Delights forthcoming from Glass Hammer. As Steve Babb writes: “PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS AND MORE UNTOLD TALES begins with songs from 1993 and concludes with a live recording from 2017.”
Knowing Glass Hammer, this album will serve as the equivalent of one of Tolkien’s appendices in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. And, I couldn’t be happier!
Though Neal Morse’s Radiant Records has become much less friendly (at least to reviewers) over the last year or so, I’m still rather excited about this release.
SNOW has been a masterpiece of prog since it first came out 15 years ago. I’m still kicking myself for not purchasing the deluxe package of Marillion’s last album, so I’m not going to make that mistake for this one.
And, I’ll not so quietly wish that Neal Morse and Radiant become more responsive to their fans in the not so distant future.
To order, go here: http://www.radiantrecords.com/products/692-snow-live.aspx
The following came in as a comment on a post regarding the media and fan reaction to the new Steven Wilson album, TO THE BONE. It’s so good, though, that I don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of comments. So, without permission!!!, I’m posting it as its own post. Michał Pawłowski is founder and lead of the astounding art rock band, newspaperflyhunting. He’s also a really brilliant and good person.
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A very very good point Brad! Strangely enough (or not) the comments that jump on me on social media are more along the lines of ‘Wilson betrayed prog, if you like the album, there must be something wrong with you! Bring back PT!’
“What the?????” First of all ‘prog Wilson’ for me is: 1) “The Sky Moves Sideways” and “Signify”, 2) More importantly: prog is all his output taken together. ‘Prog Wilson’ is not “Grace for Drowning” and “Raven” as I don’t really count retro as progressive and those people on social media I quoted above somehow see this direction (a fraction of SW’s overall output) as THE Wilson. I do not – it was a phase in his career (probably caused by his remixing King Crimson et al. at that time) that seems to have passed (or abated) as all phases in his career do. This is the very thing that makes him TRULY progessive, now culminated in a self-proclaimed ‘pop’ album released after the retro of “Raven” and the wonderfully eclectic “H.C.E.”.
The position you descibe, ‘you must like his new album or you betray prog!” is equally daft. I don’t listen to genres. I use genre names so that I can communicate ideas (like this post), they have no qualitative value for me. I don’t like “Raven” not because it’s retro (prog) but because when I listen to it I’m bored. It doesn’t resonate. The label doesn’t change anything either way. I heven’t heard “To the Bone” in full yet (I’m waiting for the CD), but I like the tracks I heard a lot and Pariah is one of the best things SW has ever done.
Pop or not, prog or not I like what I hear and this is what ultimately matters. One should not like a poor record any more or less because it is a poor record in a genre they happen to like. And no album should be forced down my throat because it’s prog or Wilson or classic or whatever. People should grow good sets of ears and an anti-social media shield 😉
There’s no doubt, it’s fun to be self-righteous from time to time. Well, “fun” for the writer, if not for the reader.
I’ve been patiently waiting for my deluxe box set of TO THE BONE to arrive in Michigan. It finally arrived today, and it’s a thing of beauty and wonder, at least in terms of packaging. It’s now my fourth such Steven Wilson deluxe box set, and I assume the deluxe edition will always be my default purchase option when it comes to any thing new Wilson releases.
Our own beloved Richard has already reviewed the new album rather nicely and objectively.
I’ve only given the album a listen or two. It’s pretty neat, but it’s not grabbed me in the way that the previous solo albums have. Such is life. I’m going to let my like or dislike of it grow organically.
Still, I must write this. Not liking the album is an OK position to hold. I saw several folks today on social media claiming that if you don’t like the new Steven Wilson, you’re betraying the prog tradition. What the ???????? Let me repeat that: What the ????????
One more time: What the ??????
There are days I simply need to detox regarding social media and, especially, Facebook. For some reason, the new Steven Wilson has become a lightning rod in the way Donald Trump is a lightning rod. One either hates or loves him. No via media.
If I choose not to decide, I still have made a choice. So once spoketh Neil Peart. And, I agree wholeheartedly.
I’m thrilled to learn that the forthcoming Tears for Fears album has a name: THE TIPPING POINT. At the moment, the title is a tentative one, more indicative of the band’s desires and aspirations than of any confirmed realizations.
It’s been, amazingly enough, thirteen years since the band’s last studio album, EVERYBODY LOVES A HAPPY ENDING.
Westword has a really good article and interview here:
I, for one, have no doubt that this will be a worthy successor to EVERYBODY and a brilliant album. I’m pretty convinced that Orzabal is our great living pop musician.
Is it possible that this train is unstoppable? I’m honestly not sure. I am sure—absolutely certain—that I hope it never does.
If you don’t know yet (which is unlikely), Big Big Train has just released its third release of 2017.
Unbelievable.
Let me stress this again: un-freaking-beautifully-believable.
This past week, the English prog band proved once again why they lead the current revival of the genre, with the free (yes, free) release of a 34-minute EP, entitled simply “London Song.” Yet, there’s nothing simple about the 34-minutes of music. A combination of their various songs dealing with London, this “new” track comes with all kinds of surprises and segues worthy of Rush’s Xanadu.
What a thing of beauty. If Grimspound, Second Brightest Star, and London Song have yet to convince you that there are things in this world worth preserving and cherishing, nothing will.
Since downloading it, I have listened to it almost exclusively. The new Steven Wilson is kinda neat, but it’s nothing compared to the genius of London Song. And, after all the inane debates this week on social media about vocals and politics, Big Big Train just does its own thing. And, what a thing it is!
https://bigbigtrain.bandcamp.com/album/london-song
Cosmograf, THE HAY MAN DREAMS (Cosmograf Music, 2017).
Professor Birzer’s grade: A.
Having grown up on Great Plains of North America, surrounded by grazing horses, big skies, and farms, that guy that hangs out on a big kind of crucifix in the fields of wheat was always, to me, a “Scarecrow.”
And, that really, really scary Batman villain, Dr. Jonathan Crane, is also a “Scarecrow.” He’s creepy in Bruce Timm’s animated Batman, but he’s downright demonic in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy.
When I first saw the title of Robin Armstrong’s latest Cosmograf masterpiece (and, yes, this IS a masterpiece) HAY-MAN DREAMS, I had no clue what the album would be about. After all, Armstrong loves existential themes of isolation, alienation, and timelessness. When I first saw the title, I just assumed the album would be about a farmer who cultivates hay. Maybe some lonely old guy who couldn’t figure out the modern world. I knew that Armstrong would do something wild with it, but I didn’t know what. Hay man?
Continue reading “Existential Genius: Cosmograf’s HAY MAN DREAMS”
I turn fifty in two months. I’m about six months younger than SGT. PEPPER’s.
As almost all of you surely know, Apple/Parlophone/EMI/Capitol/Universal has released a new stereo mix of the uber-famous 1967 album. Just as the convoluted name of the company suggests, the new album comes in a variety of packages from one disk to innumerable ones.
Growing up in a family that loved music of all types and genres, I’ve had the Beatles running through my head from my earliest memories. No one in the house was a fanatic, but we certainly appreciated the music. My two older brothers tended to like the pre-REVOLVER Beatles best, but I always loved REVOLVER through ABBEY ROAD the best. For about a six-to seven-year period in my life—mostly in college and early graduate school–I was obsessed with the band. I bought and read all of the books about the band, and I knew every song and every lyric from REVOLVER through ABBEY ROAD. I knew the most minute details about the recordings, the controversies. . . well, everything.
There are few things in the world of music more pleasurable to me than listening to the philosophical-art-drone-wall of sound-innovations of Poland’s newspaperflyhunting. The band is probably the greatest unknown band in the world.
Yet, they do nothing if not without utter and complete excellence. So very prog.
To my shame (and business), I have had their latest album, WASTELANDS, for a few months now without formally reviewing it. Admittedly, I’ve been a bit selfish, hoarding this grand and glorious music all to myself.
Continue reading “Do Hours Pass? The Timelessness of Newspaperflyhunting’s WASTELANDS”
Progarchy 