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Time to return to my
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640 and look at a time when Pendragon had been around for a while. https://img.discogs.com/OuQzh7_Wwbv5...-5641.jpeg.jpg Album title: Not of This World Artist: Pendragon Nationality: English Year: 2001 Chronology: 6 The Trollheart Factor: 10 Track Listing: If I Were the Wind (And You Were the Rain)/Dance of the Seven Veils ((i) Faithless (ii) All Over Now)/Not of This World ((i) Not of This World (ii) Give it to Me (iii) Green Eyed Angel)/A Man of Nomadic Traits/World’s End (i) The Lost Children (ii) … And Finally Comments: I must admit, I was somewhat taken aback to see the scorn and often vitriol directed against the last Pendragon album I reviewed here, their second, Kowtow. I don’t believe in any way it deserved any of that lambasting, but I think fans are united in praise of this one, which comes from a place fifteen years later. Featuring some of their by-now-standard suites, it’s an album that really for the most part needs to be listened to in one sitting; taking individual tracks out - with the odd exception - kind of doesn’t work, as the whole thing flows better when taken as one major work of music. There is, as the album begins, a musical motif that runs through much of the album, a phrase that will recur in other tracks and indeed right at the end, and it opens the album too as “If I Were the Wind (And You Were the Rain)” - surely one of the longest titles to kick an album off - rings out the guitar notes behind sighing wind before percussion cuts in and we’re off. For a long time, this was one of my favourite Pendragon songs, and I even used it as a wake-up alarm, till it started getting on my tits. Now I’m over that and I love it again. There’s the usual passion and emotion you expect from this band, both musically and vocally from Barrett, who never seems to give anything less than one hundred percent in his performances, whether it’s his voice or his guitar, or indeed his songwriting. I do have to take slight issue with the backing vocals, which have a very Pink Floyd feel, and given my comments about their shamelessly ripping off Roger and Dave and the boys, well, it seems a little much. Still, it’s a small quibble. Beautiful piano work as always from Clive Nolan, and it takes us into the first suite. “Dance of the Seven Veils” is split into two sections, both pretty much more guitar-driven than the opener, the first part slow and reflective, the second more bouncy and looking back to the likes of “Saved by You”, “Back in the Spotlight” and “Nostradamus”. Being the longer of the two, the second part slows down in the middle then picks up again, running to a big powerful finish and into the second suite, the title track in fact. Here’s where the keyboards of Nolan really come into play as he romps along beside Barrett, over half of the first part of the suite instrumental. Another motif starts here which will continue through other songs, and those Floydian backing vox are back. Some lovely Spanish guitar here from Nick to take us into the second movement, “Give it to Me” which only lasts just over two minutes and is driven on warbly keyboards into the first real ballad, the sumptuous “Green Eyed Angel”. Beautiful guitar work supplemented by lush synth lines. Even with three suites on the album, the only other standalone track, “A Man of Nomadic Traits” runs for almost twelve minutes. It’s sort of a mini-suite in itself, with changes through its length, an instrumental interlude, two in fact, and some great almost acoustic guitar work from Nick. Nearly half of its run is actually taken up by a superb instrumental section, and it takes us into the final suite, “World’s End”, which is broken into two parts, and in which the original motif comes back into the song, allied to the second in a quite breath-taking masterpiece of musical talent and songwriting. Here we get almost a reintroduction to the album, the same guitar phrase but extended now, linking later to what I guess we could call the “Not of This World” theme, but the suite begins with “The Lost Children”, which is the larger part of it, seems to be a ballad but kicks up halfway with a big striding keyboard and guitar section that takes us into the closer entitled, rather appropriately, “... And Finally.” This partially reprises “Not of This World” and fades out on the basic motif from that track, essentially a second ballad. Oddly, my copy, having two extra bonus tracks, also has a bonus instrumental, called “A New World”. It’s short, decent but really more a coda, perhaps an unnecessary one, which might be why it appears only on this reissue I happen to have. The other bonus tracks I can do without, as they’re on other albums already. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: Impossible One rotten apple: Also impossible Overall impression: One of my very favourite Pendragon albums, this has it all. I feel they may have reached their peak here and this, for me, is a massive step forward, giving them the impetus to go on to even better things. Rating: 9.9/10 Future Plan: I really need to hear their latest, Love Over Fear... |
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https://img.discogs.com/XhjqUkSwR-zH...-5812.jpeg.jpg Album title: From the Days of Deucalion, Chapter I Artist: Leap Day Nationality: Dutch Year: 2013 Chronology: 3 The Trollheart Factor: 1 Track Listing: Ancient Times/Signs on the 13th/Changing Directions/Insects/Hurricane/Ambrosia/Haemus/Lilts Doots Nus - Sun Stood Still Comments: As you’ll work out from the graphic above, this is an album I was not impressed with when I first heard it, and here I’m giving it one last chance. I have to admit, a band called Leap Day doesn’t start me off on the right foot, but I try not to be prejudiced and will give it my best. The opener is a short instrumental, slow kind of jazzy number on guitar, not bad, then the next one sounds like it has promise, big build-up and the vocals don’t start till halfway in. Pleasant enough. Nicely constructed. No complaints so far; gets quite Alan Parsons-y near the end, which for me is no bad thing. Slips nicely into “Changing Directions”, tempo rising somewhat, nice Hammond work, has a kind of Yes/Asia feel to it in ways, touches of Kansas too. “Insects” starts off with whistling, thunder, nice acoustic guitar opening, gives me a feeling of Big Big Train or early Genesis. Insect buzzing comes in and the track takes on new life, speeding up with a sort of dramatic flair. This is the longest track at just over eleven minutes, and it’s pretty damn cool to be honest. It segues perfectly into the next one, given that it’s called “Hurricane” and the previous ends on the sound of thunder. This however is a much more rocky track, almost heavy psych/blues in its way with quite the shouted vocal, a change for the singer. It is, however, the first one I can’t say I like. Just a little jarring after what they’ve been putting out. Even the Genesisesque keys can’t save this one I’m afraid. Yeah, well, “Ambrosia” kind of keeps up the sudden dip in quality. I mean, there are nice passages in the song, but it feels as if the album is sliding badly; maybe this is where I decided I didn’t like it. Often the decision, for me anyway, can be coloured by the last few tracks I listen to. Not always the case but sometimes. And it continues into the pretty awful “Haemus” which I just can’t get my head around musically at all. Boo. That’s three poor songs in a row, leaving only one to potentially save an album I was very much beginning to believe I had judged too harshly. Man, this is like something Deep Purple would have rejected from their set list. Thunder is back for the closer, the very oddly titled “Lilts Doots Nus - Sun Stood Still” - I assume the first is Dutch and the second a translation into English? Anyway, it’s a bit ambient, which is nice, some expressive guitar and soft piano, and I’m guessing it may be an instrumental? It’s an instrumental. Track(s) I liked: Ancient Times/Signs on the 13th/Changing Directions/Insects Track(s) I didn't like: “Hurricane”, “Ambrosia”, “Haemus” One standout: “Changing Directions” One rotten apple: “Haemus” Overall impression: Torn on this one. I was definitely beginning to rethink it and then the last few tracks put me back on my original rating of the album. I really don’t know, but I don’t think I’ve changed my mind. Rating: 6/10 Verdict: The jury has gone to lunch and will probably be sequestered in a hotel for a few days at least. Future Plan: Not sure as yet. |
Moving through the decades, we reach the 1990s. Perhaps not the greatest time for prog? We'll see.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ubterranea.jpg Album title: Subterranea Artist: IQ Nationality: English Year: 1997 Chronology: 6 The Trollheart Factor: 1 Track Listing: Overture/Provider/Subterranea/Sleepless Incidental/Failsafe/Speak My Name/Tunnel Vision/Infernal Chorus/King of Fools/The Sense in Sanity/State of Mine/Laid Low/Breathtaker/Capricorn/The Other Side/Unsolid Ground/Somewhere in Time/High Waters/The Narrow Margin Comments: Leave it to me to choose, not only a concept, but a double album for my 1990s offering! I’ve tried to get into IQ before but always ended up bored. Let’s see if this one can pique my interest. Apparently the story concerns a guy held captive underground and subject to experiments, don’t know why, who is released into the general populace while still under observation. Kicks off with an instrumental, the “Overture”, which is pretty good, then a short, voice and synth only track to take us into the title, which drives along nicely, some good vocal harmonies, lovely sax break, then slowing down for “Sleepless Incidental”, quite stripped back with mostly acoustic guitar for the first two minutes, then it breaks into a keyboard freakout. More aggressive in its way is “Failsafe”, one of the longer tracks at nearly nine minutes (though nowhere near the longest!) with a lot of sharp guitar and punching keyboards, gets a little Spock’s Beard as it goes along. The first ballad comes in “Speak My Name”, relatively short and quite simple but enjoyable, then “Tunnel Vision” turns the heat back on again, grinding guitars and a slightly snarly vocal, “Infernal Chorus” keeps this pressure up with a lot of romping synth and then a slight interlude for “King of Fools” before vibraphone takes us into “The Sense of Sanity” with a feeling of Peter Gabriel’s “San Jacinto” and a final powerful instrumental to end the first disc. Another instrumental to kick off disc 2 then “Breathtaker” rocks out and strides along nicely with an almost new-wave sensibility in the music, while “Capricorn” is a little more restrained, though with a lot of passion in the vocal. Another short instrumental in “The Other Side”, then for a moment it sounds like Marillion’s “Garden Party” is starting, but it’s the AOR-influenced “Unsolid Ground”, which is pretty good to be fair. I can’t say an awful lot about “Somewhere in Time” other than it’s fairly mid-paced and I think guitar driven, but as usual with IQ I’m finding it hard to keep my attention on the album. “High Waters” is a piano ballad which leads into the closer, by far the longest track. “The Narrow Margin” runs for twenty minutes, and you know it’s probably really good, but I just have this thing about IQ; find it very hard to keep my interest on their music. Track(s) I liked: Honestly I think I liked most of them but I couldn’t pick one out individually. Maybe “Unsolid Ground”? Track(s) I didn't like: See above One standout: Maybe “Unsolid Ground” One rotten apple: Nah Overall impression: You know, I chose this album to try to see if this general boredom I experience with IQ had changed or if it could. It hasn’t, and I don’t know if it ever will. I’m pretty sure it’s a good, even great album, but the problem for me is that it’s a good, or even great IQ album, so it tends to make less of an impression on me. I don’t know what it is, but I usually measure the worth of an album, or at least the impact it has, or doesn’t have, on me, by the amount of songs I’m singing after it’s over. I can’t even remember any of these. Rating: 7/10 Future Plan: I’m going to keep trying to get into this band. Maybe it’s just a case of finding the right album of theirs and it will all fall into place. Yeah. |
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Leaping seven years forward to https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...gon_-_Pure.jpg Album title: Pure Artist: Pendragon Nationality: English Year: 2008 Chronology: 8 Track Listing: Indigo/Eraserhead/Comatose (i) View From the Seashore (ii) Space Cadet (iii) Home and Dry/The Freak Show/It’s Only Me Comments: The first thing you notice about this album is its heaviness. Up until now, Pendragon have not been a band noted for their aggression or power; they’ve had powerful songs, yes, but being a progressive rock band has usually meant being not quite so much restrained or idyllic, but certainly not in your face. Pure changes all that. With a grinding guitar riff, the repeated sound of a dog barking and a bleak lyric, it’s an indication of the direction this band are heading as the first decade of the twenty-first century nears its end. There’s a sense of drama, even danger to this album and the guitar is definitely front and centre. “Indigo” marches along with a swagger that shows a statement of intent from Pendragon, that they mean to be very much relevant in these changing times. Thankfully, however, melody and form have not been sacrificed for aggression, and it’s the same band, just a sort of version 2.0 which perhaps began with 2005’s Believe, as Nick begins to tackle more real-world and political issues, something which will continue through their next albums and get more prevalent as time goes on. Interesting that the opener, despite not being a suite, is the longest, clocking in at nearly fourteen minutes, also that there is just the one suite on the album, and it’s up soon. First though the biting “Eraserhead” keeps up the pressure, some nice introspective guitar passages leavening it out, but it’s hard to ignore the anger in this song. The three-part “Comatose” opens with a soft, reflective memory in “The View From the Seashore” riding on Nolan’s lovely piano melody before slipping into the dark, gritty “Space Cadet” which seems to me to look back to the previous “Eraserhead” and focuses on the prelude to a school shooting, ending in a powerful spoken “On Monday, I’m taking in a gun” before sighing its way into the final part, “Home and Dry”, where Nick paints his scorn of religion in loud and proud brush strokes across this masterpiece. “The Freak Show” again comes in on hard, punchy guitar and references memories, insecurities, dreams, and the album ends on the obligatory ballad, which has certainly been worth waiting right to the end for. “It’s Just Me” is another look back to the past, with some really nice harmonica and perhaps a statement of band unity when Nick sings “We are a band of brothers.” May they never break up. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: Possibly “Indigo” One rotten apple: Nah Overall impression: A different side to Pendragon; heavier, more aggressive and more politically-directed in terms of the lyrics. A natural progression from Believe and leading on to Passion, four years later. Almost perfect. Rating: 9.8/10 |
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https://media3.giphy.com/media/26uf2...UTm0/giphy.gif Time to take a random prog album from the air. Spin the wheel and see where it lands. Let’s see. First spin give us H, then we need a vowel and it’s O. Another spin gives us U. HO-U.Using Prog Archives’ artists list, that gives us five to choose from: Hour of the Shipwreck, Hourglass, House of Not, House of Rabbits and House of Usher. Spinning a 1 gives us then these guys. https://img.discogs.com/hgCNMrEzwg5Y...-9227.jpeg.jpg Album title: The Hour is Upon Us Artist: The Hour of the Shipwreck Nationality: American Year: 2008 Chronology: 1 The Trollheart Factor: 0 Track Listing: The Chandelier Suite/Save the World/My Fantasy/Soft Napalm Pillow Dreams/Mt. Davidson/Flying/Unclouded Eyes Comments: I have never even heard of these guys before, and this appears to be their only album, released as it was over ten years ago with no followup. A nice kind of Danny Elfman opening before soft acoustic guitar is joined by very soulful vocal and then building percussion as we enter “The Chandelier Suite”, and it’s a nice start I must say. It powers up after a while and hell yes it’s very impressive, some great guitar work here from either Richie Kohan or Marcel Camargo. The vocal harmonies are nice on “Save the World” with a lovely piano and violin intro, and there’s a much heavier feel to “My Fantasy”. Definitely like what I hear so far. It’s interesting to see instruments mentioned here like glockenspiel and autoharp, even a pump organ, and the soundscape is certainly full and rich. “Soft Napalm Pillow Dreams”, in addition to being a very weird title for a song, has a real sense of Dan Fogelberg about the vocal, trips along nicely, while “Mt. Davidson” is a lot more acoustic and laid back, with a feel of early Genesis to it, and some great choral vocals - is that a choir? I don’t know: a conductor is credited but no orchestra or choir -oh wait: Discogs tells me that yes, there is a choir - “Choir of the Shipwreck”. Nice. This choir is then used to great effect on “Flying”, which has some very impassioned vocals, the album then ending (too soon) on “Unclouded Eyes” with some really nice, um, glockenspiel? If I have one small complaint it’s the sudden stops, often to allow vocals alone for a few seconds, and they can get a little obtrusive and annoying, but other than that, pretty damn good and it’s a pity they only put out the one album. Track(s) I liked: everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: n/a One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: A very competent album by a band who really should have been better known and more successful. Almost a kind of hard ambient, if you can imagine such a thing. Definite elements of Big Big Train at their most pastoral, and while they can get loud they can never really be accused of rocking out. Mostly it’s gentle, atmospheric music, well written and played, and well sung. Quite a find for my first random selection. Rating: 9.5/10 Future Plan: n/a |
Originally posted in The Playlist of Life, December 18 2011
The City Sleeps --- Touchstone --- 2011 (SPV) http://www.progarchives.com/progress...91592011_r.jpg Although they've been together since about 2001, Touchstone's first album proper wasn't released until 2007, while their second, 2009's Wintercoast earned rave reviews and widened the band's fanbase considerably. This, then, is their third, and the first released on a major label, which if handled correctly should see Touchstone go from strength to strength and gain even more fans. At heart a progressive rock/metal band with symphonic overtones, Touchstone are fronted by Kim Seviour, who may be small in stature but certainly not in voice. She and the original founding member Rob Cottingham form the nucleus and present the face of the band, despite her having only joined in 2007, kind of the same way Mostly Autumn is represented by Bryan Josh and Heather Findlay, or was, before Heather's departure to pursue a solo career. The album opens with strong Marillion influences in the guitar and keys, circa Script and Fugazi, and it's some pretty powerful guitar courtesy of Adam Hodgson that gets “Corridors” underway, then Kim Seviour's clear, sharp vocals cut in and you can see why she's being touted as one of the most promising “new” female vocalists. It's almost Nightwish or Edenbridge, but with a softer edge, less emphasis on the operatic side of the vocals and more on the rock singer. “Corridors” is a fast, uptempo rocker with some really great guitar parts, but it's Cottingham's keyboard work that really reminds me of Fish-era Marillion, or maybe early Pendragon. One of the longest tracks is up next, ten minutes of “When Shadows Fall”, which starts off very slowly and quietly, building like the approach of a coming train, chiming keys and choral voices gradually getting louder and more powerful, with guitar coming in, quite reminiscent of “The King of Sunset Town” from Marillion's Holidays in Eden. Yes, there are quite a few comparisons to be made with Marillion here, which is no bad thing. It's almost two minutes before hard guitar chords and feedback guitar announce what must be the beginning proper of the song, then as suddenly they're gone, replaced by tinkling piano, then that's joined by angry guitar and loud, loud drums, and abruptly the keyboards cut in as Cottingham does a fantastic impression of Tony Banks at his most classic. It's almost four minutes before we hear Kim Seviour, but when she starts singing she takes over the song, both with her vocals and her personality. You just can't really listen to anything else once she opens her mouth. The song has by now become a fast rocker, the keys of Cottingham carrying it on a synth-rock infused wave of pomp and melody, then he switches to piano for a beautiful but short little run as the whole song slows down, Hodgson's guitar taking the main melody as Cottingham joins Seviour on the mike. More gorgeous piano, then Cottingham takes over the vocals, Josh-like, before Hodgson launches into an inspired solo, piano keeping pace with him as Seviour goes back on vocals, backed by Cottingham. It's a real prog-rock masterpiece, and worth the price of the album on its own. “These Walls”, on the other hand, is far less intricate, a straightforward rocker with snarly guitar and an impassioned vocal from Seviour. “Throw Them to the Sky” is another good rocker, full of guitar hooks and with a nice vocal passage by Cottingham in the middle, though Seviour takes main vocal duties on this song, like most of Touchstone's material. Some very brassy keyboard gives the song a feeling of later eighties Yes, while “Sleeping Giants” slows things down with some sweet pizzicato strings on the keyboard from Cottingham and some really nice digital piano in the first ballad on the album, with a truly exceptional keyboard solo and some great guitar providing a really dramatic and energetic song. “Good Boy Psycho” opens with some frenetic guitar and keys, then settles into a nice mid-pacer, with some pretty heavy guitar work from Adam Hodgson against some progressive keyboard from Cottingham. Never in any danger of getting lost in this musical interplay, Kim Seviour's voice rises high above it all, coasting on the wave and singing out clearly and powerfully, always grabbing the attention. I would, however, single this out as my least favourite track on the album, in fact the only track so far that I haven't been totally impressed with. Just seems a little confused, jumping from idea to idea without any really clear direction. “Horizons” doesn't suffer from any such problems, powerful and gritty throughout, and “Half Moon Meadow” is a lovely half-ballad, where Rob joins Kim on vocals and they perform a rather outstanding duet. Something very Mostly Autumn about this song, even the melody is quite evocative of Bryan Josh's guitar playing. The song ends on a great combined guitar and keyboard solo, and leads us into the title track, an eleven-minute opus. It goes through some major changes along the way, and features some pretty stunning vocal poetry by Kim as they hark back to the last album, Wintercoast, continuing the story begun there. The album ends on a little instrumental, called “Corridors Epiphany”. It's interesting but the record would not have been any the poorer had it been left off. A bit of a distraction, but I guess it forms a sort of a coda to the album and to the title track. I'm very impressed with this. It's the first Touchstone album I've managed to listen to, and now I want to hear more. It's both very up-to-date in its sound and firmly rooted in the progressive rock of the early eighties as already mentioned. Kim Seviour is a fine vocalist and with the rest of the band performing as they do here, I think it may not been too long before we hear about Touchstone outside of rock circles. Remember the name! TRACK LISTING 1. Corridors 2. When Shadows Fall 3. These Walls 4. Throw Them to the Sky 5. Sleeping Giants 6. Good Boy Psycho 7. Horizons 8. Half Moon Meadow 9. The City Sleeps 10. Corridors Epiphany |
No matter what kind of music fan you are, it's a given that you're never going to like every single album you hear in your favourite genre, and this is no less the case with prog. While I've enjoyed most albums I've heard, there have been more than a few that have totally disappointed or just bored me, and here they'll be signposted by
https://media0.giphy.com/media/l41JN...Fdf32/200w.gif so that you know in advance that what's coming is going to be less than complimentary. Here's one I hadn't the highest hopes for. I was right not to. Originally posted in the Playlist of Life under Keyboard Wizards, April 20 2012 (Some slight edits) Oceana --- Derek Sherinian --- 2011 (Music Theories) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...1_-_Oceana.jpg Longtime keyboardist with Dream Theater up to 1999, Derek Sherinian has gone on to found both Planet X and Black Country Communion, and in addition has released seven solo albums, of which this is the most recent. For this album he has gathered together some stellar talent, including Steve Lukather and Steve Stevens on guitars, as well as Tony Franklin and Jimmy Johnson on bass. Sherinian has been called “King of the Keys” by Guitar World magazine, in deference to the rock and almost guitar approach he takes to playing keyboards, and indeed you can hear that right away on opener “Five Elements”, where he easily matches the guitar work of guest Tony McAlpine as he pounds along on a mid-paced rocker which he peppers with a very jazzy piano solo halfway in, showing off his expertise on the piano. Now I'm no fan of jazz, but I have to admit Sherinian knows how to play the keys! The track returns to rock for the ending, borne mostly on deep organ, with “Mercury 7” coming on on a fast, almost Vangelis-on-speed synth, with nice guitar riffs again from McAlpine, the song rocking along nicely with solid drumming and squealing guitar, getting a nice progressive rock feeling as it rockets along. ”Mulholland” swaggers along on a sort of walking, stride blues/boogie beat, with some elements of jazz thrown in for good measure, guitar duties this time taken by Lukather, Sherinian's keys going back to the organ melody of the previous track, with a nice little honky-tonk solo right in the middle. Gives me the impression of Steely Dan meets ELP, if you can envisage that, or your ears can! “Euphoria” has much more of a Floyd feel, Lukather doing a passable Gilmour impression at the start, and it's a lot slower, the first slow piece in fact. But instrumental albums by their very nature can be terribly boring, and it takes a lot I find to listen to one all the way through. I think Vangelis is about the only one I can listen to again and again; even my favourite keyboard players like Tony Banks or Tony Carey use vocals on their albums most, if not all of the time. I find my attention starting to wander when there's no vocal to tie the music together - although I love a good instrumental, but a whole album? Hard to maintain the interest. Also very hard to review, as you're so restricted in what you can say. For what it is, “Euphoria” is a nice change of pace, but it does seem a little overindulgent - the old problem I find with Dream Theater, it would appear, has followed an ex-member into his own solo work, much to my disappointment. Perhaps some habits are harder to break than others. Still, it takes a lot of self-discipline to keep concentrating on the music and to find things to say about it. To his credit, there are only nine tracks, and no epic monsters: nothing here is over six minutes, but even so, six minutes multiplied by nine is forty-five minutes (roughly) of just instrumental music. Tough call. “Ghost Runner” gets things up and, er, running again, with a splendid solo from the third guitar man to guest on Sherinian's album, the great Steve Stevens. It's a fast, rocky little number with of course plenty of keyboard fills and twiddling, but really it's Stevens' agility on the frets that makes this song what it is. “I Heard That” has a mildly interesting mix of reggae and jazz, with some very good guitar from Joe Bonamassa, while “Seven Sins” revisits Sherinian's prog roots with DT, a nice heavy Hammond and some very seventies-style keyboards, and the title, and closing track, finally introduces a recognisable melody, rather than just a sense of musicians jamming, but at this point it's way too late. I've lost all interest now and am just waiting for the album to end. You could be kind and say that this album is a display of pure musical expressionism, or you could be unkind and say it's technical wankery and showoffism (is that a word? It is now) where the players just outdo each other to demonstrate how great they are, what notes they can play, how versatile they can be on their instruments. But whichever is the case, in my opinion it makes for a very sterile and boring album. More to the point, being the solo effort from a keyboard player, I found myself hearing more of the guitar than the keyboard, and that surely can't be good? TRACK LISTING 1. Five Elements 2. Mercury 7 3. Mulholland 4. Euphoria 5. Ghost Runner 6. El Camino Diablo 7. I Heard That 8. Seven Sins 9. Oceana |
And so we return to our
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640 https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....EL._SY355_.jpg Album title: The Masquerade Overture Artist: Pendragon Nationality: English Year: 1996 Chronology: 5 Track Listing: The Masquerade Overture/As Good as Gold/Paintbox/The Pursuit of Excellence/Guardian of My Soul/The Shadow/Masters of Illusion/Schizo Comments: Generally seen as one of their best albums, it’s like with Genesis and Selling England by the Pound - I disagree. It’s a good album, certainly, but for me well behind other efforts, including the oft-maligned Kowtow. Positioned more or less squarely in the middle of their discography, it shows Pendragon as a growing force in prog rock, but there are songs on it I don’t personally like. It kicks off with the title track, and overture it is, complete with orchestra and operatic chorus, very moving, taking us into, rather unfortunately, “As Good as Gold”, which is a real misnomer and as bad a Pendragon track as I’ve come across to date. I just hate it. It’s uptempo, boppy and completely throwaway. The fans who complained about the “trite poppiness” of Kowtow should have been directing their ire at this song, though I will say that it’s at its worst when they edit it down to the basics, as on the bonus tracks. Here the full version has something about it, with a nice piano intro but once you get to the meat of the matter it’s nothing to write home about. “Paintbox” is much better, with a very reflective feel to it, Nick on top form vocally, some great keyboard work from Nolan, while I have issues with “The Pursuit of Excellence”, which not only sounds as if they’ve filched the main melody - and indeed the lyric - from some Irish traditional song about emigration, but also runs along very similar lines to Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms”. Poor, really, and didn’t they already cover this subject on The World five years ago, when they penned “The Voyager”? The pipes only add to the Celtic feel of the song; well at least it’s short, shortest on the album in fact. And it just about wraps up what might be considered (certainly by me) the weaker half of this record. The three remaining tracks are all epics, in one way or the other. “Guardian of my Soul” runs for nearly thirteen minutes, and though it starts quite uptempo and rocky it soon settles into a gentle, relaxing rhythm, but again the ghost of Pink Floyd raises its head, where they quite clearly rob the main melody from “Sorrow” off the Momentary Lapse of Reason album. Being as long as it is, of course, it doesn’t stay relaxing and goes through some considerable changes along the way, allowing both Nick and Clive to show off their prowess, then “The Shadow” puts in a good ten minutes, opening on soft piano and gentle vocal, I like the kind of nursery rhyme rhythm in the third minute, and the sort of waltz feel of it too. Still, while I don’t want to keep harping on about the musical plagiarism idea (yes I do) isn’t that a reworking of the closing section of Genesis’s “Entangled” at the end? Finally, “Masters of Illusion” manages to be the longest track, but only beating out “Guardian of My Soul” by a mere nine seconds. Much of it comes across as a slightly slower version of “Saved by You” though, and it is quite repetitive; not sure it needs to be seconds short of thirteen minutes long. I wouldn’t call it filler by any means but still. In fairness, it does change and morph almost entirely into another song around the five-minute mark, so maybe its length is justified. It might be that I’ve heard the edited version of this and it sounds pretty much all right on its own, so this seems a little dragged out to me. They also use those Pink Floyd-trademarked female backing vocals/choir again, with a very Gilmouresque guitar solo from Nick into the bargain. Reminds me a little of the end of “Comfortably Numb” I think. Normally I tend to ignore bonus tracks, and to be honest the tracks added on this one deserve to be ignored: edited versions of “As Good as Gold” (only decent because it’s shorter), “The Shadow” (going under the title of “King of the Castle - The Shadow Part 2”) and as already mentioned, the closer, “Masters of Illusion.” However, there is one new track, and it’s actually one of my favourites of theirs, which is why I hate to diss it but I must. Because “Schizo” is basically Floyd’s “Learning to Fly”, ripping off not only both the guitar riff and melody but also, again, those backing vocals, which only serve to emphasise how much like the Floyd song it is. It’s pretty shocking to be honest and I just can’t get my head around how a talented band like Pendragon keep having to rip other bands off. And it must be deliberate: once you could call coincidence, twice maybe unlucky, but I can point to at least half a dozen instances of this wholesale use of other people’s music in their discography, and that’s not good. Track(s) I liked: The Masquerade Overture/Paintbox/Guardian of My Soul/The Shadow/Schizo Track(s) I didn't like: As Good as Gold/The Pursuit of Excellence One standout: Can’t really decide, but despite what I say above maybe “Schizo”, though that’s only a bonus track One rotten apple: “As Good as Gold”, all day long. I hate it. Overall impression: A very good Pendragon album but as with SEBTP I don’t see the love it gets. It’s not by any means their best album in my opinion, and while it has a lot (a lot) to recommend it, I see a good few weak spots and it would not even for me be as good as Kowtow or The World. Rating: 8.2/10 |
Originally Posted in Bitesize January 25 2013
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ee_signify.jpg Artist: Porcupine Tree Nationality: British (English) Album: Signify Year: 1996 Label: Delirium Tracks: Bornlivedie Signify The Sleep of No Dreaming Pagan Waiting Phase One Waiting Phase Two Sever Idiot Prayer Every Home is Wired Intermediate Jesus Light Mass Prayers Dark Matter Chronological position: Fourth album Familiarity: Fear of a Blank Planet Interesting factoid: This was the first album on which there was a full band; prior to this the other three albums were all more or less Steven Wilson solo efforts (though under the PT banner) with various session musicians. Initial impression: Um...? Best track(s): Sleep of No Dreaming, Signify, Waiting Phase One, Idiot Prayer, Every Home is Wired, Light Mass Prayers, Dark Matter Worst track(s): Nothing bad. Some weird ones. Bornlivedie is a bit odd, as is Intermediate Jesus Comments: I've had this strange relationship going with Porcupine Tree for a few years now. Initially I thought they were a new band (!) but on downloading their discography it quickly became apparent they've been around for some time. 1987 in fact, although their first album proper didn't hit the shops till four years later. In that time they've established themselves as one of the most innovative and forward-looking rock bands on the planet, almost literally the quintessential progressive rock band. Nevertheless, apart from one album (as above) I've never listened to anything of theirs all the way through; it's been playlists and songs taken out of context. Time to change that. Some of the material here is purely instrumental, as in the title track, some just weird electronic sounds and tape loops, as in the opener, and then there are ballads, out-and-out rockers, psychedelic and space rock numbers, and everything in between. Through and above it all shines the undeniable presence and genius of the band's founder, Steven Wilson, and you only have to listen to his latest solo album, Grace for Drowning, to hear how eclectic his influences are, and how many different genres and sub-genres make it into his music. There are elements of Pink Floyd (of course) in "Sleep with No Dreaming", with a dramatic, threatening bass line from Colin Edwin, while "Waiting Phase One" sounds to me more like the more mellow sound of current Hogarth-era Marillion, with strong acoustic guitar and a sense of folk in the mix. Its companion piece, "Waiting Phase Two" is completely instrumental and runs for over six minutes on a funky bass and calypso-style drumbeat. It's pretty amazing that Porcupine Tree can have six and seven minute instrumentals on this album, and they don't ever get boring. Taking very much from the Floyd playbook, they use tape loops, sound effects, recordings and other gadgets to fill out the tracks, and yet they don't seem like they're just being used as filler material. These instrumentals really work as pieces in their own right: witness the pretty incredible "Idiot Prayer", not to mention the stunning "Light Mass Prayers": these guys know how to construct a piece of music! The jury remains out for me on Porcupine Tree. Some of their music I love, some just comes across as too weird, but there's no doubting their honesty and integrity, and it's clear much time goes into each of their compositions. No band to write hit singles, they! I think I may just have to spend a little more time submerged in their world to get a feel for what the rest of their work is, but I have this feeling I'm going to enjoy it. Mostly. Overall impression: A varied album, with some great and innovative instrumentals, some powerful tracks and obviously a lot of heart and soul in their music. Intention: Probably going Up the Downstair next, then may switch on the Lightbulb Sun. We'll see where it goes after that. |
Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, December 6 2016
http://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.pro...16_r.jpg&w=175 Evership – Evership – 2016 I'm always just a little wary of bands using the word “ever” in their name. There are so many – Evertale, Everfriend, Evergrey, Everon, Everwood, Everflame .. the list goes on. It seems to be one of the most popular prefixes for prog and power metal bands, conjuring up images of sword-and-sorcery, mythology and fantastic creatures. Reading up on this one however, there seems to be a pretty lavish history behind it, with composer and multi-instrumentalist Shane Atkinson having made music mostly his life during the eighties and nineties, then dropped it to concentrate on software production, at which he found himself extremely talented. The music in his head however, he says, haunted him during his success and he knew he had to get it out to the world. So making some major lifestyle changes and building his own recording studio, and indeed creating a company to finance his debut album, the Evership project was born. Ten years and more in the making, it's a little odd that the article on ProgArchives speaks of his hope that the album might be released in 2017, and yet here it is on their list, so I can only assume it made it ahead of time. Oh, I see they're talking about the vinyl album; the digital release has already hit. In typical prog fashion, this debut album only has six tracks, with three of them broken up into suites. Even so, that's still just short of one hour of music altogether. We open on “Silver light”, with a rising guitar and orchestral sound, almost, but not quite, like an orchestra tuning up, and this stretches on for almost a minute before what I think may be theremin comes into the mix (though with the amount of instruments played here, including something that's called “experimental guitar” I could very well be wrong!) and then the vocal comes in. This really grabs your attention, a high, powerful mix of Benoit David and Justin Hayward as Beau West takes control of the song, which begins to rock under the powerful guitar riffs and insistent percussion. Apart from Atkinson and his brother, the latter of whom plays most of the guitars, there are two other guitarists here, and a full choir, so it's quite the wall of sound with yet a kind of progressive metal feel. The opener itself is over nine minutes long, but never seems to drag, and is full of clever musical ideas, as you would probably expect from someone who has composed for film and TV for most of his life, some very seventies-sounding melodies which recall the best of Genesis and Yes, with lovely violin from Nicelle Preibe adding to the overall sonic mosaic being woven here. The next track is one of those multi-part suites, but as there are no timings shown it may be hard to know where one part ends and the next begins. The overall thing is called “A slow descent into reality”, and opens on quite Jonathan Cainesque piano, certainly more what I would call AOR than prog, but then Atkinson doesn't claim to play prog necessarily, just music he likes. After what I take to be the sound of a car crashing (Spock's Beard on Octane?) we get a more ripply piano more or less solo with the vocal, then some a good thick synth line as the vocal continues in a slightly softer vein before the keys run off on their own. I definitely get flavours of Sean Filkins' solo album here, especially in the female backing vocals and the narrative of the song. About halfway through now and a big meaty synth line takes over before acoustic guitar joins in and the vocal returns; very Yes this, I feel. Powerful stuff. The choir adds its voice now as we head into the eighth minute and then a kind of Rushesque (circa 2112 or Hemispheres) guitar instrumental section followed by a real workout on the organ. Everything stops completely at just over the tenth minute mark as West screams ”There must be something beyond!” introducing another extended instrumental, which really allows Shane Atkinson to show what he can do on the drumkit. And so we move into the denouement of the piece, and it all fades away, after all that, very quietly and simply. “Evermore” reminds me of nothing more than the very best of Tony Banks, especially on his solo album A Curious Feeling, and is another long track, just over ten minutes but this time only broken into two. It begins with an extended instrumental which breaks down into a single piano line as West comes in with the vocal, Josh Groban-like, very gentle but strong at the same time. Nice backing vocals too, possibly the choir although I don't think so somehow. Around the fourth minute it kicks up a gear, hard electric guitar coming in and rocking the whole thing, joined by keyboards. Sounds like my favourite, mandolin, in the seventh minute, though in general I would have to say I'm not as impressed with this as I was with the first two tracks. It's good, but somehow it just isn't quite grabbing me in the same way the other two did. “Utima thule” is also ten minutes plus, and it opens with a nice acoustic guitar with some ambient sounds, the vocal gentle and relaxed behind a peaceful piano line. Quite pastoral, and definitely the closest this album has so far come to a ballad, though with a length of ten minutes I guess it could easily change. And it looks like it's about to, as hammering percussion pulls in electric guitar and the pace is picked up. Here's where the choir really shines, laying down a sumptuous vocal backdrop against which Atkinson plays some serious keyboard flurries before it all settles down again and Ncelle's violin takes us to the conclusion, and into the last, and longest, track we go. It's another multi-part suite, which goes under the umbrella title of “Flying machine”, and runs for just shy of fourteen minutes. A nice rippling guitar and keyboard line get us started, with angelic vocal harmonies coming in to supplement Beau West's singing, slight touches of folk about the melody. More serene violin and what sounds like uileann pipes (though none are credited; could it be the theremin?) then things begin to get more intense as we move into the fourth minute, the choir blasting out before we head into I guess the second of the three parts of the suite, opening with birdsong and muted voices and effects, distant violin and then louder, darker voices. A rising guitar pulls us in and then it's a building instrumental section up to the seventh minute, when it briefly explodes as West asks ”Are you sure it won't fall down?”, immediately followed by a soft guitar line and then expanding on the sung line and developing the theme on electric guitar with a rocky feel to it. We're now in the eighth minute. Things slow down now on a kind of melancholy line, a certain sense of The Alan Parsons Project detectable in the melody, at least to me, and then it takes off again like the machine in the title, soaring and swooping through various instrumental passages as it heads towards its eventual conclusion. That leaves us with by far the shortest track on the album to close with, less than two minutes of the oddly-named “Approach”. Surely such a track would have been better at the beginning of the album rather than the end? As it happens, it's noting more than a sound effect really, synth or guitar feedback setting up the impression of something, well, approaching. A little disappointing to say the least. TRACK LISTING 1. Silver light 2. A slow descent into reality (i) Everyman (ii) A slow descent (iii) Wisdom of the ages (iv) Honest with me (v) The battle within (vi) Anyman 3. Evermore (i) Eros (ii) Agape 4. Ultima Thule 5. Flying machine (i) Dreamcarriers (ii) Dream sequence (iii) Lift 6. Approach I suppose I had expected, given all I've read about this guy, to be more impressed than I have been. It's a decent album and there are some really good ideas in it, and for a debut it is pretty good. I just didn't find myself blown away by it. Perhaps it's the old first-time-listen syndrome, and it will grow on me with repeated listens. If I decided to repeat the experience. Still, a very competent album and on the strength of what's here, and given what Atkinson has sacrificed to be where he is today, I'd say it deserves its place just outside the top twenty. Definitely worth a listen. More than that? I really can't say at this time. |
As probably everyone knows, I have literally thousands of albums on my hard disk waiting to be listened to. Some of them may be there, still untackled, after I die. But I’d like to make a start here by choosing one and, as it were, diving into the pile.
https://i.imgur.com/aX33F63.gif Hopefully I won’t come off as badly as Peter Griffin did above, though I imagine there will be some of these albums that will very much fail to live up to any expectations I may have had. Still, the only way to find out is to start chipping away… https://media1.tenor.com/images/4ff9...temid=13851655 So here I go. https://img.discogs.com/j90d2DrZRc3Y...-7767.jpeg.jpg Album title: Silverfade Artist: The Dreaming Tree Nationality: English Year: 2015 Chronology: 4 The Trollheart Factor: 0 Why did I download this? I liked the name, and it reminded me of several other “trees” - the song “The Hanging Tree” on Arena’s 1998 albumThe Visitor, Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman’s album The Wishing Tree, and the band The Winter Tree, to name but a few. Track Listing: Yesterday’s Tomorrow/Heart Shaped Bruises/Yours to Find/Forever Not Forever/Cherry Winters/Autumn Haze/Higgs/Jaded Summer Long/Every Minute Lost/Loose it Off/Song in 7/The Ocean/Kosovo/Zero to Type One Comments: Okay well it sounds a little more like, I don’t know, a heavier Spandau Ballet when “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” begins. That’s not anything bad, but it sure doesn’t sound like prog rock to me, not even the prog pop of the likes of It Bites. I do like it though. Yeah it continues really rocky, the organs add some prog street cred but it’s sort of hard to see this as anything other than a straight pop rock album at the moment. “Heart Shaped Bruises” (hardly a prog song title) doesn’t do anything to change that, though again I really like it. Let’s see: Discogs calls this prog rock all right, but Prog Archives describes it as Crossover Prog. Probably closer to the truth I feel. “Yours to Find” is another good uptempo track (wondering what these guys do with a ballad) with some very, er, ringy guitar, and now we may find out how they handle ballads, as Forever Not Forever” starts off slow and gentle, with a really lovely reflective guitar and synth sounds - oh but now the guitar is riffing and the percussion… nah, forget it. Another rocker. Well not quite. It does slow down after a bit into a kind of jazzy groove, and there’s some pretty superb guitar and a really nice piano passage. More of what can only be called jazz guitar on “Cherry Winters”, which might be the first track here I don’t like no I’m wrong, the chorus/bridge changes it totally. Don’t like the verse though. Ooh! Some really nice squealy organ, almost Bontempi. Retro! Superb blues guitar solo. Almost heavy metal then for “Autumn Haze”, stomping along like a good thing, but it’s very basic rock and I can’t see this as any sort of prog. It’s completely guitar-driven, hardly even a role for the synth at all. Nah. Don’t like this one, not one bit. Okay there’s the organ now, but it’s definitely playing second fiddle, and yes, I’m aware that’s a mixed metaphor. “Higgs” doesn’t do anything for me either, but at least it’s short, as is the next one, just over a minute and a half, though “Jaded Summer Long” doesn’t do anything to re-establish the quality I was hearing from the beginning of the album, almost a punkish style to it. Not for me. I have higher hopes for “Every Minute Lost”, with a Jadis-lite sound, and a Pink Floyd style female vocal halfway. Yeah, much better. Not that it could have got much worse, to be honest. Let’s hope we’ve plumbed the depths, reached the valley floor and are now heading back on up the hill. Well, I don’t know. “Loose it Off” (huh?) sounds kind of like a country music ballad, quite the Eagles feel to the vocal harmonies. I mean, again, I like it, in fact I really like it, but there’s no way I would consider it prog of any shape. Hmm. Now it’s turned into a kind of rocky rap. Very strange but quite appealing. “Song in 7” (again, huh?) is also very good, nice sharp guitar with quite the punch, while “The Ocean” kicks off with some lovely harmonica and gives me hope this may be the ballad I’ve been waiting for. Yeah it is. And it’s been worth waiting for too. “Kosovo” is pretty laid back too, not what I would have expected I must say. Gets pretty intense and dramatic later; one of the better tracks for sure, so it can be said that after a considerable dip this album is aiming to finish strongly. Well maybe not quite: “Zero to Type One” is a pretty heavy-handed “better wise up or we’re all going to die” sort of song which doesn’t do a lot for me, but it’s not terrible. Still, the album could have ended so much more strongly. Track(s) I liked: “Yesterday’s Tomorrow/Heart Shaped Bruises/Yours to Find/Forever Not Forever/Every Minute Lost/Loose it Off/Song in 7/The Ocean/Kosovo” Track(s) I didn't like: “Autumn Haze/Higgs/Jaded Summer Long” One standout: “The Ocean” One rotten apple: “Autumn Haze” Overall impression: A really good album but I struggle to recognise or describe it as prog. Just seems more like straight-forward rock or even pop rock with the odd bit of proggy keyboard thrown in. No suites, no odd time signatures, no particularly strange lyrics. Enjoyable, but not prog, not for me. Rating: 8.5/10 Future Plan: Probably unlikely to listen to the rest of their material but I don’t regret having listened to this. |
The month (and indeed the year) is fast disappearing, so let's get back to our
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640 and jump back three years from the last Pendragon album we looked at. Yeah, let's take a squint through https://discobole.gr/images/thumbnai...ow_of_life.jpg Album title: The Window of Life Artist: Pendragon Nationality: English Year: 1993 Chronology: 4 Track Listing: Walls of Babylon/Ghosts/Breaking the Spell/The Last Man on Earth/Nostradamus (Stargazing)/Am I Really Losing You Comments: This album highlights one of the bugbears - perhaps the only - I have with this band, encapsulated mostly in the opening track, which we’ll get to. In terms of those, it’s quite short on them, only a total of six actual songs, though two are in the double-figure minutes range, and a third comes close. It opens on “The Walls of Babylon”, which has a dramatic organ start then kicks up nicely, though it ends pretty awful really. My problem is where they basically rip off Supertramp, word for word and melody for melody from the song “Hide in Your Shell” off the Crime of the Century album, to say nothing of a very “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” opening, and a shameless rip off of Genesis on “Watcher of the Skies”. Sigh. Plagiarism times three on one track. Ruins an otherwise pretty damn good song, Lovely piano work from Clive Nolan on “Ghosts” nut here again the old problem rears its head, as they clearly copy Genesis on “Firth of Fifth” with a keyboard riff just basically stolen from that song. Oh, and the opening to “Dance on a Volcano” too. Double sigh, perhaps triple sigh. It’s hard to take these (admittedly very good) songs on their own merits where Pendragon are so liberally helping themselves from the pot of ideas cooked up by their elders. “Breaking the Spell” is the first, so far as I can see, on the album to have all original ideas, and it’s the better for it, allowing Barrett to really show what he can do on the guitar. From one epic to another, the longest in fact, as “The Last Man on Earth” runs for almost fifteen minutes, and as it contains the title I always imagined it was the title track. In fact, there is none but that doesn’t matter. If there’s a central theme song to the album this is it. It opens with a soft, lush section and then kicks into a more uptempo vein, though again I have to mark the Genesis influences with the midsection where they reuse the outro from “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight”. Just cant get away from the desire to copy Genesis, it seems. Also a harkback to The Wall’s “Waiting for the Worms” before it again jumps into rocking life and ends very well to be fair. I really like the build-up to “Nostradamus (Stargazing)” with again a bouncy beat and simplicity that looks back to “Saved by You” and “Back in the Spotlight”, but hiding within the basic almost commercial melody are layers of sounds and ideas perhaps not at first apparent. The album then closes on a sumptuous, aching little ballad, “Am I Really Losing You” ending with the most beautiful little echoey guitar fade-out I’ve heard in a while. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: All equally excellent One rotten apple: Not in this barrel! Overall impression: A great Pendragon album, a real stride forward from the debut. Some beautiful instrumental work, some great ideas, some powerful vocals and evocative lyrics. If only they could be a little more original... Rating: 9.4/10 |
Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, December 9 2016
(Some slight edits) You certainly have to hand it to prog bands when it comes to names. They come up with the weirdest ones, both for albums and songs and also for the bands themselves. I mean: “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers”? A Trick of the Tail? Lark's Tongues in Aspic? Now we have the oddly-named Elephants of Scotland who, just to confuse you, are not Scottish at all, nor even British, but hail from the USA. Why did they choose this name for their band? Who knows? But they've been around since 2010 and are the project of yet another multi-instrumentalist, Adam Rabin. Anything to Yes's famous guitarist? I don't know, but his entry in Wiki doesn't mention any brother or son, so I'd assume perhaps not. http://www.progarchives.com/progress...42132014_r.jpg Execute and Breathe – Elephants of Scotland – 2014 Since their formation the band, who tend to prefer the abbreviation EoS (not to be confused with the famous Canon camera!) appear to have been busy, releasing a total of three albums in four years, with their most recent only hitting earlier this year. This however is their second, and though I admit I have not yet heard it all the way through (until now, that is) I have heard the odd track while shuffling through my ipod, and what I've heard has certainly left me wanting to explore further. So let's do just that. An almost orchestral intro is quickly supplanted by a funky bass and then warbling keyboards of the kind our departed friend Urban Hatemonger always hated as “A Different Machine” gets the album underway. EoS seem to be one of those bands who switch up the vocals a la Alan Parsons Project and others, and here I find Dan MacDonald, who only sings on this and one other track, very reminiscent of Marillion's Steve Hogarth. A good rocky opener, slowing down in the middle before heading off on a super keyboard solo. Although I am only now experiencing the album for the first time as I say, it seems to be gaining favourable reviews, as ProgArchives have assigned it a four-star rating. The band also performed at the annual Marillion Weekend festival in Montreal and received a standing ovation, so they must be good. The opener is good, but I'll admit I'm not salivating or anything. It's competent prog, certainly, but is it anything to get excited about? Well, not yet, not for me, but we've a long way to go yet. “The Other Room” has a nice guitar and keyboard line running through it, with a repeating guitar riff in the background acting as a kind of motif. It's a good rocky tune, but again I don't see it being anything terribly special. Adam takes the vocal here himself; not sure whether I prefer his singing to that of MacDonald. I do like “Amber Waves”, with its soft then harder piano line and which I assume is the first ballad on the album. There's definitely something catchy about the melody, which is something I have not been able to say up to this point. There's kind of a sense of Deacon Blue about it in parts, I feel. Some very nice keyboard passages, courtesy of Adam, who also takes vocals here. This is the longest single track on the album, just over eight minutes, which is good in a way as there are no twenty-minute prog epics to contend with. They can be great, as in “Supper's Ready”, or terribly boring, as in “The Last Human Gateway”, so it's always something of a gamble when you see one on an album, and you do, more often than not. Nice to see EoS breaking the pattern. “TFAY” has an atmospheric little run-in, crying guitar, honking synth, barely-there percussion before it powers forward on rolling drums and sharp guitar, kicking into a nice eighties Genesisesque run. The third and last vocalist on this is guitarist John Whyte, who has a vaguely more feminine sounding voice, slightly Anderson-like. The song is a nice uptempo rocker with some great guitar, good strong ending and we're into “Boxless”, which opens on phased guitar and a sort of ticking percussion with darkly ominous synth. Adam Rabin is back on vocals, the guitar betraying an early Police influence, with a certain sense of the east in the melody too. A slower track than the previous one, I still wouldn't call it anywhere close to a ballad, and there's some nice exuberant keyboard running through it. Although I said “Amber Waves” was the longest track, and it is, I qualified that by saying it's the longest single track, because if you add parts one and two of “Endless” together you get a total of over eleven minutes. Part one opens very like the closing section on “Forgotten sons” by Marillion; hard guitar, rolling keys, bouncy rhythm, and again it's Rabin who retains the mike for this song, though the first part is instrumental. It's his last stint on vocals as part two begins, this running for close to eight minutes and starting off on a very gentle acoustic guitar, everything slowing right down for a very reflective second half. Or not. Midway through rolling drums crash in and warbling keyboard kick up the tempo considerably before ending on a nice soft piano line. We come to a close then with the final vocal from Dan MacDonald as “Mousetrap”, another longish song at just under seven minutes – literally: one second under! - takes us out with a punchy rocker with a sort of tribal rhythm and very much a look back to Abacab in parts. TRACK LISTING 1. A Different Machine 2. The Other Room 3. Amber Waves 4. TFAY 5. Boxless 6. Endless Pt 1 7. Endless Pt 2 8. Mousetrap Yeah, it's decent but I don't find myself rushing to hear the rest of their material, which I have. This might take a few more listens to get properly into; there are certainly some nice ideas there, but whether they're executed (hah) as well as they could be I'm not so sure. I'm going to reserve judgement for the time being. Might come back to this. |
Originally Posted in The Playlist of Life, January 12 2013
Right about now I feel might be a good time to look into another https://www.penriteoil.com.au/assets...os/classic.png and who doesn't know this one? There are many albums that have changed, or impacted strongly on my life and there are others that, while they didn't exactly provide an epiphany for me, turn me onto new music or answer any questions I may have had, remain an integral and important part of the music I listened to while growing up. Some, indeed many of these albums are classics, and that in itself brings up a difficult, but valid point: how do you review a classic album? Most people who know anything about music are going to know the album, probably inside out, and will have their own personal view of it, and what it means to them. How are your words going to interest them, when you're talking about something they have probably been listening to, or at least been aware of, for half their life? How can you criticise, or even wax lyrical about an album everybody knows? What can you add to the discussion about it, what new light can you shed on it, and who is really going to want to hear you drone on about a classic? The only way, therefore, I could even attempt tackling such an almost sacrosanct album was to write for the kids who have never heard this: the ones growing up now and only finding out about bands like these. This is mostly, and usually, down to age: kids of sixteen, seventeen may have heard of these bands, but have never actually heard their music. It can also be the case that someone is crossing over from one genre to another and may not be that familiar with these legends of rock music, although in the case of some even that seems unlikely. Still, for those that are only now flowering into the first years of their musical knowledge, for those starting out on the long and exciting journey of discovery into rock, metal, progressive rock and space rock, I present this review of one of the defining albums not only of the band's career, but of rock music in general. And yes, in that way, like it did to us all, it changed my life. The Dark Side of the Moon --- Pink Floyd --- 1973 (Harvest/Capitol) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...f_the_Moon.png There's been far too much written about the place DSotM occupies - deservedly - in the annals of rock music history, and people have said it far better than I ever could. The fact that this was Pink Floyd's first number one album, that it took them from relative commercial obscurity and thrust them into the mainsteam limelight, that it spent over seven hundred weeks in the charts and has sold over fifty million copies worldwide, has all been well documented. The groundbreaking innovations in the music - the use of tape loops, voices, echo and reverb, analogue synthesisers and more - the way it changed music - and Pink Floyd forever, and the fact that it was at least in part dedicated to or written about Syd Barret, original founder and vocalist who was suffering through some mental problems that has caused him to quit the band he had started. All of this has been written before, and there's no point in me rehashing old material, trying to outdo what rock and music writers have been doing for over forty years now. Similarly, there's no point in me copying-and-pasting a Wiki article, although I did consult such for some background information. The only way I can approach this is by reviewing it as if for someone who has not heard it before, and in that vein, much of what I say in this review will seem trite, maybe even slightly offensive to those of us who know and revere the album. But remember, I'm writing this for those who do not know the album, so bear with me. Think of it this way: if you wanted to read a review of a classic jazz, blues or even electronica album and could find nothing but essays about how great it was, and how everyone knew it, would you be annoyed? I know I would. It should not be taken for granted that one hundred percent of the population of planet Earth have heard Dark Side of the Moon - I'm sure it's closer to only ninety-five percent (!) - and for those who have not (yet) experienced this amazing album, I offer my description of a timeless masterpiece. The first thing that always hits me about this album is its sense of space. Everything seems deep, from the lyrics to the music, and everything seems to constantly be in the process of expanding. You hear this from the beginning, as "Speak to Me" kicks off this opus of progressive rock. A low hum is joined and superceded by a thumping sound, a steady, rhythmic beat like that of a heart. As it continues on, snatches of what will be other tracks on the album - "Money", "Time", "Brain Damage" etc - spool through, and a voice speaks of being mad, while in the background but getting louder a maniacal laugh rises beside the vocalise (vocals without words or phrases) of Clare Torry, the music climbing in pitch with her until on her scream we pound into the first track proper, "Breathe", with David Gilmour's incredibly full-sounding guitar taking the lead, he then also taking the vocal as the song begins. Nick Mason's steady drumming and Rick Wright's keyboards form over a minute of instrumental intro before Gilmour begins singing and the song is the first part of a life cycle really, laying out the fact that we need to live our lives while we can, as it's over far too soon. Lyrics like "Run, rabbit run/ Dig that hole/ Forget the sun/ And when at last the work is done/ Don't sit down/ It's time to dig another one" show us how petty and futile so much of the concerns we surround ourselves with, worry over and obsess over are. As Gilmour says near the end: "Balanced on the biggest wave/ You race towards a early grave". The song is slow, almost a ballad, played on lazy guitar by Gilmour sometimes in a manner comparable to slide, with a laconic vocal that is double or multi-tracked and seems to echo as he sings, and an almost funereal sound to it. Like the rest of the album - as it was originally recorded, two sides of one record - each song flows seamlessly into the next, and so we slide on into "On the run", where Wright's bouncing, swirling, almost panicky synthesiser runs form the basis of this instrumental, with running feet, heavy breathing and sounds of airports and so forth creating the sensation of someone in a mad hurry, racing to some appointment or other, and harking back to the rabbit in the previous song, endlessly rushing and toiling but to what end? Racing towards an early grave, indeed. Voices drift about in the ether as the piece continues, announcers' voices, people laughing, shouting, and the whole tempo of the thing is fast, manic, almost a "Flight of the bumble-bee" for the twentieth century. It ends on a big hard heavy powerful guitar riff and crashes into the sound of many clocks, which suddenly all go off, chiming, ringing, pealing as "Time" opens, Gilmour's hard echoey guitar pounding in and almost meshing with the sound of ticking, pendulums and metronomes, Wright's piano tinkling in and Mason and Waters setting up the backing rhythm, another sense of doom about the music. One of only two songs on the album to feature double vocals, Wright takes the mike beside Gilmour to give us another song about wasting your life. Time is the eternal enemy, and our lives must be spent with purpose and direction or else "One day you find/ Ten years have got behind you" and it's already too late. Great guitar solo from Gilmour and powerful, effective backing vocals which will go on to define and be a major part of what will become the Floyd sound in the years to come. By the time the protagonist in the song has decided he has to do something, that his life is slipping away, it's a race against death. "So you run, you run/ To catch up with the sun/ But it's sinking/ Racing around/ To come up behind you again." Sobering words, and a sort of funk feel to the song, with a certain gravity and pathos, which then runs into "Breathe (reprise)", a short coda to the song before it flows into the fully instrumental "The Great Gig in the Sky", with vocals by Clare Torry which are, well, you just have to hear them to appreciate how different they are, and why this piece can still be called an instrumental even with vocals, of a sort. Almost sacramental slide guitar from Gilmour, and lush piano from Rick Wright, but it's the vocals from Torry that really make the song stand out, backed by heavy church-style organ from Wright and punchy percussion from Mason. As such, that's the end of the first part, and was the first side of the original vinyl album, and so the music actually stops rather than segueing into the next track. This then is "Money", which opens on the sound of cash registers, coins, paper tearing and then a bassline from Roger Waters that was to become famous and instantly identifiable, joined by Mason's percussion as the song takes on a sort of marching rhythm, a twelve-bar blues kind of feel and Gilmour's guitar joins the fray, as does his voice again, extolling the virtues and vices of living just to make money. Probably unintentionally ironic, as "Time" was to become one of their most successful and thereby lucrative songs, one of the two massive hit singles to come off this album. Great smoky sax solo from Dick Parry adds to the almost jazzy sense of the song, and it fades out on the recordings of people talking about various things, until it recedes into the background and the sorrowful ballad "Us and Them" comes in on droning organ. With a clever time-delayed echo on the vocal, so that instead of just "Us and them" you hear Us, Us, Us, Us, Us ... and them, them, them, them..." - mightily effective - it's a lament on how the have-nots are walked on by the haves, how there's no room in the world for mercy or pity or sharing the wealth, or looking after those who are worse off than us. It's Gilmour's last performance on vocals on the album, and again he's joined by Rick Wright, the song one of the most moving on the record. It also features a simply beautiful sax break from Parry which really just makes the song. The imagery in the song is striking: "Forward! he cried, from the rear/ And the front rank died/ The general sat/ And the lines on the map/ Moved from side to side" and "Listen son/ Said the man with the gun/ There's room for you inside." A lot of anti-war, anti-military rhetoric, but quite simple in itself, with a very sad ending as (it would seem to me anyway) where a war veteran dies because no-one will buy him the meal he needs to stay alive: "Out of the way! / It's a busy day/ I've got things on my mind/ For the want of the price/ Of tea and a slice/ The old man died." More powerful backing vocals and some lovely piano work from Rick Wright and a rather abrupt end, which the first time I heard this took me by surprise, because you just don't expect it. This leaves us with three tracks to go. "Any Colour You Like" (probably referencing the old Henry Ford mantra, "any colour you like as long as it's black") is the final instrumental, and if this album had, in some alternate universe, a weak track, this is what I would select as it. Compared to the giants that have gone before, and the two to come, it doesn't for me stand up as well. But it's still well above anything else that was coming out at that time, although it's really just a marker to take us to "Brain Damage", where we hear for the first time on the album the vocals of a man who would come to dominate not only vocals, but the whole band, and who would cause tensions within Floyd leading ultimately to his eventual departure. Roger Waters does a great job of sounding like a madman himself, as he sings "The lunatic is in the hall/ The lunatics are in my hall/ The paper holds their folded faces to the floor/ And everyday the paperboy brings more." More than any other song on the album, this is thought to be written about Syd Barret, and his struggle with dementia. It's quite a laidback little piece initially, taken in on Gilmour's soft, chiming guitar and Waters' steady bass, that is until the chorus when a big sweeping synth, thumping drums and a squealing guitar mesh with those soon-to-be-famous backing vocals - almost a choir really - to take the song to almost transcendental levels. The song also contains the album title, so is essentially the title track, and the climax, the point everything has been leading to. In an almost expected move now, there are grinning, laughing voices running through the song too. "Eclipse", the closer, is essentially the same melody but changed a little, with a repeating lyric that lists all the things, people, events, dreams and nightmares we may and probably will encounter during our oh-too-short lives. Brought in on Mason's thumping drum and with a swirling, almost carnival organ from Wright, it's again Waters who takes the album out in complete triumph, the choir/voices setting up a spirited, gospel-like finale, and as the music fades out on the final lyric "Everything under the sun is tune/ But the sun is eclipsed by the moon" we hear the sound of someone saying "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark", and just to bring everything full circle, the heartbeat returns, then stops. TRACK LISTING 1. Speak to Me 2. Breathe 3. On the Run 4. Time 5. The Great Gig in the Sky 6. Money 7. Us and Them 8. Any Colour You Like 9. Brain Damage 10. Eclipse So, what makes a classic album, then? Is it just that X number of people have to listen to it? Is it that it has to shift Y number of units, or have Z number of singles? Well, no I don't think so, because many albums I would consider far, far from classics can fulfill any or all of these statistics. Is it that it becomes so well known that almost everyone has at least heard of it? Again I think no, because again there are albums I could name that just about anyone would know, but they are not considered classics. Personally, I think a classic album is not made, it is created, which is to say, it's not after the album has been released and bought, listened to and rated and raved over that it is recognised as a classic. I think it happens in the studio. When the artiste recording it has recorded a classic, they will instantly know it. Musicians know when they've created something special, and I think Pink Floyd knew this about Dark Side of the Moon. When Roger Waters played the rough tapes to his wife, she burst into tears at the end, and he knew then they had something special. In essence, for want of a better phrase, classic albums aren't made, they're born. Right from the off, you know they're going to be a classic from the moment you first hear them; and every time after that, you remember how you first realised this album was going to be remembered, praised, played everywhere and that it would take its place in music history, forever. That, in my considered opinion, is what a classic album is. That's what Pink Floyd's "The dark side of the moon" is. You hear it once, and nothing, nothing is ever the same. Nor should it be. |
Nearly through the five decades first time round, and here we are in the twenty-first century.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...rningjesus.jpg Album title: Returning Jesus Artist: No-Man Nationality: English Year: 2001 Chronology: 4 The Trollheart Factor: 3 Track Listing: Only Rain/No Defence/Close Your Eyes/Carolina Skeletons/Outside the Machine/Returning Jesus/Slow it All Down/Lighthouse/All That You Are Comments: While I may not be totally on board yet with Porcupine Tree’s discography, I always have time for Steven Wilson. Some of his projects aren’t so great (Storm Corrosion) but more often than not they hit the mark, occasionally exceed it. Throw in one of my favourite vocalists and you have a recipe for, if not guaranteed success, then at least expected. I’ve loved Tim Bowness’s work on Memories of Machines, and his own solo stuff as well as NoSound and White Willow, and I find he and Wilson work well together. The thing about a No-Man album is you usually can’t predict what you’re going to get. Here, we have a beautiful aching cello-driven ballad opening the album, with Bowness’s unique soulful vocal seeming to almost bleed emotion all over “Only Rain” - oh, okay: sounded very like cello but none is shown in the credits, so I guess it must be synthesised - then there’s brass, hard electric guitar, the bulk of the seven-minutes plus the song runs for instrumental, quite ambient, while “No Defence” sounds like Marillion’s “Born to Run” from Radiation with a lovely lazy slow blues rhythm and what sounds like slide guitar and some truly awesome smoky sax. Tribal drums then open “Close Your Eyes”, soft and sort of breathy in their way, deep organ almost in the background, while it’s piano that drives “Carolina Skeletons”, with an almost folky/country feel to it, and “Outside the Machine” has indeed a kind of metallic, electronic, mechanical sound. Still, you’ll never or at least hardly ever hear No-Man rocking out; Bowness is a gentle, relaxed singer and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him break a sweat, so to speak. Ah. Little confused now. The track should be the title one, and is shown as such, but the lyric is “Slow it All Down”, which is supposed to be the next track. Could they have become somehow transposed? This one at any rate lives up to its name, a sound like someone tapping on metal pipes the only real percussion I can hear, soft guitar and synth and the soothing sound of Bowness’s voice, and, well if that is “Returning Jesus” I can’t say, as it’s an instrumental on mostly brass, but I guess given the lyric of the other one they must somehow have got it arse-about-face on Spotify. Two very good songs nevertheless. That brings us to “Lighthouse”, and at this point I’m not at all surprised to find it’s another slow track, strong organ underpinning the tune, with a very seventies Genesis feel, and then a kind of reprise of the melody from “No Defence” as we end on “All That You Are”, some powerful warbling keyboard and a really nice guitar motif, passionate vocal from Tim, a fitting closer. Track(s) I liked: Oh, everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nary a one One standout: Hard to pick one out One rotten apple: Nah Overall impression: I tend to view No-Man more as a Bowness than a Wilson vehicle, but as I said they work well together, and this is just another example of two men at the top of their respective games teaming up to record something that is more than the sum of their parts. Highly recommended. Rating: 9.8/10 Future Plan: Must hear their other albums and I have a hankering to hear more of Tim Bowness’s solo material. |
Let's get this finished before the year ends, as we take our final look at our
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._-_Passion.jpg Album title: Passion Artist: Pendragon Nationality: English Year: 2011 Chronology: 9 Track Listing: Passion/Empathy/Feeding Frenzy/This Green and Pleasant Land/It’s Just a Matter of Not Getting Caught/Skara Brae/Your Black Heart Comments: One of my favourite albums, Pendragon’s ninth sees them embracing samples, electronic music and even (to a very small and even laughable degree) rapping as they take on the twenty-first century, striving to remain relevant and up their game. And up it they do. Only seven tracks, but not a bad one among them. Almost. The opening two I choose to take as almost the same track as they kind of feed into each other, and you know things are going to be different when Nick growls “I… drop my BALLS!” It’s a continuation of the heavier approach used on Pure, with a lot more guitar - though there’s plenty of room for Maestro Nolan as well of course, and the title track sets the tone with an electronic drumbeat then snarling guitar before it all takes off on the aforementioned line. There are little introspective passages of guitar that almost fool you into thinking it’s the Pendragon of old, before the new sound kicks these aside and goes for your throat. Passion there certainly is in this opener, and it staggers on almost broken legs with a wounded, groaning vocal into “Empathy”, which immediately ups the ante with a snarling vocal from Nick as he paints a picture of the unfairness and cruelty of the world, the music loud and aggressive. The chorus is the title of the previous - “Passion! Gimme some empathy!” - which is another reason I tend to link the two. Again we get those soft little sections before it all explodes again. Here, too, we have the, um, attempt at a rap. To be fair, it works more than it doesn’t, but I’m sure any hip-hop fan would be grinning embarrassedly to themselves to think this is taken to be a rap, when it’s nothing of the sort. Let’s be honest: prog rockers don’t rap well. But you have to give them points for trying to appeal to a base outside of their own. The orchestral synth ending is to die for, step forward and take a bow, Clive Nolan. After all that it’s back to basic rock for the gritty “Feeding Frenzy”, demonstrating clearly the anger felt by Nick at the way the world is; this will become a running theme, not only through this album but the next one too, and is a follow-on from both the last album and the one previous to that. A lot of hard guitar in this one. And I mean a lot. I love the line “This is your revenge, to the power of ****!” But if you want to hear a real rant against the UK and indeed the world, try “This Green and Pleasant Land”, all thirteen minutes of it. Listen to lyrics like “It’s not legal to say what I think anymore cos I don’t believe in Sharia law.” Yeah. A real get-the-fuck-up-and-stop-whining-about-your-life song, against a backdrop of some truly beautiful music, soft mournful guitar giving way to faster, angrier riffs as Nick wails “Take only what you need and be on your way,” advice we’d all be so much better off if we took, though nobody does, including me. We all want more, more, MORE! I will say I hate the ending. After going through so many changes, powerful instrumental passages, passion (sorry)-drenched lyrics, it basically fades and breaks up to the sound of sheep and er, yodelling? Very weird, and a big disappointment in a song which should have had a much more coherent and dramatic ending. Doesn’t ruin it, but it is a pity. There’s a lot of menace in “It’s Just a Matter of Not Getting Caught”, as well as a fairy-style strings opening (maybe a harp? Hard to say) and a whistling synth that reminds me of that part from “The Shadow” on The Masquerade Overture. Very heavy guitar and some odd effects, then “Skara Brae” kicks everything in the teeth again, rocking out like mad, Nick’s vocals almost metal at times, with a great hook in the chorus. The album ends then with the expected ballad, and “Your Black Heart” does not disappoint as a closer, nor as a ballad. Beautiful vocal harmonies, crying guitar, sumptuous rolling piano, this has it all, a truly lush and awe-inspiring song that hides a dark, bitter revenge motif in the lyric. The final guitar solo outro reminds me very much of the closer from Believe, “The Edge of the World”, and I’d venture to suggest this may be one of the best ballads Pendragon have written to date. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: It’s between “This Green and Pleasant Land”, “Your Black Heart” and “Empathy” One rotten apple: Nein Overall impression: An album that shows Pendragon, if you will, growing up. One of the most politically-charged of their albums in terms of lyrics, and the experiments they engage in to remain relevant to the music scene and try to perhaps stand out from the slew of prog rock bands still trying to keep their fanbase together mostly work. Rating: 9.8/10 |
Sometimes, logic can just go and take a flying leap, and reason can follow it. Which is my way of saying that here, as this is my thread, I’m going to feature albums that really can’t be considered prog in any proper way, but which I, for various reasons, consider worthy of being included.
So you can say, and I will admit, that the albums you'll see appearing here over the next while can be described as really https://i.postimg.cc/ZRfhTRYF/pushing.jpg Feel free to disagree with my choices, and also feel free to follow logic and reason if you like. :p: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...28Album%29.jpg Album title: Mike and the Mechanics Artist: Mike and the Mechanics Nationality: English Year: 1985 Chronology: 1 The Trollheart Factor: 3 Track Listing: Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)/All I Need is a Miracle/Par Avion/Hanging by a Thread/I Get the Feeling/Take the Reins/You Are the One/A Call to Arms/Taken In Comments: Is the main thrust of my argument here the fact that this is an album by an ex-member of one of the true titans of prog? Well, yes and no. I wouldn’t even think of featuring a Phil Collins album here - there’s just no way to justify that, no way at all. His music is so removed from what he did with Genesis that it’s almost like a totally different person recording. And as for Gabriel? Well, early efforts could - and might - be considered, but after So I think we all knew he was heading in an entirely different direction. As indeed did Mike Rutherford, who, after some fairly bleh solo albums under his own name, hooked up with Paul Carrack and Paul Young and formed Mike and the Mechanics. Now, nobody could say that later hits such as “Over My Shoulder” or “Don’t Know What Came Over Me” could be considered prog, and truth to tell, some of this album fails to qualify too. But so much of it succeeds, or comes as close as makes no difference, that I think it deserves a chance. Listen to the opening “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” and tell me that’s not prog, with its heavy humming synth, then its warbly keyboards and dark, ominous lyric. Well, maybe you don’t think it is, but for me this track on its own has more prog about it than some of Genesis’s later albums, and I could in fact see it sitting comfortably on their last (to date), Calling All Stations. Interestingly co-authored by pop supremo B.A. Robertson, it’s six minutes long - no prog epic, certainly, but still quite a long track on any other album, and especially to start it. I will admit, there’s a major downturn then for the next track, but then, after “Silent Running” our Mike would have had to have come up with something pretty special, and he, well, did not. Even at that, the rising squealing keys and ticking percussion that introduce the song do have proggy overtones, though once the song gets going it’s clearly a pop/rock love type song, and relatively throwaway. Probably why it was released as a single (though the opener was too) and did so well in the USA. But if you consider “All I Need is a Miracle” a blip, it’s soon overlooked as the quiet, almost cushioned drums of “Par Avion” whisper in, and we have the first ballad on the album. Of course every genre - mostly - has its ballads, and that fact alone doesn’t mark it out as being prog, and in fairness it probably isn’t, but then I could again hear this on a later Genesis album, maybe We Can’t Dance or even earlier, maybe Duke? A new voice to take the mike (sorry) here, one John Kirby, one of two tracks he guests on. Who is he? No idea. The quiet restraint of this song is upended entirely by the bombast and thumping attack of the obviously very angry “Hanging by a Thread”, with almost metal-style guitars and drums that just seem to want to punch your head in, Paul Young spitting out the lyric like an accusation. I like the fact that Mike and the Mechanics shuffle the vocalists around here, Young singing some tracks, Carrack others. Keeps it interesting. And Kirby too. It’s also interesting that this is not altogether a guitar-heavy album; Rutherford made his name of course in Genesis as guitarist/bassist, though he does play keys too. Though not here. Then again, this isn’t strictly speaking a Mike Rutherford solo album, more a band he got together to play music with, but it’s nice to see he can put the axe down from time to time. Not so of course on the current track, which is very rifftastic, with orchestral hits from the synth and has quite the Genesis melody to it, very circa Duke. Almost calypso-style then for “I Get the Feeling”, which makes me shudder a little, bringing back memories of Phil Collins on No Jacket Required as the brass takes over, handclap beats and well, it’s just a pretty weak song, probably one of the weakest on the album, with Carrack back on vocals. Meh. It’s pretty much top notch from there on in though, as we hit the manic “Take the Reins”, which ramps everything back up on a rock footing, the beat skittering along, the vocal reminding me of a steam locomotive puffing along, a certain air of Huey Lewis about it, then another standout is the gorgeous ballad “You Are the One”, where Kirby makes his second and indeed last contribution to the album. Beautiful piano from Adrian Lee, soft lush synth, just beautiful. And into yet another standout, the very prog-influenced “A Call to Arms”. This was in fact part of a song Rutherford wrote for inclusion on the Genesis album, but nobody except him liked it, so he rewrote it for his own album. I consider it a companion piece to “Silent Running”, linked musically as well as thematically; if any two tracks on this album can be considered prog-worthy, it’s those two, and the lyrics mesh too. If “Silent Running” is the warning about an impending (nuclear?) disaster - “Take the children and yourself and hide out in the cellar/ By now the fighting will be close at hand” - then “A Call to Arms” seems to me to be either the end of that conflict, or the fight back. Or maybe not. Anyway I link them in my mind and they definitely bookend the album and for my money give it its prog credentials. The sweeping percussion and synth that usher in the song, the pained, aching vocals of both Carrack and Young, the insistent thump of the drums all through it, the dark, ominous atmosphere that permeates the music, all make this a real treat to listen to. Had the album ended there, I would have been happy, but there’s a pretty throwaway little pop song at the end, and I could have done without “Taken In” very nicely thank you. It doesn’t ruin the album, not as such, but it certainly blunts the effect of the far superior track that preceded it. Track(s) I liked: Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)/Par Avion/Hanging by a Thread/You Are the One/A Call to Arms Track(s) I didn't like: I Get the Feeling/Taken In One standout: A Call to Arms One rotten apple: I Get the Feeling Overall impression: Different from his work in Genesis, yes, but not that different. I had great hopes for Rutherford’s new band, but they quickly went down the easy pop route and discarded any rock/prog rock roots so I lost interest. Rating: 9.5/10 Future Plan: I listened to and enjoyed the second and third album, but after that I just lost interest. To be honest, the third one, Word of Mouth had some decent tracks but was not a patch on the first two. Then I heard “Over My Shoulder” and I was done with these guys. |
Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, Dec 13 2016
https://i.postimg.cc/jjcQnkfr/thinker1.gif There are some prog bands I just don't get, and many I should but can't see the appeal in. This bothers me slightly, especially when the band concerned is a major one. And yet, there are huge gaps in my prog appreciation where I just simply don't like or can't get into a particular artist. Here, I'm going to attempt to address this. The plan is to pick an artist and listen to up to three of their albums, preferably those considered their best. If, after this, I have still not got into them I'm going to assume that for now at any rate I probably won't manage it, and will temporarily accept that and stop trying. I may give it another shot at some later date on my own terms, but for this section that artist will be considered a failure for me. Artists I intend to cover (more will probably be added later) are: Spock's Beard, IQ, Pallas, Riverside, Dream Theater, ELP, Gandalf's Fist, Enchant, Porcupine Tree, Pain of Salvation and Saga. As I listen to each album I will rate it and assign it a Result, determining whether it leaves me in the same mind as I was before I listened to it, ie no change, https://i.postimg.cc/PfCrC3vs/smallneutral.jpg or has had a positive effect on me, https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg or even made me more reluctant to listen to more of their material. https://i.postimg.cc/SN8SrnGg/smallsad.jpg At the end, I'll know whether I've got into the artist or still feel meh about them, or even if this experiment has turned me even further from them. I'll start off with a brief intro to the artist and what I know of them and have heard from them, and then dive into the review. If you have any suggestions, feel free. All right then, let's get this under way. https://www.welovemetal.com/newsite/...nd-Picture.jpg A band a lot of people give credit to, and who apparently are one of those who often straddle the prog rock/metal divide, I have only heard one full album from Riverside, and that was, at the time, their latest, 2011's Shrine of New Generation Slaves, or SONGS. I seem to remember being reasonably impressed with most of it, but as usual when I listen to this band there's always something niggling me about them, like I can't quite enjoy them or say they're really great; it's like there's something missing? Never quite sure what it is. I've only heard tracks on shuffle playlists other than the album referred to above, but of those, well, some I've really liked, some I have not. A lot of the time it seems to rest on the length of the song, and Riverside tend to go with longer songs, evens suites, most of the time, or at least, most of the times I've heard them. This should not be a problem for a prog head, but I've mentioned the problem previously: a good long track is fine, a joy to listen to, while a bad long track can be torture. Sometimes Riverside's music has given me the feeling of the latter. Well, not quite, but I do recall skipping on after maybe three or four minutes of what I considered uninspiring music. Current status: https://i.postimg.cc/PfCrC3vs/smallneutral.jpg Quick bio: Riverside were formed in 2001 in Warsaw, Poland by four friends, and are generally led by bassist and vocalist Mariusz Duda. Over their career so far they have released seven albums, and were hit in February with the sad news of the sudden death of guitarist Piotr Grudziński. Albums I have heard: Shrine of New Generation Slaves (2013) As it appears the first three albums comprise a trilogy, it makes sense I guess to make them the three I listen to, though I wanted kind of to stay away from debuts and also from consecutive albums. But this seems to be the best way to go with this band, so that's what I'll do. Therefore the first one up is https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...AlbumCover.jpg Out Of Myself (2003) First in the “Reality Dream” trilogy, there's only one really long track on it, the opener, and of the remaining eight there are two instrumentals, though both are longer than you would expect the average instrumental to be. The radio being tuned at the beginning of “The Same River” harks back to the opening of Marillion's “Forgotten Sons”, though I'm sure they weren't the first to do that, then it's a nice powerful dramatic almost Floydesque opening, actually kind of reminds me of Twin Peaks, oddly. A crooning, chanting voice but as yet no vocals as we hit the second minute, but then there are still ten left. Building up nicely on synth and guitar and Duda's bass bringing it all together. Definitely the sense of something about to happen. Four minutes in and still no recognisable vocal. Must say I'm enjoying it though. I can hear the metal influences leaking through now as the guitar gets harder and sharper, running into a soaraway solo that takes us into the fifth minute. Seven minutes in and we finally get a vocal, though to be honest had it gone on like that to the end I wouldn't really have minded. Maruisz has a nice voice; I've heard it before of course. There's that little twang in it that denotes he's other than English. Settles down in the last two minutes into a kind of acoustic ballad style, which is nice after the intensity of the first ten. Oh, and now we get a super guitar solo. Great opening track. Twelve minutes just flew by. Colour me impressed. And hopeful. The title track is much more immediate and in your face, though it's less than four minutes long. Driven on a punchy guitar with a pretty manic vocal. Like this too. Very metal, as Vivian would say. “I Believe” is more laid back, relaxing with nice gentle guitar but at times quite an intense vocal from Mariusz. Could probably do without the sounds of the crowd at the beginning, and they come back in around halfway through the track too. This is another short song, relatively: just over four minutes. Nice melody. The first instrumental, however, is over six and I'm always a little doubtful of instrumentals that long. We'll see. The ticking clock at the start is less annoying than it could be, and then my god they get going with a big heavy keyboard run as the piece hits its stride early. I quite enjoyed that, and again it didn't seem six minutes long. “Loose Heart” is nice, sort of a semi-ballad that puts me in mind at times of Gary Moore, some great guitar work there. Ah. It changes to something of a manic shout-fest near the end, little jarring but it doesn't ruin it for me, while the second instrumental, shorter this time, has more sound effects (phone dial then wrong number sound) but runs on a really smooth guitar line and has a lot of almost angry power. Yeah, I like this too. And we're more than halfway through the album. Going well so far. “In Two Minds” has a lovely acoustic line before the organ comes in to shoulder the melody, and reminds me of the best of post-Fish Marillion, and things stay fairly low-key for “The curtain falls”, or so they? Seems like it's taking a left turn here on the back of Duda's almost hypnotic bass and some “Run like Hell” guitar riffs. Nice. Gets really driving and powerful near the end. Excellent. No problems with this. The album ends on “OK”, which as a descriptor of this debut is well below the mark. It's a really nice, almost trip-hop song that at times even reminds me of Norwegian popsters a-ha. I feel I may have heard this as one of the songs on one of those shuffles I was talking about. Nice addition of trumpet here, really gives the song something different. Great closer to a great album. Track Listing 1. The same river 2. Out of myself 3. I believe 4. Reality dream 5. Loose heart 6. Reality dream II 7. In two minds 8. The curtain falls 9. OK Well if I had any reservations about Riverside this album has gone a long way towards putting those fears to rest. A very accomplished debut – even a triumph, I might say, and it's left me eager to hear more. Result for this album: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg Total Result so far: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg |
Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, December 21 2016
A good start, so let's move on to the second in the trilogy, and indeed the second Riverside album. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...s_coverart.jpg Second Life Syndrome (2005) “After” gets us going with a whispered spoken word then the guitars slide in along with synth and the song seems to be fairly melancholic to start off with, quite dour but I do like it, then “Volte Face” takes off from the start on a rocking guitar line and takes three minutes before the vocal comes in. The song runs for almost nine, so that's okay, and I can see here that things are that little bit heavier than they were on the debut. Some sweet laidback piano in the fifth minute though it then gets pretty intense with the vocals all but snarled and the keys going wild as it hits the eighth. Powerful stuff. Back to soft piano then for “Conceiving You”, a much shorter song which I'm going to say is a ballad. Some very expressive and emotional guitar here. Another three-minute introduction but in fairness this is fifteen minutes long, and it's the title track. Great sense of urgency in it, riffing guitars and hurrying keyboards. I would say I do like this, though perhaps with a little caution, as it's beginning that kind of technical wankery I so dislike in many prog rock bands. I'll reserve judgement on this one though till I've heard the whole thing. No, actually I think all that was necessary and I did enjoy the track. Faster and more powerful then is “Artificial Smile”, with a kind of angry vocal at times while “I Turned You Down” sounds like it could be a power ballad; certainly some stirring organ there at the start of it. Well it got pretty powerful but I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a ballad. I remember “Reality Dream I” and “Reality Dream II” on the debut were both instrumentals, so I wonder if ... yeah. “Reality Dream III” is too. Very good I must say; quite dramatic with some energetic piano and snarling guitar. “Dance With the Shadow” is another epic, this one over eleven minutes long, and starts with an almost folkish chant against deep lush dark synth, then in the second the guitar really kicks in, taking the whole thing up a serious notch. The extended instrumental is not this time wankery of any sort, and I am quite enjoying this. The last track, “Before”, starts off very moody and low-key but kicks up with a lot of intensity later on. Good closer. Track Listing 1. After 2. Volte Face 3. Conceiving You 4. Second Life Syndrome 5. Artificial Smile 6. I Turned You Down 7. Reality Dream III 8. Dance With the Shadow 9. Before Generally speaking, though this is a heavier effort than their debut, I pretty much still like it. It does tend to noodle and wander a little, particularly on the title track, though given that that's fifteen minutes long that's perhaps to be expected, especially with a prog band. I don't hear anything though that makes me think I would not like this album more on repeated listenings, so it's another score. Result for this album: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg Total result so far: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg |
Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, December 31 2016
Ok then, let's wrap this up. We're two for two so far, let's see if we can make it three. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../REM_cover.jpg Rapid Eye Movement (2007) The final part of the Reality Dream trilogy, the album is split into two separate sections, the first consisting of the first five tracks and called Fearless while the second is called Fearland and covers the final four. The album opens with “Beyond the Eyelids”, with a nice soft psych feel to the music before a big organ crashes in on the back of heavy guitar, and it really kicks up. A long enough opener, just shy of eight minutes, and much of the first half is taken up with an instrumental jam. Yeah again it's good but I can feel my attention wandering (probably doesn't help that I'm websurfing while doing this, but really, an album that's good enough should be able to divert me back to it, and, well, this ain't doing it) and on we go into the second track, which is again okay but I can't say anything really positive about it, other than that it doesn't suck. Completely. Yeah, that one just kinda went by without leaving much of an impression on me. I feel I know “02 Panic Room” (why the figures in front of it? Is it sponsored by the big telephone company?) before, and yes, it's a good song, even a great song. A real cut above everything that has gone so far, though in fairness that's not really saying too much. Oh, thought that piano was starting a new track, but it seems we're still on “02 Panic Room”: almost the reverse of the last time, when I didn't notice one track had ended and the other begun. Best on the album so far, definitely. May have some competition though, immediately, from “Schizophrenic Prayer”, a real slowburner, a kind of concealed menace in the song. Really like this one too. Maybe the album is taking an upswing? All right, the next track is also great. Opening with an acapella vocal before it explodes all over the place, “Parasomnia” is both a great slice of prog and yet another mixing of words to make a pretty cool one. The whispering voice over the piano in the sixth minute is very effective. And so into part two, Fearland, we go, with a very soft and gentle opener which goes under the title of “Through the Other Side”, a very low-key, almost sotto voce vocal with a really nice understated acoustic guitar and just a little light percussion. “Embryonic” is also driven on acoustic guitar, and I find myself wondering if this second part is all going to be low-key, introspective, ballady material? This has the same almost muttered vocal, but then we get to “Cybernetic Pillow” and it's picking up speed and power again. Some pretty crazy guitar there near the end. The closing track then is the epic, thirteen minutes plus of “The Ultimate Trip”. It's a good closer, though I would question its length, something that is often a failing among prog rock bands. Track Listing Fearless 1. Beyond the Eyelids 2. Rainbow Box 3. 02 Panic Room 4. Schizophrenic Prayer 5. Parasomnia Fearland 6. Through the Other Side 7. Embryonic 8. Cybernetic Pillow 9. The Ultimate Trip I worried when I began drifting as the album began, but like any good album should it quickly demanded my attention back from the third track and more or less held it from then on. I would say I'm still not totally sold on this band – they can ramble on at times – but on the basis of these three albums I'm willing to keep listening to them in the hope that that special album will hit. Result for this album: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg Total result: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg Final Verdict (for now) on Riverside: https://i.postimg.cc/zD4DKCTL/smallhappy.jpg |
Our first
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640 For 2020 is another of my favourite bands, certainly in the top ten, even top five, of not only favourite prog bands but overall. I don’t think I’ve yet heard an album I haven’t liked by them, in fact I think I’d be hard pushed to find even a single track I don’t enjoy. https://fanart.tv/fanart/music/ed021...1b3ee750bd.png Described as progressive metal - although they describe themselves, rather oddly, as classic rock - Threshold have been going since 1988 and have produced a total of eleven studio albums over that period, along with numerous special editions and live albums, compilations and acoustic sets. Their latest hit the shelves in 2017. For our first selection I’m going to take a relatively recent album https://img.discogs.com/0iQtSTrWOn75...-3412.jpeg.jpg Album title: March of Progress Artist: Threshold Nationality: English Year: 2012 Chronology: 9 The Trollheart Factor: 10 Track Listing: Ashes/Return of the Thought Police/Staring at the Sun/Liberty Complacency Dependency/Colophon/The Hours/That’s Why We Came/Don’t Look Down/Coda/Rubicon Comments: Threshold have had an odd history of singers. Damien Wilson was with them for their first and third albums, but not their second, on which Glyn Morgan sang, then for the next five albums over nearly ten years it was Andew “Mac” MacDermott, but sadly by the time they were ready to record what was their ninth album he had passed away the previous year, so they hooked up again with Wilson, who stayed with them for this and the next album, then left, being replaced for their most recent by Morgan. Not so much a march of progress then as a retreading of the past. But no matter which vocalist has been behind the mike, the music has stayed consistently brilliant with this band, and this their ninth album is no exception. Kicking off with “Ashes” (which contains the phrase and becomes essentially the title track, as there is none) it’s a high-powered affair from the off, with guitarist Karl Groom as usual leading the attack, Richard West on keys making his presence felt in no uncertain terms and Wilson sounding in fine voice after fifteen years’ absence. One of the hallmarks of Threshold’s music is soaring, AOR-like choruses and catchy hooks in their songs, and this is replete with them, while yet retaining the hard, abrasive guitar licks and punches that justify the metal in the description of their music. “Return of the Thought Police” brings back one of the band’s favourite themes, politics and their distrust in it, as they envision a dystopian world perhaps not that far in the future, perhaps not far at all. It’s slower and more grinding, recalling perhaps the epic “Art of Reason” from Subsurface with some truly amazing hooks and a melody that’s hard to forget once it gets going. I’m more used to MacDermott’s voice, given that he looms large over the bulk of Threshold’s material, but I love Wilson’s work too, and it’s definitely no step down, though we mourn the loss of the former vocalist, taken too soon. Ramping everything back up again then, “Staring at the Sun” blasts in with some powerful guitar and soft piano, backing onto an instantly memorable chorus which really allows Wilson to let rip as he does so well. Possibly even more in the “Art of Reason” vein is “Liberty Complacency Dependency”, another harshly critical politically-motivated song full of anger and frustration, taped effects, howled vocals, ringing guitar and some real metal riffing too as it goes along. “Colophon” keeps up the pressure, and also gave me a word to look up, as Threshold often do. This one means - according to Wiki; none of my dictionaries had any mention of it - a brief description of a manuscript to which it is attached. Who knew? The wonderful “The Hours” is up next, one of my very favourites on the album, with a hook to die for; reminds me very much of latter-day Asia, to the point even that Wilson sounds like the late John Wetton. Also some gorgeous classical piano from Richard West, though it’s too short. The ballad comes in mostly acoustic form, as “That’s Why We Came” shows that Threshold can dial it back and go all low-key when required, that they’re not just into pummelling guitars and screeching keyboards - at least not all the time. While many would not even consider them metal, Threshold are for me one of the heavier prog bands, and it’s nice to see them soften the approach somewhat. After a big growling guitar intro it’s a gentler, more relaxed tune peppered with hard guitar riffs that just emphasise the laid back nature of the song. It’s certainly not the best ballad the boys have done, but it’s good that they still chose to include one to lighten things a little and give Wilson a chance to show the gentler side of his vocals. I find the chorus, or rather, the bridge leading to the chorus of “Don’t Look Down” a little incongruous, as it’s almost poppy in its makeup, while the rest of the song is a hard rock punchy uptempo song, and I guess if there’s a weak track on the album this may very well be it. That doesn’t mean in any way that it’s a bad song, just highlights how great the rest of the album is in comparison to it. Here, too, Threshold use a vocoder, one of the few prog bands, certainly current ones, to do so I believe. Emotional solo from Groom in the midpoint, which leads to a major change in the song a la “Pilot in the Sky of Dreams” off Dead Reckoning though it changes a little too abruptly back in my view. “Coda” has rapid-fire machine-gun drums and guitar, battering away as it takes us to the closer, the ten-minute “Rubicon” which opens on sonorous church organ before exploding into an emotional march with yet another superb hook; speeding up and slowing down with guitar solos firing off left and right, and a superb church organ solo from West as the song slows right down into a grinding, plodding almost doom metal vein accompanied by the classic Threshold vocal harmonies to take the track, and the album out. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: “The Hours” One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: Another really excellent Threshold album. It may not reach the heights of previous opuses, but it’s certainly up there with them. A long time waiting, but worth the wait. Rating: 9.6/10 Future Plan: Just need to listen to their latest now. I know.:rolleyes: |
Originally Posted in The Playlist of Life, April 22 2015
It's often struck me how many similarities there are between Fish and Peter Gabriel, in terms of their solo careers, and how you could almost consider them http://www.trollheart.ie/progbrosth.png Both were born in the fifties in Great Britain, although Fish would never forgive me for describing him as English I’m sure. He was born in Midlothian in Scotland, about as far north and as far away from the birthplace of Peter Gabriel as you can get. The ex-Genesis frontman was born in Surrey, he attending a public school while Fish went to the usual sort of one. Gabriel began playing in bands from the time he was at Charterhouse, whereas Fish bummed around at various jobs until joining Marillion circa 1981. Although a decade separates the two men in terms of their musical output - Gabriel formed Genesis in 1967 and they released their first album in 1969 whereas Fish did not form, but joined Marillion in 1981, the band having been together for two years prior - the times of their departure from their parent bands and their subsequent solo career timeline exhibits some interesting similarities. The interrelations between the two, and indeed where their career paths diverge, is something I’ll be remarking on as I go. For now, as Peter Gabriel was the first of the two to make it big, and the one had a profound influence on the other, despite there only being eight years between their ages, it is with the Genesis founder that I will begin, cataloguing his career briefly with Genesis and then more in-depth after his split with the band. As I mentioned, in 1967 Gabriel formed Genesis with his three schoolfriends at Charterhouse, Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford. Two years later, having been discovered by impresario Jonathan King, they released their first album and were soon in demand. But by the time of their fifth album, the concept The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, relations were being strained and Gabriel decided to strike out on his own, leaving the band under fairly amicable circumstances. However it wasn't all roses and "Good luck Peter, we wish you well": in addition to tensions within the band and his not being satisfied at the direction they were going, he had chosen to stay by his pregnant wife’s side while she gave birth to their first daughter, rather than make himself available for touring or recording. Perhaps unreasonably, this rankled with the other band members and soon a parting of the ways was in the cards. In 1977 Gabriel released his first solo album. This, and the three that followed, would be characterised by all being called Peter Gabriel. People would differentiate between them either by referring to the year they were released (Peter Gabriel 1977, Peter Gabriel 1980 etc) or by the artwork (Car, Scratch, and so on). Whether this was meant to allow him to distance himself from the tag of having been a Genesis bandmember and try to mystify his new solo music, or whether he was trying to say the artist is nowhere near as important as the music, I don’t know. Maybe he just couldn't be arsed thinking up titles. Maybe there was some deep, esoteric reason. I guess it's not important. He would later abandon the concept, particularly in the face of opposition from his American label, who demanded a title for his fourth album - although it remained simply Peter Gabriel over this side of the pond - and subsequent ones would all have titles, albeit short, one-word ones. Fish, for his part, would have elaborate, interesting titles for all of his albums. But that’s to come. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ver_art%29.jpg Peter Gabriel 1977/”Car” --- Peter Gabriel --- 1977 (Charisma) The album starts off on a song with a typical Gabriel title, which could have come from the writing sessions for The Lamb, and “Moribund the Burgermeister” starts with an echoey, Tom Waitsesque drum then some accordion and popping noises, again like something off the last Genesis album he made before leaving. His voice is quite sparse and echoing too, harsh and powerful yet restrained. Powerful synth then cuts in and more or less drives the track with a very Genesis-like sound. The similarities to The Lamb, particularly “The Colony of Slippermen” cannot be overstated here. It’s almost like Gabriel stepped from one room having written the music and lyrics for The Lamb and into another, sat down and continued writing in the very same vein. It’s not the greatest start to be fair, but it’s followed by a song which would become a hit for him - his first of many - and for a while be identified with him. In a cross between a retelling of Jesus’ ascension into Heaven after the crucifixion and his own experiences on departing Genesis, “Solsbury Hill” is a much more accessible song, with a driving upbeat tempo, jangly guitar and a nice line in flute melody, this played by Gabriel himself. His voice too is more distinctive, less dark and it’s not really a surprise that this became the hit single from the album. If there was going to be one - and considering who he was, chances were high there would be - this was going to be it. In lines like ”My friends would think I was a nut/ Turning water into wine” he certainly references, if only obliquely, the miracles performed by Jesus, and his delighted declaration at the end of the chorus, ”He said grab your things/ I’ve come to take you home” has always, to me at any rate, indicated Jesus being taken back up into Heaven after the resurrection. Whatever the truth, it’s a great song and provided him a platform to build on, a platform that would sadly fail to extend for another five years. We then get what would become known (to me anyway) as the “Gabriel screech”, where he would sound just a little unhinged sometimes when he sang, and on “Modern Love” there’s some great hard guitar courtesy of King Crimson legend Robert Fripp, with a solid organ line coming from Larry Fast. It keeps the tempo high and it’s almost an AOR style song with a lot of balls. “Excuse Me” uses, of all things, Barbershop, showing that even at this early stage Peter was more than ready to look to the past to make the music of the future, and had no problem integrating odd styles and structures into his songs. It’s a weird song, as you’d expect, with nothing but acapella singing until Fripp comes in with banjo (yeah!) and Tony Levin with tuba (er, yeah…) giving the whole thing of course a very twenties aspect. Gabriel sings a little like McCartney at times here, and certainly sounds like he’s enjoying himself, not so much a man with anything to prove as a man who is glad to be free of the restrictions of his band and able to flex his musical muscle and creativity in any way he feels like doing. “Humdrum” brings everything back down to earth with a low, muttered vocal and dark piano and organ, but it picks up after about a minute, taking on a very recognisable Genesis look, then throwing in some Latin percussion themes. Classical guitar, rippling piano and some lush keyboard work then take the song as it slips along on a very stately, sedate rhythm. It’s one of my favourite tracks on the album. If “Slowburn” starts as anything it’s a Genesis song but then Fripp cuts in with some tough electric guitar and the drums get going as Gabriel returns to the somewhat manic tone of “Modern Love” and the whole thing rocks out nicely. In fact it’s probably the most rocky track on the album, with bouncy piano joining the party, then “Waiting for the Big One” is another standout, with a thick blues riff and another muttered vocal from Gabriel, the star of the show though the piano work which drives the tune can't be ignored, nor the false endings (about three), not to mention Gabriel’s witty lyrics: ”Once I was a credit/ To my credit card/ Spent what I hadn’t got/ Wasn’t hard.” A full orchestra (the London Symphony) lends a touch of majesty and class to “Down the Dolce Vita”, and perhaps set a very early marker for Gabriel who would work with orchestras again, most famously in the twenty-first century as they helped him reinterpret his hits on the New Blood and Scratch My Back collections. It’s an odd little song, sort of a combination of an almost funky, dance-ish number with a big brassy effort from the LSO, and I find it hard to get too excited about it, a little too confusing for me with all the styles meshing: it’s a song I never remember no matter how many times I play this album. The closer is the one I do remember, my top favourite on it. Accusations of overproduction and bombast have been levelled at “Here Comes the Flood”, and I’ve heard stripped-down versions of it, mostly with Gabriel accompanying himself on piano, but for me this is the definitive version. Starting off very low-key with soft, almost otherworldly flute, piano and a gentle, almost whispered vocal it builds to a powerful crescendo in the chorus, a real sense of desperation and passion in the lyric as Gabriel sings “Here comes the flood/ We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood.” In fairness, the first two minutes or so remain the same in the sparser versions, the song just doesn’t explode on them as it does here. Heavy punchy percussion, strong piano and lush organ mesh with Gabriel’s howling vocal, the despair evident in it. There’s a great guitar almost-outro too, courtesy of Fripp, though the song actually ends on a few piano notes and Gabriel’s falsetto. TRACK LISTING 1. Moribund the Burgermeister 2. Solsbury Hill 3. Modern Love 4. Excuse Me 5. Humdrum 6. Slowburn 7. Waiting for the Big One 8. Down the Dolce Vita 9. Here Comes the Flood Even despite the big hit single, I find this a low-key affair to announce the solo career of the ex-Genesis frontman, with little in the way of fanfare (though of course I would have been too young to have noticed if there had been any when it was released, but I somehow doubt it) and a real pot-pourri of styles and songs. As I said earlier, it does betray a sense of freedom, in a way something similar to how I described the feeling I got from Roger Hodgson's debut album after leaving Supertramp. It's like suddenly Gabriel can explore all these weird themes and ideas without Mike or Phil going, "I don't know, Peter. Do you think the fans will like it?" That's the intrinsic dichotomy of which I've spoken before: a solo artist, leaving his band or just taking time off to create a solo project, is free from the expectations of the band's fans. If people don't like it, it's most likely going to be with the complaint (in this case) "But it's not like Genesis!" to which Gabriel would archly reply "But I'm not in Genesis any more." So now the fans have a choice: write Gabriel off as a lost cause, a man who has abandoned the principles and tenets of Genesis, or jump on board with him for the ride and see where it took them. As his millions of fans worldwide, and the respect he earned not only in the music business but further afield, in the area of humanitarian relations, politics, justice and reform as well as ecological responsibility attest to, most chose the latter. |
Flash forward four years and a young man called Derek William Dick joins a struggling progressive rock band who are trying to revive interest in the whole idea of prog rock. But it’s seen mostly as a dated phenomenon, with bands like Yes, Rush, Genesis and ELP all consigned to the status of “seventies bands”, even though most are still performing and releasing albums, and will for some time. But the times they are a-changing, as someone - can’t quite remember who - ;) once said, and the abovementioned bands, and more like them, have mostly moved on, changing their sound and their approach to their music and their fans.
By the early 1980s, Genesis had pretty much released their last proper prog album in Duke and followed it up with the godawful Abacab (shut up Neapolitan! ;)), a nadir in their musical career that would lead them down dark paths towards their eventual breakup in 1997, while Rush had already gone for the more commercial/AOR sound a while ago. Yes had reinvented themselves with albums like Drama and were about to go on to record 90125, which while a great great album is pretty far from anyone’s idea of progressive rock, and ELP had never really recovered after the terrible “Love beach”, and would take another fourteen years to knock out their penultimate album, far from the heights of prog gods they had scaled in the seventies. Yeah, progressive rock as a genre was, to most people’s minds, a thing of the past, dead and gone and good riddance. Marillion aimed to change that, along with bands like IQ and Pallas. This was to be the rebirth of progressive rock, or neo-progressive rock as it would come to be known. Joining the band in 1981 Fish cut an imposing figure, over six feet tall with a thick Scottish accent and affecting costumes and wearing greasepaint on his face, rather like his role model Peter Gabriel had during his time with Genesis. But it takes more than a gimmick and looking good to cut it in the technically superior world of progressive rock, and though Fish did not play any instrument he was and is a master wordsmith, and like Gabriel was the principle songwriter as well as the sole vocalist for the band. There’s anecdotal evidence from the time to suggest Fish was approached by a label to sign for them as a solo artist but turned it down. If this is true it’s not surprising, but does a disservice to the other members of the band, who all put in a massive amount of work into their music. Also, let’s not forget Fish was not in Marillion when they were formed. But it’s ever the case: the man up front gets all the press. And Fish garnered some press. His habit of using an imaginary machinegun to “cut down” the audience at the climax of “Forgotten sons” made him something of a star and showed the world this was a talent worth watching. Like Gabriel, Fish used a theatrical style onstage, with costumes and narrations, and his lyrics explored subjects from the human condition to mythological creatures. You know: prog rock! He was also a very vocal person, speaking about a range of subjects and making it clear he was not, unlike the Moody Blues claimed, “just a singer in a rock and roll band”. But as time wore on and Marillion began to make their mark, scoring hit singles from the Misplaced childhood and Fugazi albums, the stress began to tell on Fish and he reached a decision. Having looked over the figures for the tour to support their fourth album, the appropriately-titled Clutching at straws, he realised that the band were becoming indebted to and dependent on EMI, their label. In his own words, "By 1987 we were over-playing live because the manager was on 20 per cent of the gross. He was making a fantastic amount of money while we were working our asses off. Then I found a bit of paper proposing an American tour. At the end of the day the band would have needed a £14,000 loan from EMI as tour support to do it. That was when I knew that, if I stayed with the band, I'd probably end up a raging alcoholic and be found overdosed and dying in a big house in Oxford with Irish wolfhounds at the bottom of my bed." Fish gave the band an ultimatum: dump the manager or he would walk. Inevitably the other members of Marillion let him go, and so in 1988 he set off on a solo career path, taking with him his lyrics and ideas which were supposed to have appeared on the fifth Marillion album, and also artist Mark Wilkinson, who had created the cover of every Marillion album up to then, and would continue to work with Fish on his solo material. Two years later his first solo album hit the shelves, with a typically Marillion/Fishlike title. (Note: for any of you who may have read my thread “The Marillion story”, much of what follows will be recognisable to you, as I am basically pulling most of it wholesale for this review. There’s no point in my writing two reviews, which would say basically the same thing, or letting all that work go to waste. However, I will not be just repeating what I said in that thread verbatim, but will be adding to it and importing it into this review.) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-FishVigil.jpg Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors --- Fish --- 1990 (EMI) It must, in fairness, have been a pretty daunting task, going it alone, even given the fact that he really had no choice, as he said himself above. In the band Fish may have written all the lyrics but he had the other guys to bounce ideas off, and besides that, he wrote lyrics, not music. Marillion as a unit took care of that. After all, let's not forget that great singer and composer though he is, Fish didn't play any instrument in the band. He was purely, first and foremost, a vocalist. So he had to turn to some of his famous mates for help, and his first solo album contains contributions from, among others, Mickey Simmonds and Iron Maiden's Janick Gers. He also used a wealth of talent from uileann pipes expert Davy Spillane to bassist John Giblin and drummer Mark Brzezicki, best known for his work with Big Country. The album opens on the title track, and it's interesting that his first words as a solo artist are "Listen to me, just hear me out: if I could have your attention?" almost as if he's pleading with that section of Marillion fandom who have cursed his name. Probably not, but it's still a good idea. Although this is a long song (the longest on the album) it would seem Fish had taken some lessons away from his time with Marillion, one of these being that songs that are too long get no radio airplay, and as a solo artist you want as much exposure as you can get. Fish knew, or hoped, that many Marillion and ex-Marillion fans would buy his music, if only to hear the difference to what he had been doing with the band, but he knew too that he could not rely only on the "old guard", and must write songs with one eye fixed on if not the charts then at least radio time. So as an introductory song this is necessarily long, almost an old Marillion song that could have worked on Script, but most of the rest of the songs are relatively short. As there was no acrimonious split with Marillion there's no need for an angry, "Assassing"-style opening shot at the band, and Fish instead blasts consumerism as he pictures himself lost in a "wilderness of mirrors". The song opens on atmospheric keyboard but soon kicks up on the basis of thick percussion and when it really gets going it takes on something of a Celtic feel, reflecting of course his Scottish roots. He talks about learning that all his childhood beliefs were wrong - "When I was young my father told me just bad guys died, at the time just a little white lie. It was one of the first but it hurt me the most and the truth stung like tears in my eyes that even the good guys must die. There's no reason, no rhyme and I never knew why: even now it still makes me cry." Further Celtic inspiration is supplied by the appearance of the great Davy Spillane on pipes and whistle, and great guitar screams courtesy of ex-Dire Straits man Hal Lindes as Fish is back to the angry man we knew on albums like Fugazi and Script. The feeling of loss and helplessness runs through the album, and the idea of "the Hill" is first broached here. This is a metaphor for the accumulation of wealth and power, the idea that if you're on "the Hill" you can look down on your neighbours and feel that you're better than they are. There’s a lot of anger in the song, but hope too, that someone somewhere will hear his “voice crying in the wilderness” - ”If there’s somebody out there/ Will they throw me down a line/ Just a little helping hand/ Just a little understanding” - and at the end as everything winds down and the song more or less returns to the musical theme of its opening, Fish sighs ”When I can’t scream no more/ And I need reassurance/ I listen to the crowd.” This may reference society, or it may be talking about his audience, now or before; Fish may be saying that when he needs to be reassured he has done the right thing he remembers the crowds shouting and cheering and applauding Marillion. That’s the last of the “epics” for a while, as Fish kicks things off with the lead single from the album, “Big Wedge”. An obvious push for the charts, this single was never going to do much in the USA - truth be told it didn't exactly shake up the charts here either - as Fish decries the idea of capitalism and specifically American capitalism. It's upbeat and rocky as Fish sings "A priest got in a Cadillac,/The shoe-shine boy sang gospel/ As God and His accountant drove away!" Showing he was determined also to move a step away from the Marillion music, Fish calls in the talents of a brass section which really "souls" up this track. If there was any doubt about his views on the US of A they're dispelled as he roars "America! America the big wedge! /Am I buying your tomorrow out today?" No US stadium shows for you, Mr. Dick! Weirdly, although “Big Wedge” was the lead single from the album, “State of Mind” was released months before the album hit the shelves. Seems EMI were afraid of pulling too much attention away from the “relaunch” of Marillion, whose first album sans Fish was due out in 1989, and so they threw out this single as a taster in October 1989, one month after Seasons End hit, but held back the actual release of the full album until the following January. Although also politically motivated lyrically, this is far more restrained and more in the Marillion mode, as Fish fumes about the grip of Thatcher's government over Britain, and foresees a revolution. Driven on a thick bassline from Giblin the vocal is downbeat and restrained, menacing and somewhat paranoid, rising to a hopeful rallying call as he sings "We the people are gettin' tired of your lies/ We the people believe that it's time. /We're demanding our right to the answers: /We'll elect a president to a state of mind." Another example of Fish's talent in making a phrase mean two things, or changing the meaning of a word to fit in with his vision. The title of the album is also mentioned here for the second time. Great crashing guitar and what could be sitar but probably is not. Perhaps a slight throwback to Clutching at Straws, “The Company” is is a folky tune that sways along with the happy abandon of the drunk but soon turns angry as Fish snarls "You buy me a drink then you think/ That you've got the right to crawl into my head/ And rifle my soul." In fact, this could even go back further, to where on Misplaced Childhood he's singing about a journalist bothering him during the "Mylo" section of "Blind curve". Again "the Hill" is mentioned, quite a lot actually as he says "Here on the Hill, halfway up, halfway down." Nice bit of Celtic violin and flute with an almost orchestral keyboard passage. The first ever Fish ballad comes in the form of “A Gentleman’s Excuse-me”, and I have to say it’s right up there with the likes of "Lavender" and "Sugar Mice". The imagery goes right back to "Chelsea Monday" as Fish asks, against a lone piano melody, "Do you still keep paper flowers/ In the bottom drawer with your Belgian lace, /Taking them out every year /To watch the colours fade away?" It's an inspired and effective depiction of a life, and the chance of a relationship, wasting away, the more so when he sneers "Do you still believe in Santa Claus?/ There's a millionaire looking for your front door/ With the keys to a life that you'd never understand" but then admits "All I have to offer is /The love I have, it's freely given." Sumptuous orchestral arrangements lift this song right up to the status of instant classic, and if there was a time when you realised Fish - the solo artist, not Fish the ex-Marillion singer or even Fish the Marillion singer - had arrived, this is it. All through the song Fish tries to compare his real charms, his true love to the fantasies and dreams of the girl, who is waiting for a white knight to sweep her off her feet, and can't see what's under her nose. But in the end, frustration gives way to cold anger and then resignation and acceptance as he tells the object of affection "Can't you get it inside your head/ I'm tired of dancin'? /We're finished dancing." Probably one of the most uptempo tracks on the album is “The Voyeur (I Like to Watch)”, with a very Europop feel, almost Madonna's "True Blue"! Not the most original of lyrics I have to say, with the television and particularly the news seen as a voyeuristic activity as Fish declares gleefully "I like to watch plausible pledges of black politicians" (almost twenty years before Obama!) and then references shows like Jerry Springer: "Private lives are up for auction/ And a cupboard full of skeletons/ Are coming out to play!" Again, not one of my favourite songs, though there is a nice Marillion-style keyboard passage in the middle eighth. This was not included on the original vinyl album and to be honest, I wouldn't have missed it on the CD. Oh well, not a terrible song but I guess you can't have a flawless solo debut. “Family Business” is much more like it. As already mentioned in other posts I’ve made about Marillion, and particularly in one of my “Run for cover!” features, the actual lyric for this was used on a song to have been recorded by Marillion for their then fifth album, which was of course never recorded, Seasons end being released instead after Fish's departure. The lyric was in the song then called "Story From a Thin Wall" and used as "Berlin", but here it has different music, the story of domestic violence, as Fish listens to the nightly goings-on next door and wishes he could help. "Every night when I hear you/ I dream of breaking down your door, /An avenging knight in shining armour". It's a slow, plodding song with crying violin and stark piano, bitter and recriminatory. It ramps up for the bridge as the unnamed husband warns his battered wife "If anyone from the Social asks, you fell down the stairs!" It's a shocking indictment not only of domestic and family abuse, but of how it's tacitly accepted, mostly because people just don't want to get involved, or are afraid of being pulled into what's seen as "family business". The same reason cops don't intervene in domestic disputes. The pathetic figure of the wife as "She's waiting at a bus stop at the bottom of the hill. /She knows she'll never catch it" is heart-rending, and so typical of women who fail to break out of their abusive relationships. But something will have to be done, she realises; her own fear will have to be faced or placed on hold for the good of her children "Cause when daddy tucks the kids in /It's taking longer every night." The Hill finally comes into view, as Fish teams up with Maiden's Janick Gers for a searing look at the things people will do to get to the top in “View from the Hill”. Fish snarls "They sold you the view from the Hill, /They told you the view from the Hill would be further /Than you had ever seen before!" It's the old story of the grass being greener on the other side, and the song could be misinterpreted to mean that Fish was regretting his solo move, but that's not the case at all. Gers himself guests on guitar and really rocks the track up, Fish's vocal burning with anger and accusation, almost as if the impotent rage of "Family Business" has exploded out of him in a towering wave, directed at those who sell unattainable dreams. Of course there's a great solo from Gers, and the song is definitely the heaviest on the album, not quite metal but coming reasonably close. It fades out on single chords from Gers and takes us to the closer. Starting out pretty much like the opener did, “Cliche” is the second ballad, though it ramps up near the end. It's carried mostly on piano and synth, with Fish wrestling with how to get across how he loves his lady without resorting to hackneyed lines and methods. With perhaps a lack of humility he declares "I've got a reputation of being /A man with the gift of words: /Romantic, poetic type, or so they say." The fact that it's true makes it a little easier to take, and the guitar moaning in the background adds a sense of power to the song, with backing vocals from among others, Heaven 17's Carol Kenyon giving it a feel of Pink Floyd. A slick bass line from Giblin runs throughout the tune, and a fiery guitar solo from Frank Usher lays the final polish on a great closer. As I say, a ballad but a song that changes as it goes along and ends up being quite a punchy, emotional and stirring final track. TRACKLISTING 1. Vigil 2. Big Wedge 3. State of Mind 4. The Company 5. A Gentleman's Excuse-me 6. The Voyeur (I Like to Watch) 7. Family Business 8. View From the the Hill 9. Cliche As a debut solo album, even for someone already well known in progressive rock circles, this stands as one of the best, and certainly among Fish's catalogue I'd rank it among the big three, with Raingods with Zippos and the followup to this, Internal Exile. If nothing else, it did partially exorcise the ghost of Marillion and the breakup, and showed that Fish was able to stand unaided as a performer in his own right. Of course, that same ghost was not completely gone, and in the subject matter and Mark Wilkinson's Marillionesque album covers, the Jester was always looking over Fish's shoulder. |
Let's return to our
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...28Cover%29.jpg Album title: Clone Artist: Threshold Nationality: English Year: 1998 Chronology: 4 The Trollheart Factor: 10 Track Listing: Freaks/Angels/The Latent Gene/Lovelorn/Change/Life’s Too Good/Goodbye Mother Earth/Voyager II/Sunrise on Mars Comments: The first album to feature the late Andrew “Mac” Macdonald after the departure of original vocalist Damien Wilson, this loses none of the heaviness or power of previous albums, a gritty, snarly guitar getting “Freaks” underway, the album a sort of concept following the idea of genetic manipulation and, well, cloning. Basically Threshold seem to look on this as a bad thing in general, the whole idea of not playing God written large across the lyrics. A warning about going too far, “Freaks” sets out the band’s view on things, and this continues into “Angels”, opening with a dolorous muted organ from Richard West, rocking along with intent with some great growling guitar work from Groom (yes I know that’s a lot of alliteration) - I’d have to be honest though and say it’s not one of my favourite tracks. Not so for “The Latent Gene”, another fast rocker which features a truly beautiful midsection where everything slips right back before picking up again for the end of the song, and into “Lovelorn”, one of the more dramatic tracks on the album, with a rising guitar intro and then kind of echoey, haunting guitar backing the opening and some fine keyboard flourishes from West. That takes us to the first ballad, a simple little love song called “Change”, which shows that not everything these guys do has to be layers of keyboard or guitars and vocal harmonies, intricate time signatures or power chords. Kind of reminds me of “Flags and Footprints” again from Subsurface in certain places. Pedal back to the floor then for “Life’s Too Good”, until things begin to slow down for”Goodbye Mother Earth”, which quickly picks up on Groom’s rocking guitar, but does indeed slow down for a rather stunning midsection and there’s a slow, almost sad fadeaway into the epic, “Voyager II” which seems to continue the theme, even the story begun in the previous track. Warbly keyboards and hard guitar chops open the song before it settles down on introspective guitar and generally takes a slower, more sedate path through its nine-minute run. Just as you think it too is fading out accompanied by radio chatter the melody comes back, a sort of chanting, howling vocal accompanied by grinding piano. The album then ends on one more ballad, one of my very favourite Threshold songs, “Sunrise on Mars". Beginning and indeed ending all but acapella, it’s driven mostly on West’s lonely piano, with an evocative guitar solo by Groom near the end that just takes your breath away. I’m not all that happy about how it ends though, as it seems to just fizzle out and wastes the big build-up that went before it. Track(s) I liked: Everything, with the possible exception of Track(s) I didn't like: maybe “Angels” One standout: “Sunrise on Mars” One rotten apple: nah Overall impression: A great album, very much worthy of Threshold. Can’t quite follow the concept but that doesn’t matter. The change of vocalist didn’t throw me, as I had begun listening to them via Subsurface, with Mac on vox. Rating: 9.4/10 |
Come with me now, on a musical travelogue as we explore the hidden delights (and shocking disappointments perhaps) that make up
https://i.postimg.cc/NMQr3NL2/worldprog1.jpg Originally a title for an alternative prog thread, I now want to use this to emulate something I did in one of the Metal Months a few years back, and explore prog artists from all over the world. Essentially, I’m going to stick a pin in a map of the world, so to speak, and then look into a band from that part of the globe. We’ll see how it goes. So where do we head first I ask - virtually only, of course, as I’m sure in this era of Covid-19 everyone else is also being as careful about travelling and potentially spreading or leaving themselves open to infection. Stay at home, as they say, stay safe. I will be adding other sections and aspects to this, but right now I want to go https://i.postimg.cc/C1tSG5yM/80Days1b.jpg So from the comfort of my ancient and moth-eaten armchair, which is losing more stuffing than the long-finished Christmas dinner, I spy https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ion%29.svg.png Yep, in case your geography is as bad as mine, that's Serbia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Serbia.svg.png Part of the former Yugoslav Republic over there on the beautiful Adriatic. And what prog bands, if any, come from there? Not a huge amount, as expected, and of them, mostly in the progressive metal and jazz fusion type sub-genres, but we’ll see what we can find. May as well kick off with the first one whose name stands out to me, and that’s these guys. http://www.progarchives.com/progress...idrainband.jpg Artist: Acid Rain Sub-genre(s): Progressive Metal Formed: 2001 City: Belgrade Members: Nikola Krstovic (Guitar), Zarko Krstovic (Bass), Marko Jankovic (Drums), Matija Andjelkovic (Keyboards), Marko Èapljic (Vocals) Discography: Alpha (2005), Game of Life (2006), Worlds Apart (2008) Seems to be a little bit of confusion on the lineup, with Marko Jankovic shown as being the original drummer, though a different guy played the skins on their debut EP, but as I don’t exactly have The Big Book of Serbian Prog to hand, and as Wiki looks at me as if I’m mad when I try for Acid Rain (band), I have to go with the minimal information Prog Archives gives me, and it doesn’t solve this minor mystery. Also, I guess, who cares? Spotify gives me four bands called Acid Rain, none of which are these guys, and as you can imagine, YouTube isn’t exactly bursting with their output, so the only one I can find is this: http://www.progarchives.com/progress...4164122009.jpg Album title: Worlds Apart Artist: Acid Rain Nationality: Serbian Year: 2008 Chronology: 3 The Trollheart Factor: 0 Track Listing: Worlds Apart/Solitude/Guide the Blind Comments: Not all that clear on their recordings either. The debut is a four-track EP, all of which are then included on what I guess is their first real album, Game of Life and then there’s this, which is a three-song EP, possibly the precursor to a second (?) album which so far has not seen the light of day, and given that this is twelve years ago now, I doubt it ever will. Well, let’s listen anyway. A mere fifteen minutes long in total, the EP kicks off with the title track, with some very busy keyboard and nice powerful guitar, rapid drumming and a very accomplished vocal from Srdan Zuvić who is not the original vocalist, but then few of the members here seem to have been on the first EP. One of the Krstovic brothers is gone, he of the bass, and the only other original member than his sibling is the keyboard player. It’s a powerful and well-constructed song, and there’s hardly a trace of his native accent as Zuvić gives it socks. Yeah, very impressive I must say. Next up is “Solitude”, with a more aggressive guitar fronting the melody this time, plenty of keyboard flurries, reminiscent at times of Geoff Downes’s work on latter Yes albums, think this may very well be an instrumental. Interesting thing about the album cover I just noticed - okay, EP cover! - is that it only has the band name on it, no title. The previous album and EP both sport the title (well, the debut is just called Acid Rain) but no title on this one. Hey, I like the sort of ethnic sounds Andjelkovic puts into the arpeggios! Nice. Yeah it was an instrumental, and a good one at that. Which means we’re already at the end, with “Guide the Blind” showing either that Zuvić is a very versatile singer, or that someone else is taking vocals here. A much harsher, more ragged sound which suits the song as it blasts along. Mixture of guitar lines mirroring both Threshold and Iron Maiden. Colour me impressed. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: n/a One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: Hard to get a proper impression when you’ve only got three tracks to listen to, but I certainly enjoyed them all. Three for three, not bad. Rating: 9.4/10 Future Plan: May listen to more. If I can find any. |
http://www.progarchives.com/progress..._band/6230.JPG
Artist: Ana Never Sub-genre(s): Post-Rock/Math Rock Formed: 2001 City: Subotica (sorry: sounds like some made-up city from a porn universe, don’t it? :laughing:) Members: Srđan Terzin (electric & lap steel guitars, bass, keyboards) Dejan Topić (guitar) Boris Čegar (keyboards, glockenspiel) Goran Grubisić (drums, guitar) Discography: Ana Never (2006), Small years (2012), Long Turning (2016) This time we have a band who have at least, it seems, had some half-decent success. Three albums (though quite a gap between the first and second) and lo and behold! They’re on Spotify! So let’s take their third, and latest album here and give it a spin. Spoiler for Big picture:
(Apologies for the huge picture, but Google isn't exactly straining at the seams with images of this band's albums, so I had to go with the only one I could get) Album title: Long Turning Artist: Ana Never Nationality: Serbian Year: 2016 Chronology: 3 The Trollheart Factor: 0 Track Listing: Tomorrow is the Livelong Day/Long Turning/I Saw You Today/Martha/Tomorrow is the Livelong Day 2 Comments: Only five tracks, but one is a seventeen-minuter, so this will either be great or boring. As it’s post-rock/math-rock, no vocals so the music will have to stand on its own. Let’s see if it does. Well the first track is very ambient, not quite but almost drone, not much change in the melody, but pretty cool anyway. A good start. The next one is, I note, also an epic, coming in just short of ten minutes, and seeming to bring the guitars more to the foreground this time, and again I have to say well done, great job. Always hard to point out different things about post-rock of course, much of it tends to sound quite similar, but I certainly like what I hear on this album so far. The addition of violin to “I Saw You Today” really makes a difference, giving the piece a melancholy, haunting feel, and a certain Nick Cave shape too. And now we’re into that seventeen-minute track, which goes under the simple title of “Martha”, and certainly starts off slow and almost morose, acoustic piano and sharply ringing guitar kind of plodding along. Strange thing is, it’s been nine minutes of pretty much the same thing now, and I don’t mind. I could listen to this forever, so for once I’m not going to say it’s overextended and why is it seventeen minutes long? Rather, my question is, why isn’t it longer? Just stunning. There are lap steel guitars used by Ana Never, and it’s possible that’s what I’m hearing, though it has a kind of mandolin-y sound so I thought maybe balaika or oud or something? It’s very effective either way. Could probably, on balance, do without the screeching guitar feedback right at the end, though! That leaves us with one track to go, the reprise as it were of the opener, as “Tomorrow is the Livelong Day 2” takes us out with a sort of staggered tape loop thing, a little hard on the ears but the music behind it is lush and symphonic. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: Hard to say One rotten apple: None Overall impression: Very impressed Rating: 9.3/10 Future Plan: Will try to make time to hear more of their music. |
Well so far our little trip through part of the former Yugoslavia has been very rewarding. Let’s try one more before we finish up for now. We’ve heard prog metal and post rock, so while it’s not my favourite sub-genre, and in a lead-up to prepare me for a new section I’ll be showcasing in 2021, let’s try a jazz fusion band, hmm?
http://www.progarchives.com/progress..._band/6764.jpg These guys look like they may fit the bill. Artist: Eyot Sub-genre(s): Jazz Fusion Formed: 2001 City: Nis Members: - Sladjan Milenovic (guitar), Dejan Ilijic (piano), Marko Stojiljkovic (bass), Milos Vojvodic (drums) Discography: Horizon (2010), Drifters (2013), Similarity (2014), Innate (2017), 557799 (2020) I’ve checked they’re on Spotify, so we’re ready to go. Let’s choose, oh I don’t know, the middle album, so that would be this one. https://img.discogs.com/gnQ0sUXH8rtH...-6141.jpeg.jpg Album title: Similarity Artist: Eyot Nationality: Serbian Year: 2014 Chronology: 4 The Trollheart Factor: 0 Track Listing: How Shall the Dust Storm Start?/Druids/Similarity/Pools of Purple Light/New Passover/Nirvana/Walking On the Thin Ice With Iron Shoes/Blessing Comments: As I say, this could be an ordeal for me. I’m no lover of fusion, jazz or otherwise, and my dislike for the “j” word is well documented here, but I do want to try to stretch out to encompass all of prog’s sub-genres, especially the ones I haven’t had any or much experience with, later on in the new year, so this will be, if you like, a proving ground, a toe in the water, a taste of things to come. Hey, maybe I won’t hate it, but even if I do, it’s probably unfair of me to continue to ignore those areas of prog that don’t particularly appeal to me. I’m sure my one reader would like the chance to make up his mind for himself on that score, so I’m going to try to do my best to explore the “forgotten corners” of prog (at least, forgotten in my case) come 2021. For now, let’s hit play and see how we do with this one. Okay that’s unbelievable. Un-be-****ing-lievable! I chose this album at random from their discography and it’s the ONLY ONE Spotify does not have! Damn them! Neither are Youtube interested! Okay, I’ve managed to get it by other means. Bloody hell. I wouldn’t have bothered, only I had gone and written out the track list, and it looks quite interesting so I wanted to hear it. Perhaps I’ll live to regret that. We’ll see. But at least I have it now. So it’s thick bass and ripply piano to get us underway, mid-tempo piece and gets pretty rocky along the way. Definitely not boring, so that’s a start. Slower for “Druids”, again mostly piano-driven with a kind of recurring motif running through it. Nice. The title track seems a little low in the mix, it’s not until the piano comes in that you really get to hear any proper music. It sure takes off though once it gets going, with powerful snarly guitar, insistent piano and synth right out of Genesis circa 1983. Another uptempo piano-driven track in “Pools of Purple Light”, and you know what? It’s very hard to describe this kind of music so I’m just going to sit back and enjoy jazz fusion music that doesn’t suck there I said it, and I’ll point out any interesting things that occur to me along the way. Yeah that’s pretty much it. “Nirvana” and “New Passover” are faster, more energetic numbers while “Walking On the Thin Ice With Iron Shoes” (never a recommended action!) is slower and more laconic, very laid back, and “Blessing”, which closes the album, has a nice slow easy shuffle to it. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: n/a One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: Considering my dislike of jazz and fusion, this was extremely enjoyable. Never at any point did I feel like switching off, or wishing the track would end. I’d listen to more of this for sure. Rating: 9.8/10 Future Plan: Jazz fusion, look out! I’m coming for ya! As for this band, definitely would listen to more of their music. May even be downloading as we speak… And that does it for part one of our visit to the former Yugoslavia. We’re far from done with Serbia though, so keep an eye on this space as we will be back. |
Time to finish up our first trip through the Five Decades of Prog. I’ve only heard one Glass Hammer album, and that was 2002’s Lex Rex. I did not like it. This could be interesting.
https://img.discogs.com/mFx7uO4_Oo3k...-5486.jpeg.jpg Album title: Valkyrie Artist: Glass Hammer Nationality: American Year: 2016 Chronology: 16 The Trollheart Factor: 1 Track Listing: The Fields We Know/Golden Days/No Man's Land/Nexus Girl/Valkyrie/Fog of War/Dead and Gone/Eucatastrophe/Rapturo Comments: Would you believe that, with about eighteen albums to their credit, Spotify has the princely number of two albums from Glass Hammer? Just as well I own all their discography, which I discovered after vainly searching for it on the Big S! This is a concept album about a soldier’s return from the war (doesn’t say which war; with a name like Valkyrie for the album you’d think maybe Second World War but we’ll see if it becomes clearer as the album goes on) and his search for the girl he left behind. The opener has a sort of Spock’s Beard/Arena feel to it, some nice Hammond work. “Golden Days” switches the lead vocal over to a female one, Susie Bogdanowciz, and is a slower song though not a ballad. Nice use of air raid sirens in the song. Decent, but I wouldn’t personally be getting too excited about anything just yet. Okay, well the opening to “No Man’s Land” just got my attention: very dramatic and emotional, lovely work on the guitars, very tense; not sure if it’s going to be an instrumental but we just got choral vocals so maybe. Oh no. Just checked the running time and it’s an epic - fourteen minutes - so this can only be an overture surely. There’s no way anyone does a fourteen minute instrumental. And now we’re going all Spock again and here come the vocals, Susie again. Impressive musical diversity here; changes from bouncy keyboard melody to moody dark guitar grind with mechanised voice. I would hazard from the lyric that we’re talking World War I. I’m really getting into this; almost goes post-rock at the end. The title track opens on acoustic guitar and that mechanised vocal again, then Susie is back for “Fog of War”, a more uptempo, rocky track, while things slow right down on soft piano for “Dead and Gone” with more fine Hammond or is it Mellotron? Why do I always get those two mixed up? Gets pretty rocky as it winds up; think I would have preferred it as it was. That leaves us with the three-and-a-half minute “Eucatastophe”, a little acoustic ballad on which Susie excels, and the album closes on “Rapturo”, very powerful, slow and stately with a real sense of drama. Track(s) I liked: “No Man’s Land/Valkyrie/Dead and Gone/Eucatastrophe/Rapturo Track(s) I didn't like: One standout: “No Man’s Land” One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: Definitely got better as it went on. When it started I was in a sort of meh frame of mind - this is okay but nothing special. Then I started to take interest, and that interest really never waned. I reckon this could be an album I could get into if I took a few more listens to it. Rating: 9.0/10 Future Plan: I may have to give this band another chance. With twenty-odd albums, one I found poor and the other quite impressive, I may just have formed the wrong impression first time out. Listen to more? Think you hit the nail on the head. Sorry, sorry... |
When I were a lad (oh god here he goes again! Just ignore him; he’ll soon go away) there wasn’t much in the way of recommendations for albums or even artists. No YouTube, no streaming, no, in fact, internet at all. So we had rock magazines, radio and the odd TV programme like Top of the Pops or The Old Grey Whistle Test via which to consume and be exposed to new music. Often, I would head into the city centre with a few quid clutched in my young fist and just go through the second-hand bins in various record shops, and more often than not my attention would be arrested by an interesting sleeve. I would then check to see who the band were, and if I might be interested in them. I would have to say Santana’s Abraxas came into my collection this way, and I’ve already told the story of how I would look in the window of the closed record shop after work and admire the cover of Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell, to say nothing of being scared of the lurid cover of the devilish debut from Iron Maiden!
Which all goes to prove that then - not so much, I guess now, though still for me in most ways - we chose our albums based on what we thought of the cover. Or, to be more accurate, if we found an album with an intriguing or interesting cover, we might be tempted to buy it just on that basis, sometimes to our loss and sometimes to our gain. So here I will be resurrecting the section I used to run in my main journal, many years ago, which I called then, and will call now https://i.postimg.cc/dQkWQBBZ/secretlife2.jpg In this feature I will look at a prog rock album cover and waffle on about it. And here’s the first one. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...lost_chord.jpg Number One: In Search of the Lost Chord by The Moody Blues, 1968 Now this is a cover that grabs your attention! According to the artist who created it, Phil Travers, it’s supposed to convey the idea of meditation. Now, far be it from me to criticise, but this is not at all what it says to me, and I was quite surprised when I read the explanation. For me, this represents the journey from birth to death (though shown in reverse), and while this may not be - is not, according to the artist - the intention behind the work, it’s fair to say that every artist will agree that other interpretations can be put on their work, so here’s how I see it. You have a skull on the left side and an embryo on the right, with a man sitting between them, while from his head seem to rise higher thoughts. All right, this certainly can be explained as being a representation of meditation, to be fair. It could be - and possibly is - meditation on the state of human existence. The skull (and the embryo) appear to be sunk in the ground, buried even. This is acceptable for the skull: we all die, and if we’re not cremated or shot out into space, we’re buried and our bones end up in the earth. But the embryo? Well I guess it could be viewed also as a sort of seed, new life waiting in the soil to come forth, grow and claw its way to the surface, perhaps even an allegory for the baby pushing its way out of the womb and into life. Or maybe it’s all bollocks, but this is what I think anyway. The words above each - “In search of” being above the skull and “the lost chord” above the embryo - could be falling downward, into the earth, into the soil (into death?) or rising up above the poor mud of our mortal coil. Given that the thoughts in the man’s head are rising (to a higher plane?) is it likely the words, the concept, are also rising? Or can it be something even, ahem, deeper? Searching usually implies digging - if not literally then figuratively: dig that invoice out for me would you? Dig into his personal history, and so on - so the natural expected direction evoked is down, dig down, unearth, excavate. If that’s the case, then both sets of words can be seen to be falling, sinking down, to be uncovered by, what? Truth? Revelation? A higher state of consciousness? Another point: the words “the lost chord” seem to be centring towards, or emanating from, the embryo, and if you change one letter in chord you get cord. Umbilical cord? Are we talking here about finding the cord to sever it, in order to free the baby and allow it to begin to live? The skull, with the words “in search of”, grinning as all skulls appear to, could be seen as representing that the search is futile, pointless, and will end in death, or that death will overtake the seeker, he or she never having made his or her discovery. It’s facing the embryo, so could be seen to be gloating, though the embryo is not looking at it, being unable to, possibly not even having eyes yet but certainly in the foetal position and so unable to look up. Is it then a symbol of avoidance, technically afraid to face the skull, face the truth it bears, face death? Or is it refusal, a defiance in the face of the crumbling remains of a human being, that what it seeks can be found, that it will find it, and that death is a long way off for this newborn child? The man sits between both the skull and the embryo, caught in the shadow thrown by both, trapped in the earth, below ground. Is he the representation of what the embryo will be, waiting to be born, to ascend to a more spiritual existence? His thoughts lead from deep darkness to brilliant, exploding light high above the soil (grave?) and in fact seem to expand into some sort of bright sunburst, spreading its light over the entire scene. So while all below is dark and gloomy, above the two figures blue sky and white clouds stretch under the warming influence of the sun, while hands (four, for some reason) reach out and seem to rise towards the heavens. So: meditation? Certainly. I wouldn’t presume to debate the artist. But as in all things in art, interpretation can vary with each person who views it, and while this may not be what Travers intended when he sat down to create this illustration, perhaps there are things in his work that even he is unaware of. Or maybe I’m just a knob, overanalysing as usual. Either way, it’s interesting and certainly makes for a fascinating album cover. |
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Let’s go right back to where it all began https://img.discogs.com/0abj_v-DFeM9...-2915.jpeg.jpg Album title: Wounded Land Artist: Threshold Nationality: English Year: 1993 Chronology: 1 The Trollheart Factor: 10 Track Listing: Consume to Live/Days of Dearth/Sanity’s End/Paradox/Surface to Air/Mother Earth/Siege of Baghdad/Keep it With Mine Comments: For a debut album this is pretty stunning. Kicking off with “Consume to Live” it’s a powerful statement that chastises us for our misuse of the planet, evidence that this band was not going to just write about popular topics but would take the almost aggressive political commentary route. Not every one of their songs is political of course, but you can definitely see from this debut that they were going to have a lot to say. Of course, there’s not that much point in having something to say if nobody listens, so Threshold from the off surrounded the message in their lyrics with catchy, memorable melodies, hooks and singalong choruses. It’s progressive metal certainly, with the guitar of Karl Groom and Nick Midson taking control. “Days of Dearth” continues the - it must be said - grim, morose tone of the album, slowing everything down with a real grind and slow march, while “Sanity’s End”, one of the two epics on the album, clocking in at just over ten minutes, takes the dangers of drug addiction - particualrly Ecstasy - as its theme, warning that there is always a price to be paid. Richard West begins to come into his own here for the first time as he breaks out his battery of keyboards. Nice introspective piece in the middle where Groom and Midson take over, then West is back to let it rip Geoff Downes-style all over the track. Man is taken to task again in “Paradox”, where there’s almost a sense of AOR about the melody, again quite keyboard-driven, very uptempo. Really nice slow guitar solo that leads into a faster run, very effective. “Surface to Air” is another ten-minuter, opening on a soft gentle melody which gives Damian Wilson a chance to show the more restrained side of his singing, and West holds court on piano. Groom soon punches in though and takes the song in an entirely new direction, though West has his revenge (!) later when his lazy, whistling arpeggios lead Groom into what must be said to be a very Pink Floyd “Comfortably Numb” solo, but given that this was a band starting out, and given that the album is next to perfect we can forgive this one slight misstep. The final part of the song runs on a beautiful hook that just ramps everything up and ends the track wonderfully. A marching grinder returning to ecological concerns, “Mother Earth” punches along really nicely, some great vocal histrionics from Wilson, then big doomy drums and a doleful wailing guitar usher in “Siege of Baghdad”, with the expected Middle Eastern riffs, kicking into a rhythm somewhat reminiscent of the opener. Groom pretty much runs the show here, with Midson adding some fine acoustic guitar, then we end on a simple acoustic ballad in “Keep it With Mine”, a perhaps low-key end to a very powerful debut album, but somehow appropriate, like a long slow breath released after a heavy workout. Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing; “Siege of Baghdad” would be the one I liked least maybe One standout: “Surface to Air” One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: As a debut album this is a real revelation. It's a pity Threshold aren't better known, but they fly the flag well for intelligent, thoughtful and melodic progressive metal. Rating: 9.6/10 |
Let’s check out another of
Albums I listened to early in my prog rock life will always hold a special resonance for me; these were, after all, the albums and artists that led me on to others who became favourites, and at the time I had no reviewer ambitions, so I just listened to them for pleasure, not criticism (though I might have reviewed them mentally, and I think I did: I just had no outlet at the time to put such thoughts out there) and many times too, as at the time I had little if any access to the internet, there were no streaming services or download sites, and I could only listen to what I could afford to buy, and that wasn’t a lot at the time. So in one way perhaps I got stuck in a rut, listening to the same albums and artists over and over again, but in another way it gave me a real appreciation of, and made me very familiar with these albums, to the extent that I can easily review them now without even having to listen to them. But I will listen to them, because why not? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...nd_fiction.jpg Album title: Fact and Fiction Artist: Twelfth Night Nationality: English Year: 1982 Chronology: 1 (*) The Trollheart Factor: 3 Track Listing: We Are Sane ((i) Te Dium (ii) We Are Sane (iii) Dictator’s Excuse-me)/Human Being/This City/World Without End/Fact and Fiction/The Poet Sniffs a Flower/Creep Show/Love Song Comments: More than likely having been recommended the album by Kerrang! (my Bible growing up, and one of the only ways I heard about new music) this was one of a clutch of purchases I made after falling under the spell of Marillion, and while it’s quite different to the Fish-led albums of the early and mid-eighties, and was nowhere near as successful, for a debut it’s pretty damn stunning. It’s perhaps interesting that the album opens on a boy soprano-style vocal from Geoff Mann, the kind of thing you would hear from a choirboy, and he went on to pursue a career in the church. Anyway, his voice soon dips into deeper, darker areas and the song gets going. Being nearly ten and a half minutes long it changes as it goes along, and is in fact split into three sections. It’s almost a play set to music, really quite impressive, and focuses on the idea of enforced conformity and the loss of identity and individuality. Another sort of boy soprano introduction to “Human Being”. I really love the lush keyboard and then the tinkling piano; Mann’s voice gets really angry and acerbic here, also sounds like there’s cello but I don’t think Twelfth Night used one did they? Great guitar solo from Andy Revell, while “This City” is pretty much driven on Clive Mitten’s evocative keys, with attendant sounds of children playing. One thing Twelfth Night used a lot was sound effects - you saw many of them in “We Are Sane” and here they are again, adding to the atmosphere of the song. They work really well, and it’s not like they need them, as Geoff Mann’s voice, once he gets going, really commands your attention. “World Without End” is a short but gorgeous, almost sepulchral instrumental and leads into the title track, which bounces along with great enthusiasm and some seriously fun keyboard arpeggios, and into another instrumental, “The Poet Sniffs a Flower”, which opens on a lovely classical guitar with soft keys behind it, then picks up speed rather unexpectedly, ending as an entirely different animal. And that takes us to the penultimate track, but certainly the one around which the album is based, to my mind anyway, and if not that, certainly the longest, coming in a mere few seconds short of twelve minutes. “Creepshow” brings back memories of carnivals, Victorian sanitariums and even prisons and experimental laboratories, and again given its length as you’d expect it changes quite a lot as it progresses, opening on a soft acoustic guitar line and soft keys, but soon changes in tone and timbre as Mann, as the guide through the horror show, gives an almost Oscar-winning performance in spoken terror. The ideas espoused in the song are chilling, and Mann’s almost casually cruel diction makes it feel real, even acceptable, recalling ideas of the Nazi experimental hospitals just before World War II. There are some really weird sound effects that lend power to the denouement of the song, making it sound like something out of an episode of Dr. Who or Black Mirror, and Revell does some of his finest work here, including an emotional outro solo that recalls the very best of that fine young man from Pink Floyd. Finally, and almost unexpectedly, the album ends on a little coda, a chance to catch breath and squeeze open eyes long held shut, to confirm the horror is over, the calm after the storm, the rainbow after the downpour, the slowing of the madly thumping heart. All is well. Or. Is it? Track(s) I liked: Everything Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing One standout: “Creepshow” One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: Probably - though I don’t know because I haven’t heard many of their other albums - a case of a band crafting the perfect debut album, and having to struggle to equal such an opus. Were this their only album, however, it would still be, I believe, sufficient to elevate them to the rarefied heights of prog’s elite. Stunning. Rating: 10/10 Future Plan: Must try to hear their other material. And RIP Geoff Mann. (*) There were three cassette tapes prior, so technically it's their fourth release, but given it's the first actual (at the time) vinyl album, I'd categorise it as their proper debut. FYI If you want a fuller more detailed review, here’s my look at the album posted in July of 2011. Fact and Fiction |
Almost a trademark of 80/90s neoprog was the vocalist taking all the limelight and....verbosity.
"Fact & Fiction" being a concept lp, certainly is crammed with lyric, but its not silly lyric. Neoprog is rather a verboten genre for me but I DO have maybe 30 lps in the collection (IQ-Wake,Lush Attic, first Pendragon & Pallas....) And I have all four Twelfth Night lps. (Curiously enough one of the lps is all-instrumental.) 12th Night sparks a memory for me: my best used store find of all time (next to Plastic Cloud). It must have been early 90s. I forget the name of the record store - it didn't last long. This was downtown Hamilton ,Ontario opposite the pawnbrokers. In this store I got - for something like $8 each - 12th Night, Cathedral -Stained Glass Stories (on orig Delta) and Czar-same. Im still kicking myself: there was actually two (orig UK press) copies of the Czar! |
Originally Posted in Racing the Clouds Home, December 31 2016
To my mind, Italy is the only country outside of the UK to have essentially an entire subgenre named after and linked to them, and be, of course, exclusive to them. You can't play Italian progressive rock if you're not Italian, unlike the Canterbury Scene, where you could be in the scene even if you weren't from Canterbury. In fact, few if any of the bands in that scene were. But for all its influence over the genre, I've only heard very little of this music and that kind of in passing, with bands like Prognesi and to an extent Fabio Zuffanti, mostly through his work with Hostsonaten. So here's where I change this, as I go on a deep exploration of the world and music that is known as Rock Progressivo Italiano I honestly don't know where to start. This isn't going to be a history of RPI – that will probably unfold as part of my History of Prog journal anyway – but a chance to take a look and listen to some of the better, and perhaps less good, famous and less well-regarded bands, artistes and albums within the genre. I read that at the time when prog was in its most nascent form in the UK, bands like Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator and Gentle Giant found an audience for their music among Italian fans almost before they found fame at home, so if England could be, and is, seen as the wellspring and font of all things prog, then surely Italy must be regarded as one of the mighty river's greatest tributaries. One of the first Italian prog bands to spring up appear to have been these guys, who went on to become, in fairness, more known for their work on film soundtracks, notably with horror/schlock maestro Dario Argento, but did put out some standard prog albums. This one, in typical prog style, is a concept, although if it's sung in Italian, as I assume it is, you're out of luck as I have no Italian beyond “Ay Giovanni! Where's-a my pizza?” (Note: any slights made on the Italian language are in jest only, and should not, I repeat NOT be communicated to or repeated within a hundred miles of any practicing members of the Cosa Nostra.) Hey, maybe it'll be an instrumental album. Avanti! http://www.progarchives.com/progress...31112011_r.jpg Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark – Goblin – 1978 (Cinevox) No, there are vocals. Well, from what I read by quickly scanning other reviews of this album by people far better versed in RPI than myself, this is something of a maverick within the genre, as it would seem the usual RPI albums tend not to have any singing. Interesting. I also note that the translation of the title comes out as “the fantastic journey of (I could have translated that much myself, of course) the beetle Mark”. So is there some psychedelic weirdness mixed into the lyrics? We'll never know, as, as I say, I can't speak Italian, so that will have to remain a mystery, as we concentrate – as it seems we will be mostly or even exclusively doing all through this section – on the music. It's not an epic by any standards, certainly not by those of progressive rock, having a mere eight tracks and clocking in at a very low thirty-five minutes in total, with no track overstaying its welcome, the longest being just under six minutes long. “Mark il bagarozzo” (Mark the beetle I assume) gets things going with a spacey synthy keyboard sound and some nice guitar; the vocals are strong but as I can't tell what's being sung I can say little more about them, and here at least I can see why some people seem to consider them more a distraction, as they sort of take from the music, which, once it gets going, is very impressive. You can see why these guys went on to have such a career in film music. Superb organ from Claudio Simonetti mostly drives this, though Massimo Morante, who also takes the vocals, makes his guitar heard too. It might be me, it might be him, or it might be the fact that this is a seventies album, but at times (mostly during the vocal parts it has to be said) the production, or at least the sound, comes across as quite muddy. There's a fine guitar solo from Morante to take us into “La cascate di viridiana” (The green waterfall?) with a whistling keyboard accompanying a very thick bass, almost sounds fretless (?) ably wielded by Fabio Pignatelli, while soft, almost tribal drum patterns are laid down by Agostino Marangolo and we even hear some low sax, care of Antonio Marangolo (could be his brother I guess; he's a guest musician anyway so obviously not part of Goblin). I don't know if I guessed right about the title, but everything about the music (and there seem to be no vocals to this track) does suggest the idea of a waterfall, from the flowing piano to the haunting sax. I have to be honest: this is that longest track I spoke of, and I can really see the band stretching themselves and coming into their own now, and can agree that the vocal is a distraction, as these guys are really great musicians. This has film soundtrack written all over it. Lovely. “Terra di Goblin” (anyone?) has a real Tony Banks sound to the keys, almost ethereal, but I have to say unfortunately, we're back to the vocal tracks, and it really is a disappointment, as this seems to be the kind of music that would survive so much better – thrive indeed – without the addition of singing, and it's not often I admit that. It's not just that I can't interpret the vocals; they almost seem to be tacked on, as if this is something the band feel they should be doing, but kind of don't really want to. I wonder how well this album sold? Once the vocals drop back in the second minute the band can really let loose, and the song is so much better for the absence of singing. A great militaristic drumbeat attended by fluting synth to take us out and into “Un ragazzo d'argento” (A silver something) where the music picks up pace and becomes almost boppy, whereas up to now it's been generally stately and grand; this is almost like electronic. Sadly the vocals are back, though this time they don't seem to be as bad. Perhaps it's the more slightly poppy tone of the song that complements them better. This is the first time I've heard the vocals and not wished they were not there. Looks like “La danza” might be another instrumental, and a very good one too, in which Simonetti gets to really flex his ... oh. There are vocals. God damn it. They don't quite ruin it, but I was getting a certain vibe from the piece which now I kind of don't any more. The pace has increased too, with Morante's guitar taking a more active role. There's almost a toy piano feel to “Opera magnifica”, and there's no escaping the vocals as they're there from the start, but the almost commercial pop feel of the song again allows them to exist in harmony with, rather than despite, it, and it all works quite well. The murmuring vocal on “Notte” (night) reminds me of the opening to “I Know What I Like”, and the piano keeping the melody behind it is great. “... e suono rock” does however seem to be an instrumental, and a pretty rockin' one, good way to end the album. Track listing 1. Mark il bagarozza 2. La cascate di viridiana 3. Tierra di Goblin 4. Un rqagazzo d'argento 5. La danza[/COLOR] ]6. Opera magnifica 7. Notte 8. ... E suono rock Overall, I'd say I'm highly impressed with this album. I see why purists have mentioned that the vocals don't really work, though on occasions I would say they do. Mostly though this band plays to its strengths when they concentrate on just making music, and when they do that, they really shine. I'd be interested in checking out more of their work, but for now I'm going to move on to another artiste, as there are masses of them to choose from in this very specific subgenre of progressive rock. And my journey has just begun. |
Keeping in the seventies for now, and in fact, going further back, to 1973. Despite having their debut album released in 1972, Banco del Mutuo Soccoroso (Bank of mutual help? Don't ask me) were already on their third album by the following year, having released two in 1972 to widespread acclaim, at least in Italy. BdMS (whom we'll just refer to as Banco in future, due to the unfortunate connotations linked to that acronym, or one very close to it! It's also how they were known in later years, as they dropped the other three words) are seen as one of the “big three” of Rock Progressivo Italiano, along with Le Orme and Premiata Forneria Marconi, or PFM, and up to 1997 had recorded a total of fourteen albums. Although they still gig today, Nudo was their last official release.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...NatoLibero.jpg Io Sato Nato Libero – Banco del Mutuo Soccorso – 1973 (Ricordi) Again, another short album, in fact only five minutes longer than the Goblin effort we looked at last, and with fewer tracks: five in all, though in fairness the first one is fifteen minutes long. The title apparently translates to I Was Born Free, which sounds like a cue for Matt Monro and Elsa the lion! No? Damn you youngsters! Anyway, what's the album like? Let's see. Sounds like an oboe maybe starting off “Canto nomade per un prigioniero politico” (Nomadic chant for a political prisoner”) and then the vocals come in. I immediately find Francesco di Giacomo perhaps a better singer, perhaps just easier on the ear than Morante from Goblin; somehow the music just seems to sit better with his voice. unsurprisingly at fifteen minutes long it goes through several changes over the length of its run. Piano gives way to keyboards and organ, both ably played by the Nocenzi brothers, Vittorio and Gianni. There's not too much room for Marcello Todaro's guitar just yet, but no doubt he'll make himself known soon enough. Slowing down now to an almost ghostly moan in the fifth minute before a big burst of piano takes the song forward, the sole accompaniment to di Giacomo's vocal, which at this point puts me somewhat in mind of Eric Woolfson, in style if not actual sound. Another dark, eerie sort of instrumental part, quite menacing in its way, as we hit the seventh minute and pass the halfway point, and now we have a sort of jazzy breakout on piano then organ, with the rhythm section keeping it all together. I really still don't hear too much of the guitar, but I guess it's in there. No solos yet. Oh, here comes the guitar in something of a star turn at the tenth minute, sounds either acoustic or Classical, never been able to distinguish one from the other. And now a drum solo of sorts, with the organ humming in the background. A really nice strummed guitar as we move into minute eleven, the only instrument playing now for the next minute or so, other than the bass, then the percussion storms back in and the keyboards leak slowly back to take the tune to its conclusion with a powerful jazzy outro. As I often point out, it's quite brave to open your album on such an epic, though at this time, at least in their native Italy, Banco were pretty much established so I guess it wasn't quite as much of a risk as it could have been, and anyway, this is prog rock: the fans expect long tracks. Which is not what they get with the next one, “Nom mi rompete” (Don't bother me) which runs for a mere five minutes, and gives Todaro a chance to shine on the acoustic guitar, as it appears initially anyway to be a ballad. Gets boppy and happy there in the second minute, so maybe not. Good vocal from di Giacomo, and the guitar sounds almost flamenco? Definitely keeping the keys out of this one so far. Wonder if Todaro wrote it? No, seems he didn't have a hand in writing any of the five tracks. Still, it's a good vehicle for him to express his talents, which are impressive. Quite a hippy/psych vibe off this. Oh, there's some keyboard there near the end. Very nice. A slightly longer track, “La città sottile” (the subtle town) takes us back to the piano, with a sort of neoclassical touch, and a very Alan Parsons Project vocal. Marcello Todaro, having been given his head on the previous track, is not shy about joining in quickly, and then one of the Nocenzis fires up the organ and away we go. I can hear echoes of early Supertramp here too. Some fairly what I suppose would be termed early experimental stuff here; quite surprising what these two guys could do with keyboards. The other relatively long track, just shy of ten minutes, is “Dopo...niente è più lo stesso” (Then ... nothing is still the same”) and it rocks considerably more than the previous ones have, much more uptempo and with a kind of urgent vocal, the piano creating its own sense of tension, and then I guess they somehow pitch bend it or maybe it's done in production but the piano goes all dark and warped for a moment, before flutes come in but even these sound a little frenetic and chaotic. The vocal is at times almost like a prayer, as if di Giacomo is chanting, carrying out some form of worship. Then everything explodes in a big keyboard instrumental in the fourth minute, the tempo kicking right back up even as the vocals return. Todaro gets a chance to rip off a proper electric guitar solo (he may have done this already but this is the first time I've been able to hear it, to point to it and say there it is) as everything slows down to a dark crawl again in the sixth minute with what sounds like cellos? Bouncy piano then takes the melody, aided by trumpeting keyboards and more guitar, with something of a jam developing in the eighth minute before it all slows down to a simple organ and piano line as the piece comes to a close. And that leaves but one track, and it's a short one. They even failed to bother to name it, calling it “Traccia II” or “track two” (although here it's track five, two of the B-side of the album I guess). It's the only one not written by Vittorio Nocenzi, but in fact by his brother Gianni, and it has a very classical, fanfare-like feel. Unsurprisingly it's written for keys, and an instrumental, and it ends the album very well. Track listing 1. Canto nomade per un prigioniero politico 2. Nom mi rompete 3. La città sottile 4. Dopo...niente è più lo stesso 5. Traccia II Again, I'm very impressed. Vocals definitely work better here in general than they did with the Goblin album, but the music is I think as good as if not better than those guys. Having two keyboard players certainly makes a difference, and if that doesn't mark you out as a prog band, you have something of a problem. Vocalist Francesco di Giacomo sadly passed away in 2014, but the remaining members of Banco continue to gig, though no new material has as yet been recorded. |
It's kind of odd. I wanted – want – to move away from the seventies and was checking out a band called Moongarden, then I find they're not really considered RPI, although they are Italian. So what is it about Rock Progressivo Italiano that makes it what it is? I assumed – apparently wrongly – that to be an RPI band you simply had to play prog rock and come from Italy, but that does not now appear to be the case. Well, returning to my other go-to source, progarchives.com, I read that RPI is not so much a genre or even a country-based phenomena (although you can't be an RPI band without being Italian; however just simply being an Italian prog band does not make you RPI. Huh?) but a way of thinking, playing, composing and paying your musical dues back to your seventies forebears. One writer compares the emergence of RPI to the Renaissance, when fifteenth-century Italy led the way in a resurgence in culture, art, literature and thinking as the Dark Ages receded.
So then I thought, well to be RPI you must be a band playing in, or at least formed in, the heyday of Italian prog, ie the seventies. But no: this band were only formed in 2008, and yet are supposedly accepted as being Rock Progressivo Italiano as much as PFM or Banco. I'm going to be reading up more on this idea, but for now I have from Progarchives a list of bands who most assuredly are considered RPI, and from this list I have plucked http://www.backgroundmagazine.nl/alb...taDiAprile.jpg La Crudeltà di Aprile – Unreal City – 2013 (MRL) Although he is not in the band, my good buddy Fabio Zuffanti, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this article, he who helms Hostsonaten among others, is credited with being the artistic director of this new band, whatever that may mean. It seems to be the baby of Emanuele Tarasconi though, as he sings and plays the keys (and there are a lot of them), while Francseca Zanetta is something of a rarity, not only in being a lady in prog but also the guitarist, and the hilariously-named Francesco Orefice :laughing: looks after bass duties. Although they only formed in the twenty-first century it seems Unreal City are afforded the tag of RPI due to their adherence to the old values of bands like PFM and Banco, and indeed are credited here (whether officially or not I don't know) with the extra tag of “modern PFI”. Hmm. This is their debut album, and it seems to have been quite well received. Good boppy start to “dell'innocenza perduta”, some fine organ and piano, vocals then come in around the second minute as the tune settles down into a nice relaxed piano run, and the singing itself is very pleasant. Not a clue what he's singing about of course, but nice to listen to. Picking up speed now in the fifth minute, crazy piano and organ run and some thundering drums from Federico Bedostri. Sounds like a fiddle there at the end. Could be; these guys seem to use a whole lot of instruments, including, I see, a Renaissance lute! Well, I see there's a guest appearance by Fabio Biale on the violin, so I guess that's him. It's a fine guitar that gets “Atlantis (Conferendis Pecuniis)” underway, sort of a dark feeling to it, then it picks up nicely about halfway through, before falling into a sort of medieval folk thing. I guess that could be the Renaissance lute they were talking about. And the reliable old church organ heralds our descent into Hell, or “Catabasi (descenscio ad infernos)” with pealing bells and then a dark synth. In places this reminds me very much of Arena. Suddenly then that violin/fiddle is back, jumping the pace and bringing some light into the netherworld. “Dove La Luce È Più Intensa” has a powerful instrumental opening, which goes on for a minute and a half of the seven it runs for, while “Ecate (Walpurgusnacht)” opens on a beautiful classical piano line with attendant synth with some funky percussion and organ, and a sort of mix of reggae and blues, if you can imagine such a thing. The epic though is the closer, “Horror vacui”, which runs for almost eighteen minutes and is split into four different sections. Opening on “Le radici del mare”, it's a soft, gradual introduction to the piece as it slowly coalesces on soft piano and bassy piano before warbling synth joins in as the rhythm section makes itself heard, and I'm going to assume the first part is an instrumental intro, as otherwise I have no breakdown of the suite and therefore no idea where one section ends and another begins. The vocals then bring in a more jaunty, upbeat tempo as “L'assassino” (yeah, who can translate that?) begins, but unless it's very obvious, I have no idea where this will move into part three. Nice keyboard solo in the tenth minute, could be part three, but no way to know for sure. Some lovely smooth fretless bass too. Powerful, almost jazzy at times, instrumental ending. Track listing 1. Dell'innocenzo perduta 2. Atlantai (Conferendis pecuniis) 3. Catabasi (descenscio ad infernos) 4. Dove La Luce È Più Intensa 5. Ecate (Walpurgisnacht) 6. Horror vacui (i) La radici del mare (ii) L'assassino (iii) Nel sonno della ragione (iv) Il baratro della follia And another great Italian prog album, proving I guess that you didn't have to be recording in the seventies to be an RPI band. Unreal City certainly have an advantage though, as they are under the wing of Zuffanti, who has been playing and composing and producing music since the mid-nineties and certainly knows his way around the scene. A real case, I think, of “stick with me, boys, and I'll make stars out of you.” They've made a very good start with this debut. |
Originally Posted in The Playlist of Life, April 22 2014
http://www.progarchives.com/progress...33052013_r.jpg Ulisse: l’alfiere nero --- Progenesi I’ve plenty of time for instrumental albums, even if they are a little harder to review than ones with vocals. But there is an inherent problem here. This is a concept album. Now I know the likes of Rick Wakeman, even Vangelis have created instrumental concept albums, but I have always found it hard to follow a story when there are no words. This, apparently, is based on the journeys of ancient Roman hero Ulysses. better known perhaps by his Greek name, Odysseus, from which comes the title of Greek playwright and poet Homer’s “The Odyssey”. I love Greek myth - all myth really - and I feel like I’m going to be unintentionally cheated on this album, because first of all I won’t be able to follow any concepts just by the music and secondly, even if it were a vocal album it would be in Italian most likely, so there’s no way I could follow it. But such it is, and if we try to leave aside the concept (hah!) of the concept album, and just concentrate on the music Progenesi play, then perhaps we can approach this album from a different angle and appreciate it on its own merits, rather than compare it to something like Hostsonaten’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which does use vocals, and English ones too. With a name like Progenesi you’re probably expecting a lot of the style of Genesis in their music, and you would not be disappointed. Or you would, if instead of expecting you were dreading. But I have a feeling the word in Italian means something like firstborn or something like that, so the similarities to Collins, Gabriel, Banks and Rutherford may not be actually inferred from the name of the band. But it doesn’t stop them sounding at times like an Italian Genesis. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on your view on the progressive rock giants. Again we’ve only got six tracks, and “La gioia della pace” starts us off with a riproaring ride on the keyboards, very Marillion on “Market Square Heroes” I find, boppy and uptempo with some nice guitar. It’s no surprise that the album is so keyboard-driven when you learn that the man behind the keys, Guilio Stromendo, is also the composer of this whole thing. Great work on the Hammond joins the busy synths as Omar Ceriotti drives the beat along behind the drumkit. It all slows down near the end to give way to soft piano and the first taste of sweet violin, provided by guest musician Eloisa Manera, and with the sounds of tinkling piano and some pizzicato strings we’re off to “La strategia” (I think even I can translate that one) where honky-tonk piano gives way to brassy synth in a sort of dramatic, upfront sort of melody with some staccato drumming from Ceriotti. It slows down about halfway with a marching drumbeat and sparkly keys in quite a Yes vein, and rather interestingly at the end they rip off the ending from the full-length version of Prince’s “Purple Rain”, but Manera does it so tastefully it doesn’t seem like it’s being copied. A beautiful slow piano and cello from Issei Watanabe, another guest, takes “Il blue della notte”, which is either blue night or blue north. My Italian is crap, basically nonexistent. A nice jazzy keyboard rhythm then unfolds, with for pretty much the first time really that I can hear the guitar of Patrik Matrone making itself heard, and very good it is too. Stromendo though soon reasserts his somewhat iron grip over the composition and it’s Hammonds, pianos and synths all the way. We then get a boogie blues tune in the third minute, with another eight still to go. Again Matrone comes in and adds his flourishes to the music, and they’re welcome. I love keys but this album is perhaps a little too concentrated on one instrument, and no matter how well it’s played that eventually gets a little jaded, which is why it’s nice when the violin or cello break through, or as here, the odd guitar solo or passage. The longest track on the album, there’s no denying the quality here, and to think this is a debut effort is pretty stunning: these guys sound like they’ve been at this for years. Always the measure of a good epic or even long track, it’s heading towards the end and it sure doesn’t seem like it’s been eleven minutes. Technically that is the longest track, but the next two almost go together and if you add them then their combined length is five minutes over the previous one. “Il rosso della notte” (which I think may mean “the north wind”? Don’t know where that came from, but somewhere in my mind it’s saying the word rosso is wind in Italian?) is split into two parts, with part one being a fast, almost frenetic ride along Hammond and keyboard rails, slabs of church organ thrown in there too and a thumping drumbeat accompanying it all. Great to hear Matrone cut loose with a real rocker of a solo too, but Stromendo isn’t prepared to let him have the limelight for long and is soon back in front. To be fair to him he’s a wonderful keyboard player; I just wish he wasn’t so almost dictatorial about the band, or at least this is how he seems. Maybe they’re happy playing the little bits he gives them. Hmm, yeah. You ever know a musician, especially a guitarist, who was content to stay in the shadows? I am hoping we get some more of that beautiful cello and that exquisite violin though before the album ends, and as we head into part two and it all slows down with an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere I think perhaps we may meet up with them again here. It’s dark piano to set us off though and then climbing, dramatic synth backing it before Matrone gets to reel off a lovely acoustic guitar piece and yes, there they are, the sumptuous violin of Eloisa Manera and the stately cello of Issei Watanabe. Just beautiful. An extended keyboard solo by Stromendo leads into a nice duet with Matrone and Manera’s violin is there adding its colour too. Then the bass of Daio Giubileo finally gets a moment to shine before the man behind the keyboard is off again, kicking up the tempo and pulling everyone along with him in yet another superb solo, and everything slows right down and fades away, with the first (and probably only) spoken words (in Italian of course) as the song draws to a close. A powerful finish then as “Un grand eroe” (I assume “a great hero”) bounces along on exuberant keys and some unfettered guitar from Matrone, sort of a reprise of the basic melody of the opener, with the violin and cello also making their voices heard. This is also a long song, just over ten minutes, and goes through some changes, slowing down after the third, then picking up on rippling piano and Hammond in the fifth, some of the piano semi-jazzy. And again we’re six minutes into the ten before I even know it. I think I could listen to these guys all day. In for the big finish then and really this album could hardly be any better, unless it had more guitar or strings in it. But what’s this? Even the drummer gets to rack off a solo right at the end. Maybe this guy Stromendo is not such a tyrant after all! Whether he is or not, Guilio Stromendo has here put together one hell of a band and a debut that sets the benchmark for RPI for the future. I predict great things for Progenesi. Superb, absolutely superb. TRACK LISTING 1. La gioia della pace 2. la strategia 3. Il blue della notte 4. Il rosso della notte, part 1 5. Il rosso della notte, part 2 6. Un grand eroe In a way, I’m kind of sorry I discovered that this is a concept album, because when I just listened to it before researching anything about it I could really enjoy it for what it was. I still can, of course, but now I’m left trying to tie the great music into the story of the Greek hero, and while it’s not impossible it is a little difficult and leaves me perhaps not concentrating so much on the music and more on the plot of the album. But even if you ignore that - and you probably should, unless you’re a musician and can see where Stromendo is coming from here - you will find it hard to deny that this album is pure musical gold all the way through. Really. It’s rare to find an album, much less a debut, much much less an instrumental one, that has literally no bad tracks. There’s nearly always one that mars what could otherwise be a perfect record. But here, everything is a gem. There’s not one track I can find fault with and I am quite in awe not only of the proficency of these guys --- I know some of them came from other bands, so it’s not like they’re a bunch of sixteen-year-old kids coming together for the first time, but it’s still mighty impressive --- but of the composing skills of Giuilo Stromendo. I may not know what his vision is, or what passages are meant to represent what, but with his bandmates here he has created an album to rival the best in current prog, and even give the old masters a run for their money. |
Magic beetles? Strange unearthly cities? World without end? Pah! Let's shake things up here with some progressive metal!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Borknagar.png Album title: True North Artist: Borknagar Nationality: Norwegian Sub-genre: Progressive Metal/Tech Metal This is a band I did not expect to get into. Borknagar began in 1999 as a Black Metal band. Now, I've found out through my explorations of the genre of heavy metal over the last maybe five years that this is not a bad thing: there are some excellent Black Metal bands out there. But it's not exactly a genre that tends to chime very well with progheads, though some may very well enjoy it. Your average fan of prog, if he or she is into metal at all, is more likely to be going down the symphonic/gothic and obviously progressive lane, avoiding the dark and creepy road that twists and turns through spectral forests and past crumbling, abandoned houses and leads to the morbid churches of Black Metal. But. I loved this album. It took a little time – I think it was the third track that really punched me in the gut – but once I was in, man was I in. So much so that I got all their albums, even though many of their earlier ones are going to be pure Black metal. There's a sense of Pagan/Viking metal in their music too, and the progressive angle is definitely there. With a total of, to date, eleven albums, if you end up liking this there has to be at least another, what, five that you'll probably dig? But even if not, this album on its own is certainly worth listening to. The appropriately-named “Thunderous” gets things going, with a rumble of thunder before the guitars go right for your throat, the drums pounding their way in and the vocals blast out, kind of all at once, like someone jumping out from an alley at night and taking you by surprise. You can very much hear the Black Metal origins of the band in this song, but it's very easy too to hear why they qualify as progressive metal, if not progressive rock. Vocalist Lars Nedland, who also handles keys, is joined by “darker/unclean” vocals from bassist Simen “Vortex” Hestnæs, and the contrast really works. Like some bands such as Epica and Within Temptation, Borknagar use the unclean vocals sparingly, so that they're both more effective when they come in, and don't ruin the songs for you if you're not into that sort of thing. Nedland reminds me very much of Frank Bornemann from Eloy, the guitar playing of Jostein Thomassen is backed by guitar from founder Øystein G. Brun and the licks really drive the song along. It's a great introduction to the band, and things only get better with “Up North”, which, far from being a paean to Newcastle, is a bouncing, rollicking ride that is in fact the track that decided me on this album, the second not the third. Once I heard this I knew I was going to love the album. It just takes you and doesn't let go. The hook in it is irrepressible, and it literally bounces. It's the guitars and the percussion that do it of course, but the keys get their shot in too. It's a shorter song, with less of the unclean vocals, other than a roar at one point, and the energy in it just has to be heard to be believed. Even if all the rest was crap – it isn't, though I don't think they get to this level again – I'd consider this album having been worth listening to. Very powerful singing from Nedland, almost operatic at times, things slow down around the fourth minute before building up again to the big finish, with some great work on the organ stabbing away there, not quite in the background, but the guitars never really let up. It's the turn of piano then to lead in “The Fire That Burns”, though that does not last long. This time it's Hestnæs who takes in the lead vocal before Nedland takes over, the guitars growling and hammering as the best in Black Metal can and do. Some really great vocal harmonies too (not sure who do those – Nedland is credited with “clean and backing vocals”, but can he back his own? Well I guess if they're multi-tracked, yes) and some quite introspective guitar as the song slows down in the midpoint. “Lights” has a sort of Viking metal feel to it, quite dramatic with also a shot of AOR in there. Hestnæs really lets himself go here – not a clue what he's singing but it's powerful and effective, the more so when balanced against the pretty low-key vocal from Nedland. Without the unclean vocals this could almost have commercial airplay potential, like a heavier REM maybe. Another great hook in the chorus, with a lovely little introspective guitar passage to open “Wild Father's Heart”, both guitarists working together wonderfully to craft what could very well be a ballad. Some kind of synthesised orchestral strings provides a beautiful backdrop to the song, and hopefully there will be no unclean vocals as I just don't see how they would fit in here. Again, I could hear this on the radio, though the DJ might have some trouble with the band name - “that's Bork – Bjork? Borknig – I can't say that on the air! What? Oh. Nagar. Bork-Nagger. Bark Nagger? Sod it: some band from Norway.” Very familiar guitar riff there in the bridge, but I can't place it right now. Oh right, I have it now: Bach's “Toccata and Fugue”, or at least SKY's treatment of it, which they just called “Toccata”. That was driving me mad. Either whistling or recorded wolf sounds near the end, and yeah, it's definitely a ballad, and yeah, thankfully they decided to leave out the unclean vocals. “Mount Rapture” marches along grandly, the unclean vocal coming back in as the tempo picks up a little then midway it starts to romp along nicely, some pretty sweet guitar solos taking it, then “Into the White” has an almost power metal feel to it, a lot of powerful organ (yes, yes, tee hee hoddle ha, how mature) driving it along though there's a guitar motif there that absolutely brings Twelfth Night to mind. Also a vocal that is very Porcupine Tree near the end. “Tidal” is by far the longest track, clocking in at just over nine and a half minutes, sort of an atmospheric opening on guitar, touch of Iron Maiden here, nearly a minute and a half before the vocal comes in, then it rocks along like a good thing, though I will say to be fair that for a song of this length it does struggle somewhat to retain my attention. The album ends really strongly though on “Voices”, with a very Viking-like chant which slowly builds and builds to a thumping anthem , something you could imagine the Norsemen roaring as they cross the North Sea in search of plunder and glory. Put yer backs into it, lads! Track Listing Thunderous Up North The Fire That Burns Lights Wild Father's Heart Mount Rapture Into the White Tidal Voices I know a little of Black Metal, but not enough that I could say I've never seen a Black Metal band metamorphose so completely into something so different, and yet retaining the core of what they must have been so successfully. These guys, you can tell they were once growling and screaming about sacrifices to Stan, sorry Satan, but have now progressed to much more melodic and intricate compositions, and have fully embraced the progressive metal ethos, while tipping their hat respectfully to their past. A Truer North you could search for and never find. |
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https://img.discogs.com/06lONAnSFDni...-6650.jpeg.jpg Album title: Critical Mass Artist: Threshold Nationality: English Year: 2002 Chronology: 6 Track Listing: Phenomenon/Choices/Falling Away/Fragmentation/Echoes of Life/Round and Round/Avalon/Critical Mass (i) Fission (ii) Fusion (iii) Lucky Comments: Back to the Mac, as it were - this album comes squarely in the middle of Threshold’s discography, and is one of the six on which the late Andrew “Mac” MacDermott takes the vocals. It kicks off very powerfully with “Phenomenon”, a hard rock puncher with a sweet hook in the chorus. It’s also another album on which, if only for one line, they use a vocoder or at least some sort of phased vocal. Like the previous album it runs on the guitar work of Karl Groom and Nickl Midson, with a nice slow section in the middle, which, in typical Threshold fashion, forms a bridge to bring the whole thing up a whole gear and into a great soaring chorus leading to a screeching guitar solo. “Choices” keeps up the pressure, again pretty guitar driven, and while Mac is a different singer to Damian Wilson, he’s not that different that you’re jarred if you listen to one of his albums after one of Wilson’s. It’s not, in other words, a Fish/Steve Hogarth or even John Wetton/John Payne kind of feeling. To some degree, I at least can often forget which vocalist is on which album, and have to check. That’s not a criticism of either man, just shows that Threshold obviously see keeping a sense of some sort of consistency in their vocalists important. One of my favourite tracks on the album, “Falling Away” could possibly be considered a ballad, though it has a lot of balls to it, some very powerful guitar, and gives us the first chance we have to hear Mac tone it down, which he does so well, soft and soulful before he lets it loose for the middle eighth and chorus. Those hooks are there again; it’s impossible not to sing this long after the last note has faded away, and a rather lovely and evocative solo from Groom does that no harm at all. “Fragmentation” sounds to me like something that might have been left off the sessions for the Clone album; a great song but it sounds like it would have fit in well with the 1998 offering. This is where Richard West begins to make his mark on the music with some fine arpeggios. It’s still pretty much built around the guitar riffs though. More slightly phased vocals and a fist-punching semi-chorus that must go down well live. Lovely little piano intro to “Echoes of Life”, which does a good job of fooling you into thinking it’s a ballad. It’s not, as Groom, West and Midson will quickly show you, the track picking up speed and intensity as it goes, and launching triumphantly into one of those memorable choruses they’re so good at. Some particularly good drumming on this; I know I usually don’t give drummers credit - not because I don’t like them or rate them but because it’s hard for me to tell a good drummer from a bad one - but here I really see the influence of the percussion driving the melody along. Echoes (sorry) too of Yes in the stop/start guitar, then the drums roll grandly and introduce a truly beautiful piano and guitar duet which just makes the song, Groom (or Midson) really making their guitar sound like a violin at times. “Round and Round” explores the idea of reincarnation, with a mixture of soft introspective guitar parts and harder riffs, but I have to admit it’s my least favourite track on the album. I wouldn’t call it bad, as no track here is, but it comes across as the weakest on this opus. The penultimate track is another of my favourites, this time a proper ballad, and “Avalon” has the kind of stirring, emotional vocal that perhaps only Damian Wilson could do justice to as well as Mac does. It’s a West vehicle, carried on his soft piano lines and almost orchestral synths; the hard guitar power chords here seem almost needless really, but they do give the song teeth it would otherwise lack. Still, I’d have preferred a more restrained contribution from Groom. He does throw in a very emotional solo though, so there is that. And that takes us to the closer, and it’s also the epic. And the title track. Split into three parts, “Critical Mass” opens on “Fission”, with an almost “Run to You” riff running through it before Groom really lets loose and the song flies off at metal speed, West’s fingers flying over the keys in a flurry of activity as the two pair up. There’s another perfectly melodious chorus, again some very impressive drumming, then part two, “Fusion”, involves basically a lengthy instrumental, which allows Karl Groom to channel his inner Gilmour and the final part is a jaunty little acoustic-accompanied piece to bring the whole thing to a somewhat low-key close. I could have wished for a better ending, but that’s a small niggle, and not worth dwelling upon. Track(s) I liked: everything other than “Round and Round” Track(s) I didn't like: “Round and Round” One standout: “Avalon” One rotten apple: n/a Overall impression: Another almost perfect Threshold album. Not my favourite, but up there among them. A real example of a prog metal band really flexing themselves creatively and coming up with the goods almost effortlessly. Rating: 9.7/10 |
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