The Prog Rock Album Club

Anteater · 05-25-2014, 09:33 AM

^ Nah, it definitely belongs in a prog list, although its not prog in the 70's sense. Its the technicality of the riffs, the nuances on some of the individual songs and the overall theme of the record that qualifies it.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to everyone else's thoughts on Countdown To Extinction, but seeing as its Sunday, I'll go ahead and announce next album in case people wanted a different album to jump into for the club. Using a random number generator I ended up landing on number 70, which is-

Advent - Cantus Firmus (2006)

This one is definitely more in the 70's prog-rock vein, and a long time favorite of mine. Think classic Gentle Giant mixed with a 90's neo-prog ambient aesthetic, sprinkled with some Trepass-era Genesis pastorality for kicks. This mixture results in a unique atmosphere, and it definitely sounds like the missing "epic" styled album that the Shulman brothers never did in their heyday.

After this album, we'll go back to the methodology where we take turns week-by-week in bringing several albums to the table that people have the option to review, and we'll stick to the abbreviated version of Trollheart's review matrix US and I used above for these future reviews as well.

On another note, I'd love people to think up new things we could be doing with this club to make it more engaging and bring in more contributing core members, so feel free to offer your suggestions between all the album reviewing.

Besides YouTube, I'm pretty sure Cantus Firmus is streamable/downloadable in all kinds of places. You can also stream and/or buy the album from their official BandCamp page here: http://advent-prog.bandcamp.com/album/cantus-firmus

Xurtio · 06-02-2014, 01:02 PM

Album Title: Cantus Firmus
Artist: Advent
Nationality: American
Year: 2006
Subgenre: Uber-Prog
Familiarity: None
Favourite Track(s): "Remembering when"
Why? Nice dissonant harmonies in the acoustic guitar with pleasant pentatonic structures in the electric lead guitar and good variety, yet continuity between progressions.
Least Favourite Track(s): "Alison Waits"
Why? Vocals ruin it
End Impression: A lot of it seemed kind of like generic prog, like every other prog album I've heard, especially the flutes and the staccato strings, like in Ramblin Sailor, but the vocals are very plain in timbre and the vocal style is annoying. I hear the style in a lot of prog and it's one of the things that limits my prog appreciation.
Comments: Remembering when was surprisingly good compared to the rest of the album. Not just because of the lack of vocals, but the use of harmony and melody was really quite unique, whereas the rest of the album had a lot of that folky stuff that I really only let Jethro Tull get away with I guess. Maybe that's unfair, but I heard Jethro first!
Rating: 3.5

Anteater · 06-02-2014, 05:16 PM

Good reviews all around everyone! Now, let's try something fun: lets create an order of people who will choose each week's albums like the club worked originally. Based on the current club's participants, here's my suggested order for who can suggest each week's potential albums to review:

1. Unknown Soldier
2. Moss
3. Carpe Mortem
4. Xurtio
5. Anteater

Basically, when its your turn you need to pick 1-3 possible prog/prog-related albums you'd like to give the rest of the club (and guest reviewers) an opportunity to post reviews over for the following week.

As far as review format goes, we can stick to my abbreviated version of Trollheart's post format or you could just write a few paragraphs worth of impressions and slap a number rating at the end.

...or we can stick with me randomly picking albums off my list if you guys would rather just review what pops up every week instead of bringing choices to the table yourselves. I'm fine with that too since my list is 200+ albums long, lol!

What do you guys think?

06-02-2014, 01:02 PM	#2 (permalink)
Xurtio Brain Licker Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 1,083	Album Title: Cantus Firmus Artist: Advent Nationality: American Year: 2006 Subgenre: Uber-Prog Familiarity: None Favourite Track(s): "Remembering when" Why? Nice dissonant harmonies in the acoustic guitar with pleasant pentatonic structures in the electric lead guitar and good variety, yet continuity between progressions. Least Favourite Track(s): "Alison Waits" Why? Vocals ruin it End Impression: A lot of it seemed kind of like generic prog, like every other prog album I've heard, especially the flutes and the staccato strings, like in Ramblin Sailor, but the vocals are very plain in timbre and the vocal style is annoying. I hear the style in a lot of prog and it's one of the things that limits my prog appreciation. Comments: Remembering when was surprisingly good compared to the rest of the album. Not just because of the lack of vocals, but the use of harmony and melody was really quite unique, whereas the rest of the album had a lot of that folky stuff that I really only let Jethro Tull get away with I guess. Maybe that's unfair, but I heard Jethro first! Rating: 3.5 __________________ H̓̇̅̉yͤ͏mͬ͂ͧn͑̽̽̌ͪ̑͐͟o̴͊̈́͑̇m͛͌̓ͦ̑aͫ̽ͤ̇n̅̎͐̒ͫ͐c̆ͯͫ̋ ̔̃́eͯ͒rͬͬ̄҉ Last edited by Xurtio; 06-02-2014 at 08:21 PM.