Welcome to Trollheart's Fortress of Prog!
 

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It's my own fault of course: I've left you too long without decent prog. Look at the last time this thread - hell, this sub-forum had a post made in it! Well, now that I'm back from reha - ah, I mean, my sabbatical, I'm going to do my damnedest to kick some life back into this thread, and hopefully provide some good prog rock and prog metal for those who are missing it. After all, as we all know
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so fear not, I'm back. After what, seven years? Glad we didn't hold our breaths, TH! Yeah yeah. I was, you know, busy.
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Anyway, now that I am back, I've decided to go the whole hog and move all or most of my prog-related reviews and features from other journals and/or threads to here. May take a little while, and as a result you will see different formats popping up. Just bear with me. Anything that has been previously published will be so noted.
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Other than that, the rest of what's below applies, and all that's left for me to say is, prog on!

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Welcome, welcome, welcome! Did I say welcome? If you’re one of those breed of people who believe a ten-minute keyboard solo is “just getting going”, if your prefer to listen to a song that’s in four or five parts, if you prefer suites to suites and your lyrics on the obscure side, and if you like to hear a guitar being used evocatively and thoughtfully rather than being used for shredding, this is the place for you. In other words, welcome progheads!

Here I’ll be talking about some of my favourite prog records, mostly prog rock but some prog metal too, and mostly new ones I’ve discovered but that’s not to say some of my old mainstays won’t find their way in here. They won’t really be reviews so much as short rundowns, with some information on the band or artiste and any background I can supply to the album. Anyone is welcome to post their own prog albums but please no “just YouTube” posts: if you love or like an album that much that you want to post it then talk about it: this is not the “Albums you’re digging” thread, and such video-only posts will be ignored. This is a place to discuss our love of prog, so let’s discuss it.

In the same spirit, please don’t come on here posting “Prog sucks” or other pearls of wisdom. I’m fully aware there are a lot of prog-haters out there in the forum, and others who just don’t care for it and that’s fine: progressive rock is not for everyone. But please respect the views and choices of those who do post here and don’t come into the thread just to cause trouble or troll. There’s enough diversity in music for everyone to have something they enjoy, but inevitably some people will never like some music, and that’s just how it is. I’m prepared to accept that, so please do me the same courtesy.

If of course you are not into prog but want to or think you might be interested in it, this could also be the place for you. My plan is not for this to be an elitist, snobby place where if you’ve never heard a Yes or Genesis or Camel album in your life you’ll be laughed at. Beginners are very welcome, as it says in all the best of those card ads you see in phoneboxes advertising …. sorry, got a bit sidetracked there! Yeah, if you know nothing or very little about prog then feel free to ask questions. You will not be ridiculed if you don’t know a Moog from a Mellotron or Trespass from Tarkus. Progheads may have something of an upper-class, superior reputation but that is not what I want to project here. All are welcome, just please leave your prejudices at the door. And your boots: I’ve just had the carpet relaid! Thanks. ;)

So cross the threshold if you dare, gaze deep into the wonderful world of progressive rock, and don’t worry about the dragon: he’s a sweetie really. Aren’t you Cecil? Aren’t you? Oo’s a sweetiekins then? No really, he is. Just don’t step on his talons cause otherwise he gets a little … irritated.
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Come in, come in! The door’s open, there’s food and wine in the Great Hall and we have the bitchinest (copyright The Batlord, MMII) sound system you could ask for. The first album is cued up and ready to go. Let me just go check the heating is working and I’ll be right back. Sit down, sit down! Make yourself at home. This could be your new hangout, or at least somewhere you come regularly. We certainly aim to help make that happen.

The Index

Acid Rain - Worlds Apart
A.C.T. - Last Epic
Ana Never - Long Turning
Anubis - A Tower of Silence
The Arc Light Sessions - Perchance to Dream
Banco del Mutuo Soccroso - Io Sato Nato Libero
Borknagar - True North
Cobalt Blue - Stop Momentum
Cosmograf - The Man Left in Space
Delusion Squared - II
DGM - Tragic Separation
The Dreaming Tree - Silverfade
Elephants of Scotland - Execute and Breathe
ELO - El Dorado
Eloy - Planets
Evership - Evership
Exodus to Infinity - Archetype Asylum
Eyot - Similarity
Fish - Vigil in a wilderness of Mirrors
The Flying Caravan - I Just Wanna Break Even
Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 1977/Scratch[
Glass Hammer Valkyrie
Glass Kites - Glass Kites II
Goblin - Il fantastico viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark
Tuomas Holopainen - Music Inspired by The Life and Times of Scrooge
The Hour of the Shipwreck - The Hour is Upon Us
Humanity Gone - The Seven Deadly Sins
Iluvatar - A Story two Days Wide
IQ - Subterranea
Kansas - Masque
Leap Day - From the Days of Deucalion, Chapter I
Magnum - On the Thirteenth Day
Mike and the Mechanics - Mike and the Mechanics
No-Man - Returning Jesus
Opeth - Blackwater Park
ARTIST OF THE MONTH, DECEMBER 2020: PENDRAGON
Kowtow
Not of This World
Pure
The Masquerade Overture
The Window of Life
Passion
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Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
Porcupine Tree - Signify
Progenesi - Ulisse: l'alfiere nero
Riverside - Out of Myself
Riverside - Second Life Syndrome
Riverside - Rapid eye Movement
Rush - Signals
Shattered Skies - The World We Used to Know
Derek Shernihan - Oceana
Teramaze - I Wonder
ARTIST OF THE MONTH, JANUARY 2021: THRESHOLD
March of Progress
Clone
Wounded Land
Critical Mass
Pyschedelicatessen
For the Journey
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Time Horizon - Transitions
Touchstone - The City Sleeps
Twelfth Night - Fact and Fiction
Unreal City -La Crudeltà di Aprile
Van Der Graaf Generator - Still Life
Verbal Delirium - From the Small Hours of Weakness
Yes - Close to the Edge


Up Next:

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Have you listened to Close to the Edge yet? Because if you haven't you won't be taken seriously:)

Quiet, you, if you want your award tomorrow! :bringit:

**** I forgot about that!

Splendid thread here TH, absolutely splendid. I'm bristling with excitement! :hphones:

Note to self: who was I trying to kid? Short rundowns? Short?? :rofl: Oh dear! Forgot it was me that was doing this! Oh my sides! Oh, that's a classic!

Sorry, on with the first album...


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Album title: A tower of silence
Artiste: Anubis
Year: 2011
Nationality: Australian
Discography: 230503 (2009), A tower of silence (2011)
Lineup:
Robert James Moulding (Vocals, percussion, bass)
David Eaton/ (Keyboards, vocals, guitars)
Douglas Skene (Guitars, vocals)
Nick Antoinette (Bass, vocals)
Steven Eaton (Drums, vocals)
Dean Bennison (Guitars, lap steel, vocals)

Tracklisting

1. The Passing Bell (Part I-VI) (17:08)
2. Archway of Tears (5:45)
3. This Final Resting Place (8:28)
4. A Tower of Silence (9:57)
5. Weeping Willow (2:43)
6. And I Wait for my World to End (5:15)
7. The Holy Innocent (11:45)
8. All That Is (11:13)
i. Light of Change
ii. The Limbo of Infants
iii. Endless Opportunity

Anubis are one of the first Australian prog acts I’ve heard, to my knowledge (don’t hit me, Anteater!) but if this is what they’re all like then I need to think seriously about going Antipodean! This, their second album, is truly a stunner, and again it’s from the patented Trollheart “Might as well” stable. In other words, I was looking for something to listen to on my Zen and this was one of the only albums I hadn’t already heard, as I am at heart quite lazy even if transferring music to Creative’s cool little MP3 player is a thousand times faster, easier and more enjoyable than wrestling with Jobs’ colossus.

But I was really glad I decided to give this a go, as it impressed me from the start and has not been off my virtual turntable for at least a week now. Every time I think I should move on and listen to something new my fingers just keep drifting to the “play” button and I say to myself “Ah sure one more listen can’t hurt!” And it never does. Except that one more listen becomes two more listens, then three, and so on. It’s like that with albums I really get into, I’m sure some of you are the same.

So who are Anubis? Well, if you were to ask me who was Anubis, or what, I’d tell you pompously that Anubis was the guardian of the dead in Egyptian mythology, stylised with the head of a dog and so often known as “The Dog of the Dead”, or even “The Guard Dog of the Dead”. Not really: I made that last one up. But the first one is true. Anubis the band? Well they were formed in 2004 and their first album was apparently written in tribute to and remembrance of a friend who has passed on, which may possibly explain the recurring motif of death, the afterlife, religion and the soul used here on songs like “This final resting place” and “And I wait for my world to end”. I didn’t think it was a concept album, but after reading some other reviews I see it is, and is based around the idea of a child who has been left to die in a Victorian mental asylum, and her quest for release and spiritual enlightenment as her ghost wanders the halls of that huge echoing dark edifice: a tower of silence, indeed! There are definite themes of loss, death, loneliness, hopelessness fear and an inability to understand why this has happened running through the album, with the opener, “The passing bell”, setting the scene and an angelic chorus ending “All that is”, two of the longest tracks, that bookend this fine album.

The vocals are just beautiful on this record. As you can see from the lineup, just about everyone in the six-piece has a hand in singing, whether they sing lead, harmony or backing. Some members of Anubis are also multi-instrumentalists, as again you can see from the lineup. The music varies between soft symphonic prog and harder what I would term “normal” prog, though most will probably term it neo-prog: I’m not too fond of that term. Always think of neo-Nazis and neocons! The guitar work is at times hard and heavy but a lot of it is very laidback and introspective, often both in the one track.

It’s hard to pick out favourite tracks here, as just about everything is great. I honestly can’t point to a bad song on the album, and every time I listen to it the whole just gets so much better than the sum of its parts: yeah, “A tower of silence” is one of those albums that’s best appreciated when listened to in one sitting, as one piece of music or suite. Tolling bells become something of a recurring motif throughout, not surprisingly given the mostly death/afterlife inspired lyrics, and in this way, lyrically only not musically, I see parallels with both Arena’s and Kamelot’s last albums, though I did mention that I found the latter’s “Silverthorn” to be one of the saddest and bleakest albums I have ever heard. Anubis somehow manage to avoid the trap of being too down, too morose, which is quite a feat given the fact that they’re talking here about a child dying alone and unloved.

But the music is uplifting and powerful, and if you choose to look beyond or ignore the lyrics, if you’re the sort of person that can do that (I can’t) then you have one incredible album of symphonic prog music that shows a band who are barely known even though they’ve been together almost ten years now, and who surely have a hell of a bright future ahead of them, if only someone will give them their big break.

I hear a lot of Arena here, especially in the faster sections of the songs, a definite Supertramp influence circa “Crime of the century”, and even nineties Genesis at times, and yet Anubis are not just ripping off the old masters or the new pretenders: they have a sound all their own that really has to be heard to be appreciated and is hard to compare. Listen to the starkly beautiful piano passage in the twelfth minute of the seventeen-minute opener, or the close vocal harmonies on “This final resting place”, or indeed the glockenspiel and harpsichord melody on the short but gorgeous “Weeping willow”. Oh, and let’s not forget the incandescent sax solo that leads out “The holy innocent”, where the (uncredited) sax player gives John Helliwell of Supertramp a run for his money! You can’t help but be impressed. The band are also somewhat unique in having not one, not two, but three guitar players, something that can happen in metal bands but seldom occurs in prog ones. It certainly adds a whole new layer of sound to the music, though it does make it hard for a poor reviewer like me to give credit where credit is due, as there’s no way to know who exactly is playing that great solo or passage.

The Arena sound comes through quite strongly in the abovementioned “This final resting place”, which in parts reminds me of their “Purgatory Road” off the “Pepper’s ghost” album, with some eerie sound effect closing it out that brings to mind recently-reviewed instrumental prog metal combo Caves of Glass, or Marillion spinoff Edison’s Children. If I had to pick a highlight (don’t make me! Oh well if I must…) it would probably be between the ten-minute title track, with another beautifully stark piano line driving it and mournful backing vocals against a sumptuous synth and guitar melody, closer “All that is” or the wonderful “The holy innocent”. There: told you not to make me choose! It’s just impossible.

Just as impossible as it is to stop playing this album once you’ve heard it. Oh hell: one more spin can’t hurt, can it? ;)

Leave it to Trollheart to yet again make a thread that I will instantly get attached to. I'm sorry, i'm like a leech for the thirst of Trollheart threads.

Never heard of this band before. Just skimmed through the song but it sounds great!

Exactly my point. I downloaded the album in a collection and have had it on my computer for probably a year or more, then just needed something to listen to when I was out and this was about the only thing left on my Zen. All I can say is I was totally floored! How can talent of this quality go unnoticed? It's just criminal!

Glad you liked it: their album is available from their bandcamp home here A Tower Of Silence | Bird's Robe Records

Sounds good. I pretty much love your texts- keep them coming.

Well, we started this off with a look down south across the Pacific and into what used to be called Oceania, now let’s pull back and head back west, coming a little closer to home, at least for me. Delusion Squared are a French trio who came together quite recently (2009) but have already released not one, but two concept albums, the two actually forming part of the same storyline, which in a way makes it a little hard to fully appreciate the second album without hearing the first, but here’s the kicker: in a pretty important way it doesn’t matter, because unlike albums like Queensryche’s “Operation mindcrime” or Genesis’ “The lamb lies down on Broadway”, or even Rush’s “2112”, knowledge of the plot is not necessarily vital to enable you to enjoy this album.

Female-fronted bands don’t seem to be all that prevalent in prog rock --- prog metal yes, but often these bands tend to verge more on the side of gothic or even power metal, the likes of Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica --- all great bands but not really what you could call true progressive rock. Delusion Squared stay away from the whole loud, operatic, bombastic over the top style that many of these bands espouse and go for a more classic approach, and not only that, but they’re all multi-instrumentalists, as you can see below. Over the next few posts I’m going to be dedicating my time to showing you prog bands who are fronted by ladies, and Delusion Squared are as good a place to start as any.

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Album title: II
Artiste: Delusion Squared
Year: 2012
Nationality: French
Discography: Delusion Squared (2010), II (2012)
Lineup:
Lorraine Young (Vocals, Lead Guitar)
Steven Francis: (Guitars, Keyboards, Drums)
Emmanuel de Saint Meen (Bass, Keyboards)

Tracklisting:
1. Double Visions
2. Necrogenesis
3. Faith Mission
4. Recipe for Disaster
5. Verdical Paradox
6. Revelation
7. Abduction
8. Naked Solipsism
9. Unexpected Messiah

The contrast between tracks one and two could not be more marked, with the opener a gentle, almost acoustic piece, very laidback and then “Necrogenesis” kicks in with a hard, almost prog metal feel, though retaining its prog rock roots. For those who simply must know the storyline or they can’t enjoy the album, here it is condensed. In a dystopian (of course) future, everything is copyrighted, including human genes, so when a woman has a baby strictly against government laws, she is accused of copyright theft and exiled from the city. Outside she wanders in the post-apocalyptic (we assume) wilderness until she meets others like her, eventually becoming their saviour and spiritual leader. Or something.

As I said, the story is not that important, but the vocals and fretwork of Lorraine Young are. She puts me in mind a little of Leslie Hunt from District 97, whose album I reviewed in my journal and who was the subject of one of our little “Prog Rock Album Club” picks a while back. Very Hackettesque twelve-string (is it?) opens “Faith mission” with some really sumptuous keyboard backing it and Lorraine’s voice rises above the music like a soul ascending to Heaven. She has a soft edge (if such a thing can exist!) to her voice that many of the more well-known prog rock female vocalists don’t, and in style she reminds me of Hazel from Lanterns on the Lake.

Some transcendent piano on “Verdical paradox” (yeah, it’s spelled that way. Go figure.) though I can’t tell you who is playing it as we have two keyboard players in the trio. Soft, lush vocals from Lorraine again as she pours her heart and soul out, with some lovely backing vocals too. “Revelation” kicks it all back up into almost metal territory with some frankly superb bass lines from de Saint Meen, then it’s almost acoustic/folk for “Abduction”, where the two guitarists show what they can really do. Quite how Delusion Squared expect to carry this off live though is beyond me, as the two guys each play the rhythm section, in addition to one playing guitar and both playing keys! Maybe some session musicians would have to be drafted in. The oddly-named “Naked solipsism” returns us to a soft acoustic guitar sound with more effective vocal harmonies, but I’m rather surprised to find that I’m sort of losing interest now.

When I first heard this album I was impressed, though not blown away. It might have been the, at the time, novelty of a female vocalist, because up to then I hadn’t heard Touchstone or any of the other female-fronted prog acts, and it sounded different. Now that I listen to it it’s still a good album, but I’m finding it hard to maintain my interest in it and it’s not blowing my skirt up. Maybe I just remembered it differently and expected more. Maybe you’ll get more out of it than I could. But it’s not to be fair an album I can see myself coming back to any time soon.

My workload does not allow me to review albums for this thread at the moment, but I want to make sure it stays alive and doesn't disappear beneath the waves of MB, forgotten and lost. And so I'm introducing
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This will be my (hopefully) daily selection of some of my favourite progressive rock and metal tracks. I may write a line or two about them but mostly they'll just be YouTubes for anyone who wants to listen. There'll be no format or order, just as I think of them I'll pop them up. Anyone is welcome to talk about, ask about, request albums or even post their own if they want.

So let's get going with the first batch.
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One of my favourite bands I never knew about until about 10 years ago, this is Mostly Autumn, taken from the album "The spirit of autumn past", it's "The gap is too wide".

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Then we have Shadow Gallery with a song taken off the "Carved in stone" album, one called "Crystalline dream".

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I've never been a huge fan of Spock's Beard, but I'm slowly getting there. This is a track called "Flow", which really impressed me. It's on their album "The kindness of strangers". Be warned: it's over fifteen minutes long...

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A band I've never had a problem getting into is Marillion, big big fan. This is from their first album with Steve Hogarth, "Seasons end", and it's called "The king of sunset town".

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Then there's the totally unknown Silent Edge, from their only album to date, "The eyes of the shadow", this is called "For ancient times".

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And how about Gazpacho, from "Missa Atropos", have a listen to "I was never here"

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then try some Status Minor, from "Ouroboros", with "Smile"

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and what about this one from Invertigo?

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Another of my favourites, Arena, from the "Pepper's ghost" album, this is "Opera fanatica"


and to wrap up, some Jadis. Man I love Jadis! This is "You wonder why", from their current album.

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I'm not sure why so many people seem to hate or dislike 80s and 90s Yes: their albums from that period are the only ones I can get into at the moment. This album was my first real introduction to them, and I love every track on it, though this one is pretty special.

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I'm also a big Kamelot fan, so here's the title from their fifth album.

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One of my bro Anteater's favourite bands, and the album (or half of it, at any rate) that topped his list for 2013, this is Big Big Train, with "Winchester to St. Giles Hill". No, it's not 70s Genesis, if you've never heard them before!

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You can argue among yourselves as to whether Devin should be considered prog or not. I just wanted an excuse to feature this excellent album, for which I thank Ki for the rec.

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Another great band with a somewhat overpreponderance of Genesis worship is Knight Area, but I love them. YTs are hard to come by so this is live, from the above album, it's called "Ethereal".

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And the last one for today, this is Canadian proggers Mystery, with the title track to their album "One among the living".

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A band I discovered a year or two ago, this is The Winter Tree, who are a duo, and a track called "Beautiful world".

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And sticking with the letter W for the moment, here's another great band called The Windmill...

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Hey, there's an idea. Let's stay with W all through this post. This is White Willow, from the album "Terminal twilight"

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And of course we couldn't do a section on W without including the undisputed king of keyboard prog, could we...?

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And then there's his son Oliver, here in partnership with Clive Nolan

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Not to forget the amazing Willowglass...

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And we'll end this selection with a track from the latest album by prog god Steven Wilson.

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Over the next few weeks I want to pay tribute to my alltime favourite prog band, so here's the first in a series of my favourite tracks from
Genesis
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Yes it has the superlative "Supper's ready", but I've always had a soft spot for "Watcher of the skies"

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One of my favourite tracks from "The Lamb", this is "In the cage"

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Genesis started the 80s strongly as they ended the seventies, but then later came "Abacab". Oh dear! Still I love "Duke" and have always loved the closing suite...

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Even back on their debut they were making great music, although it bore little resemblance to what they would turn out the very next year...

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Like this

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And this

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Okay, here's the thing. Progachives have released their Top 100 Prog Albums of 2013 list, and my intention is to TRY to listen to them all, in the order they've ranked them, and tell you guyses what I thinks of them. Some I may not be able to get, some I may have heard, but either way it'll be interesting. Given the amount of albums and the other stuff I already have to do, this will probably run through the rest of the year. Maybe.

I'll be starting off soon with the last, as it were, in their list, which is this one:
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(Assuming I can find it...)

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Getting back to Genesis shortly, but right now here are a few more of my prog faves.
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Threshold, from the album "Hypothetical", with a great track entitled "Narcissus".

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Few people know of Also Eden, a fact evident when I went looking for Youtubes and could only find this live version of "Seeing red"...

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A great progressive metal band, from their latest album this is Redemption

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And another one, this is Pagan's Mind

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Anteater reviewed their latest, "The Mountain" in his top 2013 albums thread recently, but this is from "Visions", a truly great album from Haken.

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I have a soft spot for Images of Eden; just wish Gordon Tittworth would decide what sort of music he wants to make!

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And we'll finish up for today with the great Damien Wilson. This is not him singing, but a band he's involved with called Landmarq.

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Not sure if these guys are called "orr-pee-double-you-ell" or "orr-pee-vee-ell": one of their albums seems to suggest the latter. But however you spell it, this bunch of German proggers have it going on! Here's something from "Trying to kiss the sun"... sorry it has to be live, but their label is fanatical about their material being put up on YT. Even emailed me about copyright theft! :rolleyes:

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Lunatic Soul is the name under which Riverside vocalist and bassist Mariusz Duda goes when solo. This is from his first, self-titled album.

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Call them progressive rock, or progressive pop, but don't make the mistake of writing off It Bites as just a pop band. And now, with Arena's John Mitchell on vocals they're even better.

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Title track from the phenomenal Memories of Machines' so-far-only album, featuring Steven Wilson.

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Some more Marillion, you say? Why not indeed?

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And the wonderful Hostsonaten, from the "Winterthrough" album.

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Time to return to Genesis. Some of my favourite tracks that may not necessarily be yours...
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Unlike practically everyone else I don't worship SEbtP, but I do like it a lot. This is one of my favourite tracks from it, though again I do prefer the live version off "Seconds out"...

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And though I seriously hate "Abacab", I can find one or two decent tracks on it I can stand. This is one of them.

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I pretty much like all of "A trick of the tail", but this one kind of stands out for me.

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And going back to the debut, there's a lot to love there...

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The point, I guess, at which they began to head in a more rock-then-pop direction, but I still love most of this album, especially this

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And though I shook my head at the title (who'd they think they were, Peter Gabriel?) I thought the self-titled 1983 effort was a big BIG improvement on "Abacab" (not that that would have been hard!)

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And heading back to 1970 for "Trespass" with the dark moody "Stagnation" to close up for today.

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All right, all right! Get off my back! I'll be reviewing my first (or technically last) in Progarchives' top 100 Prog Albums of 2013 soon: you any idea how hard that Vespero album is to track down?

Until then, here are some more tracks, and returning to an idea I had a few days back, they're all from bands with the same first letter. I'm choosing H, randomly. I like random things.
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One of my favourites from Hawkwind, this is "Motorway City"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Big_Chance.jpg
For those who don't know, Peter Hammill was the brains behind 70s prog/space rockers Van der Graaf Generator. Hmm. Suppose he does sound a little like Bowie, now you come to mention it...

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And we couldn't leave out Steve Hackett, could be? This is the title track to his third solo album.

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Another instrumental, this is from Happy The Man's last (so far) album, released in 2004, with a very clever title. Not easy to spell though...

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...koOmmGTXMTV-kw
This was only one of two images I could get of this album, but Ki speaks highly of them, and we're certainly not averse to Christian Prog Metal here at the Fortress of Prog, so have some Harmony!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tain_cover.jpg
Something from the new Haken album, which I'm not loving a millionth as much as "Visions", but maybe it'll grow on me.

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Threshold's Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman? How could you go wrong? Answer: you can't. Get into this Headspace...

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Something else from Hostsonaten? You got it!

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And to finish up with, Ten's Gary Hughes (I picked a great letter, didn't I?) This is from his double album "The once and future king".

Interesting that you choose something off Peter Hamill's Nadir's Big Chance album which influenced quite a few punk & post punk musicians including John Lydon who was a big Van Der Graff Generator fan.

More of this sort of interesting prog please & less of that overproduced dull stuff from the last 20 years with dungeons & dragons type covers. :)

I'll do what I can Urban! Nice to see you at my Fortress! Have a seat...
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So, no theme or band this time, just some random prog tracks I like. Sorry Urban, much of this may be over-produced stuff from the past twenty years, though with or without dungeons and dragons covers, I can't guarantee. :laughing:

Since we had Peter Hammill yesterday it seems only fair to dig into his parent band, so here's a few from VDGG:

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One of my favourites from them, this is a track called "Whatever would Robert have said?" If you don't get the joke, you're not Science Geek enough!


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"Killer", from "H to He who am the only one" (another science joke)


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Of course VDGG, as a seminal seventies prog band, wrote their fare share of epics, and this is one of their best, from the album "Pawn hearts". (Warning: over twenty-three minutes long!)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ecord_vdgg.jpg
And one more before we move on...

Now to come a little more up to date (sorry Urban!) with another of my favourite bands. No, it's not Marillion!
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I think I love just about every album ever released from Mostly Autumn. This is a track entitled "Candle to the sky".

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Five years in production, this is the first album from IoEarth, who released only their second one last year.

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How about some Riverside?

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And specially for Urban, here's Pendragon to close us out for today.

Update: well this is weird!

Just went back to check on my list and it seems it's altered! I don't know if it's going to be some fluid, changeable thing they vote on periodically --- but with 2013 gone you would think the list would be set by now --- but in case, I've bookmarked and screencaptured the page. So even if it does change, I'll base my reviews on the list they have today. As it goes, I'm not sure where Vespero is on the list now, or even if it is on it, but the new number 100 is now this:
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Which does make it easier for me, as I see I can get it on Spotify. So I'll be listening to that next. Vespero have piqued my interest though, so if they're not on the list I'll still review the album at some point.

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I know, I know! I'm going to be coming back with album reviews soon, I promise! Till then, continuing on with some various prog tracks I happen to like...
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A collaboration between ex-Marillion frontman Fish and Steven Wilson? This was Fish's fourth solo album, and though it's far from perfect there are some great songs on it. This is the opener.

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Eloy are a band I've found it hard to get into, but this is from one of their later albums and I pretty much enjoy all of it. This is in fact the closing track.

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Probably more symphonic than progressive metal, I still feel that Leaves Eyes deserve a place in here..

http://213.225.138.155/NewGallery/Pa...Alive-6140.jpg
Another band who have never really clicked for me is Pallas, but I love almost all of their "Arrive alive" album. Apart from the title track. This is not the title track.

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As we began (sort of) with Steven Wilson, why not end with him too? Here he is with Tim Bowness in one of his many projects, No-Man.

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The man left in space --- Cosmograf --- 2013 (Self-released)

The first thing that surprised me about this was that the band were not German. Maybe it was the -graf in their name, but I just assumed they were from there. Turns out not only are they not German, they’re not even a they. Not really. Cosmograf is the brainchild and project of one Robin Armstrong, who hails from Portsmouth in the UK. Like his contemporaries, Willowglass and The Minstrel’s Ghost, both featured in my journals, he’s a multi-instrumentalist, composer and even producer. He does however haul in some stellar talent to help him out on this, his fourth album under the Cosmograf name, including half of Spock’s Beard and half of Big Big Train, as well as members of Also Eden and The Tangent, so he’s obviously well respected in prog circles: that’s virtually a who’s-who of prog musicians.

The album is a concept and seems to be built loosely around the idea of a mission to space, possibly colonisation, certainly mentions saving Mankind, but which goes terribly awry, hence the album title. Themes such as (unsurprisingly) loneliness, isolation, despair, the future, sacrifice and loss are all explored through the nine tracks on this opus, and while space travel/getting lost or stuck in space is nothing new --- Bowie was doing that in 1969 with “Space oddity” --- in the end the concept of the album does not matter so much because it’s so beautifully played and constructed musically.

Starting off with a man asking “How did I get here?” against spacey sound effects, the opening track of the same name is a short one, atmospherically dark and grindy, and seems to be a record of a man who went into space to “help millions” in the year 2053, but the mission went badly wrong. Against an unanswered request from ground control for a “com check”, we head into “Aspire, achieve”, the longest track on the album at just over ten minutes, the astronaut in question, who seems to go by the name of Sam, relating his tale against generally acoustic style guitar in a fairly mid-to-uptempo beat. Suddenly some pretty heavy guitar and organ cuts in, taking the thing in a more boogie/metal direction, with some fine drumming from Nick D’Virgilio, who has of course played with both Spock’s Beard and Big Big Train. Nice cutback about halfway through to single strummed guitar notes and tiny handclap drumbeats. Some great progressive rock guitar and keys then take the song, and above all rides the clear, commanding voice of Robin Armstrong himself, who in addition to being a talented composer and excellent musician is also a fine and worthy singer.

Rather oddly, two instrumentals follow then on the heels of each other. The first, “The good Earth behind me”, runs under some poetry I feel I should know, but don’t, with Gilmouresque guitar work and lush keyboards, which in about the third minute kick into a real Tony Banks style as the thing really “progs-up”, the tempo quite slow as it heads towards its end with unmistakable undertones of seventies Genesis. “The vacuum that I fly through” then is more introspective, with almost John Williams style guitar driving it in a slow path that certainly gives you the impression of drifting through space, soft synth underlying the melody until D’Virgilio’s percussion stamps its identity on the track and it becomes a little heavier, though still slow with now definite touches of twenty-first century Marillion in there.

Although at first I thought it a bad idea to have two instrumentals one after the other, I kind of see the idea now. It’s an attempt, perhaps, at conveying the loneliness and the vastness of space, and the impression of being just carried along unable to do very much as you head out of the solar system comes through quite strongly: the sense of isolation and lack of control over one’s destiny, the idea of being a tiny speck against the overwhelming expanse of space is demonstrated very well through these two tracks.

“This naked endeavour”, then, is carried on soft rippling yet lonely and almost melancholic piano while behind it plays recordings of Nixon’s phone call to the Apollo 11 mission on the Moon, as well as Kennedy’s speech at his inauguration. Guitars and drums crash in strongly then as Armstrong comes back in with the vocal, and there’s a strong sense of Floyd circa “The Wall” here, with powerful keyboards and dark guitar. We then hear the voice of the AI aboard Sam’s ship as he seems to be slipping away, lost, if you’ll pardon the term, in space, as “We disconnect” begins. He reminisces about his wife left behind, about taking on the mission and what he hoped to achieve, though it’s not really made clear what that mission is. Armstrong does his best Roger Waters here, angry bitter and a little manic. Great guitar solo joins a fine one on the keys, and the only reason I’m not giving credit to individual players is that, apart from D’Virgilio, I don’t know who is playing what part. There are several guitarists guesting, and then Armstrong plays most of the instruments himself too, so it makes it hard to keep up with who’s doing what.

This is a dark piece as Armstrong sings “The light behind me getting smaller all the time; my memories of you are too.” He realises he’s probably going to die out here in space, and while not quite resigned to that fate, he knows there’s nothing he can do to prevent it. Some super guitar here and then we’re into what is probably my least favourite track on the album, “My beautiful treadmill”. Something about it just doesn’t do anything for me. Armstrong uses the old Waters device where his vocal is metallised, sort of as if it’s recorded in mono, and the music is heavy and powerful with some really striking melodies, almost heavy metal (progressive metal I guess you’d have to say) at times. Interesting vocal harmonies, and it’s a good track but definitely for me the weakest on the album. At times the fretwork here reminds me of the very best of John Mitchell with Arena, and there’s a lot of power and energy in the track, but I just can’t make myself like it.

The final two tracks are just shy of ten minutes each, and the title cut is the penultimate one, wherein some Knopfleresque electric guitar complements soft acoustic as Sam reflects on the decisions and circumstances that conspired to bring him to this place. He does however point out that his problems are bigger than those of most, as he remarks “Spare a thought for the man they left in space: he lost the human race.” I'm not quite certain if that's meant to mean he lost the company of all his fellow human beings, or if it's making the human race a metaphor for a race that is run, you know? Nevertheless, it still puts in all in perspective. He does however reflect that if you don’t take risks you miss the big opportunities in your life, and even though he’s out here floating in space, waiting to die, he doesn’t seem too despondent. At least he has tried, he has made the effort even if he failed. There aren’t any ballads on the album, but this is probably the closest Cosmograf come here to one.

There will be no happy ending though, no last-minute rescue, and this will not prove to be a dream, as closing track “When the air runs out” amply shows. With a sense of descending further into despair, panic and then acceptance, Sam begins to contemplate his imminent death and the failure of the mission as his craft falls towards the sun. A stark piano line very reminiscent of Steven Wilson’s work with No-Man and Memories of Machines takes us in, then the Floydian comparisons come back as Armstrong channels Waters on “Empty spaces” and also Bowie rather obviously on “Space oddity”. There’s a sort of guitar or keyboard motif running through this, a phrase that sounds like “WOOP!WOOP!WOOP!” and may be meant to signify a warning, an alert as the ship’s orbit begins to decay.

Powerful and desperate the song allows us to look into Sam’s last moments before death, as he asks “What should we do when the air runs out? When this ship spins out? When this life runs out?” More voiceovers of names of people who died before their time, or were brought low by addictions, then a superbly proggy keyboard runaway solo that would make Mark Kelly green with envy as the song powers towards its conclusion. In the fifth minute it slides into a slow, Russian-folk-style melody as Sam begins to accept death is inevitable. Again the old Floyd trick of using a phased vocal that’s put through some sort of mono effect is used, then a rolling piano melody brings in more of those names, spoken off a list and then melancholy guitar joins in as the AI says “Please respond, Sam.” A final crashing bass piano note ends the song, then there is a further minute and a half as a radio announcer talks about a book written by Doctor Sam Harrison, a “self-confessed overachiever, alcoholic and manic depressive”, and says they will be talking to the doctor, presumably before his flight into space and his subsequent death there, then the sound of a needle getting stuck in the groove of a record (yay for us oldies! We recognise that sound!) and the last words “Be a curse” repeat until the sound of a stylus scratching indicates the needle was lifted, and the album comes to a final conclusion.

TRACKLISTING

1. How did I get here?
2. Aspire, achieve
3. The good Earth behind me
4. The vacuum that I fly through
5. This naked encounter
6. We disconnect
7. Beautiful treadmill
8. The man left in space
9. When the air runs out

I know I said at the beginning that the concept was not too important, and yet it is this which links all the tracks together into one cohesive whole, so I’ve tried to understand it. It seems to me that this is about a man, selected as the only one from his race, to go into space and do … something, I don’t know what … to save humanity. It’s set forty years in the future, so it could be colonisation, except we’re talking about one man. It could be to stop an asteroid hitting the earth, but again, a crew of one? I really don’t know, but whatever he’s supposed to do something goes terribly wrong and he’s left hanging in space, waiting for his orbit to decay and his ship to plunge into the sun. So maybe it was something to do with the sun?

Anyway he failed and now he’s left waiting to die. As he does, he thinks about the decisions that led him to this place and whether or not he would have done anything differently had he known? It’s a very dark album, with a somewhat bitter message and yet although the title character is not saved at the end, we’re left with some sort of vague impression of hope. Maybe he did save Earth, but just was unable to return home? Perhaps he made the ultimate sacrifice, ensuring the continuation of his species in the process? Again, I don’t know, and the end bit spoken on the final track confuses me even more. Here’s what it says, in the style of a radio announcement:

(Sound of the pips telling us the hour has struck, as used to happen on radio) “It’s ten o’clock. Good afternoon. This is “For the Arts”. In his controversial book, “The man left in space”, Doctor Samuel Harrison examines the psychology of achievement. Harrison presents a compelling theory that overachievement is a “quick-fix” for wounded self-esteem, and that chronically overachieving people don’t realise that unrecognised needs are driving them from the healing conditions necessary for fulfilled lives. Does achievement beyond expectation in any field lead to obsession, dysfunction and, ultimately, an inability to perform? The reward for success, it seems, is sometimes to be destroyed by failure. In the first of two programmes, we will be talking to Dr. Harrison, a self-confessed overachiever, alcoholic and manic depressive and asking him if success can really be a curse?”

I think -- and I’m just guessing here now --- that this interview was made before Harrison went into space, rather obviously, unless the whole idea is a mere allegory and never actually happened, except perhaps in his mind. It shows Harrison as the type of man he was then. Perhaps after that he got the chance to sign up for the mission, was accepted and finally achieved the ultimate overachievement, saving the Earth, albeit at the cost of his own life? Or, or, OR.... perhaps the Dr. Sam Harrison is his son, writing about his father's heroic but failed mission?

I guess you could argue the meaning behind the lyrics forever, but as I said they’re not as important as the album taken as a whole. I find once again that every multi-instrumentalist I have encountered --- particularly in the field of progressive rock, where they seem to really thrive and towards which they appear to gravitate --- has impressed me almost beyond words. Steve Thorne. The Minstrel’s Ghost. Willowglass. And now I need to add Cosmograf to that shortlist. If this could only get to number 100 on the list then I am excited to see what made the higher echelons! Of course, I don’t know how that list is or was compiled: was it from album ratings, reviews, personal likes, was it arbitrary? From sales? I guess it doesn’t matter, but the point is that if an album such as “The man left in space” can only scrape in at the bottom there must be some amazing stuff further on.

I had not intended to make this review so long, but I got so into this album I couldn’t help it: you know me. Don’t be surprised to see this or other reviews popping up in my journals: after all this work, I’d be a fool not to use the writeups there.

I don’t usually rate albums, but for this list I will, if only to see if my choices more or less tally with those of the folks at ProgArchives, or if we have wildly differing ideas as to what makes a really great prog album. As far as this album is concerned, I have to award it a very solid 8/10.

Here's one I picked up recently Trollheart might want to check out for this thread, if he's already not familiar with this band.



EDIT: However, there's no 10-minute songs so maybe it doesn't really fit in here. :D

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From the small hours of weakness --- Verbal Delirium --- 2013 (Self-released)

Despite the rather obscure title and the unfortunate abbreviation of their name, not to mention its connotations with rambling on and on without any sense --- unlike, I hasten to add, the proprietor of this here castle! --- verbal diarrhea is the last thing you could accuse these guys of. Together since 1999, it nevertheless took these five lads ten years to put together their first official album --- though there was a demo back in 2007 which seems to have been deleted --- and this is their second effort. I was so impressed by this that I immediately bought their debut, and although I haven’t listened to it yet I’m expecting great things. The key factor about Verbal Delirium (no I will not call them VD!) is that they mesh many different styles of music together, as do many prog bands of course, but Verbal do it in a way that surprises and takes you unawares. Take the opener for instance. It’s built on a soft little drum pattern with a whispered vocal that reminds me of no-one as much as Matt Johnson, a quiet little piano passage and a gentle little flute sound that recalls seventies Floyd. I can’t place it but that keyboard/flute melody is very familiar. Could be classical. Could be Marillion, Zep, or something completely different. Speaking of something completely different, you’ve just about assigned this band the level of Big Big Train or maybe early Genesis when suddenly it blasts into a heavy guitar and organ riff that you just do not expect.

Mind you, it’s almost four minutes into the five-and-change that “10,000 roses” runs for before this about-face happens, and indeed it’s that long too before the vocals come in, and quickly thereafter it returns to the soft, pastoral piano and crying guitar on which it fades out. As the kids say, awesome. And a great opener that just reminds you not to judge from the first few minutes of a song, or album. “Desire”, then, also opens on a gentle passage of piano and guitar, again recalling early Genesis but with some folk rock added in. The vocal this time is soft, almost breathed rather than sung, and in ways reminds me of It Bites. It may be seen as a racist comment, but I’m constantly amazed how “foreign” singers can sound so English. There’s not a trace of a Greek accent here --- not that I’d recognise a Greek accent if I heard one --- but the vocalist, who goes by the name of Jargon, has perfect English and not a hint of any accent. Like the previous song, this one soon morphs into something more powerful, ditching for a while the Tony Banks style synthesisers for a heavier, perhaps more Spock’s Beard vibe, the percussion coming in hard and heavy and some fine neoclassical piano joining the melody before it too all winds right back down into a solo piano ending and into a very short instrumental called “Erebus.”

I’ve read other reviews of this album and the band has been compared to Van der Graaf Generator. I see this now in the instrumental, in the somewhat jazzy brass, but it doesn’t last long before we’re into a big bassy upbeat piano to open “Dance of the dead”, and it’s here indeed that Jargon on piano and Nikos Nikolopoulos on both sax and flute really shine. Again I see the VdGG comparisons, but I’m not the biggest authority on that band. I have all their albums but have listened to only one or two, so personally for me the sax brings more to my mind Supertramp than VdGG. Interestingly, like the first album we reviewed, this turns out to be again two instrumentals in a row. Speaking of Supertramp, some piano very much in their style introduces one of the standouts on the album, the almost nine-minute “The losing game”, where the title of the album is mentioned (there is no title track) and again Jargon’s voice is controlled but strong, soft yet insistent.

Some fine mellotron recalls the best of seventies prog, and some great sax from Nikolopoulos brings the Supertramp influence back in, along with some very Roger Hodgson guitar courtesy of Nikitas Kissonas; in fact, put Hodgson or Davies behind the mike and this could very well be the latest Supertramp song. If they hadn’t gone to total **** after the last album. It bops along with real purpose, and throw in some Steely Dan guitar while you’re at it, sure why not? Just makes a good thing sound even better. An almost three-minute instrumental outro that really allows our Nikos to give vent to his pipes on the saxophone delivers the icing on this very tasty cake, and we’ve still got four tracks to go. Well, three and a bit.

“Disintegration” opens on a rising bassline that reminds me of the beginning to Foreigner’s “Urgent” then pounds out into a real nice little rocker with hard guitar and a great hook. It’s almost metal until some high-pitched mellotron comes in, but then that drops out again and the guitar takes the melody. Sort of a semi-punk feel to it, the likes of Buzzcocks, The Knack or maybe Blondie. Then a sense of Threshold in the midsection with big droning synth and some nicely-placed piano before the bass and percussion brings it all back up to a head and the guitar powers back in. Some fairly manic piano before Kissonas takes off on a really smooth guitar solo and a big organlike finish then takes us into thirty-seven seconds of “Dance of the dead (reprise)”, which is of course the third instrumental, though really it’s just hammered chords and notes on the piano, sort of marking time before we hit the other standout, the beautiful ballad “Sudden winter”.

A rippling soft piano opening from Jargon which puts me in mind of … well, nothing really. This is Verbal Delirium’s own signature sound. Actually, here I can hear a slight inflection in the vocal, but that’s nothing to complain about. Makes me think of Riverside, can’t say why. Very emotional song, with again a hook to die for; would make a great single but it’s about five minutes too long at just over eight and a half minutes. Not too long, not at all: just too long for a single or radio airplay. And there’s the gorgeous sound of mandolin, which fits into this song like the slimmest glove fits on Vanilla’s dainty hand. God I love mandolin music! The track ends in the seventh minute but then comes back with a sumptuous piano reprise that just adds a final layer of delight to this beautiful song.

And being a prog album, you’d expect the obligatory epic, wouldn’t you? And you would not be disappointed, my friend. “Aeons (Part 1 and 2)” runs for almost thirteen minutes, and brings the album to a close. The first part is a soft atmospheric melody driven mostly on piano with a gentle, almost sotto voce vocal that mirrors the best of early seventies Gabriel, then it kicks up in about the second minute with a powerful, dramatic, almost ominous guitar and slowly pounding drums with the vocal getting sort of chanty is the only way I can describe it. Not quite a mutter, not quite a growl (a grutter?) before the tempo picks up and the guitar takes over, Kissonas driving the tune now.

I’m not totally familiar with either but I think there’s a sort of merging of ideas from Porcupine Tree and Riverside here as the track cannons along, only to slow right down then with a sort of eastern sound --- or maybe it’s from their native Greece --- on the piano accompanied by some nice thumping bass. From here it goes on a sort of spacey keyboard/guitar romp for a few minutes, with echo and reverb and god knows what else, and sort of moaning voices like spirits trapped in a netherworld of … ah you have to hear it. Bit like the end of “A day in the life”, though not really. I think at this point we’ve crossed over into part 2, though I do find that this section is a little overdone and stretched rather to breaking point. The vocal comes back in around the ninth minute, spoken only though in rhythm, while the effects go crazy in the background, and again I have to say this smacks of a song being extended beyond its natural run just for the sake of it, a thing which a lot of prog rock bands are accused of, often rightly.

It’s a pity really as it almost --- but not quite --- leaves a sour taste in the mouth when you realise how the album is going to end. It’s been consistently great up to that point but then it just fades out like a bad Hawkwind remix and you’re left with a feeling of being ever so slightly cheated that the epic consisted of about five to six minutes music and almost the same in effects, long-drawn out echoes and moans, and not a lot else. Sad.

TRACKLISTING

1. 10,000 roses
2. Desire
3. Erebus
4. Dance of the dead
5. The losing game
6. Disintegration
7. Sudden winter
8. Aeons (Part 1 and 2)

Even given the somewhat flat and disappointing ending, there’s still so much to recommend in this album that I would almost ignore the last six minutes or so of the closer and just concentrate on the previous seven-and-a-bit tracks. For a band from Greece whom nobody seems to have heard of, this album is nothing short of a stunner. And to think it only occupies position number ninety-nine in the top one hundred here either makes me think that whoever compiled the list needs to look at it again, or that there are some amazing albums yet to come.

Either way, this is two for two and I can’t wait to hear what comes next!

Rating: Would most likely be higher if not for the cop-out at the end, so still worth a good 8.5/10

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As this thread has proved to be less popular and engender a lot less debate than I had anticipated, and given the amount of work I have to do on my journals, it seems only sensible for me to absorb this into those journals.

So from the beginning of the Top 100 and thereafter, these reviews will be moving to the Playlist of Life, where they will continue as a dedicated section. If you want to find the rest of the reviews from now on that's where they'll be. I'll leave this open in case anyone wants to discuss anything but won't be posting any more reviews. I obviously bit off a lot more than I could chew here, but if I take this under the Playlist banner I can concentrate on it more without worrying that I'm neglecting my journals.

Yes I know: I have real problems, don't I? ;)

I did think for about a microsecond about making this a new journal, but I think the mods would run me out of town on a rail if I started another! Also, I have enough trouble keeping up with five journals without starting a sixth!

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See the OP for more...

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All right then, this is the one I’m going to kick off with, in tribute to Anteater, who introduced the band to me through one of his threads. I had never even heard of them, but he mentioned the “T” word, and any band that’s favourably compared to Threshold will always find a welcome here. I just listened to the one track he posted, liked it, agreed it shared elements with the Surrey prog metallers and got the album. This is my first time to listen to it.
Album title: I Wonder
Artist: Teramaze
Nationality: Australian
Year: 2020
Chronology: 7
The Trollheart Factor*: 0

Track Listing: Ocean Floor/Only Daylight/Lake 401/A Deep State of Awake/Here to Watch You/Sleeping Man/Run/Idle Hands - The Devil’s Workshop/This is Not a Drill/I Wonder
Comments:Good rocky start, like the use of the piano and the keys. Vocalist has a lot of talent. “Only Daylight” has more of a hook to it, kind of AOR-ish really, though I would make the tentative point that so far nothing has been that memorable. Not on the first listen anyway. “Lake 401” might change that. Has an odd feeling of a-ha about it, around the Analogue era. The orchestral keys are nice. Sort of a ballad, though not quite. Ominous kind of sound. More orchestral style keys in “A Deep State of Awake”, and yes, this one sounds very Threshold indeed. Even down to the death vocals the other guys use on “Slipstream” from the Dead Reckoning album. Rocks along nicely.

“Here to Watch You” surprises me so much I thought Spotify was shuffling albums on me! It’s like a weak indie rock song or something, very acoustic with a somewhat whiny vocal and it just seems totally out of place here. Weird. Okay well now it’s kicked into life, but I do not like how it started. Very off-putting. Yeah. I have to say, the more this goes on, the more my initial enthusiasm is wearing off and being replaced with a slack-jawed, glassy-eyed feeling of “yeah but so?” I mean it’s okay, but apart from a few quite good tracks I haven’t heard anything that has really made me think this could be a band I would enjoy getting into. And I just notice that the previous track was the “Sleeping Man” which Ant praised so highly. Oh dear. The next one is a proper ballad, entitled “Run”, which I hope is not intended as advice.

Actually a) it’s not quite a ballad as it picks up halfway and b) it’s not bad at all. Some very nice, uncredited as far as I can see, sax there, but the longest track, “Idle Hands/The Devil’s Workshop” just doesn’t make that much of an impression on me. I mean it’s good, but not that memorable to me. Second part is good actually; a few more listens and I might like it more. It Might just be me but I tend to really only like the ones where Teramaze sound like a cheap Threshold, and here again on “This is Not a Drill” then emulate my favourites again: big choruses, hooky song, changes in tempo and some nice close-harmony backing vocals, soft piano then hard guitar. Very Threshold. Nice closer but it can’t lift the album above the level of just “pretty decent”, when I had expected so much more. Something of a disappointment. Maybe I set the bar too high. No, blame Anteater. Yeah. That’s a better strategy.

Track(s) I liked: “Only Daylight”, “Lake 401”, “A Deep State of Awake”, “Run”, “This is Not a Drill”, "I Wonder"
Track(s) I didn’t like: “Here to Watch You”
One standout: Couldn’t really say anything here stands out, as that has to be a track that is head and shoulders above the rest, and I don’t see one here that’s good enough.
One rotten apple: “Here to Watch You”
Overall Impression: Yeah it’s okay but not the revelation I had hoped for. A few more listens and I might get more into it, but on first listen it doesn’t quite live up to the hype. I suppose it’s possible that if I hadn’t heard Threshold first I might like this more, but hell, the English lads do it so much better, and with more consistency.
Rating: 7/10
Future Plan: May give it another shot at some point.

* You can probably work this out, but in case you haven’t visited my History of Prog journal, the Trollheart Factor is a measure of how well, or not, I know the artist, on a scale of 0 to 10.

Fair review: I think it'll grow on you. Personally, I think Esoteric Symbolism through I Wonder is a great series of records (which comes out to four albums so far - not a bad run). Plus, any band that can write something as good as 'A Deep State Of Awake' is a top-tier group in my book.

Bandcamp: Teramaze - Esoteric Symbolism (Remastered)

Yeah I reckon you're right. It started off a little meh but it did get better as it went. Only having the one listen always makes it a bit hard to get a fair impression, but I may very well come back to it and, who knows, maybe even update the rating if it starts speaking to me more. Thanks for the rec anyway. Certainly has potential.

https://www.metal-archives.com/image...69404.jpg?4254
This, then, is the album I recced Ant in response to his reccing of Teramaze, though he had already heard it. Again we have a Threshold-sounding band, this time Italian, so I kind of wanted to do the two of them together. After this the albums will come from years other than this one, but I wanted to get these two done first.
Album title: Tragic Separation
Artist: DGM
Nationality: Italian
Year: 2020
Chronology: 10
The Trollheart Factor: 1

Track Listing: Flesh and Blood/Surrender/Fate/Hope/Tragic Separation/Stranded/Land of Sorrow/Silence/Turn Back Time/Curtain

Comments: If I had to compare the singer to anyone it would be the late Ronnie James Dio, very powerful and raw. I can see why Metal Archives describe DGM as progressive/power metal; the keyboard runs are very frenetic and “Flesh and Blood” gets the album underway in fine style, though as with the other album on this first track I don’t see the hook. “Surrender” has a kind of mixture of straight-ahead rock/metal and AOR, but at least there’s the hook, in the chorus. Oh yeah. I’ll remember that. More guitar-driven this one, even got some shredding in it!

“Fate” is good, but it doesn’t blow me away to be honest; very much power rather than prog metal, while “Hope” continues the rocking-along pattern, with again quite a guitar-centric song, though I feel this may have a little more about it. Hmm. Still not pulling me in. Here’s the title track now, with a lovely piano intro and some violin. Perhaps this is where it begins to stand out from the crowd? Yeah this has a cool hook and sounds very Threshold, uses the keys well. Like this one. Does retain a very AOR feel in parts, but no bad thing really. Hardly letting up for a moment as we rocket into “Stranded”, and I think I would be inclined to suggest that DGM sacrifice memorable melodies and hooks for shredding and suchlike - not saying they’re anything like the dreaded Dragonforce or anything, but I’m finding it hard to pick out things I can remember about any of these songs.

I might expect “Land of Sorrow” to be a ballad, but I’m disappointed as it hammers and chugs along pretty much like most of the rest of the album, though I’ve now noticed (or maybe it’s just more obvious on this track) that the singer sounds quite a lot like the late Andrew “Mac” MacDermott, who used to be with, you guessed it, Threshold! I continue to hear echoes of that band in the previous track and the next, which is called “Silence”, and of course is anything but. Another hard rocker, “Slipstream”-ish in tone and melody. Hmm, first track to fade. Mildly interesting. The synthy intro to “Turn Back Time” is nice, but then they just kind of jam the pedal down again and they’re off. Very power metal. That leaves the closer, appropriately titled “Curtain”, and it’s the only instrumental on the album. Nice; pretty much single chords strummed on a guitar against some soft percussion, quite the coda to the album.

Track(s) I liked: Surrender/Hope/Tragic Separation
Track(s) I didn’t like: None
One standout: Nah, I still couldn’t really pull one of these out as being so much better than the others though...
One rotten apple: Nothing ruins it either
Overall impression: Yeah, again I really thought I’d be into these guys, and in fairness it’s not a terrible album, but I just am not feeling it. Given that this is their tenth, I may have better luck with earlier efforts, but then again, given that it’s their latest, if I do, what does that say about the future of the band? These, and more questions, will probably never be answered.
Rating: 7/10

Future Plan: I may listen to more of their material, though my expectations have slid somewhat now.

Time to look to the classics, and while this album may not necessarily be one of their better known or loved ones, it did gain some more traction in the wake of Kansas’s breakthrough albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...s_-_Masque.jpg
Album title: Masque
Artist: Kansas
Nationality: American
Year: 1975
Chronology: 3
The Trollheart Factor: 2

Track Listing: It Takes a Woman’s Love (To Make a Man)/Two Cents Worth/Icarus- Borne on Wings of Steel/All the World/Child of Innocence/It’s You/Mysteries and Mayhem/The Pinnacle
Comments: Thought that was a Mellotron at the start, but looks like it’s a Moog. Hmm. I’ve always found what little I’ve heard of Kansas to be more in the AOR/Pomp Rock vein than prog, but what do I know? This certainly has more the hard rock vibe to it, as does the next one, very rocky blues. Yeah this is nowhere near prog rock, not to me. S’alright I guess but unless it gets a lot better I can see how this went by with a collective yawn when released. The violins on “Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel” are nice, kind of an early Rush feel to it, a bit better certainly.

Quite impressive the way everything speeds up, the violins keeping pace with the rest of the band, and they add a lot to the next track, “All the World”, Supertramp-y piano here, and a lot better than the opening tracks. Back to standard blues rock then for “Child of Innocence” with some nice organ work, then I like the piano and keys driving the Irish/Scottish reel-like “It’s You” which bounces along nicely, but again, prog it ain’t. Short, however, it is, the shortest on the album at just over two and a half minutes, with “Mysteries and Mayhem” standing between it and the longest track, the closer.

There is, to be fair, no mystery and little mayhem in the song - it’s a fast boppy rocker, sure, but there’s nothing special about it. That takes us to the closing track, the nine-and-a-half minute “The Pinnacle”, which is, so far as I can see, their last chance to convince me this album should be considered any sort of prog. Big instrumental intro anyway, nearly a third of the song, and yeah I can hear it now. They’ve left it a little late to bring along their prog credentials though.

Track(s) I liked: Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel/All the World/The Pinnacle
Track(s) I didn't like:
One standout: Nah
One rotten apple:
Overall impression: It’s a decent rock album but a very poor prog one. It recovers well on the last track, but that’s not enough to scrub out the memory of seven other tracks that have little if anything to do with prog rock. I can see why it was so poorly received when released. Doesn’t change my opinion that Kansas barely qualify as prog though. Something of a disappointment.
Rating: 5.5/10

Future Plan: I’ll try some of their other material. I know their new one is excellent so maybe this is an early blip.

All right then, time to check out the first album from our
https://bryannachapeskie.files.wordp...nner.png?w=640
And as noted in the OP, my first featured artist is a band I only got into in the last three or four years, despite knowing of them for decades. Somehow, though they were always mentioned in the same breath as Pallas, Marillion and IQ, I never really checked out their music. Once I did, I was sorry I had not done so earlier and they have quickly become a firm favourite of mine. So let’s delve now into the music of
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Formed in 1978 in Gloucestershire in England, Pendragon were originally known as Zeus Pendragon, but quickly dropped the first part, in a similar way to how Silmarillion would become Marillion four years later. Their first album wasn’t released though until 1985, and while I had signposted a different album that I was going to look at first here, I’ve changed my mind because I want to go back to not quite the beginning, but one of their early albums, so that when I mark changes in their musical direction I have something to refer to.

Therefore the first look into this artist is this
https://img.discogs.com/i_cHW9WCn5iP...-2486.jpeg.jpg

Album title: Kowtow
Artist: Pendragon
Nationality: English
Year: 1988
Chronology: 2
The Trollheart Factor: 10

Track Listing: Saved by You/The Mask/Time for a Change/I Walk the Rope/2 AM/Total Recall/The Haunting/Solid Heart/Kowtow
Comments: I love the bouncy, almost “Market Square Heroes” nature of the opener, which fizzes with energy and enthusiasm, Clive Nolan’s peppy keyboards driving the melody along, Nick Barrett sounding in exuberant form, everything about this giving me the impression of a band who have come back after three years revitalised and full of get up and go. I found their debut, The Jewel, flawed (sorry) and disappointing in many ways, and it looks like they’re out to change that here. Great start, but then things kind of grind to a halt when we hit “The Mask”, which is clunky, boring and just doesn’t work for me anyway. “Time For a Change” then shamelessly rips off the main riff from Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield”, another upbeat track which gets the album back on course mostly.

One thing that does annoy me about Pendragon, though I love them, is their blatant plagiarism. I’ve seen them copy Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Genesis by filching often whole sections of melody, lyrics and arrangements, and I just don’t see the need for it. They’re a talented enough band without having to rip their peers off. Good stabbing keys from Nolan here again, and a lot of energy, then everything slows down for “I Walk the Rope”, nice ballad with some smooth sax from Patsy Gamble, and this sax wails on into the next one, another but I think quite superior ballad, “2 AM”, which I love everything about except the end; seems to be rushed and come to an abrupt halt as if Nick couldn’t work out how to finish it.

For a moment it looks as if it’s three for three, before “Total Recall” breaks out of its gentle intro and turns into a bit of a pompy stomper if you will. “The Haunting” has a very Genesis feel with some eighties Pink Floyd mixed in, oh and throw in a slice from Marillion’s “Incubus” off Fugazi too. :rolleyes: Great Hammond from Nolan though, and the song being over ten minutes long goes through some considerable changes oh and look! The drum roll from “Assassing” too. Sigh. This is one aspect of Pendragon I just hate. Good guitar solo here from Barrett, and then it’s more or less basic rock for “Solid Heart”, which kind of looks back to “Saved by You” before we end on the title track, which rocks us to a decent ending, with a great hook in the fadeout.

Track(s) I liked: Everything except “The Mask”
Track(s) I didn't like: “The Mask”
One standout: “Saved by You” (though it’s a hard choice between that and “2 AM”, and “Kowtow” nearly got in too)
One rotten apple: The Mask
Overall impression: A huge improvement on their debut. Not a perfect album by any means, but streets ahead of The Jewel and beginning to point the way to stardom for this talented and prolific band who would remain at the forefront of the prog rock movement
Rating: 8.8/10

Future Plan: Lifetime Pendragon fan now, me!

Right then, time to check up on a prog rock
https://www.penriteoil.com.au/assets...os/classic.png

I'm not really familiar at all with these guys, but apparently this is the point at which they began to diverge from their original sound, which was characterised by death metal leanings, into a more progressive metal and eventually progressive rock vein.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...kwaterpark.jpg
Album title: Blackwater Park
Artist: Opeth
Nationality: Swedish
Year: 2001
Chronology: 5
The Trollheart Factor: 1

Track Listing:The Leper Affinity/Bleak/Harvest/The Drapery Falls/Dirge for November/The Funeral Portrait/Patterns in the Ivy/Blackwater Park
Comments: This is the album that started to polarise fans of the band. Those who had been brought up on pure death metal albums such as Orchid and Still Life decried the “watering-down” of Opeth’s sound as the band moved in a more progressive metal, and, as it has developed over the years, almost completely progressive rock direction, while those who wouldn’t have been interested in a death metal band suddenly began to see there might be more to Opeth than at first met the eye. Mikael Åkerfeldt remains unapologetic about the direction his band took, more or less telling fans they can get on board or not, but he has no intention of reverting to their old sound.

Much of the progressive metal/rock sound on this album comes from their first, but not last, collaboration with prog wunderkind Steven Wilson, who produced the album and also plays a little on it. The death metal influences, which would fade as time went on, eventually being ditched altogether, are still strong here especially in the sharp guitar and the growly vocal. This latter soon drops out though and we get the sort of clean vocals which will be the norm for later Opeth albums, but you still kind of get the idea of the one style pushing against the other, each struggling for victory. There can be only one… Nice piano ending. More death vocals in the appropriately-named “Bleak”, with a kind of Egyptian guitar riff running through it and some clean vocals from Wilson. Can’t say I’m that impressed so far though.

“Harvest” is a lot better. I like the acoustic guitar motif, and the vocal is mostly clean, perhaps an indication of the path Opeth were forging into the future? Definitely more of a prog metal than death metal feel to “The Drapery Falls” (hold on: this was a single? It’s over ten minutes long!) and it’s worth every second of its length. Even the few death growls seem not to be out of place, and there’s some great guitar work. “Dirge for November” has an almost blackgaze feel to it, starting acoustic and gentle and then breaking into a hammering riff, the death growls working really well here. I also like the almost medieval acoustic guitar fadeout.

A total change then for the very death metal “The Funeral Portrait”, in your face, aggressive and plenty of growling and snarling. Not mad about this one. The vocal harmonies near the end almost save it, but meh, not quite. Settling down then for a nice little acoustic instrumental before we end with the title track, which is also the longest, over twelve minutes. It has a lot to recommend it, but for the length it is I find my attention drifting and there’s still a little too much of the harsh death metal style guitars to it, plus the death growls.

Track(s) I liked: Harvest/The Drapery Falls/ Dirge for November/Patterns in the Ivy

Track(s) I didn't like: The Leper Affinity/Bleak/The Funeral Portrait/Blackwater Park

One standout: There are some good tracks, some very good tracks, but I can’t pick one that really raises itself to the level of a standout.

One rotten apple: Same here; the amount of bad tracks is low and even they’re not terrible

Overall impression: I think it’s almost a visualisation of a struggle, as I said, between the “old” Opeth (with whom I am not at all familiar) and the new one, as the band attempt to throw off the shackles of the somewhat constricted style they’ve been playing for, at this stage, six years, while still mindful of the fans who got them where they are. It’s a painful birth, but eventually they would pull away from the death metal altogether and head in a progressive rock direction. Here I think we hear the first labour cries, though the baby has yet to be born.

Rating: 7.5/10

Future Plan: I will be listening to more of their music, most likely from this point on. I have heard Pale Communion and Heritage I think.

^ Solid album, but I think you would have liked 1999's Still Life or the death growl-less 2004 album Damnation more. I consider the latter to be a masterpiece that emphasizes's Opeth's melodic side without being a pure retread of the 70's.

Thanks Ant. I did hear some of the more recent albums and liked them a lot. This was good, even great in places but I still sort of felt like I was listening to a death metal band trying to be a progressive metal one. I may check out the ones you mentioned.

Time for an album from the 1980s as we move through the decades. Perhaps sir would care for some Rush?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...sh_Signals.jpg
Album title: Signals
Artist: Rush
Nationality: Canadian
Year: 1982
Chronology: 9
The Trollheart Factor: 5

Track Listing: Subdivisions/The Analog Kid/Chemistry/The Digital Man/ The Weapon (Part II of “Fear”)/New World Man/Losing it/Countdown

Comments: In direct contrast to Yes, I prefer 70s Rush to 80s or 90s or later, so I kind of stopped listening around the Farewell to Kings era. This, therefore, will be my first listen to this album, and I must say right off I think the cover is awful. I’ve read the write-up on it, and still don’t know what the deal is with it? What has it to do with the title? It looks, well, terrible. Hopefully the music is better. I’d call myself a Rush fan, though not a huge one, as detailed above: I know the classic albums, but after that you’ve lost me, so I’m glad to see that “Subdivisions” has the proggy spirit of AFTK and earlier albums. Kind of reminds me of “Spirit of Radio” in ways. “The Analog Kid” is a faster, rockier number, with some fine work from Lifeson. No epics on this one as Rush go for a smarter, more stripped-down eighties image - no “Cygnus X-1”, no “Hemispheres”, no “Fountain of Lamneth”.

“Chemistry” has a real bite in the guitar, making me wonder why so many critics claimed that an over-reliance on keys here was to Lifeson’s detriment in the fret department? I don’t hear it personally. “The Digital Man” bears more than a passing resemblance to early Police I feel, perhaps Rush’s first flirtations with reggae (though maybe not; there are two albums between Hemispheres, where I finished listening, and this, so maybe they’ve been pursuing this path for a few years) but it retains its rock sensibilities; Geddy’s throwing in of words like “Zion” and “Babylon” are a little embarrassing though. I can’t quite figure out “The Weapon”. It’s subtitled “Fear Part II” but when I go looking for part I, it can’t be found. I can find part III - on the previous album! Oh, and then finally, here’s part I, on the NEXT album! What in the name of Neal Peart??

As for the song, well now I hear the new-waveish synths taking over certainly, though the guitar is still there. I assume Alex is behind the keys? No, it’s Geddy. Hmm. All right then. Still don’t quite get it: Rush have been using synths for two years now, so why the resistance from critics? I certainly still hear plenty of Lifeson’s work here, so I wouldn’t agree that they’re taking over as some seem to suggest in reviews. It’s a good song anyway, with a nice hook but a certain Visage feel to the synth line. More reggae explorations then in the single “New World Man”, which I did not like when I heard it on the radio and felt Rush were going totally commercial and selling out to get a hit single. Well I guess it worked: highest placing in the US and number one in their native Canada. Still not mad about it though.

The violin on “Losing it” is a nice change of pace, and Lifeson gets to show what we all know he can do on this track, with the synths pushed firmly to the background, then the closer is “Countdown”, and while the radio signals thing (although tying in with the album title) is a little cliched, there’s an appropriate sense of menace and danger about the music, pretty ominous, the lyric quite apocalyptic, and again the guitar is front and centre here. As it should be on a Rush album really.

Track(s) I liked: Subdivisions/The Analog Kid/Chemistry/The Weapon/Losing it/Countdown

Track(s) I didn't like: The Digital Man, New World Man

One standout: I think “Losing it” is worthy of this honour

One rotten apple: But nothing’s terrible enough to earn a spot here.

Overall impression: A solid Rush album. Not necessarily the sort of thing that would make me wonder what I’d been missing and bring me back into the Rush fold again, but I’m sure it wouldn’t turn off anyone wanting to get into the band either. Some decent tracks, some very good tracks, a few duff ones. Not a classic, but a good album. Again, the word solid comes to mind.

Rating: 8.4/10

Future Plan: I expect I’ll get through the rest of their post-1978 catalogue in due course. Can’t say I’m in any particular rush (sorry) to do so though.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...o_Eldorado.jpg
Album title: El Dorado
Artist: Electric Light Orchestra
Nationality: British
Year: 1974
Chronology: 4
The Trollheart Factor: 10

Track Listing: El Dorado Overture/Can’t Get it Out of My Head/Boy Blue/Laredo Tornado/Poor Boy (The Greenwood)/Mister Kingdom/Nobody’s Child/Illusions in G Major/El Dorado/El Dorado Finale

Comments: Ah, I could review this album without playing it. I know it so well. ELO were the first ever band of any sort I got into, their albums were the first in my collection, the very first being Discovery, which I played on an ancient record player which was operated on a valve system, and heated up after one album so you had to shut it off to allow it to cool down before playing another. Got it for twenty-five pence at a garden fete in the 1970s. Ah, great days! This came in a triple boxset which I was presented with for my birthday, and delighted too (of course I had hinted very strongly at what I wanted) but of that set this was the one that caught my attention and interest, and even now it’s one of my all-time favourite ELO albums.

Their first concept album, it concerns the daydreams of a bank clerk who is bored with his life, and imagines himself in faraway places performing heroic deeds. Well, who hasn’t done that? In apparently a direct acceptance of a challenge from his father, a classical buff, Jeff Lynne wrote the whole thing and it still stands as one of their most cohesive and impressive albums, even earning them an unlikely hit single. It opens on a dreamy, ethereal introduction, a deep, dark voice intoning the opening monologue, then a big orchestral overture slams in, rising to a crescendo before falling gently away and leading us into that hit single, the ballad “Can’t Get It Out of My Head”.

It’s a lovely song, but I have to admit I’ve never rated Lynne as a singer; here he just sounds a little, I don’t know, drunk maybe? Still a great song, and it introduces something ELO would use in years to come, a choir and indeed an actual orchestra. A fanfare then introduces “Boy Blue”, which is a hard rocker where the guitars really get to let loose, and into the much slower, melancholy “Laredo Tornado”, which features nice pipes and a sort of staggered acapella vocal. "Poor Boy (The Greenwood)” then picks up the pace again, rocketing along with a reprise of the overture right at the end.

A very pizzicato strings opening then to “Mister Kingdom”, where Lynne begins with a soft, tender vocal that rises as the music gets more intense, the whole thing ending on a big orchestral blast which gets louder and more intense until it all falls back for another ballad, again quite orchestral and strings-driven with sort of chanted vocals on the chorus. I’ve never been a huge fan of “Nobody’s Child”, but it’s not the worst. Definitely the weak track on the album, for me, though, which stops it being perfect. Rock and roll guitars take “Illusions in G Major” as Lynne just basically rocks out and has fun, particularly with the lyrical matter, before we reach the title track, a heartfelt, empathic, stirring ballad with more than a hint of old Hollywood about it. And we close on the "El Dorado Finale", which reprises the overture, pumping it up to ten and just really going for it right to the end, when the voiceover returns, then fading away in a sparkle of scintillating sound like tiny marbles dropped on the floor.

Track(s) I liked: Everything other than “Nobody’s Child” and “Illusions in G Major”

Track(s) I didn't like: Nobody’s Child/Illusions in G Major

One standout: No; impossible to pick one that stands so high above the rest. Many could qualify, but I couldn’t pick just one.

One rotten apple: No way.

Overall impression: Always one of my favourite ELO albums, beside Out of the Blue, Time and maybe Discovery, I find almost no weak tracks on this, and it hangs together so well. Given the previous albums’ pretty sketchy construction, this is almost ELO coming into their own, and the ones to follow this would only show how they were going to grow and grow as time went on. Sadly, they kind of faded away rather than leave a powerful swan song, then Lynne resurrected the band, but it’s not the same. This was from their heyday, though, and it will always be one of my top albums.

Rating: 9.9/10

Future Plan: n/a