Trollheart

One word of warning – or caution, let's say – before we get under way. Unlike many of the artistes featured in The Great Discography Project in my main journal, many of whom I really don't care too much about, these artistes all matter to me. In my main journal I asked for suggestions, which I was happy to take and will certainly review, but many of those suggestions are for me to listen to bands I don't really have too much interest in hearing, so the reviews have been, shall we say, shorter than normal? Here though, I intend to mostly revert to my “old” style of reviewing, ie going deeper into the album than probably most people would prefer, but as the likelihood is that a very small percentage of you are even reading this, and that the few who are may share my interest in these artistes, I make no apologies for that.

With all that in mind, the band I wish to kick this off with are these guys:


When I first started getting into prog, particularly neo-prog, I would hear four bands mentioned in the one breath: Marillion, IQ, Pallas and Pendragon. Now whereas I became, as everyone knows, a huge fan of Marillion, I tried to get into IQ and failed (they will shortly be the subject of another feature of “Why Can't I Get Into...?”), loved Pallas's Arrive Alive but listened to none of their other albums, quite frankly I ignored Pendragon. It was only when I heard their 2005 release, Believe, that I realised what a fool I had been, as the album just blew me away. Still unwilling or unable to listen to albums purely for pleasure – I was reviewing so much that I couldn't take the time out, so if they weren't for review I had no chance to listen to them – and having downloaded their discography, I decided to load it into a shuffle playlist, and over the last maybe two years this is how I have come to know a lot, perhaps most of Pendragon's music. But until very recently, when I experienced their latest album, I had still not listened to one full album through, bar the above.

So it seems appropriate to start this new project off by doing just that. And as ever, we begin at the best place to begin, the beginning.


Album title: The Jewel
Artiste: Pendragon
Year: 1985
Label: Decca
Producer: Scott English
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes: Clive Nolan, who would become a permanent member of this band and also Arena, among others, only plays on the two bonus tracks included here at the end.
Lineup: Nick Barrett – Vocals, Guitar
Peter Gee: Bass
Rik Carter: Keyboards
Nigel Harris: Drums
Bonus tracks (if any): “Fly high fall far/Victims of life/Insomnia/Armageddon”

It's a bouncy start as we kick off with “Higher circles”, the keys of Rik Carter meshing with the measured percussion of Nigel Harris before the soon-to-be unmistakable voice of Nick Barrett comes in. It kind of reminds me in tempo terms of It Bites's “Calling all the heroes”, and in fairness it's a little weak as an opener. It's also not very long, just over three minutes as we move on to the equally brief “The pleasure of hope”, with much more of a punch and a sort of seventies Genesis feel to the keyboards. Carter would in fact leave after this album, to be replaced by Clive Nolan. This song immediately has more about it, I can't quite put my finger on it, but now we're listening to a band who are going to go places and make their mark in progressive rock as it began to enjoy a resurgence in the early eighties. Barrett's guitar comes more upfront and there's definitely teeth in this tune with some reasonably extended instrumentals, given the brevity of the song itself.

From here, the song lengths start to reflect more what you would expect from a prog band. The appropriately-titled “Leviathan” reminds me in places of Pallas's “Queen of the deep”, some nice Hammond going on there but again it's the guitar that's mostly carrying the song. Even with Nolan on board, this would turn out to be something of a trademark with Pendragon: where other prog, especially neo-prog bands tend to fall back on the extended keyboard solo too often, Pendragon use Barrett's guitar to its max, which is not to say there are not keyboard solos – of course there are, and Nolan is a keyboard wizard – but the band doesn't rely almost solely on the keys. Of course, a band is only as good, really, as its vocalist (if they're not an instrumental band of course) and Barrett delivers on all fronts. Though the production is a little weak here he will come into his own on later albums. Nice example of the kind of thing he was and is capable of with a sweet little introspective solo halfway through, sort of acoustic. The song itself is pretty uptempo and powerful, with some great piano runs from Carter.

The first real epic comes in “Alaska”, which runs for just shy of nine minutes and opens on a lovely soft guitar passage as Carter joins Barrett on some humming synth. The song itself is broken into two parts, the first being titled “At home with the Earth” and the second “Snowfall”, but I can't see where the break between the two is. It starts very laidback but powerful, not what I'd call a ballad but certainly not a rocker. I'm going to assume that it's here, after about five and a half minutes and a really nice solo that part two comes in and it speeds up on Carter's jumping synth, Harris's percussion leaping after him and in a few short moment the frets are burning too as Barrett joins in to complete a really powerful instrumental close out. Kind of odd that the second part should be called “Snowfall”: I would have expected that to be much softer, maybe piano or gentle acoustic guitar, but there you go. “Circus” opens on some really nice reflective guitar with percussion sort of sidling in, and I hear elements here of tracks that would surface twenty years later on Believe.

Super extended instrumental section around the midpoint, and while I have before, and will continue to accuse certain bands of unnecessary showoff-manship, technical wankery, call it what you will, with Pendragon the instrumental breaks always seem to be an integral part of the song, never there just to satisfy any musician's particular ego. A sort of Beatles/ELO style takes the song in the fourth minute before it heads off on another instrumental voyage that takes the track up to the last minute, with a hint of Alan Parsons Project thrown in for good measure. Thought it was going to fade there at the end but they pulled it out at the last moment. “Oh divineo” again rides on a sweet guitar line from Barrett which takes it more than a third of the way into the song before Carter's piano takes over and the vocal begins. Nice sort of ballady feel to it, though it does rock up later on , while “The black knight” has an expectedly medieval feel to it, with what I have to admit is a rather annoying guitar riff repeating through it, which is a pity as otherwise it's a really good song. There's a lot of power and passion in it, with a very Gilmouresque solo from Nick. This is also the first song to evidence what I'm afraid would become something of a recurring theme in Pendragon songs, where the same lines/verses are repeated twice or three times, leaving me somewhat puzzled, as they really can write good lyrics, but sometimes they seem to take the path of least resistance. This is not the best closer I've ever heard.

Track listing and ratings

Higher circles
The pleasure of hope
Leviathan
Alaska (i) At home with the Earth (ii) Snowfall
Circus
Oh divineo
The black night

Afterword:

The ratings for this album on Progarchives mark it overall as “Good, but not essential”, and I would have to agree. If I didn't already know how good Pendragon were going to get as the years went on, I would probably write this off as a poor debut and be unlikely to explore any further. It's certainly not the strongest I've seen a prog band come out of the gate, and the use of “The black knight” as the closing track, and also the fact that it is way overstretched at nearly ten minutes, does not help. Thankfully, soon enough they would begin to hone their songcraft, and while Rik Carter is a competent keyboardist, it would only be with the addition of Clive Nolan that Pendragon would start to become one of the real powerhouses of prog rock. For now, it's a bit of a stuttering start – not terrible by any means, but no revelation. Not yet anyway.

Ratings
As I know these albums and artiste well (most of them anyway) I'm going to be a lot harsher with my ratings than I would normally be. Usually I'll give a rating of three as a basic medium score – not great, not terrible, basically ok or maybe even good – while ratings of four and five are reserved for efforts which are much better. This will still be the case, but whereas I would usually balk at awarding a two or even a one, now I'll be doing it this way:
1: Absolutely terrible. Avoid like the plague
2: Decent but could be a whole lot better. Potential to be realised.
3: A good album but fails to meet my high standards, or what I know or think this artiste can achieve
4: A very good album, well above average. Essential listening
5: Top marks, perfect quality, the pinnacle of this band's catalogue. Nothing bad I can say about it.

On that basis, all I can award The Jewel, which rather fails to live up to its grandiose title, is

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100.

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

This was the first one I listened to in the list, and it turned out to be the one that spurred me on to go ahead with this project, though for a while I couldn't really proceed, as I kept playing the damn thing! Oddly, other reviews have not been so kind, 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 was amazed to find this languishing at the very foot of the table (and a day or so later, using Prog Archives' rating system, it had been displaced by another album, pushed off the list entirely, so it was pure luck I heard of it) but then when I got nearer to the top I was pretty underwhelmed by some of the albums there, so it just shows you. Of course, it's all, as I say, based on reviewer ratings, and the more and higher ratings an album gets the higher it climbs the chart. Can't believe this wasn't higher.

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 from the album, 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.

Songs / Tracks Listing
1. Herald (8:48)
2. Flying (3:31)
3. Spiral (2:17)
4. Symmetry & Light (7:29)
5. Justified (4:39)
6. In Amber (3:57)
7. The Hunt (7:22)
8. Delta (8:26)
9. When We Were Young (5:16)
10. Carnivale (9:10)

Total Time 61:05
Line-up / Musicians
- Al Winter / vocals, producer
- Graham Garbett / electric & acoustic guitars, backing vocals
- Scott Owens / electric & acoustic guitars, backing vocals
- Mark Numan / keyboards, backing vocals
- Pete Priestley / bass, bass pedals
- Andy Milner / drums, percussion

I suppose it was inevitable that the top ten should be the usual suspects, the more well-known bands, the ones who have been doing it for years and consistently turn out great album after great album – your IQs, your Big Big Trains, your Devin Townsends and your Neal Morses – and I expect a band who have only been together for less than half a decade can't really expect to be climbing those dizzy heights, but still, I reckon this album deserved to be a lot higher than it was placed. The musicianship is superb, the songwriting excellent, the overall feel a mixture of seventies and modern prog, and I think if more people heard A Tower of Clocks they might rate this band more.

Still, it's early days yet. 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

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99.

Album title: Clocks That Tick (But Never Talk)
Artist: Grand Tour
Nationality: British (Scottish)
Sub-genre: Neo-prog


Is it a coincidence that the first two albums on the list both have clocks in the title? I guess so. They're certainly two very different albums by two very different bands. I'm aware of the work of Comedy of Errors, though I have to be honest and say I have never listened to a full album, and Grand Tour appear to have grown up out of that band, not from the ashes, as Comedy of Errors are still around, but as a kind of perhaps not side project in the vein of Pete Trewavas's Edison's Children or John Mitchell's various alter-ego bands (Kino, Frost*, Lonely Robot etc) but I don't know, project in tandem? Maybe this is why, despite being together for fifteen years, Grand Tour have released precisely two albums. In fact, when Comedy of Errors reformed in 2011 after a hiatus of nearly twenty years, they released an album called Disobey, followed two years later by Fanfare and Fantasy. All well and good. But in the year Grand Tour released their first album, Comedy of Errors also released their third, Spirit, following this up with House of the Mind in 2017.

So how that worked I don't know. You seem to have Comedy of Errors releasing an album in 2015 at the same time, roughly, as Grand Tour debuted their Heavy on the Beach. Guess they worked pretty hard, so like I say we can forgive them for only churning out the two (Grand Tour) albums in fifteen years, with the first only coming across ten years after they, um, formed. Right.

So, was it worth the wait? Well...

One thing I will say upfront about this album is that I did not like the vocals. Not one bit. There's something really odd about the vocal stylings of Joe Cairney, and while I can give the guy props for having been the driving force behind Comedy of Errors and obviously lasting through the neo-prog revival of the eighties led by bands like Marillion, Pallas and IQ, I just don't get his voice. I don't get it so much that for a long while I wasn't going to bother giving this a second spin. But if there's one thing my adventures with Black Metal, Death Metal and Doom Metal has taught me it's that just because the vocals may not be your cup of tea doesn't mean you should give up on the band. I've learned to appreciate superb shredding while ignoring or even laughing at high-pitched shrieks from a BM vocalist, or the low, animalistic gruntings that sometimes characterise Funeral Doom Metal. So where say five years ago I would have said if I don't like the vocals it doesn't matter how good the music is, I won't listen to it, I don't feel like that any more. Much.

So I was prepared to give Grand Tour a chance. Not, I hasten to add, that Cairney's vocals come close to a Steve Tucker or a Chuck Schuldiner, or even a Quorthon; I can listen to them without my ears bleeding or feeling like I should maybe bring the cat in before the neighbour's dog is let out. I just don't particularly like them, and unfortunately, in progressive rock, a good, melodious, mellifluous voice is often a real prerequisite. Even prog metal fails to benefit from indecipherable or unlistenable vocals. Threshold have had some great and very powerful vocalists (Damien Wilson, Andrew “Mac” McDermott (RIP), Glynn Morgan) but power is one thing, violence another. I can listen to Black Metal vocals or the growls on Doom Metal because the music complements them, sometimes even demands them. When you're singing about Satan (what a cool name for a Black metal band, huh?) you really need someone who sounds like they're screeching in pain, and you don't want to hear a soft crooner when he's growling about the bleakness of life and the absurdity of existence, do you?

But while both those sub-genres tend to focus more on the music (like Janszoon once helpfully advised me, think of the rough vocals as just another instrument) with the vocals either secondary or often almost superfluous, prog rock is all about the lyrics, and no matter how nice the music is – unless the band is instrumental, as some are – you need and want to be able to hear and make out the vocals. This is not in any way an issue with Grand Tour, but the fact that you can't as it were ignore the vocals and concentrate on the music – if you do, you lose a lot of the meaning of the songs – makes it imperative really to be able to enjoy the vox, and while I slowly warmed to Cairney, he would never be my favourite singer, in fact I have a hard time thinking of anyone in prog who I dislike more, in terms of vocals.

Anyway, now I've got that off my chest, let's get down to cases. Firstly, there are only seven tracks on this album. That might seem a problem, until you realise two (including the opener) run for over eleven minutes, two shade the ten-minute mark and nothing on this album falls below seven. So overall you're looking at an even longer runtime than the previous album, more than an hour in total. That's not too bad.

Now, as mentioned, the opener is over eleven minutes long. This isn't, as I said, a debut album but it is only Grand Tour's second, so I suppose given the fact that they could probably rely on their no doubt large and loyal fanbase from Comedy of Errors to support them, perhaps it's not as daring a move as our friends This Winter Machine, but it's still impressive. You'll probably be glad to know that it's not an instrumental. I'm not sure even I could take eleven minutes without vocals (though given what I said above, maybe that wouldn't be such a trial).



There is, however, a very slow and gradual fade-in, which makes you feel, for about a minute or more, that maybe you didn't hit the play button, or your headphones aren't plugged in. Eventually though you start to hear sounds, as we pass the two-minute mark (I kid you not!) and the vocals come in, kind of out of nowhere. I have no idea why they need such a long lead-in, making the song perhaps two or three minutes longer than it needs to be, but once it gets going the title track proves to have been worth waiting for. There are nice vocal harmonies in the style of maybe Lindisfarne, Fairport Convention or CSNY, and the song takes off at a nice lick by about the fourth minute. Again, I suppose GT can rely on their Comedy of Errors fans, but even so, I feel this has been something of a gamble. Most people, hearing nothing after a minute, might give up, either in frustration, impatience or bewilderment. Needless to say, I persevered, and was appropriately rewarded for it, and so will you be if you do likewise.

Good guitar work from Mike Spalding, sort of reminds me of the best of Twelfth Night's Andy Revell in places, and so far on this listen Cairney's voice doesn't seem to be grating on me as much as I remember. I do note though that he sounds distinctly foreign (German, Dutch, Finnish, something like that) and not at all like a Scot. He can certainly sing, to be fair. One thing I do find is that in a song of this length I struggle to find a hook, even a chorus. It's perhaps a little unstructured, reminding me of the weaker work of Polish proggers Millenium. Fades out as unobtrusively and unimpressively as it opened. Probably not the greatest way to kick off your album: compare this opener to the triumphant one from This Winter Machine. After this, sure, you're ready to hear more, but are you in two minds?

At just under seven and a half minutes, the next track is, believe it or not, the shortest on the album. “Don't Cry Now” seems to utilise some phasing on the vocals, whether that's an actual vocoder being used or just digital processing on the voices I don't know, but it gives a sort of alien feel to the opening of the song, which sounds like it could be a ballad. Is it too soon for a slow song? TWM certainly didn't seem to think so, though it can be a gamble, throwing one in so early in the album, especially after what came across as a somewhat disorganised opener. Hits into a kind of bluesy swing style half way through, and the song seems to follow the theme of “the show must go on”, the idea of an actor/singer feeling sad or upset but needing to complete the performance, with the warning “Don't cry now for the audience may be watching”. It's a better song, but for my money fails, so far, to lift the album from not quite mediocrity, but maybe banality. They'll need to try much harder.



“Back in the Zone” is another almost twelve-minute epic, with some nice keys from Hew Montgomery leading it in, and at least this time there's no faffing about with two to three minutes of ambient noise and sound effects as the song gets going quickly. There are echoes of Arena here, but I can't shake that folky feeling; it's definitely in the vocals, makes you expect to start hearing accordions and fiddles or something. It's a decent song, but again I must question the length. Does it need to run for twelve minutes? We're in minute seven now and I could see it quite happily ending here. I'd have to say it's stretched out beyond what it need to be. “The Panic” opens a little like “I Want to Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston (!) but quickly settles, after the odd percussive intro, down and becomes a, well, almost Duran Duran style song with squealing synths and a chakka-chakka-chakka drumbeat. Tres strange!

A third of the way into its slightly less than nine-minute run and no vocals yet, so I wonder if we're talking instrumental here? I really can't remember: I listened to this album a good deal the first time but it's been about two months since I heard it last and I've listened to a lot of prog albums since then. It's almost – though not quite – as if I'm hearing it for the first time again. But as we're now five minutes in and there's been no singing I think my original idea was correct. An instrumental, and quite an odd one for a prog rock album, very synthpop I feel. Not that it's bad, just unexpected, even to someone who has heard this album many times before. Maybe it wasn't that memorable, though I thought I remembered enjoying it. The next two are both in the ten-minute range, with “Shadow Walking” featuring a long, dramatic, marching instrumental intro which lasts for nearly two and a half minutes before Cairney comes in with the vocal. It seems to focus on the idea of a wasted life, hanging around doing nothing, perhaps pointing obliquely to street gangs and crime.

The hopelessness of a misspent youth come through in lines like “hanging out with faceless friends I've never seen before” and “crazy dreams when you find out life ain't all it seems”. Nice kind of vocal chorus going on there in the midpoint, perhaps a touch of paranoia (justified or not I can't say) and fear in the lyric. A very nice guitar solo then from Spalding, though I would have preferred it to have been longer, and it seems to be superseded then by violin and flute, though I see no credit for players of either so must assume Montgomery is synthesising these on his keyboard.

Seems the next track slipped in without my noticing, and “Game Over” I have to say really doesn't make any proper impression on me. It's not that it's a bad track, I just don't see anything special about it, and again it's far too long. I think the lyrical idea is grappling with conflating an addiction to video games with a broken or breaking-up love affair, but to my mind it's handled clumsily and does not come off. Nice soloing in the sixth or seventh minute, but other than that, not a whole lot to say about it. That leaves us with one before we end, and it's the ballad, “Slumber Sweetly”, and does at least close the album in style. Unfortunately, it can't paper over the cracks which have become more and more visible as I review this.


Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Clocks That Tick (But Never Talk) (11:41)
2. Don't Cry Now (7:27)
3. Back In The Zone (11:50)
4. The Panic (8:56)
5. Shadow Walking (10:14)
6. Game Over (9:48)
7. Slumber Sweetly (8:03)

Total time 67:59

Line-up / Musicians

- Joe Cairney / vocals

- Mark Spalding / guitar

- Hew Montgomery / keyboards

- Chris Radford / bass

- Bruce Levick / drums



I hesitate to keep comparing the two, but I can think of at least four songs I was humming (and able to hum, so able to remember) from A Tower of Clocks after I had finished it, whereas here there really isn't even one that stands out. It's odd really, because as I said I seemed to remember quite enjoying the album, but looking at it now for the first time through the cold dispassionate eye of the reviewer I can see its many flaws. As I mentioned, I'm not at all familiar with Comedy of Errors, but on the basis of this album I wouldn't be in any hurry to check them out.

It's not that it's a bad album at all, it's just it's merely okay, and for me, okay is generally not really good enough. It certainly pales beside This Winter Machine's effort, and if memory serves the one coming up next blows it away too. Perhaps it might be a little snide to say that there's more needed to make a decent prog rock album than a good pun in the title, but I do feel rather let down by this overall, and again, I'm surprised because I had relatively fond recent memories of it.

Rating: 7/10

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95.

Album title: KRÁSNÁ HORA
Artist: Blank Manuskript
Nationality: Austrian
Sub-genre: Symphonic Prog


Formed in Salzburg in 2007, Blank Manuskript have a grandiose idea of themselves, describing their music thus:

Typical long songs ornamented with a high level of symphonic density and elaborate polyphonic structures as well as extended improvised sections lead their audience through an entire musical adventure. Their compositional approach seeks to combine all sorts of different styles and traditions needed to serve the initial concept of their works. Hence, the arrangements are carefully structured with complex rhythmical patterns and establish a sound-scape that can hardly be found in music nowadays. The lyrical elements are picturesque with a worked out mystic touch and though at a first glance arcane, they always address current social issues in an implicit way. As the music always follows the narrated concept, one might label it contemporary rock program music

(copied verbatim from Progarchives)

They seem to want to concentrate solely on concept albums, and have released four to date, with their first hitting the shelves a mere year after their formation, though there was a gap of five years between that and their second. The title of this album, apparently, refers to a village in the Czech Republic, where it was written, and means “beautiful mountain”. I'll look into the concept if I last the course; not much point in reading all about the plotline if I'm going to ditch the book after one chapter, I think you would agree?

In typical concept album style, we begin with the “Overture”, which features hard, pumping, snarling guitars and heavy percussion before thick organ marches sedately and majestically alongside the other instruments, slowly pulling us in. Suddenly the organ falls out and the guitars kick in hard and fast, then the organ comes back in, a much peppier, upbeat and frenetic sound this time, some pretty decent histrionics on the keys behind a cool bass line, and I assume this will all be instrumental? It's just short of seven minutes, slowing down at the halfway point to an almost Sabbathesque grind, the drums punching out about a beat every three seconds, very slow and measured. Some nice slow piano joining what could be cellos or violins perhaps, a fairly dramatic backdrop being created here. Not really any complaints so far. Can't remember what I thought when I heard this originally, but I can't believe this track put me off the album.

Oh, I was wrong about it being an instrumental. We have the vocals of Peter Baxrainer coming in now, with some nice vocal harmonies too from the other guys. It's pretty impressive; nice sax break from Jakob Aistleitner and into “Foetus” we go, with some distant mournful sounds, soft synth and some sort of strings, very low vocal coming in after the first minute of the six it runs for, perhaps the overall muted sound meant to signify how an unborn child might, theoretically, hear outside sounds? Or maybe it's the foetus itself trying to make itself heard. Either way, it's pretty effective. Sweet little piano motif going quietly there in the background, the bass creating a heartbeat (cliched but it works here) then the guitar growls in hard, punching through the tune, maybe to signify the moment of birth/labour? All guesses of course, but as the guitar gets louder and more chaotic, some serious shredding going on and the organ joining in till it all ends in the sound of a baby crying, I think we've got it.



Next up is the epic. I have no idea what “Achluphobia” is – oh right: research tells me it's fear of the dark. Well, this is a fifteen-minuter so expect a lot of changes and different expressions I guess. It starts very quiet and muted, guitar feedback and violins maybe, ambient sounds, a few hollow cymbal beats, no real music to speak of yet and we're two minutes in, but there's plenty of time of course. A sort of spooky synth line begins to slowly come through, reminds me of some of the work of Waits, then a softly strummed acoustic guitar, sound of a door opening I think, and we're in the fourth minute as the guitar more or less takes the piece, though very gently and gradually. Gives the impression (gives me the impression anyway) of someone walking slowly along, maybe hanging onto a wall as they go, feeling their way in the dark.

Guitar becomes more electric and a little more forceful, a lot of running up and down the fretboard as we reach the halfway point, and I would definitely say this is going to end up being an instrumental, but as on the other track I was proven wrong, and there is still over seven minutes to go, I won't take anything for granted. Still, a fifteen-minute instrumental is pushing it I feel. It's very evocative, very ambient and conjures up stunning images, and I was of course again wrong as here come the vocals. This is in the ninth minute, so it's maybe odd that it took so long but there's still plenty of the song left to go. Some fine guitar soloing now, taking us into the twelfth minute when the piano takes over, presumably to the end. Well, not quite: there's a vocal chorus, low and gentle, to take us there.

Not quite sure what to make of that. I would have said minimalist, but then there was the vocal part and the shredding, which stops me calling it ambient either. Interesting certainly, though it gave me the idea it was heading towards a big climax it never reached. It's followed by the much shorter “Pressure of Pride”, in fact the shortest on the album I think, at three and a half minutes. It sounds a little too jazzy for me, brass and flute in a sort of staccato dance, and I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this one is an instrumental. And I'm wrong again. Voices kind of shout in a chant against the music, which personally I feel doesn't work. “Shared Isolation”, while sort of an oxymoron, does dovetail in with our current lockdown situation, and although this was written before anyone knew what social distancing was or had heard of Covid anything, I can see how such a phrase could work. People looking out of their windows (metaphorically or literally) at other people looking out of theirs, unable to touch or really communicate.



It has again a very Waits/Beefheart thing going, with abrasive instruments and a sort of staccato beat before it settles down into a nice swirling keyboard passage with a metallish sort of groaning guitar and bells in the background, then the vocal comes in on the five-minute mark, and it's quite gentle and soothing. Gets a bit wild near the end though, and I think it's hard to get a handle on with so many changes, many of them abrupt and unexpected. Almost like it doesn't know what it wants to be. Could have been a good idea but I feel it somewhat missed the mark. Whether “Alone at the Institution” is meant to follow on from that or not I don't know, but I'm definitely getting the idea of too many ideas crammed, not into one album, but into every song. It's hard to work out what any one track is going to be like, and it's a little disorienting. I know the blurb says the band don't like to tie themselves down to one style or genre, but trying to be all things to all men fails here I believe.

The words improvisational and jamming certainly apply here, almost free-form to some extent, and here is where I believe Blank Manuskript snatch defeat from the possible jaws of victory. In trying to please everyone – including, or possibly only thinking of themselves – they're making this too inaccessible to your average music fan who knows what he or she likes or wants. Generally, proggers are known for being amenable to changes in time signatures, themes, styles and so on, but as a pretty diehard prog head this is too disjointed for even me. I get the feeling almost of too much fusion and not enough actual genre music, and it's too confusing. There are only two tracks left so for the sake of it I'll try to get through to the end, but that bailout button is looking mighty attractive right now.

Even though this is now six minutes into its nine-minute run, I've learned enough about this band not to assume it's an instrumental, and indeed once again those vocals come in with barely three minutes to go. Don't get it: you're either going to write an instrumental or a vocal song, but they seem to want to shoehorn everything in together on every track. At least they can't do this with the penultimate track, only three minutes long. “Silent Departure” does, I'm afraid, reflect my own desires and wishes at this point, and I wish it was the last track but it's not. It is, at least, a nice slow reflective ballad, without all the histrionics of pretty much most of the other tracks, though I'm sure we'll be back to that for the closer. Nice violin/cello work here, soft guitar, very relaxing. Enjoy it, because then we're into “The Last Journey”, where it all goes to hell again with a whole lot of different styles trying – and in my view, failing – to mesh. It's not the worst attempt to tie it all up at the end, but I kind of really don't care at this point.

Songs / Tracks Listing


1. Overture (6:49)
2. Foetus (6:10)
3. Achluphobia (15:35)
4. Pressure Of Pride (3:38)
5. Shared Isolation (9:55)
6. Alone At The Institution (9:21)
7. Silent Departure (3:37)
8. The Last Journey (8:34)


Total time 63:39

Line-up / Musicians

- Peter Baxrainer / acoustic, Classical & electric guitars, vocals
- Dominik Wallner / piano, electric piano, synthesizer, organ, clavinet, celesta, Mellotron, vocals
- Jakob Aistleitner / saxophone, guitar, bass, flute, glockenspiel, percussion, vocals
- Alfons Wohlmuth / bass, flute, bottles, vocals
- Jakob Sigl / drums, percussion, vocals

With:

- Antonia Sigl / viola
- Wolfgang Spannberger / samples


There's no question that there's good music on this, and I expect the concept, if explored, is probably very clever and deep, but the constant switching from one to the other to the other to the other and back drove me yellow bendy fruits and I just lost interest about halfway through. To be fair, there was a point where I thought, maybe I was wrong about this, but as it went on I realised that my initial assessment had been correct after all. Just not for me.

Rating: 6/10

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Mondo Bungle

You could give it a shot

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Trollheart

Three years later, and not a day wiser, I'm back. Miss me? No? Then fuck you.
Lockdowns have been fun. We're currently in our second, due to go on into December. People don't learn. How surprising. And what have I been doing, you ask? You did ask, didn't you? I'm sure I heard someone say... no? Well again then, up yours. I'll tell you anyway.

Getting back into prog. Yes, I'm regressing, some would say but hey, I'm getting older so I got to do some things backwards! I prefer to say I'm "returning to my first love". What do you mean, she died ten years ago? dammit I KNEW I should have poked air holes in that box! Oh well. Anyway, I'm actually talking about music of course. And being a prog head (I said PROG, not...) I thought I might as well catch up with the latest prog releases. And being me, I went for the best of 2019, as ranked by

Yeah, I went through them all. Listened to every album (or most of them) at least three times, apart from some that just did not click. And here are my findings.

Note: if you look at the list now, you'll find it much different to how it was when I checked it out. This is because PA use an album rating system which is ongoing, so the higher an album is rated the higher it goes in the list, meaning others near the end of the list are moved down or even displaced entirely off the list. Basically the list is constantly updated and changing. If you want to check out the list as it currently stands, click here:

PA Top 100 Prog Albums 2019

To keep things simple, I'll update the OP here as I write about each album. Comments welcomed. Nazi GIFs allowed.


Oh yeah: if I'm back, they're back!



INDEX

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018