Album on Wiki's List from 2017, from Classic Albums I Have Never Heard to Trollheart Reviews the Music You Hate. Anyone who knows my work may recognise these reviews - none are new and many were written as long as ten years ago - so this may not be of interest to you (or it may), but I hope to provide these writings for those who have not yet read them, or know of them, and perhaps give them new life of a sort.

Anyway, enjoy. If there's an album you want me to post, and I have it and have reviewed it, I'll do so, but unless you can really convince me why I should, I don't intend to write reviews of any albums I either have and have not written about, or new ones I don't have.

Comments as always welcome, and Batty, this is not a rec (recommendations) thread - cue Batty with twenty outlandish recs! Right then!
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Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, April 30 2013

Flaunt the Imperfection - China Crisis - 1985 (Virgin)
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Nationality: English
Genre: Synthpop/New-Wave
Familiarity: The hit singles only

A band whose singles I know but whose albums I have heard not one of. I have to say though, pretty much everything that I have heard from them to date I have enjoyed; whether that will turn out to be that the singles were all just their best output and the albums largely uninteresting I don't know, but you can't really judge any artist by their singles. Sometimes the songs released are not that typical of the band's usual output, and are chosen as being the most commercial and therefore the ones most likely to make an impact in the charts, thereby raising the profile of the artist, while other, often more experimental or interesting or just atypical tracks are left on the albums, to be heard only by those who are sufficiently interested to buy them.

It never really struck me to go buy one of China Crisis's albums, and even now I'm maybe not expecting all that much. Seems like their last recorded output was almost twenty years ago now*, so are they still around? Well, yes they are, but since the late nineties they seem to have concentrated on live work only, with pretty much the two founder members forming the mainstay of the band, while others - both previous and new members - have come and gone in a fairly fluid state of affairs. Looks like their last concert was a sell-out last year though, and not in a bad way, so I wouldn't count them out just yet. Who knows? Maybe they'll come back with a new album soon.

But for now, this is what we have to judge them by. One of their more successful efforts, it cracked the top twenty in the album charts and also yielded them three singles, though only two were successful. Of those, though, one hit the top twenty and one just inside that; their biggest hit single was "Wishful Thinking" from the prior album Working With Fire and Steel. This starts off with an almost oriental melody as "The Highest High" gets us underway, an uptempo pop song with some nice keyboards and the by-now familiar voice of Gary Daly sounding to my mind very like Francis Dunnery from It Bites. There's a nice pleasant whistling sound set up by the synth, with soft, laidback drumming and rippling piano, a slick little bass line and it's a good opener. It's typical of a lot of the, shall we say, inoffensive pop of the eighties, not meaning to be scathing here or anything. It just doesn't punch you as some of the music from that era did; there are no heavy political messages, just some guys having a good time making music. And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

"Strength of Character" starts on some high guitar and flowing piano and synth, much slower and relaxed than the opener, though there's a sort of faster percussion set up within the song. It reminds me of Paul Muggleton's best work with Judie Tzuke in the late seventies and early eighties. Super little bit of sax work from Steve Gregory, then one of the less successful singles from this album is up next, with a nice funky guitar and bassline: I always liked "You Did Cut Me" and it bops along nicely, again with some great sax from Gregory, smooth keys from Daly, and a nice arrangement of brass giving the song something of a soul vibe. Great restrained little guitar solo from Eddie Lundon too. The song has a lovely little hook which really should have seen it go further in the charts than it did. That statement can't be levelled though at "Black Man Ray" which was the biggest hit from this album, and China Crisis's second-highest chart placement.

Built on a new-wave, almost Yazoo-style bass line and some perky piano, it's a cool little ballad that trips along on the gentle vocal of Gary Daly, again with a great hook in it, and a wonderful little, again oriental almost, keyboard riff that really forms the chorus without any words. Lundon also gets in a really slick little guitar solo, but it kind of fades out a little too weakly for my tastes, taking us into "Wall of God", which opens with an almost orchestral synth introduction then pumps the tempo back up to the level of the opener, a very upbeat little song again driven on a great bass line with some flowing keys and percussion that ticks along without getting overbearing. Very new-wave style keyboard solo, somewhat reminiscent of Depeche Mode or Fiction Factory, then Lundon rips off another fine guitar solo, and the oriental type piano returns. Gary Daly's vocal throughout rides above everything, the focus of your attention, his voice a little high and lilting in that almost-feminine sound many new wave vocalists of the time seemed to have.

This one ends much better, although it too fades, on a great combined guitar and keyboard solo, and we're into "Gift of Freedom" which opens with staccato, jerking synth then jumps into a mid-paced rhythm with solid keys and sharp guitar. It picks up pace soon after opening though and becomes a pretty upbeat song with a really nice vocal line. There is something more approaching a message in this song as Daly croons "Will this whole damn world/ Fall down?/ Before we learn to share/ What we've found?" Again, nice use of the brass section here, then the final hit single keeps the tempo high, in fact upping it considerably as "King in a Catholic Style" runs on what sound like pan pipes on speed, but is obviously synthesiser, hollow almost African drumming which is then joined by a superb little bass and an almost hurried vocal from Daly. Nice rippling piano on the chorus, and the drumming is now more natural and skipping along nicely. Lundon shows here what he can do on the guitar, delivering one of the best solos on the album so far. The song is though driven on the uptempo keyboard line, everything coming right back down then for the slower but yet poppy "Bigger the Punch I'm Feeling", which has I feel something of a Level 42 taste to it.

Nice jazzy guitar in this, and though I hate that handclap drumming it works well here and doesn't annoy me. Some lovely keyboard work from Daly in addition to his fine vocal, and more smooth contributions from the brass section, particularly Steve Gregory. Great backing vocals on this too. It ends on another slick little guitar piece from Eddie Lundon, taking us into "The World Spins, I'm Part of It", with an almost Genesisesque keyboard line which then metamorphoses into an uptempo, boppy song with the odd trace of calypso in there somewhere. Another star turn for the guys on the trumpets, sax and 'bones, it also has some squeaky keyboard from Daly which kind of resembles a harmonica sound with a pitch bend or something on it. Not my favourite track I must admit, but not bad. The album then closes on "Blue Sea", a soft atmospheric synth with attendant sax and sparkling piano, very laidback and relaxed, though to be fair I wouldn't call this a ballad. Strange in a way, that none of the ten tracks on this album other than "Black Man Ray" could be classed as a ballad. I would have expected more. Nevertheless, this is a gentle and tranquil way to end the album, and overall I must say I'm rather impressed.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Highest High
2. Strength of Character
3. You Did Cut Me
4. Black Man Ray
5. Wall of God
6. Gift of Freedom
7. King in a Catholic Style (Wake Up)
8. Bigger the Punch I'm Feeling
9. The World Spins, I'm Part of It
10. Blue Sea

So would I become a fan of China Crisis? I wouldn't go that far, but I'd certainly listen to some more of their output. There's nothing here that disappoints me or turns me off, and in general I'm pretty satisfied with what I've heard. No massive revelations, no sudden impulse to log on and purchase all of their material, and no huge desire that they should release anything new. But I can see why they were so popular back in the eighties; in fact, given their somewhat limited success in the charts I wonder they weren't better known and liked. Maybe they just didn't stand out from the crowd enough to mark them as really special. In fairness I'd probably agree with that. Good music, good band, but in the end perhaps lacking that certain x-factor that would make them a great band, and a must-listen.

Originally posted in Trollheart's Listening List, December 13 2015
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Note: For those unfamiliar with my colour coding, at the time this was the key I used.
Terrible Meh Great Wonderful

The big red number refers to the album's position in the artist's discography (in this case, third) and the little guys with the headphones at the end, well I assume that's self-explanatory.

Title: Beings
Artist: Lanterns on the Lake
Year 2015
Nationality: English
Genre: Indie Rock
Familiarity: I've heard and loved Gracious Tide, Take Me Home
3
Expectations: I don't know. There were mixed reviews for the followup, Until the Colours Run, but I've not yet heard that. I'm hoping this will be more in the style of the debut than the second album. Either way it will be great to hear Hazel again.

1. Of dust and matter: After some radio-tuning noises and effects we're greeted by a single acoustic guitar strumming slowly, and then that angelic voice of Hazel Wilde, with crying synth rising behind her like some sort of banshee. Beautiful lonely piano now as Hazel's voice rises in passion, and it's a strong, strong start and augurs well for the rest of the album. Rolling percussion and really sprinkly piano as we rise towards the conclusion of the song.
2. I'll stall them: Beautiful piano and sweet trumpet leads this in, then it gets pretty passionate and powerful as it goes along, Hazel's soulful voice taking command with a great sort of again crying synth counterpointing the brass and making this just something quite special.
3. Faultlines: More uptempo with some busy percussion and rolling piano, a stronger vocal from Hazel but I feel it could end at the three minute mark whereas it continues on to five. It's not that it's overstretched, as such, but it does seem a little unnecessarily long. Still a great track though.
4. The crawl: The first since the opener to begin on guitar, joined then by Hazel's piano and another ethereal vocal. Love the sort of militaristic drumbeat that is somehow both incongruous and exactly fits. That rising synth (I'm beginning to wonder if it's guitar?) is back and it slots right into the feel of the song.
5. Send me home: Wondering if that's violin accompanying the piano at the opening of this ballad? Short but beautiful, the way LotL do so well.
6. Through the cellar door: Kind of a slightly Prefab idea about this I feel; midpaced with a really nice just gently riffing guitar that then bursts out in a quite unexpected punch, taking the song by the scruff before Hazel and her piano re-establish order. Nice to be shaken up once in a while.
7. Beings: If there's one thing apart from Hazel's voice that makes Lanterns on the Lake so special, it's her exceptional skill on the piano, and here she demonstrates it once again, almost without guile, like someone saying “Yeah, I can do this. So?” Almost as if it's not a big deal. Talk about self-effacing. More beautiful synth and rolling drums. Just gorgeous. Wonderful rising - I don't know: guitar? Vocal? Synth? Just beautiful.
8. Stepping down: I think there's some scratching going on here, or maybe it's samples, but against the serene piano line it really is so effective, almost like listening to the wind howling outside on a cold night as you sit by a nice warm fire. Has a very ambient feel to it.
9. Stuck for an outline: This is where Hazel shows she can coax some real power and almost anger out of her keyboard. Violin added in from Angela Chang helps to calm the song slightly, but there's an unaccustomed bitternness in Hazel's vocal here. Powerful percussive ending that almost, but not quite, shakes the overall feeling of serenity this album gives me.
10. Inkblot: This short track takes ethereal to a new level and is an amazing if slightly muted closer.

Final result: I'm sort of sorry that I have yet to hear Until the Colours Run, as I might have been able to say this is three for three; LotL got a lot of praise for Gracious Tide.. and sometimes we know the one thing music critics love is to kick their darlings, so the negative reviews of Colours might have been some backlash, the expected thing, the reaction to the dreaded second album: we'd better trash them or we won't be cool. Or maybe it was a disappointment, I don't know. But this one certainly isn't, and leading in my case anyway on from Gracious Tide, Take Me Home it's a pretty phenomenal followup.

Rating: :hphones: :hphones: :hphones: :hphones: and a half

(Sorry; almost all the tracks on YT are unplayable in my country, so this is the only one I could get.)

Originally posted in Bitesize, April 27 2013

Viva Espana!
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Artiste: Saratoga
Nationality: Spanish
Album: Vientos de guerra
Year: 1999
Label: Aspira
Genre: Heavy metal/Power metal
Tracks:
La iguana
Vientos de guerra
Mas de mil anos
Solo un motivo
Aprendiendo a ser yunque (Para llegar a ser martillo)
Heavy metal
Charlie se fue
Extrano silencio
Hielo liquido
El ministro
Estrellas las del cielo
Manos unidas
A sangre y fuego
Si te vas
Ruge el motor
Chronological position: Fourth album
Familiarity: Nemesis
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Christ! Something bad is coming for me! ;)
Best track(s): Vientos de guerra, Solo un motivo, Heavy metal, Charlie se fue, El ministro, Manos unidas
Worst track(s): I liked everything on this album.
Comments: It's always fun listening to metal in another language. The burden of deciphering lyrical themes is taken away and you have to just concentrate on the music, and the talent of the singer without knowing what he or she is singing about! I first heard these guys on their latest album, last year's Nemesis, and I loved it, so here I am checking out one of their older albums. I haven't heard too much Spanish metal, the only others being the old campaigners Baron Rojo and more recently Tierra Santa and Cain's Dinasty, but the more I hear the more I like.

There's an ominous yet exciting sound of hammer-drumming with single beats, like the stomping approach of some huge metal beast, then some guitar shredding before a Sabbathesque groove cuts in leaving the echoey drumming to fade out and we're into track two with all the power and bite these guys can muster. They're not quite as thrash-oriented as the aforementioned Cain's Dinasty, more often along the lines of the likes of early Sabbath or some of the older NWOBHM bands like Saxon and White Spirit, though in fairness this album is almost fifteen years old now. I am however constantly surprised by how easy it is sometimes to translate the titles of songs by Spanish bands: Solo un motivo is surely "only one motive" (or something close anyway) while Estrellas las del cielo certainly refers to stars in the sky, though I'm not sure what "las" means. A sange y fuego is "blood and fire" and even the title track looks to translate into something like "year of the war" or "time of the war".

Still, the titles are not important nor are the lyrics. I don't speak Spanish so can't tell you what the songs are about, but what I can tell you is that Saratoga (one of the larger metal bands in Spain, by all accounts) speak in the universally understood tongue of heavy metal, and they speak loud and clear! Great guitar work, without being showy or "wankery", solid, powerful drumming and a vocalist who really knows how to get the attention. What more could you ask for? They play mostly at close to top speed, again though without descending into breakneck farce, and you can hear the expertise in their playing. It's quite amusing to hear the only song whose title is in English, the appropriately-named Heavy metal is in Spanish --- wonder if the phrase means the same the world over?

Nice to hear that the vocalist can tone it down when required too, as on the grinding ballad Charlie se fue with a really fine guitar solo thrown in for good measure. Arriba! I also like the acoustic Manos unidas; shows what these guys are capable of.
Overall impression: A great metal album, credit to Spain. Who needs to be able to make out the lyrics, anyway?
Intention: Got to listen to a few more of their albums.

Originally posted in Love or Hate? August 12 2015
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Title: Familiars
Artist: The Antlers
Genre: Indie
Familiarity: Heard and fell in love with Hospice

1. Palace: All I can say is I hope this album isn't as heart-tearingly sad as Hospice: I don't think my soul could take that again! The track is opening on a lovely soft piano and synth line, beautiful sad trumpet and the vocals of Peter Silberman are as ethereal and angelic as ever. You really just feel like you're falling into a deep chasm when he sings, and it's a fall you don't mind taking. Already this is some of the most beautiful music I've heard in a long time. Is it just me, or is the cover meant to look like an overcoat, and then when you look closer it's two people embracing?
2. Doppelgänger : This time it's trumpet (or trombone, never can separate the sounds) that leads in the song, another slow, moody, fragile one, with piano coming in and Silberman's voice haunting the tune like a ghost patrolling the corridors of your mind, always just out of sight but you can sense he's there, keeping his lonely vigil. Female vocal coming in now, not sure who. Cello also makes its presence known and some fine, very light Fender Rhodes.
3. Hotel: Slightly harder feel to this, more guitar upfront, though the synth echoes seventies Pink Floyd and again it's a slow, relaxed tune.
4. Intruders: A more biting guitar, but again it's nothing like what you would call an uptempo song. Lovely organ and piano. Oh, and more trumpet. Gotta have trumpet. Some really lovely guitar here. Simple song but really nice. I think there's a harmonium or euphonium, or something ending in -onium anyway in there too.
5. Director: Vocal a bit stronger on this one, bit more passionate, but the song is still a relaxing, laidback ballad style with some gorgeous synth and fine guitar. Getting a certain Floydy vibe from this too. Just beautiful.
6. Revisited: Sort of a Country feel to this. Another lovely track.
7. Parade: I suppose I should say something, but to be honest I'm kind of running out of superlatives here.
8. Surrender: Trumpet really drives this one. So laconic.
9. Refuge: And a great closing track, as I expected at this point it would be.

End result: Not as emotionally draining as Hospice, luckily, but still I see this album as more described as one unit, an experience, almost like a symphony, and breaking it up into separate tracks sort of lessens the effect. Another wonderful album from The Antlers.

So, Love or Hate? After all the blue, you have to ask? True Love.

Originally posted in Trollheart Reviews Albums Nobody Cares About, August 24 2015 (pure coincidence, I do assure you)
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Burning Bridges --- Bon Jovi (2014)

Okay then, the first thing I have to say is **** me sideways with a cucumber but that is one horrible album sleeve! It looks like they just wrapped the thing in brown paper and asked a six-year-old to write on it! If this level of couldn't-give-a-****ness translates to the music, then I will be very disappointed and all you haters can laugh and point at me and tell me you told me so. Described as a “fan's album” (whatever the hell that is!) this is Bon Jovi's thirteenth studio album and their first since 2013's What About Now? Unlucky for some? I don't know, but apparently they're already planning the fourteenth for next year, so I wonder how much actual care and attention has been put into this?

Well, according to Jon, the album consists of “song that weren't finished, songs that were, some new ones...” Yeah, getting excited already, JBJ. No, not really. Hopefully I'm wrong, but this whole idea gives me the feel of something that's maybe contractual obligation, or thrown out to keep the fans happy till they can release their real album. Perhaps I'll end up eating my words, who knows, but right now I'm looking and feeling very small in my corner as I prepare to defend one of the most maligned and reviled rock bands since Nickelback.

1. A Teardrop to the Sea: Okay, this is a bit weird the way it starts, kind of downbeat, then that familiar and overused “Woh-oh-oh!” comes in. Nice basswork. Song reminds me of something off These Days, the chorus sounds very familiar. Bon Jovi are known of course for using the same ideas and themes in various songs. Can't place the melody but it is familiar. Not exactly the explosive start I expected, but not bad.
2. We Don't Run: This kind of sounds like a sub-Imagine Dragons song. Meh. Not very impressed I must say. Parts of the vocal are almost delivered in a rap style, and if I didn't know better I'd suspect Steinman's hand in the music, but he doesn't appear to be involved. Okay, it has that us-against-the-world motif that Bon Jovi use so much in their songs, and I will remember it more than the opener, but it's still a little substandard.
3. Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning: Before I even start listening to this, let me say that I am sick of Bon Jovi using Saturday night in their lyrics. That said, it looks like it's going to develop into a decent song, but again, the melody is very familiar. Quite anthemic, probably the best so far.
4. We All Fall Down: The “don't let the bastards grind you down” message is getting a little stale. This is okay, but just okay. Slower song, though not what I'd call a ballad really. Another anthemic chorus. They're really writing for the kids now, which is a little silly, given the age of these guys.
5. Blind Love: Could I hope for a Waits cover? Thought not. Nice piano though, seems like this may be the first ballad. Alright, this is beautiful. Orchestral accompaniment? Can't tell; there's very little information and the Wiki and Discogs pages are useless. Don't even know who's taken Sambora's place on the guitar. Is there something in the fact that this is one of only two tracks Jon writes solo? On the rest he's mostly collaborating with either John Shanks, Billy Falcon or, on one, Richie, which I assume is an older track.
6. Who Would You Die For: This has a somewhat sort of trip-hop feel to it, another quite downbeat song; doesn't really do it for me. Great guitar solo. The middle eighth is stupid though.
7. Fingerprints: This is much, much better. Sort of a swaying balladic song, mostly on acoustic guitar.
8. Life is Beautiful: The “Woh-oh-oh!”'s are back. :rolleyes: I guess we need a bit of an uptempo track after the last three, but this is a little weak to be fair. Also, it's a little easy for a millionaire like Jon to tell us life is beautiful. Maybe it isn't for those sleeping rough or who can't find a job. Just sayin', it's not all roses out there and sometimes Bon Jovi seem to live in a world separate from the rest of us.
9. I'm Your Man: Please be the Wham! song, please be the Wham! song, please be the .... aw. :( That would have been so cool, and also funny. Oh well. Bon Jovi don't really do covers, and the chances they'd do that one... Meh, it's another throwaway. Lyrically it's very close to “I Could Make a Livin' Out of Lovin' You” from Crush.
10. Burning Bridges: Oh. Dear. God. No. Just no. A Country song? Dear God in Heaven, why?

Conclusion: Certainly not the greatest Bon Jovi album I've ever heard. Not the worst either, but some of the filler is hardly even good enough to be called that. There are some very good tracks, but whether they justify the pretty low-quality collection of songs that masquerades as an album here is very debatable. I suppose if you look on this as not really an album maybe you can get away with it, but all I can say is the next one had better knock it out of the stadium or I'll be seriously rethinking my devotion to these guys.

Rating: 3/10

Originally posted in Trollheart Listens to Every Album On Wiki's List for 2017, September 19 2017

Note: Sorry for all the different formats: I did warn you!

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Album title: Hai Noi Duo
Artist: Nguyên Lê & Ngô Hong Quang featuring Paolo Fresu
Genre: Jazz/Folk/World Music
Nationality: Vietnamese
Release date: January 13
Position in Discography: Seventeenth
Fear Factor: Low
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Check out more from this artist? Yes
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that the last two jazz albums that came up on this list have not been reviewed by me, but it's pure coincidence that I could not find them. Guess some jazz is like that. I actually wanted to, but if it ain't on Spotify or the Y then I'm ****ed. I never expected this one to be on the former, but hey, it is, so let's give it a spin. Nice mixture of what I assume to be ethnic sounds and instruments with the normal jazz feel, and now what sounds like a native chant or possibly a didgeridoo or something similar. Very tribal anyway. Good so far. Some damn fine guitar work here, almost shredding. Yeah, this is, as Frownland would no doubt say, cool as ****. Real Asian melodies and rhythms with a jazzy base. If more jazz was like this I might get into it more.

The singing/chanting on “Like Mountain Birds” took me by surprise initially and I thought I wouldn't like it but it's really grown on me. Guitar work is pretty phenomenal too. Yeah, I really like this. Who woulda thunk it, huh?
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Expectation Index: 10

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, September 21 2012 (I swear, the dates really are just a coincidence!)
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Last of a Dyin' Breed - Lynyrd Skynyrd - 2012
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Nationality: American, duh!
Genre: Southern Rock
Familiarity: "Freebird", "Sweet Home Alabama". That's it.

A sadly appropriate title in more ways than one, Lynyrd Skynyrd's latest album sees them reduced to one remaining original member, as those who survived the horrible plane crash that wiped out half the band in 1977 have left the band, passed away or been in some cases forced out, one by one. Remaining founder member Gary Rossington is however joined by some big names, including former member Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother Johnny, Blackfoot's Rickey Medlocke and the aptly-named Peter Keys on, well, keys. Overall, allowing for the hiatus the band took during the period 1977-1987, following the tragic crash and the loss of their friends and bandmates, this is Lynyrd Skynyrd's thirteenth album (not including a Christmas one; who does?) - let's hope it's not unlucky for them, although some would say that the guys have had more bad luck than any rock band should ever expect to, or deserve.

The familiar sound of the growling slide guitar opens the album before the drums thunder in and things get truly rockin' with the title track, and the Skynyrd train is rollin' again, full speed down the tracks! Hell, it might be the seventies! No-one would ever think to level the description of progressive in Skynyrd's direction, nor I think would they want to be seen as such. There's no real need for their music to develop; it's perfect as it is. The formula works, why mess with it? These are, after all, the godfathers of southern rock, and while you may be able to teach an old dog new tricks, you also risk getting bitten. Or to put it another way, if you grab a rattlesnake by the tail, better make sure you've got protective gloves on!

Slower and bluesier is the grinder “One Day at a Time”, with a great twin guitar attack and some fine vocal harmonies, a real workingman's song. Of course, I should point out that most if not all of the members of Skynyrd mentioned above have been with the band for years: it's just that this is the first of their albums I've heard since, well, ever. I have to admit to knowing nothing of theirs past “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama”; just never got round to it. To be honest, I really didn't think they were still around, but they're certainly proving me wrong, rocking with the same power and downhome honesty that characterised their popularity in the seventies and on into the late eighties and beyond. One new member though is ex-Black Crowes bassist Johnny Colt, who seems to fit right in, as if he's been here for years. “Homegrown” ups the tempo a little more, throwing in a good dose of ZZ for good measure, with powerful squealing organ from our man Peter.

Speaking of Mister Keys, there's a totally beautiful gentle piano intro to “Ready to Fly”, with just Johnny's voice accompanying it till some what sounds like violin comes in, shortly followed by the guitars and drums. A real southern rock ballad, with fine slide guitar and a heart as big as Texas. Er, Alabama, I mean. Okay, okay! Florida! Just doesn't have the same ring, y'know? Anyway, great big guitar solo that just rips the heart right out of you as Rossington lets us know he's still around, and not yet ready to ride into the sunset and follow those surviving bandmembers who have left the ranks. He certainly sounds like he's enjoying himself, as does Ronnie's brother, doing his late sibling proud. Some lush string arrangements add the final layer to this song, which at the moment I pick as the standout. It's also the longest track, just under five and a half minutes.

Surely must be a banjo starting off “Mississippi Blood”, though none is credited, but I wonder could that be Rickey Medlocke's grandfather Shorty, being drafted in? Nah, surely he'd have passed on by now! He sounded in his seventies or older when he guested on Blackfoot's “Rattlesnake Rock and Roller” back in '81. Tempo continues to rise with “Good Teacher”, one of those good ol' rock songs about “wimmen”, then there's a tear coming to my eye for the poignant “Something to Live For”, with some deep soulful, almost gospel organ from Keys and a deep political message in the mould of Springsteen or Earle. You can hear the pain in Johnny's gravelly voice as he sings about the breakup of his relationship, linking it subtly to the breakup of society in the USA, and that pain comes through almost as a palpable force through the emotional guitar solo unleashed by Gary Rossington.

The only song on the album not written by Skynyrd, “Life's Twisted” seems to have been composed by two of the members of Black Stone Cherry, and it's a good edgy rocker with a great piano and organ line, but true to their reputation Skynyrd are in fact first and always a guitar band, and this is shown by their having no less than three guitarists, in Medlocke, Rossington and Mark Matejka, with Marilyn Manson's infamous Johnny 5 even adding additional guitars! This all shows in hard rocker “Nothing Comes Easy”, another workingman's anthem with a real boogie feel to it, and not surprisingly some excellent guitar solos.

With a sort of feedback start and somehow putting me in mind of the American Civil War, “Honey Hole” is not what I expected at all. With a title like that I thought we'd get a rabble-rousin', drinkin', screwin' goodtime song, but though it breaks out for the chorus into a big guitar sound, the song is mostly hard acoustic, with harmonica and slide, then halfway in we get the big southern rock guitar part we've been waiting for, and it has been worth the wait. Quite a lot of Zep in this one, methinks. And we close on the philosophical “Start Livin' Life Again”, a powerful blues statement of intent, with banjo and some truly exquisite guitar from Rossington; if ever a man let his instrument do his talking for him, you're hearing it right here.

Earlier I voiced the hope that this, Lynyrd Skynyrd's thirteenth album, would not be unlucky for them. Having listened to this, I think I can promise that's very unlikely. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more in the coming years from the kings of southern rock, as it seems this is one band that stands up even to death himself. Don't fear the reaper? Don't think it ever crossed the minds of these guys! They just go from strength to strength, laughing in the face of adversity - well, perhaps not laughing, that would be disrespectful to the memory of their fallen comrades. But they keep that memory alive by continuing on the legacy Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and the others started, and making sure their work goes on.

As Frank Marino once remarked: ain't dead yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Last of a Dyin' Breed
2. One Day at a Time
3. Homegrown
4. Ready to Fly
5. Mississippi Blood
6. Good Teacher
7. Something to Live For
8. Life's Twisted
9. Nothing Comes Easy
10. Honey Hole
11. Start Livin' Life Again

Rating: 9.8/10

Originally posted in Bitesize, May 7 2015
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Artiste: John Grant
Nationality: American
Album: Pale Green Ghosts
Year: 2013
Label: Bella Union
Genre: Synthpop
Tracks:
Pale Green Ghosts
Black Belt
GMF
Vietnam
It Doesn't Matter to Him
Why Don't You Love Me Anymore
You Don't Have To
Sensitive New Age guy
Ernest Borgnine
I Hate This Town
Glacier
Chronological position: Second solo album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: The title of the album refers to a line of trees that stand on the highway outside his home
Initial impression: Oh man! Dancy synthpop? This is not what I expected :(
Best track(s): GMF, Vietnam, It doesn't matter to him, I hate this town, Glacier
Worst track(s): Black Belt, Sensitive New Age Guy
Comments: Apparently John Grant used to front alternative rock band The Czars, but I don't know anything about that. I've never heard of him, so this will be a classic “Bitesize” review as I dive headlong into unknown territory. Will I bang my head on the rocks and drown? Will I swim like a dolphin in the clear blue sea? Will I even remember I can't swim? Well we open with a thick bassy synth line which gives way to an echoey vocal before the percussion kicks in. It's odd, because looking at the guy on the album sleeve synthpop is not what immediately comes to mind: I expected this to be a Country, if not Folk sort of album. Some good synth hits there add a sense of drama to the song, which I have to admit right away doesn't impress me that much, but let's give it a chance.

Ah, now here we go. The second track is much ... worse. Don't like this at all. Very disco-dancey and sort of Europop I feel. Meh. In fairness, “GMF” is much much better (seems it stands for Greatest MotherFucker), a nice acoustic-y ballad with a clever lyrical line in it and a real hook. And “Vietnam” is beautiful, with orchestral arrangements that are lush and sweeping, a soft vocal and some handclap percussion that somehow is not incongruous. The slow, laidback --- and yes, folky --- influence remains through “It Doesn't Matter to Him”, as the album slowly but consistently gets better than I had expected, or hoped. After a rocky start, I'm really getting into this now. “Why Don't You Love Me Anymore” is darker, has a sort of almost complaining, moany feel to it, very bleak and self-pitying; not sure how I feel about it. I don't hate it, but I sure don't love it, and the addition of Sinead O'Connor on backing vocals does nothing to help.

“You Don't Have To” gets things back on track, some pretty mad organ in there, nice kind of stuttering bass too, not mad about “Sensitive New Age Guy”, too dancy and poppy for me, very electrobeat or whatever the fuck it's called; reminds me of Depeche Mode or Yazoo or some shower like that. Erasure maybe. Yeah, Erasure. Cunts. “Ernest Borgnine” slows it all down while still bringing in the thrumming, throaty synth and also some nice sax. A cool little bitter ballad with a lot of Divine Comedy in “I Hate This Town”; really like this one, possibly my favourite. Sort of a mad Carpenters-on-crack vibe from this too. Sinead O is back for the closer, “Glacier”, with some totally gorgeous orchestration, a laidback ballad with more bitter lyrics, it swells triumphantly in the midsection as O'Connor lends her voice, but to be honest it could be anyone; she's just not that powerful a force on this album as I've heard her be on, say, The The's Mind bomb. She tries, but Grant holds court over everything. I must say I've really grown to like this.
Overall impression: Didn't like it at first, slow to get going but once it did, with a few little valleys it's mostly really quite excellent, with sharp lyrics and a real couldn't give a fuck attitude that's refreshing.
Hum Factor: 7
Intention: I think I'll listen to some of his other stuff.


Reviewer's Later Note: This is what I mean when I say I often - very often - reviewed albums as I listened to them for the first time. The impression it made, or didn't make, on me is carried through the review, and it's not something that can be contrived. It happens organically, sometimes against my will, sometimes to my delight. Here, I was quite prepared, after the first few tracks, to dismiss and hate this album, but I grew to really like and then love it as I went on, and now I'm a big John Grant fan. I always thought it was fun - hopefully also for those reading - to see how my preconceptions or original impressions were blown out of the water sometimes, as they were here.

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, November 18 2014

Note: This was, at the time, for me anyway, an important review. Written as part of my occasional series Swan Song, in which I reviewed the final album before a band broke up, it concerned the bowing-out of one of the planet's biggest and finest progressive rock bands, who had decided to, as I saw it, take the chance to squeeze a few more dollars/Euro out of their adoring and long hard-pressed fans before vanishing over the horizon. Yeah, Pink Floyd had decided to call it a day, and the prevailing wisdom was quite vociferous in its dismay that they had brought the curtain down in such an unsatisfactory way.

Were those voices justified? Read on.

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It's tough when a band breaks up. Tough on their fans, and tough on them. Whether it's an enforced end, such as with Ronnie James Dio dying, an unforeseen end as in Genesis, or indeed a planned lowering of the curtain like REM decided to do, it's the end of a era and quite possibly signals the end, to many people, of an association they have had for most of their lives. In some ways, it's probably like a death (sometimes, of course, it is exactly that), or the worst break-up you've ever had, and there's no going back, usually. It's not you, it's them.

Then there are the albums that get released after the band or artist has finished recording forever. Unreleased material. Newly discovered tracks, unfinished songs. Enough to squeeze out a whole new album after the artist has died, or retired. Posthumous albums - whether released after an actual death or just the end of the artist's career - are always a little hard to take. They can have a certain creepy quality, as you realise you're listening to the words and/or music of a man, woman or band who in many cases is no longer alive.

Although still with us, the corpse of Pink Floyd has been floating down the (endless) river for some time now, just waiting for someone to fish it out and give it the decent burial it deserves. There are those (and they are many and vociferous) who will tell you that Floyd died when founder and creative light Roger Waters left them in the acrimonious split to end all acrimonious splits in 1985, and indeed even before that, The Wall was 99% his vision and his project and the last album to feature him, The Final Cut, featured so little input from the other two members (and none at all from Richard Wright) that it may as well have been his solo album in all but name. Shortly after that he left the band to pursue that solo career, and Pink Floyd were considered all but dead. Hey, some - and they're not few - reckon Floyd should have split after Syd.

But I'm one of the few (hah) that enjoyed the two non-Waters Floyd albums that followed his departure, and while 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason and 1994's The Division Bell can't in fairness hold a candle to albums like Wish You Were Here, Animals or Dark Side of the Moon, I thought they were pretty cool. I've always been one of those who refuse to cry “Band X is no use without singer Y!” I went through the trauma of Fish parting ways with Marillion, got used to Genesis without Gabriel and enjoyed an Ozzy-less Sabbath. To me, a band is more than just a singer or a frontman, and those who whine that the band will never be the same without the main vocalist and/or creator/founder are I think doing that band a great disservice. And so it was that I was prepared to accept Floyd after Waters, and though it was odd to hear the songs without his distinctive, tortured voice, I thought Gilmour did a decent job. But when the final notes faded away on “High hopes” as The Division Bell came to an end, I, like probably everybody else, believed we were hearing the very last music ever to be released by this band which was now a shadow of its former self. With the death of Richard Wright in 2008, I mourned and thought well that is definitely it: they can't come back now. It's over.

But it isn't over.

Or is it? When news broke of a “new” Pink Floyd album there was of course a flurry of expectations and my own emotions went from disbelief to joy to finally settle on suspicion as the details began to filter through. Not so much a new album then as a collection of studio outtakes and cutting-room floor debris from the sessions for the last “proper” Floyd album. But the obvious question came up: if this material was not deemed good enough to find its way onto The Division Bell, why was it now thought suitable for release? What had changed? All right, the story goes that much of the music that appears on The Endless River was composed by Wright, and Gilmour and Mason wanted to create a sort of tribute to him, and that's all right as far as it goes. But to announce it as a new album? Was that not pushing it ever so slightly?

I'm reminded uncomfortably (numb) of a comment Gilmour made in the book Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd when speaking of the making of The Final Cut. He asked, “If these songs (the ones being considered for The Final Cut which had been part of the sessions for The Wall but had not made it) were not good enough for The Wall, why are they good enough now?” Indeed, David. Indeed. A question we must all have been asking ourselves about this "new" project.

So are they? Good I mean. It's a perfectly valid question: if, when making what should have been their final album, Gilmour, Wright and Mason discarded these pieces of music (can't really call them songs) then why should they be considered acceptable not only to be released now, twenty years later, but to form the basis of a so-called “new” Pink Floyd album? Have the guys suddenly realised they were after all better than they believed they were in 1994, or is it really just that they want to honour their fallen bandmate by presenting to the world music he wrote but which never saw the light of day, until now?

Or, indeed, as many have hinted and I have to also ask, is this new album, the last ever from Pink Floyd - and we have that officially: no Eagles “Hell freezes over” ambiguity here! - nothing more than an exercise in cynicism and money-grabbing, a last chance to make some cash off the hard-pressed fans in this troubled economy? And if so, shouldn't the remaining members of Pink Floyd hang their heads in shame, having already broken records by releasing arguably the biggest attempt to rip fans off with their Immersion boxsets, each of which contained approximately SIX discs PER ALBUM and cost in the region of 100 EURO EACH! Sure, nobody put a gun to anyone's head and forced them to buy the sets, but if, as a diehard Floyd fan, you had to have these, then even for the main albums you're looking at shelling out over a THOUSAND Euro! That's bigtime rip-off in my book, I don't care what anyone says.

So if, as one of these diehard fans, you outlaid the money on these sets in 2011, what would you expect from a new Pink Floyd album? I'd venture to say it would not be rehashed, re-recorded half songs that were not deemed good enough for the recording of The Division Bell. But that's what you get, and as this is your final ever chance to hear new (!) Pink Floyd music, do you buy the album and take a chance, or refuse to be the instrument by which Dave Gilmour buys a new house or Nick Mason adds to his classic car collection? This is Pink Floyd's final ever album, their swan song, as I note above, but is it one worth hearing? Or to put it another way, in the words of the ever-witty and acerbic humoured, and badly missed, Urban, is this The Endless River or The Endless Pension? After all this waffle - over a thousand words before we even get to the review, but that's me for you - and two decades, it's time to find out.
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The Endless River --- Pink Floyd --- 2014 (Parlophone)

The first thing I'm struck by, despite the album's filching of the last few words of “High hopes”, is the echoes (hah, again!) of 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason. That album began with the sound of a man rowing, and here on the cover of this album we see ... a man rowing. Well, punting, but it's very close. So the themes of rivers has been something flowing (sorry, sorry) through the post-Waters Floyd, has it? Well, no not really. Other than those two songs, which reference waters (ah, I know: sorry, I couldn't resist!) there's no real connection, but when you look incidentally at the track listing for both albums there are song titles there, many of which could refer to this album and its release: “What Do You Want From Me?” might be an idea of Gilmour's frustration at some of the reviews of the album, though if he's surprised at its reception then he should not be. “Poles Apart”? Sure. “High Hopes”, certainly, though probably in vain. Not to mention “Coming Back to Life” and, er, “Lost For Words”. As for A Momentary Lapse? Well “A New Machine” is a possible link, as is “Yet Another Movie”, but in reality I think the closing track from that album sums up a lot of feelings about the direction this has gone. Yeah, “Sorrow” more or less covers it.

But in all this analysis and all these clever, self-congratulatory comments, has the music itself become lost, relegated to the sidelines, a bit player destined to be overlooked as critics argue back and forth about the merits of releasing an album of basically extra tracks from a twenty-year-old recording session? Well not here anyway. Grab a set of oars, make sure your lifejacket is inflated, and take your seasick pills if you need them, cos we're climbing on board and we're going in.

Well, ambient they said it would be and ambient is definitely the feeling as “Things Left Unsaid” opens with a spacey keyboard and spoken words, sort of putting me in mind of the start of Dark Side of the Moon, then one big bouncy echoey drumbeat before the keys go into a melody that this time reminds me of “Signs of Life” from A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Gilmour's guitar comes in then, moaning and crying like a violin as the spacey atmospheric soundscape continues to pulse behind him, but it's now clear that, as ever, Gilmour is in charge and standing in the spotlight. In much the same way as, in the beginning, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” rode on Wright's keyboard, but once Gilmour broke in he took the tune over, so too here he stands astride the piece like an undeniable colossus. Some really nice organ from the ghostly fingers of Wright before we're pulled into “It's What We Do”. Gilmour has said that this album is not for “the itunes, download-a-song generation” and needs to be listened to in one sitting, and you can see the intention there as the music all drifts together, one piece flowing seamlessly into the next, so that it's almost like one long symphony. However, it's hard to forgive the second track being basically the closing section of “Shine On” polished (sorry) up and extended. I do love the classic song - who doesn't? - but this is something of a cop-out. If these are unused tunes from the Division Bell sessions, why is such old material here? There are echoes of “Welcome to the Machine” too, particularly in Gilmour's chords. It drifts right back to the “Shine On” theme though, and as the piece comes to an end you're really waiting for Gilmour to sing “Remember when you were young”...

It's great music, there's no doubt about that. It's just that it is, generally, music we've heard before, and many years ago in most cases. “Ebb and Flow” sounds very close to the last few moments of “Shine On, You Crazy Diamond, Part IX” stretched out to an unnecessary and in some cases unsustainable two minutes almost, and while there are lovely organ and synth touches from Wright, as well as of course superb piano, it's a bit of a non-event. More looking back to “Signs of Life” then for “Sums”, throwing in some effects used in “Welcome to the Machine” with some shimmery keyboard before finally we get a proper attack from Gilmour as his guitar screams in fury at having been held back so long, but again it's “Welcome to the Machine” all over again. It's a great guitar piece, sure, and it reminds us what a god Gilmour is, but have the idol's feet turned to clay? There's nothing very new or innovative here. In fact, I'm surprised to say that we're now four tracks in and I don't hear anything resembling any track from The Division Bell, nothing that could have been considered for that album, as this is supposed to be.

Oddly, though this is all on one disc, Floyd (one assume Gilmour) seem to have published it almost as a double LP, with track sets broken up into "sides", like they used to be. Nostalgia rearing its head perhaps, or another attempt to make people feel they're purchasing an original Pink Floyd record? Hmm. At any rate, quickly then we pass into “Skins”, where Mason gets to unleash his expertise on the sticks, almost a drum solo with Gilmour adding little flourishes here and there. Only just over two and a half minutes but my lest favourite on the album so far. As Vim Fuego said in Bad News, can't stand drum solos. Then with more “Shine On” descending keys we're into “Unsung”, a mere minute of almost trancey keyboard with guitar screeching over it, reminiscent of The Wall I feel, as “Anisina” closes out "side two", sounding to me unaccountably like The Alan Parsons Project's “Time”. Weird. Very piano driven, nice tune, and at least it doesn't sound like any previous Floyd recording. The first one I've actually enjoyed on the album. Sounds like it has sax on it too: yeah, definitely sax, courtesy of Israeli jazz hornman Gilad Atzmon. Very stirring and dramatic.

Of the seven tracks that follow ("side three"), six are less than two minutes and three, weirdly, are exactly 1:43. Not only that, but they're the first three. “The Lost Art of Conversation” has a deep, luscious synth and Gilmour's high-pitched guitar, but then settles down to allow Wright's sumptuous piano to drive it. It is however only getting going when it's over, and “On Noodle Street” carries the tune into a sort of Knopfleresque slow boogie, with Gilmour coming much more to the fore and Guy Pratt filling in really well for Waters, as he has done for some time now. Electric piano from Wright comes in before “Night Light” returns the spotlight to the man on the frets, and again we're back shining on, you crazy diamond, with a slight, almost Genesisesque twist in the melody.

“Allons-y (1) gives us “Run Like Hell” revisited, with Gilmour cranking up the guitar and the tempo, Mason's drumming much more animated and the organ from Wright pretty much pushed into the background. It's derivative, incredibly and annoyingly so, but at least it kicks the album up the arse and gives you something to tap your fingers to, if not shake your head. In other words, it lifts the album out of the quiet, soporific torpor it has been sliding into and delivers something of a punch from an album that seemed to be falling asleep. An almost Bach-like organ takes “Autumn '68”, slowing things back down with a feeling of Pink Floyd meets Vangelis before we move into “Allons-y (2)”, which builds a lush soundscape on the synth, then kicks up into another memorable Floyd piece, kind of more “Run Like Hell” really. Then we have the pretty godawful (and terribly titled) “Talkin' Hawkin'”, which is essentially the spoken parts from “Keep Talking” extended, backed with a slow organ melody, the first appearance of those iconic Pink Floyd female backing vocals so associated with Waters and never, to my recollection, used after he departed. Nice guitar work certainly, but I could do without the Professor droning on. I didn't like it on “Keep Talking” and I certainly don't like the extended version. It's also very badly mixed, (the only one that is, and it's so odd it stands out) as Glimour's guitar and indeed Mason's drumming often overpower the spoken parts, making it hard to make out what is being said, which is pretty ironic for a song so titled.

And so we move into the final part of the album, or “side four”, with a strange little ambient beginning to “Calling”, then some moaning guitar and thick bass before the keys rise into the mix and an almost Arabic passage takes the tune. More nice understated piano, then guitar surfaces like some beast out of the depths. As the piece nears its end it drops back to soft piano, choral vocals and slow, echoey drumming and takes us into “Eyes to Pearls”, a definite vehicle for the strumming guitar work of Gilmour, but very – and I mean very - close in melody to Marillion's “Berlin”. Spooky. Rushing, crashing percussion washes over the tune and carries us away, and we find ourselves “Surfacing”, with acoustic guitar and more “Shine On” closing parts, with echoes of “Your Possible Pasts” there if you listen for them closely enough, or are as anal as I am.

There is some lovely interplay between Gilmour and Wright here though, and I'd probably class this as my second favourite, one of the longer tracks at just shy of three minutes. Personally, I think both in title, mood and music this would have been the perfect track to end the album on, but this is seen as a new Pink Floyd album after all, the last one ever, and the record companies will have their pound of flesh (“We're just knocked out/ We heard about the sellout”) meaning that the instrumental nature of the album has to be destroyed by a vocal song. Now while I really like “Louder Than Words”, it comes as something of a jarring experience after nearly forty minutes of pure music. Gilmour still has it as a vocalist though, and it's a good song, it's just it's a pity it's so transparently written as an attempt to hit the singles charts. One final sellout before you go, lads?

TRACK LISTING

1. Things Left Unsaid
2. It's What We Do
3. Ebb and Flow
4. Sums
5. Skins
6. Unsung
7. Anisina
8. The Lost Art of Conversation
9. On Noodle Street
10. Night Light
11. Allons-y (1)
12. Autumn '68
13. Allons-y (2)
14. Talkin' Hawkin'
15. Calling
16. Eyes to Pearls
17. Surfacing
18. Louder Than Words

So what's the verdict? Well I'll get to that in just a moment. But first I'd like to reiterate what I said above in the actual review, and that is that I don't hear anything here that could have ended up on The Division Bell, other than maybe the closer. For me, this sounds more like unused material from everything from Dark Side of the Moon to The Wall. I find it hard to believe that in 1994, working on what was to be their final proper album, Gilmour, Wright and Mason were thinking about and writing in the style of music they had produced two decades earlier. Far from making me want to revisit The Division Bell, it's more Wish You Were Here that's playing in my mind, and that album I want to listen to now. Famed as the band who put the experiment in musical experimentation, it seems unlikely they would still be stuck in that old seventies groove. But the music here mostly reflects that, to me anyway. If someone had given me this on disc, told me it was unused material from a session for an album and asked me to guess which album, I'd be going for Wish You Were Here with maybe Dark Side as a possibility. I would never in a million years have guessed it was from the recording sessions for The Division Bell.

The music is really great, but with Pink Floyd really great is not good enough, and given that this is to be their final album, I think they really shortchanged the fans here. If they wanted to put out one more record before disappearing “far away, across the field”, then they should, in my opinion, have written something totally new, something that would stand to them and that would have made a fitting tribute and end to their over forty years in the music business. Pink Floyd almost single-handedly invented the idea of crossing from psychedelic to progressive rock, and for them to bring the curtain down in such a, well, uninspiring way is a real disappointment.

Of course, I had to some degree made up my mind about this album before listening to it: the idea of “a load of stuff that wasn't used now being put out” did not sit well with me, and it felt like the remaining members of Floyd were scraping the bottom of the barrel and slapping it on a disc, hoping to sell it rather than throw it out. To be fair, had they done this and then offered the album for download totally free, that might not have been so bad - we have these tracks, we didn't think they were that good but you might like them so here you go - but they expect people to pay for these, and in fact there are two versions of the album, a deluxe one with two extra tracks plus bonus videos, which no doubt costs more. So to again return to Dark Side, they're giving none away.

But I must say I do like the music. It does wander and meander, somewhat like the river in the title, and ideas seem to be half-formed, in some cases just getting going when they're over, in others more or less staggering along, kind of lost and unable to find their way back. Some of it certainly deserves the title of the ninth track, “On Noodle Street”, as it is pointless jamming and experimenting. It's almost, in some ways, like the tuneup before the show, except that this is the show! But some of the music is really good, just a pity it doesn't go anywhere. I see why Gilmour says it needs to be listened to in one sitting though.

He says this is the last Floyd album, that there'll be no more. Well that's no surprise. With the passing of Richard Wright and the Satan-skating-to-work possibility of Waters ever rejoining, another Pink Floyd album is about as likely as a new Beatles one. Which is why the news that there was a new one was initially greeted with much skepticism, then excitement, then disappointment when we learned what the “new” album consisted of. It is I feel a little harsh of Gilmour (and let's be honest: Floyd has been Gilmour for quite a while now) to end his career on this somewhat sour and commercial note. For a band who struggled to make it, then became bigger than most other bands and passed into music history, it's a sad end I feel and something of a middle finger to the fans. I thought Roger Waters was the one who had contempt for his followers?

In the end though, what I write here will not change your opinion. If you like The Endless River then you'll like it and if you hate it you'll hate it. Me? I think it's okay; certainly has its moments but they're a little too far spaced out among the wide variety of tracks here to make any real impact on me. As an album, and purely taking it on track numbers, it's good value at eighteen tracks, though the whole thing only clocks in at a total of just over fifty-five minutes. For a double album that's pretty short, and for an album that rings down the curtain on forty-five years of music it's hardly inspiring.

It's even hard to see this as a Pink Floyd album, as much of the time it really does not sound like them. Floyd had instrumental tracks sure, but they were never what anyone would call ambient: their instrumentals had a hard, bitter edge. Think “Any Colour You Like”, “Marooned” or even the instrumental majority of “Shine On.” There's an anger there, a sense of frustration, of loss and of exasperation. I don't hear that here. It sounds more like Floyd have settled nicely into their retirement and are content to sit back and watch the grass grow, happy that there are no lunatics on it anymore.

This could have been so much more. But for what it is, I have to give them credit. It is very good. Mostly. But they're kind of standing on the shoulders of giants, even if those giants are their own previous albums, and you wonder what would have happened had they not had that elevation? Perhaps they might have faded away, slowly losing relevance in a world that contains too many kids now who ask “Pink who?” Still, they would have retained some of their integrity, I feel. Many people slated The Division Bell, but I enjoyed it, and I think it could have been the proper swan song for Floyd.

But I suppose the important thing for Gilmour and Mason is that The Endless River will supply them with an endless amount of retirement money, and serve to finance their solo careers, or whatever they choose to do in a post-Floyd world. I don't begrudge them their retirement, I just wish they could have bowed out more gracefully, instead of kow-towing to the corporate shills and leaving us with a rather unsettling line from Dark Side to perhaps encompass their feelings towards their fans as they wave goodbye from the tinted windows of their private jet:

“I'm all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack!”

Bon voyage, boys. May the endless river help you to forget when you used to swim against the tide, and not go with the flow.

What would Syd think of it all, I wonder? Or, to paraphrase another progressive rock icon, Van der Graaf Generator, whatever would Roger have said?

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, December 2 2014

Krill --- Plankton's Odyssey --- 2013
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When I was asked to review this album by Plankton a few different emotions charged through my brain. First was of course pride and a sense of honour, that he would select me of all the many journal writers and reviewers here to undertake this task. Hard on its heels though was doubt and worry: what if the album turned out to be - um, how can I say this without offending? - crap? How would I then be able to tell him - and my readership - that I didn't like his work? Then that worry expanded to encompass fear that, assuming the album was good, I would be able to review it both dispassionately and yet afford it the praise it deserved. So you can see it was no small undertaking, and despite my attempts to convince myself that I would just approach the review as I would any other, that was not likely to happen in reality. If you're critiquing a friend's work then you of necessity feel under more pressure, both to review it fairly and not to gush overly in a way that both becomes sycophantic and strips the review of all its meaning, including its sense of impartiality.

For any who don't know, Plankton is one of our own. He's been a member here for a while now and is generally regarded as a nice guy with a lot to say, and is indeed praised for his music in the subforums dealing with members' contributions, which I must admit I have never frequented. This is not his first album, but the one he's looking on I believe as his debut for public consumption, and for a first effort I have to say I'm more than impressed. I actually faced two major problems agreeing to review this: one was that it was the album of a friend, someone I know and respect, so I wanted to make sure I did it justice in the writeup. The other, something I only realised when I began playing it, is that it is an instrumental guitar album, and if you read my review of Neal Schon's The Calling last year you'll see I have little time for those sort of albums. In short, they usually bore me. Conversely though, I thoroughly enjoyed Buckethead's Electric Sea, so perhaps there was hope.

At any rate, I have now listened to it well over twenty times and feel qualified, as far as I can be, to set down my thoughts on it. I've consulted with Plankton for some pertinent information, and will drop that into the review as I go, but for now let's get to the meat of the matter, the lifeblood of any album, its raison d'etre. Yeah: the music.

I should also point out that I am not a guitarist and know little of the instrument beyond the basics, so I can't tell you when he's using a flange bar (if such a thing exists), a tremelo or capo, and I can't identify when he's using effects pedals or what they are. What I can tell you is that everything you hear here is his own work, played and written by him, arranged and produced solely by him. Oh, with one exception, which I'll come to in due course. He tells me he worked on a track a week, every Monday from the time he got home to whatever time he got to bed, and that the album was conceived and recorded this way in about nine months - should I say born? ;) Plankton has thirty years' experience playing guitar and it certainly shows here. From what he's told me he's almost completely self-taught, which is another plus to add to the many he already has racked up.

We open on the oddly-named (and it's not the only one!) "Flustraxion", which right from the off has an early Iron Maiden feel to me, like something off Killers or Number of the Beast, with a sense of acoustic guitar under a squealing electric, then it kicks up with heavy, machinegun drumming and the tempo rises as the track comes fully to life, the guitar wailing histrionically through the piece, with another one growling and snorting in the background. The similarities to Maiden continue, and I'm sure Dave Murray or Adrian Smith would be proud. It's a short track, just over two and a half minutes long, and ends as it began, with a laidback acoustic-sounding outro, taking us into "Waiting Impatiently", which has a nice Gilmour touch to it, quite relaxed with a much slower, more measured drumbeat driving the rhythm. The guitar is kind of ringing, bit like the sound you get on the Police's "Walking On the Moon", that sort of thing. There are also little flickers of folk running through it, with a superb little fluid solo about halfway through before it suddenly kicks up a whole gear and breaks out into a real heavy rock tune, with some fine shredding alongside the now churning second guitar.

This is the first (though certainly not last) time we hear Plankton break loose and show how his feet are truly on the path to rock god stardom. The song fades out then ends on a downward slope and we're into "Shoveled". Now, here I'm afraid I must sound a note of discontent. The idea in the song is fine, but somehow the execution, for me anyway, doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with Plankton's guitar work; that's as powerful and expert as anything you'll find on this album. But he's chosen to play over a recording of a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, and it just jars for me. It's the only vocal you'll hear on the album, but even at that every time I hear this I keep mentally trying to shut out the great man's voice and concentrate on the music. To be honest, idiot that I am, the first ever time I heard this I wasn't listening too closely, and did not know that it was a one-man show, and I thought "Whoever is singing there hasn't got a great voice", or, alternatively, "If that's Plankton then I hope he's not singing on any more!" Sad I know, but that's what I thought. Having consulted the author of this work, I was set straight and it makes sense. But even then, I reluctantly have to admit that there is one song on the album I don't really like, and this is it.

Of course, if you concentrate on the music you'll realise it is great: a thick, angry guitar is overlaid with another howling at a higher octave, with some fine shredding adding more rage and unrest to the piece. I find it hard to believe though that that is not keyboard in the very first opening notes, though I'm assured there are only keys on one track, and this is not it. When the voiceover drops back you can really hear how powerful and energetic Plankton's guitar playing is, but then it comes back in and your ear is drawn back to it, so that you have to force yourself to again focus on the music. Also, the recording ends in a fade but it does cut off in the middle of one of MLK's sentences, which I think is a mistake. A few more seconds might have made it work better.

Still, much as I dislike "Shoveled" (and I tried hard to like it) it is the only track on the album that I have anything bad to say about, and there are plenty of superlatives left for the rest of it. Again I find it hard to believe that it is not a keyboard opening to the next track too, but what do I know about what this guy can do with a guitar? A spacey, progressive rock feel opens "Lights of an Unknown City" in almost an ELO manner before Plankton unleashes the big guns and in best Steve Earle fashion lets fly as the track powers out at you. Some great soloing and crunching, grinding guitars frame this song, and (sorry Plankton) if you needed something to blow away the cobwebs after the somewhat cloying, claustrophobic "Shoveled", this is just what the doctor ordered! It fades down at the end then to some lovely acoustic noodling, accompanied by that chiming electric. Sweet.

The only song not to have been completely created by Plankton, "Canadian Mist" has keys, drums and bass laid down and composed by a guy called Kevin from Canada, which is all Plankton can tell me about his collaborator on this. It's a lovely, Gary Moore style opening and is in fact the first slow track on the album. Again it gives me a sense of Maiden too, especially "Strange World" from the debut, with some soaring, emotional guitar, and I can hear Lizzy's "Still in Love With You" in there too. Apologies for all the comparisons, but this is the only way I know to translate how this guy's music feels and sounds to me. Someone better versed in guitars would be able to go more into the technical side and tell you how great he is, but this is all I can do. I originally had picked this as my favourite track on the album, but over many listens it's now been superceded by the one which comes next. For a while it was something of a battle between the two, but now I think there's a clear winner.

With a lovely rippling guitar to start things off, "Son of Soothsayer" soon rips into a big, stomping, heavy metal track with punchy guitar and squealing second guitar, rocking along like there's no tomorrow. Personally, though I'm sure he enjoyed recording every track here, this gives me the impression that it's the one Plankton had the most fun playing. It just gets your feet tapping and your head bobbing, and would not be out of place in any heavy metal fan's collection. It's also one of the longer tracks at over five minutes, though to my mind it's not long enough. A real boogie rhythm keeps the song going, and it could be talkbox that he's using to make that sound where the guitar almost seems to be singing, though I could quite easily be wrong there. It's a testament to Plankton's art and expertise that though this track more or less maintains the same basic riff all the way through it never gets boring or repetitive, and as I say when it comes to an end it seems way too soon.

And he keeps things barreling along for "Here We Go Again", a riproaring fretfest which is probably the fastest track on the album. A driving, steamhammer beat pulls it along, with great shredding and again a real heavy metal feel to it. His fingers must have been sore after this, is all I can say! Sort of a cutting, slicing guitar in the background while the main guitar just flies all over the place, solos being fired off left, right and centre. He also seems to have a weird sense of humour in titling some of his songs, as "Xphereblotish" proves - no I have no idea what it means and no I'm not going to ask him: have to maintain some sort of level of ambiguity and mystery, after all! - with a rising guitar riff that then pulls in staccato guitar with a boogie-ing second guitar kind of delivering a blues style melody, a lot of Led Zep in this I feel. Some superb solos and a sense of restrained energy to it, like at any second he could really pull loose and just hit you with a salvo you wouldn't even have a chance to dodge, should you somehow want to.

Another of my favourites, "Screaming At an Empty Canvas" is built on a thick bass and a heavy Sabbathish riff, almost Plankton playing doom metal perhaps. It's a lot slower and grindier than anything he's done up to this point, and his main guitar screeches and screams through it like a banshee with dire warnings. There's a real sense of pent-up frustration in this track, the idea being I guess that you have something you want to say but no way to say it, when the inspiration won't come and you're staring at a blank page. Plankton certainly doesn't seem to encounter this problem much anyway, and this is another triumph, with an angry guitar getting more and more animated as the song progresses, till at one point it all drops away to just the one guitar and rhythm section, and a really nice little bass solo in the background before the bigger, harder guitar kicks its way back in for the big finish.

That's actually the longest track on the album, just shy of five and a half minutes, though only technically. If you take the title track, which is split into two parts, as one, then you get almost ten minutes of music. "Krill Part 1" opens on soft jangly acoustic guitar which is then joined by screeching electric as the percussion kicks in and the shredding begins! It's another hard, almost metal rhythm as the main guitar screams and the secondary guitar does a passable Vivian Campbell at his Dio best. Great melody to this, with a real sense of longing and loneliness, maybe a touch of despair in the wailing, screeching guitar crying for attention. It fades down then on the back of single guitar and takes us into part 2, where again jangly echoey guitar stands alone until joined by wailing second guitar sounding a little like a violin, and the percussion this time is much slower and more measured, the guitars too slowing down as the fretburning, though still fierce, has a more restrained, almost melancholic feel to it.

There's kind of a sense of endings in this song, and I must admit it brought a tear to my eye. Dunno what it is, it just sounds very sad and yearning. The percussion backs a single guitar for a while and each swaps with the other, taking the limelight for a few moments before they join back up for the powerful yet downbeat fadeout finale. Which in itself would have been a great way to close the album, but Plankton has one more for us before we go. Written for his daughter Hanna, "Fields of Youth" is mostly played on introspective guitar with a real sense of reflection and memory, rather commercial in its way. Could see it as the soundtrack to some TV programme maybe. An understated and yet brilliant way to end the album, and a fitting gift to his daughter. Little or nothing in the way of percussion in this, with two guitars making the melody between them, can't even hear any bass. For all that though the tune works really well - ah, think I heard a little bass there - and brings the album to a very satisfying close.

TRACK LISTING

1. Flustraxion
2. Waiting Impatiently
3. Shoveled
4. Lights of an Unknown City
5. Canadian Mist
6. Son of Soothsayer
7. Here We Go Again
8. Xphereblotish
9. Screaming At an Empty Canvas
10. Krill Part 1
11. Krill Part 2
12. Fields of Youth

This is the first time I've ever had to review an album for, and by, a friend, and I'm really glad I can say it was a pleasure to listen to, and review; though if I had not enjoyed it I would have said so. It's just nice not to have to deliver bad news, however important it may have been seen to have been required. This album has been my constant companion over the last two weeks or so, accompanying everything from walks to dishwashing to making dinner; everything I normally use music as a background for has had this as the soundtrack, and I feel like Krill is an old friend now, and that through it I've come to know better the man behind the music. Plankton hasn't just got talent, he has that special something that makes you feel certain that it's only a matter of time before a lot more people are listening to, and enjoying his music. He may not be at an age where he can start touring the country and appearing on talk shows (though who says he won't?) but this music he makes is far too good to remain locked away somewhere in the files of an obscure website tucked into a forgotten corner of the web. This is music that needs to be heard, and heard by as many people as possible.

My own advice to him would be to go the YouTube route: playing his songs live and inviting people to hear them. This has after all worked for many artistes in the recent past. Of course, that may not be his goal, but one way or another this music has got to get out to the public at large. I can't recommend highly enough that you head to his website Home - Planktons Odyssey and download his album and hear this for yourselves. I knew nothing of his talent before agreeing to review this, and now I'm gobsmacked and so impressed I can't say. This album had been of necessity spinning on my ipod for days in order for me to get a good idea of how it sounded, so that I could do an informed review, but even after the requisite four or five plays it usually takes me to get a good feel for an album, I found I was continuing to listen to it, and still am, just for pure pleasure.

Some day I'm going to be the envy of my friends (better get some first!) when I tell them that I knew Plankton before he was famous. I honestly feel like I'm watching the birth of a star here, and it really couldn't happen to a nicer or more talented guy. Download this and you're probably going to find your playlists waiting for a while, and your Last.FM or Spotify plays containing an awful lot of this man's music. Join the odyssey: get on board, because Plankton is without question going places.

Rating: 9.8/10

Originally posted in Trollheart's Listening List, December 16 2015

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Title: Sun Leads Me On
Artist: Half Moon Run
Year 2015
Nationality: Canadian
Familiarity: 100%. Loved their debut.
Genre: Indie Rock/Pop
2

Expectations: Dark Eyes was an amazing album, a real discovery for me in 2012. It's often hard to capitalise on that success, though again, Half Moon Run weren't exactly winning Grammys or topping charts with it, so perhaps they can unobtrusively slip in a small hand grenade disguised as a pineapple here and upset the whole fruit cart? I certainly hope it lives up to the promise of the debut, and I'm a little more than cautiously optimistic.

1. Warmest Regards: A really gentle laidback start, puts me so much in mind of the APP with some Beatles and Bread thrown in there. I love this guy's voice. Almost dreampop at times mixed with a kind of folky feeling; just makes you want to smile.
2. I Can't Figure Out What's Going On: Touches of CSNY here with a great run (sorry) on the piano, then it kicks off on a lovely upbeat melody with super vocal harmonies, one of the things Half Moon Run are becoming known for. If I felt like smiling and relaxing for the first track, I feel like dancing for this one (don't worry, I won't: I wouldn't subject anyone to that!) ;) Crazy little guitar solo.
3. Consider Yourself:Real sense of rockabilly meets acoustic Springsteen about this, probably the rockiest track so far. Great bass run, though it does sound like a sped-up version of The Boss's “State Trooper”...
4. Hands in the Garden: A more uptempo song, with a real upbeat feeling. Great vocal line and in particular a fantastic sort of echoey group vocal before a harmonica cuts in and takes the song to another level. Superb.
5. Turn Your Love: Great peppy keyboard line here on another uptempo track; kind of gives me a feeling of China Crisis in parts, also Deacon Blue. Really explodes into life in the middle. Drops then to single piano and drum hits for the last minute or so. Bit odd, after all the exuberance and somewhat a low-key ending: I'd even venture to suggest the last minute could have been cut out, as it really adds nothing to the song. Hmm. I'd consider dropping the rating to Orange but ... naaahhhhh!
6. Narrow Margins: Talk about introspectiv --- oh. Just took a slightly more uptempo turn. Is that vibraphone? More wonderful vocal harmonies. Could be violin there, or, possibly, steel guitar. Lovely, either way. Rippling piano running through this like a soft river.
7. Sun Leads Me On: This is very Eagles/CSNY with a great guitar line and a gentle, bittersweet theme; love the way his voice hits the slightly higher registers on the end of the verse lines. Like the best of the seventies West Coast singers. Superb.
8. It Works Itself Out: Slowburner that really hits its stride in the second minute and really never looks back. Real vocal histrionics from Devon I assume, unless Conner can reach those notes!
9. Everybody Wants: This is just beauty in simplicity. The yearning in the song, the simple message, the sense of wanting to belong. Just amazing. Gorgeous lush organ line running through it and some of the best vocal work I've heard on the album, which is saying something.
10. Throes: Fifty-four seconds of blissful piano Heaven.
11. Devil May Care: Cool little folk ditty
12. The Debt: Holy crap, another Blue! Yeah, this blues-based ballad is just another that deserves that rating. Incredible. This is the kind of song that can make you cry. Pussy. What? No, no: it's just a bit of grit in my eye....
13. Trust: And a great boppy almost new-wave rocker to close it out. Wonderful. Wipe those tears away and shake that booty. Unless you're me, in which case do not under any circumstances shake what you laughingly call a booty!

Final result: A triumphant followup to Dark Eyes, and makes me remember why I enthused so much about these guys the first time. A next-to-perfect collection of songs to satisfy anyone really, and with any luck Half Moon Run will soon be a name spoken of in other than hushed whispers and the word “Who?”

Rating: 9.8/10

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, as part of Metal Month II, October 12 2014


I remember buying this album and just being so impressed by it, considering I had at that point never heard of the band. Even the title sounded metal, both of the band and the album, and I had a feeling I would not be disappointed. I wasn’t. From the first glance at the sleeve you get a sense of awe and majesty, power and strength, and you know this isn’t going to be any “wimpy” soft rock album. In fact, through a clever campaign of publicity Manowar raised their profile and interest in their debut by utilising what I believe was the first I ever heard of the term “False Metal”, and urging those who listened to their music to reject same.

False Metal was deemed to be anything that masqueraded as Metal but was not seen to be hard enough or dedicated enough. The likes of glam and hair metal would have fallen under this banner - Motley Crue, Hanoi Rocks etc - as would anything that used too many ballads or keyboards, girly vocals or wimpy lyrics. Manowar would ally themselves to the new breed of Metal bands coming up like Tank, Venom and Slayer, as well as bands who were established and had proven their credentials like Priest, Maiden, Motorhead and Sabbath. These bands all played True Metal, and were to be either revered or accepted. Anyone else was not.

It was a clever ploy, but as I mentioned when I reviewed Hail to England some time ago, Manowar’s bastard-hard-come-and-have-a-go stance was purely for the cameras, as it were, revealed when they were reported to have run from a fight with another band. I can’t recall the details but it was reported in The Bible (no, not that one: “Kerrang!” of course!) and I remember I think it was Joey’s grinning admission: “Hey, we’re musicians, not boxers!” As an impressionable kid who had believed every word these guys said and expected they practiced what they preached, it was a huge blow to me at the time to find out that it had all just been words, a ploy to help them sell albums and gain fans.
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Battle Hymns - Manowar - 1982 (Metal Blade)
But when I bought this album on its release in 1982 I knew nothing of Manowar’s true lives and excitedly dropped the stylus onto the vinyl to see if what “Kerrang!” had been saying could be right, to see if the hype was deserved. It was. From the moment this album starts it’s like suddenly getting hit in the face with a steel glove, spiked and studded, and until the final chords of the closer you never get a chance to recover. The sound of a motorbike is synonymous with Heavy Metal and as this one revs up we’re suddenly subjected to the guitar punch of Ross “The Boss” Friedman, quickly followed by the high-pitched scream of Eric Adams as “Death Tone” opens the album that would become, for me at least, something of an epiphany.

With lyrics that flip off society in that way you love when you’re that age - ”I give some square the finger/ Now he won’t look again!” it’s a powerful statement of intent as Eric growls ”Pull alongside if you’re looking for a fight!” In somewhat the same way as Ian Gillan did with Deep Purple - but nowhere near as good a range - Adams sets the tone for Heavy Metal vocalists for years to come, a loud, angry, triumphant scream that can go into yells and roars at times. Ross the Boss rocks on, but won’t come into his real element just yet. “Metal Daze” gives him something more of a platform to build on, a faster, rockier song as Adams again lays down the marker: ”Only one thing sets me free/ Heavy Metal, loud as it can be!”

It pounds along with a kind of boogie vibe and a chanted chorus that would ensure they would receive adoration onstage: ”Hea-vy Me-tal!” simple but effective. Manowar certainly knew how to work the system, and they gave us what we wanted. Their fans became known as the Army of the Immortals, and when you listen to their music, that’s how you feel. Like nobody can touch you, like nothing can hurt you, like you’re gonna live forever. The thing I quickly learned about Manowar though was that they relied very much on power and bombast rather than the speed some of the bands coming up during the time of the NWOBHM - Raven, Angel Witch, Motorhead etc - preferred. Even “Fast Taker”, which you would expect to rocket along, well, does, but it’s not the heads-down, break-your-neck speed that the likes of Slayer and Anthrax would later espouse.

There’s a great solo from Ross here, his first real chance to show what he can do, and he does not waste it. Of course, Manowar were really an eight-piece: four guys and their egos. They had no compunction about going around saying they were the best, and inviting other Metal bands to take them on, a real case of “Come and have a go”, but it must be accepted that the talent was there. They knew how to play, and they knew how to write. They also knew how to project an image, before many Metal bands had a clear idea of how they wanted to present themselves to their fans, and went through various changes, Manowar had it down pat. “Death to False Metal!” they roared, and we roared back in delight. Had we horses, and could we ride them, we would have followed them into battle. It was just that empowering.

Much of their lyrical content concerned, at least on the first album, the Vietnam war, with it being mentioned in the opener and the main theme of the next track, “Shell Shock”. Later they would turn to more historical/mythical, even fantasy themes, recalling great battles and warriors, and musically worshipping Odin and the Norse gods. But here they were still sort of shaping their ideas, and war and Heavy Metal always go well together, so why not? The next song however is their mission statement, and is simply called “Manowar”. It’s a faster, more driving song, with drummer Donnie Hamzik thundering the beat, and tells the story of the band’s formation, somewhat embellished - ”We met on English ground/ In a backstage room we heard the sound/ And we all knew what we had to do” - with perhaps what The Batlord would term the goofiest and yet most satisfying chorus line - ”Manowar! Born to live forevermore!/ The right to conquer every shore!/ Hold your ground and give - no more!” Oh you have to laugh now, but back then we believed every word passionately, and loved it.

Another cracking solo from Ross as Joey de Maio thumps out the bass, then the beginnings of their move towards a more fantasy lyric with a darker, grindier sound comes with “Dark Avenger”, which slows everything down to Doom Metal speed, as Adams shows that he can sing at the other end of the scale too. A raw, angry lyric speaks of the lust for revenge of a hero left to die after his enemies have taken everything he has. The gods, impressed, allow him this opportunity for vengeance. Taking him to the land of the Dead, they resurrect him and send him back as their instrument of retribution. This song could be on any Sabbath album, and includes, rather amazingly, the services of the famous Orson Welles, narrating part of the story. It’s a powerful addition and really adds gravitas to the song. It sounds like there’s a synth backing, but I can’t find any credit for it, though Ross did later play keys on other albums, so maybe they snuck one in but didn’t want to tell the Army of the Immortals about it!

As the song reaches its climax, Ross goes wild on the guitar, Hamzik rattling the drums like galloping warhorse as Eric screams out his revenge with gusto, stretching his vocals cords to the limit. You can almost see the blood dripping off his sword, already slick with the life essence of so many slain enemies - and many more to be slain! - and the terrified women cowering on the ground sodden by the blood of their husbands, awaiting their fate. In a total change of pace, Joey deMaio gives a virtuoso display on the bass as he interprets Rossini’s “William Tell” for a Metal audience with the assistance of Ross, before we end on the big title track, a stunning almost operatic piece, opening on acoustic guitar which fades down as Hamzik starts slow then increases the speed as he calls in Adams.

A triumphant, victorious battle song, it’s the perfect end to this amazing debut album, and cuts right to the heart of what Manowar were about. With choral vocals evoking the feel of an army on the march, the lyric is full of words like “blood, steel, fight” and “glory”; in fact, the title of the followup album is prophesied here as Adams yells ”Sound the charge!/ Into glory ride!” In the midsection the song drops to an acoustic gentle passage, with more choral vocals as the battle pauses, but we’re quickly back into mayhem as Ross takes control, urging the troops on as dust rises about them in a cloud and enemies fall on every side. ”Kill! Kill!” screams Adams, and you could say it’s glorifying violence, but it’s hard to take it too seriously and it’s set to the backdrop of a battle. It’s not like Manowar are exorting their followers to go out and kill people in the street, unlike some bands I could name.

It all ends then in a run-up on the drums, a squeal on guitar and a choral interpretation almost of Orff's “O Fortuna”, and with a final guitar chord we are out, and the battle is won. The fictional battle in the song, and also the battle for the hearts and minds of metalheads, who having heard this album became instant followers and fans of the band, and a legend was born. As Manowar had intended from the start. To quote the late, lamented Rik Mayall, the plan worked brilliantly!

TRACK LISTING

1. Death Tone
2. Metal Daze
3. Fast Taker
4. Shell Shock
5. Manowar
6. Dark Avenger
7. William’s Tale
8. Battle Hymn

Over the years I’ve given Manowar a bit of a rough ride, and that’s for two reasons. One, I did, as I said above, believe everything they said when I was nineteen and bought this album. I thought they were hard as nails, and Heaven help anyone who crossed them. When reality showed itself to me in the cold light of day, I was crushed. My idols had feet of clay. The other reason is that a stance like this can only be maintained for so long, and Manowar have now dined out as it were on this for over thirty years. The joke, so to speak, is wearing thin. It’s hard to take seriously men who are now in their sixties - spookily, although I can’t find a birthdate for Joey deMaio, all three of the others were born in the same year, 1954! Destiny or what? - raging about “False Metal” and talking about riding forth to slay the unworthy. Yeah granpa, just sit down in that chair and remember your blood pressure!

But I do love Manowar, and always have done, and if I poke fun at them it’s gentle and not meant in any way to be hurtful or dismissive. They filled my late teens and early twenties with some amazing music, with some great great lyrics and drew for me vistas with music I could only otherwise read about in my fantasy novels. When I bought this album and listened to it, it was like Conan the Barbarian had taken up a Fender and ridden into battle. It was that powerful, that influential, and the two albums that followed just reinforced my belief at the time that this was a band who could take on the world.

And they did. What can I say in closing? Into glory ride! Death to False Metal! Yeah!

Originally posted in Bitesize, September 2 2014

More like A Perfect Yawn!
http://www.trollheart.com/cookierating2andhalf.jpg
http://f0.bcbits.com/img/a0919717431_2.jpg
Artiste: From Oceans to Autumn
Nationality: American
Album: A Perfect Dawn
Year: 2013
Label: Self-released
Genre: Post-rock?
Tracks:
Aurora
Zenith
Eos
Halo
Visible Light
Legend
Split Sky
The Absolute
The Illusion of a Moving Sun
Faultless
Chronological position: Fifth album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: It's mentioned that the band changed their name (after five albums) to Mountains Among Us, though their Bandcamp page still shows them as From Oceans to Autumn... Oh, and the previous band of founder and mainman Brandon Helms was ... Autumn is Forever. Apparently not.
Initial impression: Atmospheric, powerful, moving music. Definitely instrumental.
Best track(s): Eos, Split Sky
Worst track(s): Not really interested enough to pick out worst tracks
Comments: Another band I chose purely on the basis of their name. I like bands with the word “autumn” in their names. It just always seems a very creative thing to do. I found these guys on Progarchives so they must or should be some sort of progressive band, but whether rock, metal, experimental or something else I do not know. I do get the impression they may be an instrumental outfit though. Well, the first track certainly is.

And so, it would seem, is the rest. Mostly it's driven on the sort of hard guitar work you get with ASIWYFA and God Is An Astronaut, but occasionally there are quieter, more reflective pieces, such as Eos, which is short but very ethereal with what appears to be synth guiding the music. Other than that it's pretty basic. Great music, there's no doubt, but the same as I could hear on any of these post-rock instrumental albums from any band in that genre. Losing interest....
Overall impression: Meh
Hum Factor: 0
Intention: Not intending to check any more of their stuff out.


Rating: 6.4/10

Originally posted in Love or Hate? November 6 2015

Title: The Door Behind the Door
Artist: The Black Ryder
Genre: Shoegaze
Familiarity: Zero

1. Babylon: Nice kind of dark, introspective instrumental, good start.
2. The Seventh Moon: Oh good holy ****! Is that the voice of a sultry angel or what? I think I'm in love! Song's massive too. A real laid-back powerful lament which just drips emotion. I love this.
3. The Going Up Was Worth the Coming Down: Another beautiful dreamy track, but with a male vocal this time. Almost as good as the female. Though not quite. The sort of backwards masked cello (?) at the end is immense. Nearly pushed this to a Blue.
4. Let Me Be Your Light: Oh she's back with a sort of, well, shoegaze vocal I guess; quite muddy at times, just adds to the attraction in this case. Love everything so far. Hear elements of Mostly Autumn here certainly.
5. Santaria: And another beautiful track with some Edge (U2)-like guitar in it; sort of puts me in mind of “With Or Without You”...
6. Throwing Stones: Beautiful (seems I'm using that description a lot here; ya man ya bob!*) acoustic song with herself on vocals again. She sounds a little different here, not quite as ethereal as on the first track, more kind of earthbound than angelic. Still beautiful though. There I go again! Sublime gospel feel to this.
7. All That We Are: All right; running out of superlatives now. Think I'll just relax and listen to this. Oh, this sounds very 21st century Marillion. Lovely. Oh good ****ing god! Lush organ! There surely can't be anything on this that I don't love?
8. Until the Calm of Dawn: Cello? I'm fainting with pleasure here. This album could replace sex, it really could. The mechanised vocal fits in so well. I'm actually delighted to see that the last track is twelve minutes long, and I don't often say that!
9. Le dernier Sommeil (The Final Sleep): Oh my god. How do you make music sound like the sun rising? I don't know, but these guys have managed it. Almost spiritual. This is actually drawing tears, it's so moving and gorgeous. Shut up Batty: you'd be crying too if you heard it. Is this twelve minutes of orchestral instrumental? A third of the way so far and no vocal. Yet. I kind of hope there is none, it might break the fragile spell this track is weaving over me. I've not words enough to describe how awe-inspiringly sumptuous and moving this is. I feel like I felt when I first heard Hospice. Thank god; it was all instrumental. It's a long time since anything has moved me so profoundly.

End result: If more shoegaze (if this is shoegaze) was like this I would want to hear much more of it. As usual though, seems these guys only have two albums, but thanks a bunch for turning me on to them, bob. Loved every single damn moment of this album, from first note to last.

So, Love or Hate? Oh wow, I don't know. Hard one! Yeah, we're back on track, bob. A True Love if ever there was one. Superb is not praise strong enough, if such exists.

Rating: 9.9999999/10 (Only one point less because it would have to be Blue-rated all the way to achieve that, and this has some Green in it)

* Love or Hate? was a thread in which people recommended albums to me and I listened to them and then gave my reaction. This was recommended by bob.

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life , October 3 2011

Tapestry --- Carole King --- 1971 (Ode)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-_Tapestry.jpg

One of the mega-albums of the early seventies, a huge hit and a massive success for singer/songwriter Carole King, Tapestry was in fact her debut album, which makes it all the more remarkable that there were five hit singles from it, four of which reached number one! Since its release, to date, Tapestry has sold over 25 million copies. Not bad for a first effort!

Carole King had of course written songs for other artists, and many had hits with her songs, like Aretha Franklin, who made “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” something of a signature tune for herself, and of course James Taylor, who scored a massive hit and enduring success with “You've Got a Friend”. But this is Carole's album: she writes or co-writes every track, and what she doesn't write on her own she contributes the music to, as in two tracks where the lyric is supplied by Toni Stern. On three others she shares songwriting duties with ex-husband Gerry Goffin.

The album opens with “I Feel the Earth Move”, a pacey, upbeat song about love, which has been covered by many artistes down the years, the most recent I recall being Martika. The style of the album from the off is quite laid-back, almost jazzy, folky in places, but it's by no means an album of ballads. “So Far Away” is one though, a wistful, almost pleading song asking why people don't stay together. It's a simple piano-driven song, with King's voice as simple and yet as distinctive as that of the late Karen Carpenter, singing as if she's been doing this all her life.

“It's Too Late” is one of the standout tracks on the album, a disarmingly uptempo song whose subject matter is far from fun, the bitter realisation that a breakup is unavoidable, as Carole sings ”Stayed in bed all mornin' just to pass the time/ There's somethin' wrong here, there can be no denyin'/ One of is changin', or maybe we just stopped tryin'”. It's carried on bouncy piano with some nice acoustic guitar, and was one of the many hits from the album. It's also one of the few Carole did not write, lyric duty falling to the aforementioned Toni Stern, music by Carole.

A great fusion of pop and folk modes, Tapestry was in fact the biggest-selling album by a solo artist until Michael Jackson came along with Thriller, and smashed all records. Not bad though: that was 1982, so she kept the top spot for eleven years. The album features some names which were to go on to be rather huge, including Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Russ Kunkel and a young Danny Kortchmar. Another piano ballad, with country flavour and a touch of gospel, “Home Again” keeps the quality high with some lovely piano from Carole, and a simple melody and theme.

“Beautiful” is a much more uptempo, happy song, with a “smile and the world smiles with you” idea, with an almost carnival ending, while “Way Over Yonder” fuses blues and gospel perfectly in a touching little ballad that's almost a hymn in disguise, with some supersmooth sax work. There's just nothing that can, or needs, to be said about the next track. A huge, massive hit for James Taylor, as well as others, I think everyone knows “You've Got a Friend.” It's followed by “Where You Lead”, a sort of mid-paced rocker with some great keyboards and a soul chorus line. It's the second track on the album written by Toni Stern, though interestingly there's a line in it which very closely mirrors one in “You've Got a Friend”... The song would be seen nowadays as sounding like the words of a submissive, subservient woman, with lines like ”Where you lead I will follow” and ”If you wanna live in New York City/ Honey you know I will”, but come on, this was 1971!

Another hit next, already a big success for the Shirelles in the sixties, again everyone knows “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and yes, Carole King wrote it, along with Gerry Goffin. Her own version is a much slower, laid-back and piano-led version than the bubblegum pop of the original release, and so much the better for taking its time, with excellent and powerful backing vocals from James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. Another collaboration with Goffin, “Smackwater Jack” was also a hit, although of the singles taken from the album, this is one I have never heard prior or since, but it's a bluesy bopper, with a great piano line and striding guitars. Honky tonk! Without question the most fun track on the album.

The title track is a nice little ballad played on piano and guitar, almost the testament of a much older woman, with an interesting little parable within its lyric, and the album closes on another by-now famous song, that one that made Aretha so famous, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” ends this incredible debut on a high, with a powerful, anthemic love song with gospel overtones.

Carole King is one of those people who a lot of music fans will not know, or even know of, but the chances are that her music has touched almost everyone, whether it's through TV or film soundtracks, hits for other artistes, or her own music. Like the title of the album says, it's all part of the one wonderful interwoven tapestry. Now approaching seventy years of age, Carole is still busily recording, and doesn't look likely to slow down for some time. It's rather fitting, then, that our week of seventies album reviews kicks off with such a classic, iconic and timeless offering from a woman who has had more impact upon the music scene over her forty-year career than just about anyone else I can think of.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Feel the Earth Move
2. So Far Away
3. It's Too Late
4. Home Again
5. Beautiful
6. Way Over Yonder
7. You've Got a Friend
8. Where you lead
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
10. Smackwater Jack
11. Tapestry
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

Rating: 9.7/10

I always get a bit misty when this pops up, and I can't thank you enough for this review. I've since put the guitars down for a while, but I do still play my Uke quite a bit. My chops have faded though. I don't think I've ever told the story of how Krill II was made, which is a bit of a sad story with a happy ending, but here goes:

Right around the beginning of 2012 or so, my lady friend was diagnosed with cancer, so she was hospitalized while they pulled the tumor out, then she was put on chemo for quite a while. I took care of her when she needed me to, and a lot of my time was spent just being there for her as she writhed in agony after treatments. She had also developed some serious side effects from the drugs they were giving her to counteract the chemo. I had my 'studio' setup in her dining room and thats where I'd play with headphones on all while she'd lay on the couch watching TV or sleeping. There was one particular day I set out to record something that would reflect how I was feeling at the time, so I loaded up a drum track, layered a rhythm over it and then started on the voice, or solo of the tune. I sat watching her as I played and the feel of the tune really took it's direction from there. It was one take. The momentum of that spurred the title of the album and I put together some of the recent songs I'd done to fill in the rest, like Part I that utilized the same rhythm structure, but at a faster pace.

Krill is the theme, which is representative of how we're basically fuel for other organisms, whether it's an animal eating another animal, or a conglomerate using people as resources, which was the case for my lady friend. They wanted to keep her on some meds that were killing her, and they wanted her on those for the rest of her life. She was a commodity. Once she said **** you, and stopped taking those meds she grew healthier and cancer free. She's still the picture of health to this day.

But, that right there is how this all came to be. I'm so glad you were able to enjoy it, my friend. Warms my heart.

Wow, that is some story. I'm glad your lady recovered. It's pretty awful what the medical profession (not all of them of course) will do in the pursuit of profit; makes you wonder how they sometimes square that with their hippopotamus oath.

Your tracks still come up occasionally on my shuffled playlists, and I never feel the need to skip them. You really have talent and it would be a mistake, in my opinion, not to develop it and see where it can take you. I hope you continue to play and write, and let me know if you have any new recordings. I can't promise to review them - like you with the guitar, I haven't quite hung up my mouse and keyboard but they're more occupied with historical and other matters now more than music - but you never know.

Take care, my guitar god friend. :)

Wow Guys that was a lot to take for sure.
I was copying Trollsheart Tapestry by Carole King.. a friend has joined the overs50's forum and she is a great fan as well as the Carpenters......Logan1 if you see her.
Think some of the music fans will enjoy that review also.

I must have a look for my review of The Carpenters' Greatest Hits then...

Oh! Here it is!

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, July 11 2012

Their Greatest Hits --- Carpenters --- 1990 (A&M)
https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/im...ze7GEIPdbwl-cA

Yeah, you can snicker, you can roll your eyes, you can make choking noises but we all know we've all listened to at least one song by the mellow duo in our lives. Just admit it: among all those Sigur Ros, Black Sabbath, Porcupine Tree and Dylan albums there's a Carpenters one hidden away on your shelf. You pretend it's your ma's, but hell, she doesn't even listen to records, let alone CDs anymore. Oh, you're just storing it for her, are you? Keeping it safe? The same as that Johnny Mathis and the Barry Manilow that, though you claim it's hers shows signs of recent usage? Fair enough. Your secret's safe with me. Well, it was...

Fact is, music like the Carpenters made can't really be put down. Sure, it may not fit into your usual listening routine, and you may in all likelihood only pull out the album --- and it is the album, the only one of theirs you own --- once in a blue moon, but every so often the mood hits you and you want to listen to something a little easier, a little less complicated or intense than what you usually listen to, and for sheer, indulgent, guilty relaxation music the Carpenters --- oh, you know they're called Carpenters, do you? You leave out “the”, do you? Interesting...

It's nothing to be ashamed of. Of course initially I heard their music because my mother liked them, but even back then I was unashamed to say I also liked their songs. Like everyone, I possess only the one album, one of their greatest hits, as you may have gleaned from the title of the review, and I probably wouldn't even consider buying one of their “real” albums. To quote Genesis: I know what I like, and I like what I know. Their hits are the ones I'm familiar with, and even though during the course of this album you get one or two lesser known hits and some covers, it's still very good value for a greatest hits compilation, and one of the few such albums I can play pretty much all the way through.

They're all there. “Yesterday Once More” opens the album in fine style, Karen Carpenter's smooth, cool, relaxing voice washing over you like warm sunshine on a spring day, Richard on the keys always an integral part of the music, the orchestra swelling and falling away behind them like an ocean wave, crashing, then receding as required by the music. There's hardly any need to go too deeply into the songs themselves, is there? You more than likely know, or have heard, some or all of the hits, even if you pretended to clap your hands over your ears when they came on the radio, or tried to change the station (but were unable, somehow) --- “Top of the World” is joyous affirmation of love and life with a boppy jangly country beat, “Jambalaya” is calypso delight, while “We've Only Just Begun” is a starry-eyed song of two lovers starting out on their life together, a song on which the orchestra plays an important part.

There are, as I said, the covers: Neil Sedaka's mournful cautionary tale, “Solitaire”, nestles alongside a slow, dreamy version of the Beatles' “Ticket to Ride”, with the aforementioned “Jambalaya” itself a cover of Hank Williams' song, and the infectious fun of the Marvelettes' “Please Mr. Postman” is perfectly juxtaposed alongside Bacharach's classic “(They Long to Be) Close to You”. But it's the bitter “Goodbye to Love” that takes top place for me, always my favourite Carpenters song, with that distinctive acapella opening and Karen's defeated voice declaring she's had enough of love and will never trust it again, not to mention the soaraway powerful guitar solo at the end, much unexpected in such an easy-listening song.

And then there's their famous cover of the less-famous Klaatu's “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”, which closes the album. Yes it's twee, yes it's cheesy and looking at the future through Gene Roddenberry-tinted glasses --- like, will aliens not just want to destroy us? Did Klaatu ever consider that I wonder? --- but it's at its heart a song of hope for the future of humanity, perhaps misguided but laudable nonetheless. I could have done without the stupid radio DJ bit at the beginning, but again there's a fine guitar solo near the end to really round out the song.

There are twenty tracks on this album, which is good value for a start, and really there's something for everyone. Whether you like to nod your head and tap your foot to the likes of “All You Get From Love Is a Love Song” or “Top of the World”, or sigh and relax to soft love songs like “Touch Me When We're Dancing” or “Rainy Days and Mondays”, or just hear some really good over versions, this album has it all. I wouldn't advise going out and actually buying a full Carpenters album, as I have no idea what their other material, the stuff that didn't make the charts, is like. But if you like their hits, then you could do worse than get this album.

The death of Karen Carpenter was a great loss to the world of music. She had the voice of an angel and though she had her detractors and there was smutty gossip about how close she was to her brother, she and he left behind a true legacy of great music, which can be enjoyed by anyone of any age, anywhere, without guilt or irony.

In a word: timeless.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yesterday Once More
2. Superstar
3. Rainy Days and Mondays
4. Top of the World
5. Ticket to Ride
6. Goodbye to Love
7. This Masquerade
8. Hurting Each Other
9. Solitaire
10. We've Only Just Begun
11. Those Good Old Dreams
12. Please Mr. Postman
13. I Won't Last a Day Without You
14. Touch Me When We're Dancing
15. Jambalaya (On the Bayou)
16. For All We Know
17. All You Get From Love Is a Love Song
18. (They Long to Be) Close to You
19. Only Yesterday
20. Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

I shall post that up soon..Logan1 will love it..maybe others..you do go the extra Kilometre...:wavey:

TH = The Real. MVP.

Originally posted in Bitesize, October 6 2014

Daddy would have been proud...
http://www.trollheart.com/cookierating3.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...dtheThread.jpg
Artiste: Roseanne Cash
Nationality: American
Album: The River and the Thread
Year: 2014
Label:
Genre: Country
Tracks:
A Feather Is Not a Bird
The Sunken Lands
Etta's Tune
Modern Blue
Tell Heaven
The Long Way Home
World of Strange Design
Night School
50,000 Watts
When the Master Calls the Roll
Money Road

Chronological position: Thirteenth album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: Ah you know what I'm gonna say!
Initial impression: Kind of more rocky than I expected
Best track(s):Etta's Tune, World of Strange Design, 50,000 Watts, Night School, When the Master Calls the Roll
Worst track(s):[i] None
Comments: I suppose it's inevitable that if Country icon Johnny Cash was going to have children that some of them at least would take after their late pa and go into the music biz. Roseanne is the eldest daughter from Johnny's first marriage, and so has the inestimable honour of being the first in the “line of succession”, as it were. She has three other sisters, and her marriage to Rodney Crowell in 1979 just solidified her love for and interest in Country music. And so we come to her thirteenth album, in a career that has spanned over thirty-five years, and I didn't even know of her existence until a short while back...

Nice bit of slide guitar to get "A Feather Is Not a Bird" going, and it's really more a sleazy boogie/blues feel to it than Country, while "Etta's Tune" has a lot of early Nanci Griffith in it with some fine male vocals adding to its atmosphere. There's a sense of resignation and weary triumph as she sings “We're just a mile out from Memphis/ And I've finally made it home.” Nice bit of orchestral work on "The Long Way Home", and I'm noticing that much of this album is reflective, I guess Cash is looking back on her life and career and assessing where she is now.

"World of Strange Design" seems a journeyman (or woman) song, with some uptempo guitar and handclaps and the inevitable reference to the Man in Black. It's quite rocky in its way and I really like it. According to ZZ, Jesus just left Chicago, but if we're to believe Cash then he was born in Mississippi! "Night School" has a very Dan Fogelberg feel to it, while "50,000 Watts" is more sort of Carpenters and has a great beat and swaying rhythm to it, almost gospel at times. Another favourite. Great backing vocals on "When the Master Calls the Roll" and some fine accordion I think? Trumpet too possibly. Not to mention that I hear Irish folk artist Mary Black's influence in there. Good stuff.

Overall impression: Damn fine Country album, a credit to her da, but I doubt I'll be listening to the previous twelve. Well, maybe one or two...
Hum Factor: 4
Intention: Might look into more. Might not.

Originally posted in Trollheart's Listening List, December 18 2016

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tal_ghosts.jpg
Album title: Digital Ghosts
Artiste: Shadow Gallery
Year: 2009
Nationality: British
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rank*: High Priest
6

One of the very first reviews in my original journal is a double one, concerning Shadow Gallery's albums Tyranny and Room V, which together tell a dystopian story, and I have been into them since I found and listened to the latter album, afterwards collecting all their others. The discography was, admittedly, small, and remains so. This is their sixth album, and having been released in 2009 with nothing afterwards, it seems fair to conclude it may have been their last. It was the first album put out by them since the untimely death of former lead singer and founder Mike Baker, and though I've only listened to it I think twice, you can hear the pain and the loss in the songs, and it's a much darker album than they've recorded up to this point.

1. With Honor: Not surprisingly a tribute to their fallen bandmate, this is a heavy, frenetic piece of progressive metal, and new man Brian Ashland does his best to fill those big shoes, but he's no Mike Baker, nor I guess should be try to be. One thing Shadow Gallery do well is vocal harmonies, and this album is no exception. The core of the band is of course still here, and Gary Wehrkamp and Brendt Allman share guitar, keyboards, bass and backup vocal duties among them, with Wehrkamp even looking after the drumming. The familiar Shadow Gallery melodies are here in abundance, and if you're a fan you would not mistake these songs for anyone else's. Yet there's something missing, as I suppose you would expect: the album is called Digital Ghosts, and there's one huge ghost looming over every part of it, a man who will never be forgotten in the ranks and history of this band.

The song titles themselves speak of this, with titles like “Strong”, “Pain” and “Venom”, and the closer, “Haunted”. It must have been hard for the guys to continue on after losing the friend and colleague they spent sixteen years with (thirteen in the case of Wehrkamp, who only joined in 1995 for the second album) and Baker's a hard ghost to exorcise. His fingerprints are all over the music here, his voice echoes in that of his replacement, and there just seems to be a very deep dark pall over everything. Shadow Gallery didn't tend to write necessarily happy songs, but there's a real sense of gloom and loss over the music here. Starting with a ten-minute track was either a brave or a foolish move, but I've yet to really get into this opening track, and feel it definitely lacks something. Must admit though, the sad keyboard ending is almost like a final salute to Baker, almost a last post.
2. Venom: Kicks things back up with vocals from Suspyre's Clay Barton, sort of reminds me of older tracks like “Cliffhanger” and “Deeper than life”. Some great guitar from Gary here with powerful keyboard work too, and the lyrics spit vitriol as Barton snarls ”I wrap a curse around your throat” and envisages the end of days. Heavy stuff.
3. Pain: Another thing this band do well is look behind the mask, get right down into the details and tear apart the lies. They don't do this as viscerally as the likes of Slayer or Cannibal Corpse do, but I believe they do it as effectively, by exposing the real face of humanity in all its vainglory. Seldom though will they waste time on empty words of love and devotion; they're usually more into the bitter, recriminatory type of message, and here this is exactly what we get when Ashland sings ”And what of all that talk/ About how two become one?”. Laying bare the realities of life is something Shadow Gallery know all about, and they use it to good effect here. There's a nice kind of marching beat to the song, and it's driven well on the twin guitars of Wehrkamp and Allman, with plenty of keyboard flourishes on the way.
4. Gold Dust: Keeps everything running at a high tempo, with some squealing keyboards and grinding guitar. The familiar motif used in many Shadow Gallery songs is here, kind of their signature sound, with again great vocal harmonies. On a long keyboard outro it flows directly into
5. Strong: where guitar takes over, marching along as if the two songs were in fact the one. A searing solo from Gary to get the track underway before guest vocals come in from Primal Fear's Ralf Scheepers. It's a very dramatic kind of rhythm with a sort of boogie feel to it as well. In the middle it rises to a pumping, frenetic keyboard solo from Wehrkamp before guitar joins in too. The lyric really is poor, sub-Rainbow material, quite dated and not really worthy of the band, perhaps another reason why I don't find myself as drawn to this album as to their earlier, far superior efforts. Like I said, there's something missing, and it doesn't help that there are two guest vocalists on the album. There are only seven tracks in all: did Brian Ashland feel he couldn't handle all of them? It makes for inconsistency, and while nobody would want to see Mike Baker's legacy tarnished, and nobody could properly replace him, you'd think they would have given it a decent go.
6. Digital Ghost: Great intro to the title track, really reminds me of the Shadow Gallery of old. Descends into a slow slide guitar passage then, almost reminiscent of Gilmour, then that famous rapid piano comes in and suddenly it's 1995 all over again. Perhaps this will be the one to change my mind about this album. Opening lines ”I believe in the afterlife” shows you right away where this is going. When they all sing in unison ”The circle remains here my friend/ We guard it with trust” you can't help but be moved, even if the wording is a little off. It's a touching song, obviously a tribute to Baker and their final musical farewell to their friend, and it's a fitting tribute. If the rest of the album was like this I'd have no problem with it. There's quite a jazzy little piano piece here at about the sixth minute, and harmonies that put me in mind of early Yes, followed by a truly exceptional guitar solo.
7. Haunted: A fitting title for the last track, the closer to this album and possibly the last song we'll ever hear from Shadow Gallery. This album is certainly haunted by the restless ghost of Mike Baker, and I'm not even sure it's a spirit they want to put to rest. A soft piano with group vocals introduces the song, tolling bells underlining the message with perhaps a little too heavy a hand. A fine vocal by Ashland, and he distinguishes himself well at the end. It is the final farewell though, and all the band take part in it, there being more vocal harmonies and group vocals here than anywhere else on the album, as if everyone wants to have their say, be counted, shake the hand and hold the shoulder one last time. A Brian Maylike guitar solo comes through in the third minute, and you can feel the emotion and the pain in Gary Wehrkamp's fingers, reaching right down from his heart to the guitar strings. The song then takes on a harder edge as it speeds up, keyboard flurries adding to the melody.

But as we reach the sixth minute it slows down again, taking on a stately, almost reverential tone with a a particularly poignant line in ”Another good man goes down” and the last minute or so of the song is driven by impotent, frustrated anger, guitars whining and the final lines, as bells toll, an appeal perhaps for there to be something beyond this life, continuity beyond the grave as they sing ”And on and on, and on and on...” the drums beating out a final sad tattoo as they fade into the distance.

Conclusion: I can understand the album better now, having read the lyrics for the first time, but it still stands as one of Shadow Gallery's weakest efforts for me, and this rankles. If this is to be their final recording, their swansong and their tribute to Mike Baker, it really needed to be a whole lot more cohesive than it is, and better written. I've looked over the lyrics and some of them are so embarrassing it's painful. I wouldn't expect that from a band whose first language was not English, never mind from one for whom it is their native tongue. It's also something of a mishmash of styles, with no real common thread going through it, and as I said, the reliance on guest singers really damages Ashland's chance of making his mark as the new vocalist, should they go on to record more material. Even if they don't, had his been the one voice carrying the album then the message would have been stronger; as it is, it's very confused. Do they think nobody could replace Baker? Probably true. Are they afraid to try, for fear of sullying his memory? Perhaps. But if this album is, as it surely must be, a tribute to him, should Shadow Gallery not have made it the very best they possibly could? I feel in this, though they hit the mark later on, overall they missed the opportunity.

And there may not be another one.

Rating: 6.9/10

Originally posted in Trollheart Listens to Every Album on Wiki's List for 2017, May 1 2018

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-_Infinite.jpg
Album title: InFinite
Artist: Deep Purple
Genre: Hard Rock/Heavy Metal/Progressive Rock
Nationality: English
Release date: April 7
Position in Discography: Twentieth
Estimated Rating:
http://www.trollheart.com/speed8.jpg
Familiar with this artist? Yes
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Yes
Average RYM Score: 3.22
Some classic bands know when to call it a day; they've had their fame, made their money, carved their place in history (literally, in the case of Deep Purple and 1970's In Rock!) and can gracefully retire, while others, like Hawkwind, have been almost constantly going for half a century and slow no signs of slowing down. Which is preferable? Carry on by all means if you can maintain the high standards you set for yourself in your heyday, but if all you're doing is trading on past glories in a vain attempt to hold on to your youth and/or fame, maybe it's time to hang up the guitars and unplug the keyboards?

Not that I'm suggesting this is the case with the legendary Deep Purple, but there's no question they didn't reform in 1984 for one reason and one reason alone: money, which they surely don't need, but then, when was money more about want and less about need, at least among the rich? So, like Pink Floyd's going-away “present” to their fans in 2014, you can't be blamed for approaching this with a certain amount of skepticism. Not that I've been a fan of the “new” Purple; my last encounter with them was 1974's Stormbringer and the “reunion” album Perfect Strangers left me cold. But to their credit I guess they've soldiered on, but now, with a lineup that only includes three of the original members from the classic lineup that produced such gems as In Rock, Machine Head and the aforementioned Stormbringer, is this even the same band?

Hey, perhaps I'll be eating my words. Odd though how it starts off with a kind of robotic chant before the first track gets going, but once it does there's the old hard rock sound of the band who made rock history and helped create heavy metal. I must say, that doesn't sound like Ian Gillan: the power seems to be gone from his voice. Don Airey is a great keysman, but who could replace the late Jon Lord? And Steve Morse is no Blackmore. But enough comparisons. On the face of it, this does have the Purple sound, and mostly it sounds like any of their seventies albums. The first thing that impresses me though is “The Surprising”, which has a different sound, including some Eastern stylings and a very prog rock feel. “Birds of Prey” has something too, but overall I feel this is just another hard rock album, even an album out of time, almost as if Deep Purple are trying to force the seventies back. I couldn't say in any honesty that they've moved with the times, and generally this feels very dated and perhaps even a little sad. And why is there a version of “Roadhouse Blues” to close with? I mean, I love the song, but living in the past much? It's almost as if they're saying - with a touch of desperation - "Hey look! We used to rock like this!"

I suppose you have to give them credit for still going, but the question is, as I posed at the beginning, should they be? I'm not sure what proper Purple fans will make of this album, but I'd rather hear Machine Head personally.

Check out more from this artist? Probably, if only out of curiosity
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes

Actual Rating: 7/10

Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, December 2 2013

Time --- Rod Stewart --- 2013 (Decca)
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Yes, I’ve been raving about this for months now, and it’s odd because I’m not a huge fan of Rod’s. Like everyone, I know the hits --- “Maggie May”, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”, “Sailing” etc --- but would not, prior to this, have considered buying one of his albums, bar his greatest hits, which I do own. And it was more curiosity than anything else that drew me to this on the new releases section of my favourite album vendor. At first I took it to be a greatest hits compilation --- after all, what did Rod do these days other than release greatest hits compilations? But looking further into it, I discovered it was a whole new studio album; new tracks, new songs, an original composition, his first since 2001, not counting his various covers and tribute albums released since then.

So I was intrigued. The guy’s a legend, after all, but would he still be able to cut it in the twenty-first century? Would he, like so many others before him and from his general era, try to update his sound, adding influences from today’s music? Would he collaborate with some of this century’s better-known stars? Or would the album sound dated, ageing, out of, as they say, time? Only one way to find out, so I bought it and played it. What I discovered was a man who, at the age of sixty-eight and with over twenty albums to his credit, over twenty top ten singles, five of which were number ones, can still stand shoulder to shoulder with the best and show ‘em how it’s done, and remains relevant even thirty-five years after his career took off.

It’s a little depressing to note that the singles released from this album so far have failed to even make a dent in the charts, and I guess ol’ Rod doesn’t have the pulling power he used to, when almost everything he touched turned to gold, and he only had to record a song for it to be a hit. But these are different times, people want different things, and this, so far as I can see with my limited knowledge of his music, is a very different Rod Stewart album. Of course, there will be those of you --- most of you, probably --- who will scoff and jeer at my championing the cause of the music of an old man, and to be honest I’m as surprised as anyone that this album impressed me as it did. But then, everyone seems to be raving about Elton John’s first album in seven years, and he’s from the same time period. It is however gratifying to see that Time slipped right in there at number one in the album charts, so someone appreciates good music.

It opens with a big, bright, bouncy love song which affirms Rod’s happiness with his new love, and Celtic instrumentation being the thing these days he has fiddle, accordion and also dulcimer and maracas giving the song a very folky feel. The album has been praised as his “most personal to date” and indeed it is: all through the album Rod either reflects on his past or looks to the future, and in every track, on every song he seems to be thankful for what he now has, his bad boy days gone. In many ways, he’s the antithesis of Robbie Williams, whose new album I reviewed some time back. Robbie, now fast approaching forty, is still trying to be the Peter Pan figure and hold on to his fading youth on Take the Crown, trying to hold back time and age and live in a perpetual world of booze, birds and bad boy behaviour. Rod, on the other hand, seems much more comfortable in his skin, at peace with himself and his place in the world.

I get the impression this album was not necessarily released as an assault on the charts, or to prove he still has it, or even to make money, for why would he need that? To me, this seems more an affirmation of life, a joyous celebration of everything he has achieved, and perhaps as a thank you to the fans for putting him where he is today. Then again, maybe it is just for the money. But it certainly does not give me that sort of vibe. I also find that, despite the fact that the music here is pretty great really, this is an album which really transcends music. Yeah, that’s incredibly pompous, isn’t it? What I mean to say is that in many ways the music is not the most important thing on the record; it’s almost more a state of mind, a way of looking at things and the pure and simple joy of realising you’re alive, and all that entails, that informs the album. Granted, it’s a lot easier to be happy about life when you’re rich, but even so I get a sense of exuberance from Time which, while fully realising he is the age he is, makes you think of Rod as a younger man, full of hope and promise for the future.

Indeed, the second track almost confirms this, as “Can’t Stop Me Now” chronicles his early success and rise to fame, namechecking his famous hit along the way - ”Then along came Maggie May” - while still realising that it’s his millions of fans who put him where he is today. ”Thanks for the faith” he sings, and it really sounds sincere, ”Thanks for the patience, thanks for the helping hand.” Another upbeat song, it’s full of the youthful enthusiasm that must have filled the young Stewart as he suddenly realised he was on the way to making it big. It’s more a rock track than the previous, with harder guitar and a nice Scottish sound on possibly some sort of pipes; probably keyboards if I’m honest. It’s hard though not to get swept up in the optimism and excitement, and to feel yourself in the young man’s shoes, the world at his feet.

The first single from the album, which sadly did far worse than I would have hoped it would, is a bittersweet ballad where Rod realises a love affair has come to an end, and it’s best just to let it go. “It’s Over” is full of regret and loss, sorrow and pain, but also a sort of fatalistic acceptance. Well, no, not fatalistic. Realistic. It’s got some lovely orchestral arrangements, gentle piano and soft acoustic guitar, then the percussion cuts in and it gets a little harder - ”All the plans we had together/ Up in smoke and gone forever” - and for a man who’s been through more than his fair share of divorces, there’s a pragmatism about what’s important: ”I don’t want the kids to suffer/ Can’t we talk to one another?” It’s truly a beautiful song, and was the first point in the album where I sat up and thought, yes this is quite possibly going to be a great album. And it is.

Many of the songs here trace moments and events in Stewart’s life, such as the aforementioned second track with his rise to fame, divorce in this one, and the reflecting on a love that could have been in “Brighton Beach”. Not one of my favourite songs on the album I must say; I find it a little dull and pedestrian, but not bad. Evokes those memories we all have about what if and wonder where he/she is now? Carried on nice acoustic guitar backed by some mournful violin, another fine orchestral outing. Things get back rocking then with “Beautiful Morning”, as Rod lets loose and just exults in the joy of living. It’s a simple song, but then it needs to be. This is no complicated lyric, no deep meaning of life stuff; it’s just something we can all relate to, that morning when you wake up, the sun streaming in your window, your bank account fat and your lover by your side and just think what a fantastic morning to be alive. A real rocker, and one to make you come alive after the somewhat boring previous track.

Time doesn’t really hit that midpoint I often speak of, but there are weak tracks. Luckily, they come and go, and are followed by better ones, and the quality of the album only flags, if at all, momentarily before picking up again. As you might expect with all his songwriting expertise down the years, Rod pens every track, mostly with his producer Kevin Savigar, and occasionally other writers. All that is except one, which we’ll come to. “Live the Life” is a good track but it suffers from something that recurs through parts of latter half of the album, which is plaigarisation. The opening is a rip-off of his own song “Maggie May”, while the main melody recalls Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California”, the bridge to the chorus putting me in mind of Carole Bayer Sager. There’s just a lot of influences in the song, too many to allow it seem original. Even the sentiment expressed in it is somewhat tired and overused, but it’s not the worst song on the album. That’s probably held for the next one, and “Finest Woman” is Rod back to his old bad boy days, leering at the girls and flashing his, er, smile. It’s perhaps a little disappointing given the lessons he’s telling us through this music that he’s learned, but I suppose everyone needs to let their hair down once in a while. Still, it’s not for me; sort of mixture of rock, soul and bit of gospel. Uptempo certainly, just a weak track in my opinion. Some sweet brass in it and good female backing vocals, but I’m waiting for the title track.

And here it is. And man, was it worth waiting for! A slow, powerful ballad with very much gospel overtones, “Time” tells us all that we need to know when to move on, when it’s finally time to quit. ”Time” Rod advises us ”Waits for no-one/ That’s why I can’t wait on you.” A gorgeous organ intro, almost church-like with a lot of blues in it pulls in some fine piano and excellent backing vocals from the ladies. There are echoes of Country in the song too, blues and a bit of soul. Superb work on the organ and keyboards by his producer, and Savigar really testifies on the keys as Rod pours out his heart and soul. Talk about personal! Super little guitar solo, but again it’s almost note for note from Bon Jovi’s “I Want You”.

Rod has made no secret of his love of the music of Tom Waits, and the influence it’s had on his own music, and indeed he’s had two big hits with Waits songs. Here he takes a slightly lesser-known track, from the Mule Variations album, and does a great job with “Picture in a Frame”. I’ve never had an issue with his interpretation of Waits’ songs, and he doesn’t disappoint here either. For those who may not know it, it’s a simple, piano-led ballad telling the story of the realisation of the singer that his girlfriend means more to him than he had originally thought. Truth to tell, he also covers “Cold Water” but it’s a bonus track and I just don’t do those, so let me just say he also does a great job on that. “Sexual Religion” is another “old” Stewart style song, with Rod marvelling at the power a woman has over him, and what she can make him do.

There’s a certain sense of seventies ABBA in the song, with powerful production values and a strong female backing chorus, the track itself a mid-paced one as Stewart sings ”If there’s one thing I don’t understand/ It’s the power of a woman/ And the weakness of a man.” Yeah, and the rest of us, Rod! It’s kind of close to the general melody of his big hit “Do ya think I’m sexy”, but a much different song at the same time. More restrained and low-key is “Make Love to Me Tonight”, in which Rod takes on the persona of a working-class grunt, facing the hard times but determined to make it once his girl is by his side. Sort of similar, lyrically is not musically, to “Livin’ On a Prayer” - wonder if Rod listens to Bon Jovi? On a bouncing, mostly acoustic rhythm, it’s an us-against-the-world song full of passion and optimism, and recalls some of Rod’s harder times, such as when he slept under the bridges in Paris while gigging, and it certainly speaks to the everyman in us all. Simple, perhaps simplistic, with a nice Celtic lilt to it, it’s hard not to be engaged by its almost blind, determined sense of hope.

That old bugbear however resurfaces in the closer, and it really is a pity because it’s such a beautiful song, and a perfect way to end a really strong album. Maybe I’m just being a pedant and overly critical, but listen to the melody of “Pure Love”, and if you know the song you can’t help but hear the 1952 classic “You Belong to Me”, not to mention that the opening intro is “Send in the Clowns”. But that aside, it’s a touching, emotional message to it would seem one of his daughters, a father’s advice, carried on gorgeous piano and violin, with a heartfelt vocal as Rod sings ”Don’t ask me now where all the time has gone/I’ve loved you since the minute you were born”. A truly stunning upsurge of orchestral strings near the end just paints the final stupendous layer on a finale to what is truly a remarkable album, and a real tribute to a man who has seen it all, done it all, and is, in the words of one of his contemporaries, still standing.

TRACK LISTING

1. She Makes Me Happy
2. Can’t Stop Me Now
3. It’s Over
4. Brighton Beach
5. Beautiful Morning
6. Live the Life
7. Finest Woman
8. Time
9. Picture in a Frame
10. Sexual Religion
11. Make Love to Me Tonight
12. Pure Love

Look, you can all laugh: I’m used to that. People read a review of Andy Williams (not yet), Neil Diamond or Pixie Lott in my journal and make choking noises, and move on. Doesn’t bother me. But it’s sad if you avoid this album purely on the basis that it’s Rod Stewart. As I said, I’m no big fan but I was quite amazed by how mature and accomplished this album is, given that he could have just trundled out another greatest hits or even a by-the-numbers album of pop singles, paying others to write for him. He didn’t. This is, first and foremost, a personal account of where he has been, what he’s learned and how he’s dealt, in different ways, with different situations, to arrive where he is now.

If you leave your prejudices at the door and wipe that disparaging grin off your face long enough to give this album a chance, you may find that you’re pleasantly surprised. I know I was.

Rating: 9.0/10

Originally posted in Love or Hate? August 15 2015

http://www.metal-archives.com/images/1/8/9/4/189445.jpg
Title: Monument
Artiste: Cor Scorpii
Genre: Melodic Black Metal
Familiarity: Zero

1. Ei fane svart: Now this is interesting! Melodic Black Metal? Melodic? And they're Norwegian, too. Well, mythsofmetal hasn't steered me wrong yet, so... Opening with piano, that's hopeful certainly. Expecting a big nasty guitar or a roar of .... and there it is. Strong, but almost in a Power Metal way? Ragged vocal, no real surprise there. Put him to one side and let him rant away and concentrate on the music. Guitar work is great and there's some sort of choral vocal thing going on, which almost makes me think of this more in the vein of Viking or Pagan Metal really.
2. Endesong: Not letting up here (you wouldn't expect them to now would you?) but yes indeed some very melodic music if you kind of shut out the vocalist. Nice orchestral piece at the end. Ok, not the end, but near it.
3. I, the damned: Two of these tracks are in English, and this is the first. Not that it matters, as I can't make out a word this guy is singing, but still. Pretty damn fine melody. Sounds like violins there. Breaks down on some nice piano too later on in the song. Kinda hear a few progressive metal elements in here.
4. Our fate, our curse: The other English one, but to be honest I don't feel it has much going for it. Pretty generic.
5. Helvetesfossen: This sounds much better, and is an instrumental which means I don't have to listen to the scratchy vocals. Everybody wins!
6. Oske og innskit: ... and he's back! Good rattling guitar here. You know it's odd, but there's someone credited with “clean vocals” (think he's the keyboard man) but I have yet to hear ... oh right. I hear them now. Well. Yeah, they add a different dimension to the music. Guitar work is amazing here at the end.
7. Kjettar: This is just totally chaotic. Nah, not feeling this. Um, is that harpsichord? Really? Goes into a kind of reel at the end...
8. Bragder i stein: Kind of like a mixture of folk, pagan and black metal. Not bad, not bad.

End result: As Black Metal albums go, this is pretty good, and I can see why the term “melodic” was added. It's certainly a lot less br00tal than some BM I've listened to. Vocals still put me off though. Decent, but I wouldn't see myself returning to these guys any time soon.

So, Love or Hate? Still, for what it is I didn't hate it, so it gets a Love.

Originally posted in Trollheart Listens to Every Album on Wiki's List for 2017, February 24 2018

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Album title: Burials in Several Earths
Artist: BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Genre: Electronic/Ambient
Nationality: English
Release date: May 19
Position in Discography: Twenty-fourth
Estimated Rating:
http://www.trollheart.com/speed5.jpg
Have I heard of this artist? n/a
Have I heard anything by this artist? n/a
Average RYM Score: 3.27
When I read the artist here I assumed it was just an artsy-fartsy name for some ambient producer or band, but no: this is THE BBC workshop that brought you such amazing sound effects as those you hear on Doctor Who, Blake's Seven, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Quatermass and other well-loved and some obscure programmes (mostly sci-fi) transmitted on the BBC – some on the radio - since about the 1950s. I'm not quite sure what the point is in releasing this though, but it certainly gives an insight into the massive amount of work that went into making all those spooky, eerie and occasionally disturbing sound effects that populated the shows I used to watch as a kid. Oh, I see the workshop was forced to close in 1998 and this is one of many efforts to catalogue and release music and sounds created by them in their heyday. So, a kind of retrospective, of sorts. Well this is certainly interesting. It's hard, almost impossible to review though. There are some nice piano runs, synthy soundscapes, but mostly weird sound effects that those of us who grew up in the seventies on this side of the water will remember fondly. I imagine OH and Frownland will find a lot to like here, but this could likely be listened to and enjoyed by just about anyone. It's hardly an essential album, but definitely worth a listen.

Check out more from this artist? n/a
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? n/a

Actual Rating: 10/10 (For historical reasons, and as a mark of respect)

Originally posted October 7 2012 in The Playlist of Life

Metallic Spheres --- The Orb featuring David Gilmour --- 2010 (Columbia)
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Now this is a strange one! Electronic/dance band The Orb are not an artist I would have on any playlist, and I couldn't tell you the names of any of their albums nor their singles, but when I came across this odd collaboration I just had to hear what it was like. With vocals and (of course) guitar taken by the Pink Floyd legend, and with Gilmour co-writing all of the tracks, this looks like it could be very interesting. Or just weird. The album only contains two actual tracks, but each is broken into five separate pieces, and the whole thing still manages to clock in at a quite respectable forty-eight minutes. The two tracks are called “sides” - probably harking back to the times of vinyl LPs - and are called “Metallic side” and “Sphere side”, in that order.

And so “Metallic side” opens on a breathy, humming synth with some spacey sounds, quite Floydesque really, then that familiar crying guitar sound is heard, almost in the background, then getting stronger as what is basically the title track gets proceedings underway, but the unfortunate thing is that no matter where I look I can't get a breakdown of the tracks: every site has this as just having two tracks, and yet there are names for each of the ten “broken-down” tracks within both the, as they are referred to, sides. So I'll be guessing a little at where each stops and the next picks up. But “Metallic Spheres” at least appears to be completely instrumental, kind of Jean-Michel Jarre-like in its rhythm with busy synths and drum machines backing the keening guitar. As it runs on the synth and guitar kind of meld together, the drumbeat getting more pronounced and heavier, then really taking over as they come to the foreground.

Vocals begin to filter in as we hit the tenth minute, and this could be “Hymns to the Sun”, the second track of the “first side”, though to be sure I can't, er, be sure. What I do know is that “filter” is the correct word to use, as Gilmour's voice doesn't suddenly start singing, but kind of fades in, almost echoey as the music continues, his guitar dropping largely out of the music as the synths and drums take over, and then coming back in around the twelfth minute, accompanied by some quite jazzy piano, then some stuttery whistle sounds as the drums and synth lines die away and I would hazard we're into “Black Graham”, everything slowing down now, some muted whispers, little clangy strums of the guitar and some soft whizzing synthesisers, then Gilmour gets going on the acoustic guitar joined by choral synth vocals.

The tempo picks up a little now, sort of tapping along, quite blues/folky really, sort of growing organically into “Hiding in Plain View”, as the electric guitar comes back with moans and wails, low synth humming and swelling in the background, developing into a very ambient piece which probably might not be out of place on a Floyd record itself, and then things get funky with the closing track on the “Metallic side”, around three minutes of “Classified”, with a sort of Spanish/Mexican feel to the guitar and whooshing synthwork, the drum machines keeping a steady beat as the track goes along, taking us to the end of the first track, side, or whatever you wish to call it.

“Spheres side” starts with more spacey keyboards, a jangly guitar low in the background and some bass thumping slowly in, as “Es vedra” opens side two, and wind sounds and thunder accompany the synth melody as the guitar gets louder, drops away, gets louder, and those JMJ-style keys again fade up through the mix. Cheeky little snippet from “Comfortably Numb” thrown in there, then the drums get all powerful and marchy again and the synths ramp up, as indeed does Gilmour's guitar, still a little subsumed in the mix but definitely more audible than when the track began. Think I heard a snatch of the guitar melody from “Another Brick in the Wall Part II” there as well.

Handclap drumbeats then come in as I think the track may be in the process of changing to the next one along, which is entitled “Hymns to the Sun (Reprise)”. I'm not even sure if I correctly identified the original “Hymns to the Sun” on the first side, so I can't say whether or not this revisits its theme, but the guitar slips away and marimba-style keys slide in, the percussion again carrying the tune, and on a weird little chanting sound made I think on Gilmour's fretboard it looks like we cross over to “Olympic”, the same basic tune but with some hard-to-discern vocals now coming in too, faint and faraway. More funky guitar and African-style rhythms on the drums, Gilmour's vocal now easier to hear.

Tempo picks right up then as we head into “Chicago Dub”, with what sounds like a Jew's harp boing!ing all over the place, then sweeping synth coming in before heavy Gabrielesque drumming takes the whole thing up a further notch, adding a sense of drama and gravity to the piece, Gilmour's guitar fading in and screaming through the thing, fading back down to be supplanted by solid synths and then coming back in again as we head off into “Bold Knife Trophy”, the closing track, both of this “side” and of the album. On another heavy marching drumbeat and pulsing bass, it finishes on a rolling, almost strings-like synth with cinematic power, then fading down on spacey keys to the end.

TRACK LISTING

Metallic side
1. Metallic Spheres
2. Hymns to the Sun
3. Black Graham
4. Hiding in Plain View
5. Classified

Spheres side

1. Es vedra
2. Hymns to the Sun (Reprise)
3. Olympic
4. Chicago Dub
5. Bold Knife Trophy

A strange project indeed. Nice and ambient, I must say, and there's the possibility I might want to look further into the work of The Orb. But Gilmour's guitar, though often quite prominent here, is not as dominant as I had expected it to be. Plus there are hardly any real vocal tracks, so crediting him with vocals is perhaps stretching it a little. But certainly enjoyable, if a little frustrating that I couldn't properly delineate the tracks. I guess that doesn't matter really though in the end.

Good music, excellent guitar as you'd always expect from David Gilmour, but ultimately I think I'd probably just have to file under “interesting”, and leave it at that.

Originally posted October 1 2015 in The Playlist of Life, as part of Metal Month III

Come with me on a journey back to the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, when there was no such thing as High Definition TV, when you were lucky if you had a telephone at home (mobile? What's that?) and CDs were yet a dream of the future.

A time when men were real men, women were real women, and small blue furry things from Alpha Centauri were real small blue furry things from Alpha Centauri.

A time when then only way you could hear an album was to buy, or maybe borrow it.

A time before itunes, YouTube and Facebook.

A time when Trollheart was young. Yes, there was such a time.

And in that misted, forgotten, ancient time, I began my affair with Heavy Metal.

This is one of the albums that got me there.

Everyone has their favourite Black Sabbath album, and while many go for the early Ozzy period - and with good reason: there are some total classics in there, from the debut to Paranoid, Vol 4 and Master of Reality - and while I'm not saying this is definitively my own favourite, it is the one on which I first heard Ronnie James Dio (though I think prior to that I had heard his contributions to Rainbow on their compilation double album; it would be a little while yet before I bought Rising and realised what a true star he was) and realised there could be “another” Black Sabbath. I had been used to the dark, doomy, gothic feel of tracks like “Iron Man”, “Paranoid”, “War Pigs” and of course “Black Sabbath”, and even had We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll, which naturally, as it was compiled in 1975, contained only Ozzy releases. I was therefore totally blown away by the progressive direction Sabbath took on this, one of only three albums they ever recorded with the diminutive frontman who would go on to give us albums like Holy Diver and Killing the Dragon, and the different vocal style. It must in that case be very much counted as a very integral part of the Metal that made me.

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Heaven and Hell - Black Sabbath - 1980 (Vertigo)

When I read about this album, it's in a way a minor miracle it was even made. Ozzy had just been fired from the band after leading them for ten years and eight albums, not all of them stellar but the larger percentage certainly were. Bill Ward was going through personal problems including losing both his parents while also battling his growing alcoholism, while Geezer Butler was in the midst of a divorce. Ward would in fact quit the band mid-tour, though he would return, and Butler only appears on the album because he came back to redo the bass parts that had been originally laid down by another bassist. With Martin Birch, who would later go on to become the legendary producer of Iron Maiden, taking control though things settled down, and Tony Iommi, who was basically holding things together prior to the arrival of Dio and even thinking about starting a new band, working closely with Ronnie, the band dynamic slowly returned and the album began to take shape.

It's a much shorter album, only eight tracks in total, and none of the longer epics that characterised some of the earlier albums are in evidence, with the title track being the longest at just under seven minutes, but there is almost no filler and just about every track is gold. It kicks off with “Neon Knights”, which demonstrates much of what Ronnie would later form into his own albums, particularly “Stand Up and Shout” from Holy Diver and “We Rock” from The Last in Line. His voice is immediately a focal point for the “new” Sabbath, and the lyrics contain more fantasy-themed and to a degree, lighter, fare, with much of Dio's material centred in the worlds of medieval lore and mythology. Iommi is again on fire, at his very best in some of the solos, and it's a great way to start the album, though by no means the best track.

There's a lot in this song that, reading between the lines, can be seen to, or supposed to be reassurance to the fans who, even before the real age of the internet and mass media, must have known about the departure of Ozzy and the problems the band were going through, and wondered if, after ten years, this could be it? When he sings the line ”Nothing's in the past, it always seems to come again” it certainly sounds like he's saying don't worry, it's not quite business as usual, but we're keeping this ship afloat, as again when he confirms ”Captain's at the helm”. And when he roars ”Cry out to legions of the brave” and ”Ride out, protectors of the realm” you can almost feel his pride and determination to ensure that Sabbath continue, grow and even prosper in the wake of the perhaps shock of Ozzy's leaving.

It's time to slow things down already though, and an acoustic guitar from Iommi opens the ballad “Children of the Sea” with a clear, perfect vocal from Dio, who sounds like a minstrel singing in some leafy glade back in the thirteenth century. Suddenly, snarling electric guitar joins thumping percussion as Ward batters his kit, and Butler's big thick bass adds its voice and the song acquires teeth, and if there's a definition of a metal power ballad, this is probably it. The true power of Dio's voice is evident here; you can't quite envisage Ozzy singing this song. There's perhaps a note of self-deprecating humour here, a realisation that ”We sailed across the air before we learned to fly/ We thought that it could never end” and there's a nice sort of vocal chorus thing going on too. Iommi's solo comes just at the right time, and ends before it outstays its welcome, taking us back to the acoustic that opened the song as it reprises for the big finish.

There's a nod to the Ozzy era then in “Lady Evil”, as Dio sings of a witch in the finest Sabbath tradition, but the music is not dark and doomy, rather uptempo rock and blues. If the album has a weak track - and I'm not saying it has, not at all - then I would pick this one. There's just something a little, I don't know, formulaic about it and it doesn't impress me. Which is not to say that it's not a good song, but it's just the rest of the tracks are so great that they make this very good song seem distinctly below par. Even the solo seems a little forced, almost as if Iommi is playing what he thinks he should play, and not what he wants to play. But if this is a weak track, it's the only one, as we run headlong into the easy standout of the album, which also happens to be the title track.

Surely there can't be a metalhead anywhere who doesn't know this song? It's gone on to become one of Sabbath's standards, easily recognisable by its slow, progressive intro running mostly on Geezer Butler's smoky bass, and it conjures up all sorts of images of dark halls and things waiting around corners, or as Pink Floyd would later put it, “hollow laughter in marble halls”. It's a slow, almost threatening, marching beat with a growled vocal from Dio, and flashes of guitar brilliance from Tony Iommi sparking around the edges of the tune like tongues of lightning. It's one of Dio's more philosophical lyrics, with lines like ”The ending is just the beginning/ The closer you get to the meaning/ The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming” and ”The Devil is never a maker/The less that you give you're a taker.” Some very, again, Floyd-like backing vocals with a superb guitar solo before we reach the midpoint and the song undergoes a total transformation, becoming a rocking colossus as it picks up speed on the back of a slowly descending guitar chord.

Flying along, we are treated to an even better Iommi solo before Dio comes in with the last verse, his vocal speed matching the tempo of the song and then leaves Iommi to it as he loses himself in a third solo, each one better than the last. It finally all comes down to earth on another descending chord and into a suitably acoustic ending that fades away.

From there on, Sabbath can do no wrong, as “Wishing Well” punches everything up a notch, trundling along with something of “Neon Knights” in it, allowing Iommi again to have his head, with at times Lizzyesque fervour, while Ward cracks on with a will, and Butler lays down the basslines with what certainly appears to be pride, despite his personal worries at the time. Another standout comes with “Die Young”, which was released as a single. Starting with an atmospheric, spacey synth, it gives way to a rising guitar line from Iommi before it breaks into a mad rush on Ward's thumping drums and Iommi's biting guitars. Dio acquits himself really well here in the vocal, taking complete command of the song as it hurtles along, perhaps echoing an axiom that has been the mission statement of so many teenage rebels: ”Live for today, tomorrow never comes! Die young!”

In the middle, the song slows right down on soft guitar and bass, with sighing keyboard behind it and a gentle vocal from Dio, before it all pumps back up on hard riffs from Tony, a swirling keys passage and punching drums, setting it all back up for the finale, as the band charge to the finish line on Iommi's smouldering frets, the whole thing fading out on another superb solo and bringing in a striding guitar line for “Walk Away”, in which I personally hear “Mystery” from Dio's second solo album, which would not be released for another four years. There's a great sense of pumping joy in this song, led as it is by Iommi's growling guitar lines, including a solo that Carlos Santana would be proud of. A big rousing grinder for the final track then, with “Lonely is the Word” riding on a powerful ringing riff while Ronnie squeezes every ounce of passion he can out of the song. An almost classical guitar interlude then in the second minute before Iommi kicks it up and smoke starts to pour from the frets as he works his magic. Reminds me of one of my heroes, Rory Gallagher, here. Perhaps interesting that this, the first Sabbath album with him at the helm, opens and closes as most if not all of his Dio albums would, with a fast rocker for the first track and a slower, more dark grinding track for the closer. Coincidence?

TRACK LISTING

1. Neon Knights
2. Children of the Sea
3. Lady Evil
4. Heaven and Hell
5. Wishing Well
6. Die Young
7. Walk Away
8. Lonely is the Word

It probably wouldn't be fair to say that Ronnie James Dio reinvented Black Sabbath on this album - Tony Iommi did after all write most of the music and even tried out one of the tracks with Ozzy prior to his departure, so it's not like Ronnie came onboard with all these great new songs - but what cannot be denied is that he injected a new energy, a new purpose and a new sense of direction into a band who, following the disappointing Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! had been in something of a rut, contemplating their options and considering whether or not the band would even survive. Heaven and Hell didn't quite raise Sabbath's profile - everyone knew them from the time their debut burst like a wonderful dark cloud over music in 1970 - but it did update the band's sound, giving them something more of a progressive feel, an edge they would retain throughout most of the rest of their career, and which would help bring in new fans, new converts to their cause, while at the same time avoiding alienating the faithful.

Back in 1970 Black Sabbath may have sold their soul for rock and roll, and a very good deal it was too. But Ronnie James Dio renegotiated the terms of the contract, and we all benefitted from the new arrangement. That Sabbath not only survived the departure of their frontman and stayed together to release another album (and plenty more after that), but one that would go on to become such a classic and fundamentally redefine the sound of the original (doom) metal band, is nothing short of remarkable.

As is this album.

Against everyone elses bitching and moaning about the 'new' line-up, that was one of my favorites. I had the album, but I also had the cassette to listen to on the go. I played that cassette to death, resuscitated it with a new tape head pressure pad, then killed it again and bought a new one.

Originally posted June 5 2012 in The Playlist of Life

On the Beach - Chris Rea - 1986 (Magnet)
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I've had a strange kind of relationship with Chris Rea down the years: musical only, you understand! He's not one of those artists I'd class as being a favourite of mine; I don't have all his albums (nothing like it) and of those I have got, I don't like or love them all, though I do like the vast majority of them. I haven't followed his discography backwards or forwards, as I usually do when I come across an artiste I like: there are huge gaps in my collection of music from him. And yet, I really do like his music, his style, his lyrics, his melodies.

This album came sort of at the height of my “getting into Chris Rea” phase. Mid-eighties, and I'd heard some of his songs on the radio, had bought Water Sign and Wired to the Moon, nipped back to get Deltics - which was different but still a great album - looked into Tennis and wasn't too impressed, and decided not to go back any further. Following this, I'd buy Dancing With Strangers and The Road to Hell, both of which I'd love, but skip over Shamrock Diaries - don't ask me why; I was a little less disciplined and ordered in my selection of music back then - after which I'd miss out everything up until The Road to Hell part 2 (bad move!) but despite that being a turkey I would continue undaunted to invest in King of the Beach, which was a good move, and then the two-disc Dancing Down the Stony Road, and then stop, not because that was a bad album - far from it - but like Basil Fawlty once said about his chef, I just … stopped.

And I've never really felt the need to go back. It's not that I don't think Rea's current stuff is any good. Maybe I've just got too involved with other music to give his a second thought. Before downloadable music came available I remember staring at my CD collection (about 200 or so) and being regularly stumped by what I should listen to, and wishing I had more but was unable to just go out and buy a new CD, unless I knew it was really good. So my collection tended to get overplayed and thus familiar almost to the point of contempt. Then when the likes of torrents and (ahem!) certain websites selling albums gave me another avenue, I was suddenly able to try out albums and artists I had never heard before, thus allowing me a much wider musical taste and making such questions as should I get the new Chris Rea CD more or less unimportant.

But nonetheless, Rea has had some great albums, and I have never regretted buying any of his. Well, except for one. Probably his best were the earlier ones I mentioned, but I do have a special place in my heart for this one, though I probably couldn't really tell you why. I just know it brings back certain memories for me, but what those memories specifically are, I, well, forget! I should mention also that when I bought this album it was on vinyl (though CDs were available, we couldn't all afford them, and we didn't all have CD players - is any of this making sense or am I talking an alien language?) and so I will be following my usual habit of reviewing only the tracks I know, ie the ones that were on the original album, as I don't know the others, and though I could listen to them, they wouldn't have the same immediate impact on me, or fit into the makeup of the album as those I already know.

The album opens with the title track, a lazy, laidback, carefree meshing of synth and guitar, whistling keys and wind sounds ushering the album in gently till it slowly and unhurriedly takes off on a sort of restrained funky/jazzy beat, Rea's instantly recognisable drawl singing of places he used to go, places that still engender certain feelings years later. He's much more than just a singer and songwriter, and here he plays guitar, keyboards, piano and even fretless bass, though it's a lovely little run on the Fender Rhodes courtesy of Max Middleton that steals the show. It's a song for relaxing to, and though not a ballad, and not necessarily slow, it conjures up images of lying in the sun, or sitting in a chair outside, watching the clouds and drinking something cool, with no worries and no responsibilities or concerns.

More than likely one of the many songs a father who is a songwriter pens for his child, “Little Blonde Plaits” is a slow, dreamy ballad with lovely slide guitar, and though he has two girls, the youngest was only born three years after this album was released, so we must assume this is the Josephine, at this point three years old, who is referred to in “Bombollini” on Wired to the Moon and later on Dancing With Strangers in the song which bears her name. It's okay I guess, with a certain Celtic flavour to it, but I find it a little limp after the supersmooth opener. Things get a lot better though with “Giverny”, which although it starts off like a ballad, on breathy synth and easy guitar, picks up nicely and trots along at a decent lick, with a great solo on guitar and drums at the end.

It shouldn't be supposed or taken for granted that I think this is a great album, without flaws, because it certainly is not. It's a good album, but it does suffer from some weak tracks, perhaps not quite filler, but definitely not up to the higher standard of the better tracks. I've already mentioned that I was not that impressed with “Little Blonde Plaits”, and it's a similar story with “Lucky Day” and the one that follows it, “Just Passing Through”, though both songs have their decent points and things to recommend them. It's seldom - of what I've heard from Chris Rea anyway - that he writes a bad song, but I just feel these few let down the overall quality of the album and stop it from being as good as Dancing With Strangers or King of the Beach, for example.

But for what it is, “Lucky Day” is an uptempo groove-led guitar calypso, with a few reggae touches and what sounds like castanets getting in on the act, then “Just Passing Through”, in contrast, is a low-key, introspective, downbeat ballad with blues guitar licks, some nice bright piano contrasting with some dour notes on the Fender Rhodes, becoming something of a gospel piece halfway, though never rising to the joyous level of a true gospel song. Probably the most existential of the tracks on the album, with its quiet acceptance that no-one lives forever, some nice piano leading it out.

Luckily, that's it as far as the, shall we say, lower quality tracks go, and from here on in, as McCain say, it's all good. A relatively big hit single for him at the time, “It's All Gone” is a boppy, upbeat song with a somewhat bitter message: you can't ever go home, and find things the way you remember them. Time moves on, whether you're there to see it or not, and people and places change. Great synthesiser and some very effective percussion, and a very catchy song. Easy to see how it was so popular. It also features a really good guitar solo, which I think is Chris himself: certainly has his style. Some more great work on the Fender Rhodes too, as Middleton joins forces with Kevin Leach on the keyboards to take the song to its instrumental conclusion in a special extended version to the one that was released as a single.

Chris Rea writes first and foremost about people: about their emotions, their situations, their thoughts, their hopes and their dreams, and “Hello Friend” is another example of that, carried on Chris's fretless bass and Robert Awhai's gentle guitar and a soft percussion, a letter to a friend written in an attempt to reconnect, an attempt he knows is futile. Sometimes distance and time keeps us so far apart it's almost impossible to bridge the gap again. “Two Roads” bumps up the mood again, a jaunty little tune running on a funky guitar and piano line, with some jazzy brass adding joyous heart to the proceedings, then “Light of Hope” is a gorgeously fragile ballad that runs on a deep little bass line and picked guitar, going right back to the laidback, lazy theme of the opener, but slowed right down, Fender Rhodes from Middleton flowing like a river in the background. A breathy, gentle vocal from Rea almost whispers at times, and it certainly sounds like there's acoustic guitar in there somewhere. One of my favourite Chris Rea ballads.

It all comes to a close then on another ballad, a track which we're told is “from the film”, though how many of us have ever heard of, never mind seen a film called Auf immer und ewig is a matter for conjecture. Apparently, it means “always and forever” in German, but my lack of knowledge of the film is unimportant, as this is one beautiful little ballad, and a great way to end the album. There's not a huge amount in terms of lyrics - I think one verse and one chorus - but it's the instrumentation that makes the song; from the deep bassy opening and the sighing guitar to the gently fingered piano notes and the closing synth runs, this is one lovely song. Rea's deep, soulful voice just adds the final layer on an emotional, touching closer.

If you wanted to start listening to Chris Rea, this is not a bad place to start, though in fairness his music has not changed all that much down the years, so you could theoretically start anywhere. But I would definitely recommend this album, especially if you're heading anywhere there's likely to be a lot of sun, a lot of relaxing, and a lot of free time spent doing lots of nothing.

TRACK LISTING

1. On the Beach
2. Little Blonde Plaits
3. Giverny
4. Lucky Day
5. Just Passing Through
6. It's All Gone
7. Hello Friend
8. Two Roads
9. Light of Hope
10. Auf immer und ewig

Originally posted November 19 2020 in Racing the Clouds Home

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Album title: A Tower of Clocks
Artist:This Winter Machine
Nationality: British (English)
Sub-genre: Neo-prog

Oddly, other reviews of this album have not been as impressed by it as I was, but I spent seven years here vainly trumpeting the music I like, pushing against the slings and arrows of outrageous musical fortune, defending my music and trying to show others what they were missing, what I saw in it that they did not, and I came to the eventual conclusion that it doesn't matter if others don't appreciate your music. If you like it, that's all that matters.

I thought it quite brave that This Winter Machine, a band from the UK who were pushing out only their second album in a career spanning a mere four years (three at the time the list was compiled) would consider opening on an eight-minute plus instrumental, but that's prog for you, and "Herald" has all the hallmarks of great neo-prog. Warbling keyboards, intricate guitar passages, time signature changes, all that good stuff. A big, dramatic, orchestral-style opening gives you a real sense of portent and the first time I heard it, I was waiting for the vocals. They of course never come, as I found out soon enough. A clock begins ticking (geddit?) joined by chimes and then rippling piano slides in as the synth kind of fades out, Gary, sorry Mark Numan ushering us into the album on waves of keys before whining guitar from Graham Garbett and Scott Owens takes the tune.

We're now halfway into the piece and to be honest it hasn't really come to anything yet, but all that is due to change. Percussion kicks in thanks to Andy Milner and we're away. I like instrumentals, mostly, but I find the longer they are the harder it can be to keep them interesting. That's not an issue here, as This Winter Machine channel the best of Marillion, Yes and Pendragon to create their own nevertheless distinctive sound, and the result is a piece of music that, quite possibly, might have been spoiled by vocals, so it looks like they made the right call. Brave though, as I say.

Still, this is a band whose debut album, released in 2017, opened with a sixteen-minute suite, so I guess TWM are not exactly going for the pop single market! Compared to The Man Who Never Was, this album is shorter and snappier, with the longest track on it being the nine-minute closer "Carnivale", a minute shorter than the closer (but not, as I already said, the longest track) on their debut, "Fractured". It is, however, over ten minutes longer overall, with TMWNW coming in at shy of fifty minutes while ATOC runs for just over sixty.

After the epic opener we have two short tracks, "Flying" and "Spiral", both of which could have been released as singles, but I don't think were. The former quickly became one of my favourites, a soulful ballad which introduces us for the first time to the vocals of Al Winter (after whom, presumably, the band is named), led on the gentle keys of Numan, synth and piano meshing to form a beautiful backdrop to Winter's gentle voice. There's a gorgeous hook in the song, and I feel it could have been quite the hit had it been released, but as I say I don't think it was. One jarring thing is the sudden abrupt stops in the song near the end, then “Spiral” is a busier, more upbeat affair, again brought in on Numan's Mark Kellyesque romping keyboards, and it really ups the ante. The shortest song on the album, at just over two minutes, it's another instrumental (long instrumental, ballad, short instrumental? Taking some chances here guys) and leads into the seven-minute “Symmetry & Light” which almost continues the instrumental theme begun in “Spiral” and lets in some harder, almost progressive metal guitar from Owens and Garbett, though much of it reminds me of Genesis on their last outing but one, and the last with Phil Collins, We Can't Dance. Snippets, at times, too of It Bites.

I should also take a moment to speak about the artwork, courtesy of one Tom Roberts (no I don't know who he is either, but with work of this calibre I feel he'll never be short of commissions) which is a real prog rock album cover, reminiscent of seventies Genesis or Rush. That fox reminds me of a certain release from 1972 and the wings look like the owl off Rush's Fly by Night. Echoes, too, of certain album covers by Blind Guardian. Certainly leaves you in no doubt as to what to expect when the laser hits the CD. But back to the music, which is why we're here in the first place. Well, I am. I don't know about you. Maybe you're just here to read my flowing, overblown prose. Yeah. Well, you could do a lot worse than give this album a listen, I can tell you. So like I say, back to the music. Another sumptuous ballad in “Justified”, and yes, again it runs on the delicate piano lines of Mark Numan, who must surely be seen as an emerging talent in the admittedly crowded world of progressive rock keyboard players. I'm not saying he can stand beside a Clive Nolan or a Jordan Rudess, much less a Mark Kelly or (heaven forbid!) Tony Banks, but he's damn good.

The guitar lads are not forgotten here though, and add some really nice touches with some fine soloing, but it's the piano that makes the tune, that and the soft almost tortured vocal of Winter. “In Amber” sees the band continue in the same vein, another piano ballad, and if you don't like ballads, or pianos, or both, then this may not be the album for you, as though there is plenty of rocking out (prog style) and guitars, it's pretty replete with soft piano moments and yearning vocals. I, however, love all that stuff, so I'm in hog's heaven. “The Hunt” then has a vaguely folkish feeling, reminds me at times a little of Jethro Tull, a band I don't rate personally. It quickly punches up though into a slowburning rock cruncher, as I like to call them; one of those songs that kind of marches along with a sense of menace and determination. It does pick up speed later on though, and this rising power and energy informs “Delta” as the album heads towards its close.

Some very new-wave-ish keyboards here from (ahem) Numan, with the guitars really getting in on the act, growling along as Garbett and Owens exult in being let off the leash, while Winter himself does a very passable Gabriel as the song slows down on piano around the midpoint before the hook comes in, and it has been well worth waiting for, as Winter and Numan again show what a great team they can be almost on their own. Great flourishes added on the guitars, but the song here belongs to the two guys as Winter gives the vocal performance of the album. I'd probably have to choose, overall, this as my favourite track, though there's a lot to choose from, and it's not quite over yet.

One more supremely beautiful reflective ballad, this time for once driven on mostly the acoustic guitar of Scott Owens, some truly sumptuous synthesised flute from Numan and another fine vocal from Winter, on “When We Were Young”, the only caveat for me being a rather abrupt ending, then we hit the closer, which as mentioned, is the longest track, nine minutes and ten seconds of “Carnivale”, which, appropriately enough, opens on a carnival organ, reminding me of the best of The Dear Hunter before soft piano and crying guitar take the tune. Percussion kicks in and the whole thing ramps up on heavy guitar and synth, giving Winter a chance to really stretch his vocal chords. Rippling piano here reminiscent of “Raingods Dancing”, part of the suite “A Plague of Ghosts” from Fish's album, Raingods with Zippos. And speaking of Marillion, there's some very liberal borrowing from Steve Rothery and indeed Mark Kelly on Fugazi here in the sixth minute, before the whole thing comes to a very satisfying and powerful end.

TRACK LISTING
1. Herald
2. Flying
3. Spiral
4. Symmetry & Light
5. Justified
6. In Amber
7. The Hunt
8. Delta
9. When We Were Young
10. Carnivale


This is only as I say their second album, and while I haven't yet had a chance to sample the debut, I expect it to be just as good. This Winter Machine have set a very high bar for themselves, but I have no doubt that they will continue to reach it, and who knows, on future albums, even exceed it.

Rating: 9.5/10

Originally posted December 15 2015 in Trollheart's Listening List

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Title: Anthracite Fields
Artist: Julia Wolfe
Year 2015
Nationality: American
Familiarity: 0%
Genre: Contemporary Classical
?

Expectations: I thought contemporary classical was a reasonably safe bet. Yeah...

1. Foundation: It's very quiet for most of the opening (runs for like nineteen minutes) apart from some clashing drums and piano I think that break out, then a low male vocal choir starts chanting, getting faster and more insistent, then female choir coming in too. Some more music added in now, guitar I think and maybe oboe or clarinet as the female vocals take over. We're about ten minutes in now. Big punching vocal in the fifteenth minute, attended mostly by stabbed piano and now the male vocal choir is advancing into the piece, the two eventually joining for a choral rendition to take the track towards its end. Not really my kind of thing, but good for what it is.
2. Breaker Boys: This one's only (!) fourteen minutes long, and starts off more boppy and uptempo, getting right into it with a peppy clarinet and double vocal from the male and female choir. Sort of think I preferred the first track already! Yeah, it's only four minutes in but I already don't like this much at all. There's nothing of the gentle undertones of the first track in this; it's just a little too lively. Okay, suddenly it's beginning to settle down on a slow male choir. Wolfe uses something she calls the Bang On A Can Allstars and to be honest, in minute nine it sounds like that's exactly what's happening, as female vocals rise into the mix. Now it takes off into a sort of rocking rhythm somewhat in the vein of “We Didn't Start the Fire” to a degree. Yeah, liking this less as it develops. The stupid chant of “I am the king of the castle” at the end does nothing to change my mind.
3. Speech: Something of an Indian twist to this, more choir work , slow doomy percussion. Meh.
4. Flowers: Nice acoustic guitar start, soft and flowing, gentle voices. Some very nice violin and cello, a lot more relaxed.
5. Appliances: And a twelve-minuter to end. It's been something of an endurance test and I can't really see this one making it any easier an experience for me. Sort of broken-up vocals here, with some nice but slightly distorted piano. Gets pretty intense, but to be honest I'm just waiting for it to be over now.

Final result:I wouldn't want to put down what she does, as I'm sure this is a great composition, but it is definitely not for me. I prefer my music a bit more, shall we say, musical? Frownland probably loves this, which tells you how much I don't. It's clever, it's deep, it's well-produced, but it's not something I'd listen to again.

Rating: 2/5

Originally posted November 14 2017 in Trollheart Listens to Every Album on Wiki's List for 2017

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Album title: Millport
Artist: Greg Graffin
Genre: Country
Nationality: American
Release date: March 10
Position in Discography: Third
Fear Factor: Moderate
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? A little
Average RYM Score: 3.04
Interesting. A punk rocker gone country. Singer with Bad Religion, Graffin went solo in 1997 and this is his third album. Um, okay, how do I say this without giving offence? This is, what's the phrase? Oh yeah: ****ing brilliant! I'm totally into this from the first note: hard-edged country with a real feel of honesty. Just listen to “Lincoln's Funeral Train”. Unbelievable. I can't believe this guy was a punk: he sounds like he was brought up on a ranch riding a horse and shootin' beer cans in the yard. Title track's another great song, but then I think I could say that about every track here so far. There's gospel then in “Time of Need”, utilising the old “Amen” refrain. Su-****ing-perb. Lots of bluegrass too. Just an excellent album, and it will take quite something to top this on my list at the end of this month.

Check out more from this artist? Oh hell yeah
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes
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Expectation Index: 10
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Originally posted February 25 2015 in Bitesize
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Any direction of the compass you look, it's solid gold!
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Artist: Gerry Rafferty
Nationality: British
Album: North and south
Year: 1988
Label: London
Genre: Rock
Tracks:
North and south
Moonlight and gold
Hearts run dry
Tired of talking
A dangerous age
Shipyard town
Winter’s come
Nothing ever happens down here
On a night like this
Unselfish love

Chronological position: Sixth album
Familiarity: Night owl Snakes and ladders, Sleepwalking
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: n/a
Best track(s): North and south, Shipyard town, Tired of talking, Winter’s come, Hearts run dry, Moonlight and gold, A dangerous age
Worst track(s): Nothing ever happens down here, Unselfish love
Comments: One of my very favourite Gerry Rafferty albums, it’s one of those that keeps giving up until about the last three tracks, when it dips slightly and ends badly, but what goes beforehand is enough to solidify its status among his albums for me. It kicks off with the title track, a real celtic atmosphere built already thanks to the uilleann pipes of Davy Spillane and soon becomes a boppy mid-tempo track as Gerry recalls ”I was born a poor man’s son following tradition/ When I came of age I hit the road/ And followed blind ambition” while horns and fiddles paint a background to a great opener. Really gets you in the mood. It’s followed by Moonlight and gold, a semi-ballad with some really nice keyboard and percussion, Knopfleresque guitar too, though he’s not on the album.

Tired of talking kicks up the tempo with the help of fine whistles from Spillane and a thumping beat, while thick brass backs up Hearts run dry, one of the true ballads on the album, super little guitar solo too, then there’s a beautiful runup to one of the other standouts, A dangerous age, which has everything in it you ever need to realise that Gerry was rock and not pop as some people who have only ever heard a certain song about a certain street would have you believe. What a lovely line: ”We stood on the motorway shoulder/ The moon rose over the rolling hills/ And my heart broke down/ When I looked at you.” The connection to being broken down in a layby and the failure of a relationship is just so well observed. Wonderful sax outro just completes this amazing song.

And it keeps getting better. For now. A look back to youth and high hopes, Shipyard town was the single from this album, and deserved to be, even though there are deeper, better songs on it (almost the whole album if I’m honest). It kicks off with the same uilleann pipes intro that started the album, then jumps into a rockin’, uptempo song driven on striding sax and jangly guitar. Despite its upbeat tone, the song actually deals with the ending of a relationship, rather like the previous one. And the one before that. And the one before that.

You know, it's something I never really realised before, but now that I listen back to this album I don't think the title has to do with geographical locations at all. I think "North and south" may refer to woman and man, or even north representing the beginning of the relationship when everything is fine, the romantic side of it, and then south (when it, literally, goes south) the ending of it. Interesting. I never thought of it that way before. May not be the case, but still, something to think about.

Winter’s come fades in on what sounds like pan pipes but is surely synth-created, with an ambient, atmospheric rendition of the intro just used on Shipyard town and becomes the second ballad, with quite a tinge of Country in it, accordion and fiddle adding to it. After this though is where the album begins to nosedive. The pure fifties rock-and-roll of Nothing ever happens down here is okay but very much inferior to all the tracks that have gone before, and it comes as something of a shock, the album having been so perfect up to this point. There’s a slight recovery with the beautiful classical piano introduction to On a night like this, but it quickly becomes an accordion-driven but fairly nondescript semi-ballad, and the album ends on the reggae-infused Unselfish love. Quite a disappointment.
Overall impression: I loved this album right up to Nothing ever happens down here, and was quite annoyed at the fact it never really recovered from there, but that apart I love this album to death, one of my favourite Rafferty recordings.
Hum Factor: 9
Surprise Factor: n/a
Intention: There are still some of Gerry’s albums I need to listen to, especially his more recent ones. A sad loss to music.

Originally posted February 25 2014 in The Playlist of Life
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Chasing Locusts --- Strawfoot --- 2007 (Self-released)

The first time I heard this album I just loved it. It completely takes you by surprise, from the weird album cover to the even weirder music practiced by this seven-piece. “Gothic Country” they call it, and I’d have to agree. This is the kind of music Waits or Cave would compose while mucking out stables down on some ramshackle farm in the arsehole of nowhere, as the Devil plays fiddle outside while strange dark winged shapes fly overhead. Country music for the Apocalypse? You’d dang well better believe it, boy! We don’t like strangers round these here parts!

But who are Strawfoot? Well that’s a hard question to answer, as they all seem to come with made-up names or personas, each member of the band appending “Brother” to his name, while the leader and frontman, and also vocalist and composer, Marcus Elder, goes by The Reverend Marcus or The Dapper King Libertine. He’s reputedly related some way down the line to that old Southern firebrand Samuel Clemens, known to the world as Mark Twain.

This is their debut album, and it just leaves me wanting more. Starting with a cool banjo and nothing else, the vocal comes in in a sort of mono sound as “Wayfarin’ Stranger” opens the album with a very western type feel, and you can hear how strong Elder’s voice is, that it needs nothing else to accompany it other than the banjo. It’s a short song, really more a taster which leads us into “Achilles Heel” as the full band kicks in with banjo, accordion, fiddle and percussion. Some nice electric guitar gets in on the act too, and it’s a real rip-roaring fun fest that just has your feet a-tappin’ from the start. Great harmonica solo - yeah, that’s what I said! - by the brilliantly-named Brother Mississippi, while Brother Eric keeps the bass upright and tight, as we slow things down with the dark tale of “Cursed Neck”, a real Cavesque ballad that just smoulders with bitterness and resentment.

Great guitar in this, Brother Steve just goes crazy, while Sister Jenn’s violin moans and wails through the song, then my old favourite, the mandolin, takes charge for the Waits-inspired-it-would-seem “Strawfoot Waltz”, which bounces along nicely with an almost Diablo Swing Orchestra feel, Elder at the top of his game. The only song then not written by Elder is “My Dog”, a real hoe-down frenzy penned by Brother Eric, the bass player. It just oozes fun and frivolity, and you can hear someone shouting in your head “take your partner by the hand…” Yeah, it’s just fun all the way and played at top speed. When I heard this first I thought Elder was singing “My doll”. Puts a whole new complexion on the song.

Great fiddle work there too, and as it’s his song Brother Eric makes sure his basswork is all over this. There’s some superb slide guitar to open the storming “The Lord’s Wrath”, almost a blues country folk tune, just excellent. Heavy thumping percussion adds to it and some fine harmonica as well. Elder even throws in some yodelling! “Damnation Way” is a mid-paced song driven mostly on violin and maybe jews harp, with a real driving beat and a sense of desperation in the lyric: ”You made me what I am/ You filled me with hate” then things kick right up into high gear for the hot-rockin’ “Cloth” with more squealing violin and some tough percussion, plus great clangy guitar from Brother Steve.

“Fiddle and Jug” is a great troubador’s ballad - not an actual ballad now - and thumps along at a slow but deliberate pace with, not surprisingly, fiddle in the lead of the melody, which switches to acoustic guitar with mandolin, but violin adding its voice for the lovely ballad “The Sky is Falling”, probably one of the standouts on an album almost of standouts. Gorgeous little violin passage there near the end and a very impassioned vocal from the Dapper Libertine King. It’s almost “Classical Gas” then to start “Effigy”, a low-key opening to a drinking song that quickly kicks up and becomes a reel or jig or something but man does it rock along!

As we began, so we close, as “Wayfarin’ Stranger (Reprise)” bookends the album with a much longer version of the song that opened it, harmonica and mandolin led. It’s really more a case of the opener being the intro and this the full song, and it’s great to hear it again before we bid au revoir to Strawfoot. I don’t say goodbye, because I know for certain I will be back here again, when my weary path crosses this dusty ghost town and I need to rest, kick back and raise some hell with these guys. I’ve made some friends for life, I feel.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wayfarin’ Stranger
2. Achilles Heel
3. Cursed Neck
4. Strawfoot Waltz
5. My Dog
6. The Lord’s Wrath
7. Damnation Way
8. Cloth
9. Fiddle and Jug
10. The Sky is Falling
11. Effigy
12. Wayfarin’ Stranger (Reprise)

I must thank Goofle for putting me on to this band, as this is nowhere close to anything I would have thought to have checked out before. I knew gothic country existed, but not what it was like. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this album, and I hope to be able to check out their other releases as soon as time permits. It’s nice to get into a new genre, especially when I wasn’t trying or expecting to. Sometimes these things just sneak up on you, ya know?

Hallelujah, brothers!

Originally posted January 24 2014 in The Playlist of Life


Generations - Journey - 2005 (Sanctuary)
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The second and last album to feature "Steve Number Two", Generations is a fine Journey album that suffers from a few bad tracks but overall is one of the best I've heard. It also is the one which affords every bandmember a chance to sing, though as usual the Schon/Cain songwriting partnership rules the roost, apart from two songs which Steve Augeri writes. The Perry fanboys will tell you it didn't sound the same, but for my money Augeri was almost a clone of the original vocalist to the point where I found it hard to remember it wasn't Perry singing. But then, maybe that's just me. Nevertheless of the later Journey albums I found this to be one of the best, and the release of Eclipse in 2011 has not changed that view.

You couldn't really have a better start than "Faith in the Heartland", with swirling synth from Cain and then slowly rising guitar courtesy of Schon before he really breaks through and percussion from Deen Castronovo powers in with a a big yell from Augeri and a solo from Neal as the song takes off. A big punchy rocker, it's far removed from the "limp" ballads Journey have sometimes become unfairly typecast as producing, although I like those ballads, which is why I rate Arrival as my alltime favourite Journey album. Stirring vocal harmonies and chugging guitar make this song a great introduction to a really good album. Things keep rocking then with "The Place in Your Heart", with great guitar and thundering drums, a real sense of urgency and desperation in it. A great screaming solo from Neal Schon too.

We hear Deen Castronovo for the first time singing on "A Better Life", and to be fair he's not half bad: maybe they should let him sing more. It's more a mid-paced song than the previous two, and then Jonathan Cain tries his hand in what is more or less the title track, the burning "Every Generation". With a nearly breathless vocal and sliding guitars, solid percussion and later some really rock-and-roll piano from the man, it's a great title track with a message that reaches out across the years and down into history. It's Steve Augeri's turn to try his hand at songwriting now, and "Butterfly" is a nice little piano ballad, though in fairness it's nothing the Cain/Schon combination could not have written between them, or even separately. Still, a good first effort, and his second isn't bad either. It follows directly on the heels of this, and though he's joined in the writing by Tommy De Rossi it's a brilliant little rocker, full of drama and energy with a great keyboard riff from Cain running through it. Maybe a little repetitive if I'm honest but otherwise very impressive.

Cain shows us how it's done next with one of his many ballads, and "Knowing That You Love Me" has that laidback lazy guitar Neal Schon can get such a handle on, with a swaying waltzy rhythm and one of those choruses with more hooks than a fishing tackle box, stuffed with emotion and heartfelt feeling. I do admit, that when Journey shine the brightest is in their carefully crafted ballads, and this is up with the best of them. Back rocking then with the anti-war "Out of Harm's Way", a small sense of the classic "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" to some degree, but it has great drama and energy in it. Sadly this is where the album begins to slide badly, as the next three tracks are I feel very much below par, kicking off with "In Self-defense", where even the added writing talents of alumnus Steve Perry can't save this song. The vocals of Neal Schon certainly don't help; honestly, it's like something Motorhead or Tank would write. Not quite as bad is "Better Together", but with a disjointed guitar performance from Schon it just comes across as a cross between Kiss and Bon Jovi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxFWdZopnTY
That leaves us with the crapweed in the bouquet, the truly awful "Gone Crazy", on which you'd have to think Journey have done just that. WIth, I should add, Ross Vallory on vocals. He really should stick to playing the bass. What is it about this album? Was there an unspoken agreement that everyone would get a turn singing? I mean, I've heard Tico Torres sing for Bon Jovi and he's bad, but Vallory is pretty damn close to that bad. The song's also terrible, so nothing much to report here. Good guitar work from Schon but it's not my bag at all. It's all over the place and just not the sort of thing I expect from these guys. At least the album ends well though, on a lovely soft dreamy ballad. "Beyond the Clouds" does its best to recover the earlier quality that shines through this album and mostly succeeds. It's just a pity that not only are there three bad tracks on it, but Journey have seen fit to group them together, which only serves to thrust their poor quality into the light, rather than allow them pass by unremarked.

TRACK LISTING

1. Faith in the Heartland
2. The Place in Your Heart
3. A Better Life
4. Every Generation
5, Butterfly (She Flies Alone)
6. Believe
7. Knowing That You Love Me
8. Out of Harm's Way
9. In Self-defense
10. Better Together
11. Gone Crazy
12. Beyond the Clouds

Despite the rough bunch near the end, this is still a very strong Journey album, and it's an interesting experiment, to allow everybody sing, though I doubt they allowed Ross Vallory another turn! After this Steve Augeri cried off with a throat infection and had to be replaced on Journey's world tour, whereafter he was replaced by Arnel Pineda, and a new chapter began in the band's history. For my money though, this was the last truly great Journey album, despite the unkind remarks above. It followed on directly from my alltime favourite (which surprises many people) Arrival and was in its turn followed by Revelation, the first to feature the new singer and later by Eclipse, much praised but not by me.

In many ways, an era ended with the departure of Steve Augeri, just as it did with his predecessor, and personally I feel Journey lost something with the exit of both vocalists. Pineda has proved a capable replacement, but I've just always had this feeling that Journey would never be the same without either of the Steves, and for me, this is where the journey, to a great extent, ended.