Right, let's get this thing moving again eh. Next trade's gonna start this weekend - who's in?

From what I've got so far, it's gonna be me, Mr. Unchained Ballad and NumeroNuevoDream. If either of you are having second thoughts, feel free to let me know :)

And before I forget, this one's from Anteater...


I'd be lying if I said I listened to prog at all regularly. In fact, the closest thing I have to a prog album that I've listened to more than a handful of times is 10cc's Original Soundtrack. Nothing against the genre as a whole - it's just neither something I know a lot about nor something you'll catch me going out of my way to listen to. There are, after all, a few such albums I kinda like. The point is that in listening to this album that Anteater was kind enough to send my way, I was seeing it from the whole outside-looking-in perspective. Overall, I thought it was definitely worth the download, but not quite something I found consistently enjoyable.

Before I get into all that though, I'd best tell you exactly what kind of album folder I found staring me in the face upon downloading. 'Eclectic prog' was the tag the MP3s came with, and I suppose it's an appropriate one. As I said, I'm no expert here by any stretch of the imagination, but I can certainly say that there isn't one unifying sound to this album - much more a juxtaposition of slower folk, psychedelic and hard-rock to these ears, all the while united by the lead singer's fairly distinct, smooth vocal style. It seems to me like something that'll take more than the one listen to truly digest, wich is (partly) why it took me this long to get a review down.

As for what I thought of it, coming to it as someone who has virtually no prog to call his own, it was always gonna be a fairly difficult listen. That said, the only real weak point for me was Snake - the heaviest part of the album by quite a stretch, and just sounded a little cheesy to these ears. As far as the more up-tempo moments go, I liked the Demon Trucker a lot, even if it sounds like the band wrote it as a bit of a throwaway number; a moment of light relief. The slower, more folk and psychedelia-tinged parts of the album were what made it a winner for me though - the picturesque and finely textured Winter's Tale and Lady Of the Lake in particular. The absolute peak moment of the album for me comes three songs in, that being the monolithic, slow-rolling instrumental Dark River, set nicely against an interesting, almost polyrhythmic backdrop.

Of all the prog I've heard then, I can say that this is one of the ones that's made the best impession on me as a unit of work. One or two parts of it weren't really to my tastes, but there are a few terrific tracks on this album that I'd recommend to anyone. So, yeah, cheers for this one Mr. Anteater sir :beer: I imagine this one'll get that little bit sweeter from repeated listens too. Sorry it's taken me so long to say this as well.

I'm in for the next one even though NumberNine never sent me an album for this trade :(

I sent it 3 weeks ago, I now realise it wasn't sent :/
I was wondering why you didn't reply to my Vato Negro question.

Bummer... I'll send you another PM later today.

Edit ... and sent.
Edit2 I realised that in some twisted way I had sent it to myself xD. Excuse my stupid behaviour.

Good stuff :thumb:

So, traders thus far...

Abdullah424
Anteater
Bulldog
Duga
GotJuice
LoathsomePete
NumberNineDream
Unchained Ballad

Four's not bad, but more people on board would be pretty cool.

Meh, ok, you convinced me. I still have to review the last album I was sent...I'll try to do it today hopefully.

List updated :thumb: And, yeah, I think hell froze over a couple of times before I got my reviews for the last trade done. So long as we all actually get back to this thread about the albums we get (which we all do anyway) all's well.

Anyway, that's 5 traders next week then. Surely more people wanna have a go at this than that?

Is it themed? Eh, whatever. Haven't been on much recently but put me down.

Haven't decided if it'll be themed yet. Probably not at this rate. Welcome to the fray anyhow :thumb:

Six of us now. If we can get it up to a nice, lively ten traders by the weekend, that'd be cool. So, anyone else?

I'll hop on in again if ya don't mind. :)

Not at all :thumb: List updated.

Who else wants to join the party then?