Author: Time Lord

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Yes — Heaven & Earth reviewed by @TheDailyVault @KenKraylie

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Required reading: two merciless reviews of the new Yes album, Heaven & Earth, by fans who I am sure took no pleasure in writing their unhappy assessments.

Here’s an excerpt from the first, by Jason Warburg:

Yes have flailed, many times, but never before have they slumbered through an entire album. Tales From Topographic Oceans at least showed ambition; Big Generator at least had drive; Union at least offered variety. This album has none of the above: no ambition, no drive, no variety. The band whose kaleidoscopic approach used to not just use every tonal color available, but invent new ones, has made an album of unbroken, enveloping beige.

The opening moments of “Believe Again” offer a hint of promise as Downes’ chirpy, echoing synths and Davison’s pleasantly sing-songy delivery hark back to “Wonderous Stories” from 1977’s Going For The One. But just when it should soar, “Believe Again” does the opposite, moving from lilting verse into a plodding chorus.

Several of the tunes that follow are so utterly bland and generic—two adjectives that should never be associated with Yes music—that they disappear from the imagination seconds after they’re finished. “The Game” and “Light Of The Ages” in particular have a distinctly cheesy Asia/AOR feel, with Davison and Howe working in clichés high over pedestrian keyboard lines and ponderous rhythm tracks.

The low point comes early on when Downes puts a dime-store Casio synth patch on repeat for the duration of “Step Beyond,” already one of the laziest and most amateurish tracks ever recorded by an alleged progressive rock band. An utter embarrassment.

“To Ascend” is a well-intentioned ballad that falls flat even as Davison borrows a familiar Andersonism (“with the eyes of a child”). “It Was All We Knew,” a Howe composition, at least tries something a little different, giving the intro a hint of rockabilly twang before dissolving into America-ish easy-listening verses.

The nearest this album comes to anything resembling progressive rock is on the closing “Subway Walls,” a nine-minute track with some actual dynamics, with Squire awakening briefly in the early going and Howe doing the same just before the fade. Unfortunately, the lyric is weak, the transitions are awkward, and the whole thing ends up feeling disjointed and half-formed. It’s hard to figure out what, if anything, producer Roy Thomas Baker (Queen, The Cars, Guns N’ Roses) contributed to this mess; it’s clear there was no leadership or musical direction of the sort Anderson used to provide in the studio.

Four decades down the road from the era of greatness that first attracted many of us who still follow the band, it’s obvious that neither this nor any other lineup of Yes is likely to produce another Close To The Edge. Those days are gone. All most longtime fans are really hoping for at this point is new music that is worthy of the legacy represented by the name Yes. Heaven & Earth doesn’t even come close to meeting that standard. As a fan, this album just makes me sad.

And from the second, by Ken DiTomaso:

Most of the songwriting is handled by new vocalist Jon Davison, which suggests that the rest of the band was so thoughtfully tapped for material that they had to rely on his ideas to fill the gaps (and there must have been a lot of gaps). As a result, these songs are about as lightweight as it gets. To quickly summarize some of them: “The Game” sounds like it belongs in a greeting card commercial, “Step Beyond” is dopey and disjointed, “In A World Of Our Own” is the wimpiest excuse for a “dance” number I’ve heard in a long time, and “To Ascend” is an astonishingly cheesy ballad with garbage lyrics. There are a handful of moments where an unexpected chord change or chorus almost brings a song to life (“Believe Again” comes closest), but moments like that are dwarfed by the unstoppable wall of bland. This album rarely ever goes beyond playing it safe. And since Yes is a band who built their entire legacy on not playing it safe, unflinchingly drab material like “It Was All We Knew” might as well be a huge middle finger to the band’s fans and legacy. When Yes does take a few chances things just get weird. Awkward bridges are wedged in where they don’t fit, tacked on instrumental sections come out of nowhere, and songs are stretched to unjustified lengths. These are some thoroughly clunky songs.

Not only does this record fail on the songwriting front, it’s also immensely lazy. These tunes sound like they’re being performed by a group of drunk grandpas. Each track limps along at a sleep inducing mid-tempo, as if they’ve never heard the word “upbeat” before. The rhythm section has no drive whatsoever. Chris Squire’s distinctive bass sound is sucked into the background most of the time and Alan White’s drums sound distant and muffled. The band’s lead parts sound like they were played to a backing track without any reference to what the other members were doing. “Light Of The Ages” has a section that sounds like an elementary school band slowly attempting to play “Long Distance Runaround” for the first time. What possessed them to play this so slowly? The tempo picks up a little during “Subway Walls” but the song is such an inept piece of wannabe-progressive crap that I wouldn’t blame anybody for not noticing.

Jon Davison’s vocals sound weak and feeble. He has no lower register to speak of, and there are several moments where his voice quivers in an unprofessional sounding way. Surely these weren’t the best takes of vocals they could have used? He sounded fine in the live performances I’ve seen from this lineup. What happened here?

Steve Howe is an even greater disaster. His parts sound like he came up with them on the spot. The solo at the end of “The Game” even has these weird tiny halts that sound like he’s making mistakes! How could they have let this leave the studio? His lead parts sound like placeholders for where he would come up with actual written parts later but never did. During the bridge of “In A World Of Our Own,” Geoff Downes plays organ chords while Howe plays what literally sounds like random notes behind it. This is downright unfinished!

If you can bear to read more, check out the rest of both reviews at the links above. Well worth your time.

Caveat lector: I can assure you that the band is still fabulous live on the current tour, whatever your reaction to the new material might be. Check out the great review by Nick, with which I heartily concur.

Towards the Edge — @ForeverStillDK

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Rock Revolt named Forever Still their Indie Band of the Week and did an interview:

You have been compared with bands like Evanescence and Lacuna Coil. How does this make you feel?

I mean, these are huge bands to be compared to, so we can only be proud! It’s humbling that fans see our music being just as good or better than their idols. At the same time I think we have something very different to offer than those bands, which is probably why people usually like it instead of labeling it as a copy.

What are your musical influences?

We both listen to a lot of different music, so our inspiration comes from everywhere, and often out of our own genre! What music we feel like listening to also depends a lot on our moods. These days I’m listening to Queen Adreena because I just bought their “Drink Me” album. It’s super gritty and imperfect which makes it absolutely perfect.

We Don’t Need No Education

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“Are Universities Going the Way of Record Labels?” asks The Atlantic:

If you spent the 1990s plucking songs from a stack of cassettes to make the perfect mixtape, you probably welcomed innovations of the next decade that served your favorite albums up as individual songs, often for free. The internet’s power to unbundle content sparked a rapid transformation of the music industry, which today generates just over half of the $14 billion it did in 2000—and it’s doing the same thing to higher education.

From Albums to Selfies

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Taylor Swift in the WSJ on progress:

Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.

In mentioning album sales, I’d like to point out that people are still buying albums, but now they’re buying just a few of them. They are buying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren’t alone in feeling so alone. It isn’t as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album, and as artists, that should challenge and motivate us.

There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people’s lives forever. The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past.

…

I think forming a bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them with the element of surprise. No, I did not say “shock”; I said “surprise.” I believe couples can stay in love for decades if they just continue to surprise each other, so why can’t this love affair exist between an artist and their fans?

…

There are a few things I have witnessed becoming obsolete in the past few years, the first being autographs. I haven’t been asked for an autograph since the invention of the iPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento “kids these days” want is a selfie. It’s part of the new currency, which seems to be “how many followers you have on Instagram.”

…

In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans—not the other way around.

Another theme I see fading into the gray is genre distinction. These days, nothing great you hear on the radio seems to come from just one musical influence. The wild, unpredictable fun in making music today is that anything goes. Pop sounds like hip hop; country sounds like rock; rock sounds like soul; and folk sounds like country—and to me, that’s incredible progress. I want to make music that reflects all of my influences, and I think that in the coming decades the idea of genres will become less of a career-defining path and more of an organizational tool.

Cynic — Kindly Bent to Free Us ★★★★★

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CYNIC

This is the third album in my “Four for the Fourth of July” series. I have selected four star-spangled five-star albums that already have a lock on my year-end Top Ten for 2014. Vanden Plas and Voyager have already been reviewed. Today I commend to you this nifty new prog rock release from Cynic.

Cynic is famous for their infrequent but innovative and influential contributions to the prog cause: Focus (1993) and Traced in Air (2008), plus the EPs Re-Traced (2010) and Carbon-Based Anatomy (2011). On this new release, they have entirely eliminated any trace of death-metal vocals and taken a new direction to boot. The style not so much metal as it is groovy, jazz fusion-ey rock.

It sounds totally classic to me. I love the retro vibe on this album. It is kind of like discovering a hidden gem from the 70s in a time capsule. The disc is 42 minutes long and is thus reminiscent of a vinyl-length listening experience. And the album even divides nicely into a “Side A” and a “Side B”, with four tracks on each side.

“True Hallucination Speak” (6:03) is the first track and it locks us in with a solid groove. When the guitar solo comes, it transports us to amazingly ecstatic musical heights. But then, suddenly, just when we expect it to escalate further into an even wilder guitar freak-out, the rug is pulled out from under us as, after a moment of silence, we experience a calm and mellow meditation, which is all the more effective because of where it is inserted. And then we get to groove again.

“The Lion’s Roar” (4:35) is track two and it is a real beauty of a song. The songwriting and instrumental virtuosity fit together perfectly as the musical journey unfolds wonderfully. Here we have a model of what a chorus can be and of what makes a great song a great song. The title phrase hits us with such exquisite fittingness every time it is uttered, we don’t want this chorus to ever end. But when it does eventually come to an end, the song surprises us then in a very satisfying way. Listening to the conclusion, you would not want this to end any other way. It is just right.

“Kindly Bent to Free Us” (6:27) is track three and it is like the band has been saving up the most exceptional experience for third. We have already been won over by the ultra-groovy first two tracks. But now we get some super-awesome riffing and jazzy group dynamics that, unbelievably, take the album to even more exciting places not yet heard. I can understand why this is the title track. There’s something special about it. It’s an epic jazzy prog rock track that clocks in at six and a half minutes and so only track seven, “Holy Fallout” (6:36) is longer — by nine seconds. The band really shines when stretching out on this sort of scale. There’s a lot of tension and excitement built up by the trio’s energetic instrumental interactions. We’re dealing with absolutely upper-echelon prog here. I especially love the classic bass guitar sound.

“Infinite Shapes” (4:57) as track four feels like a bit of a chill-out after the steadily accelerating upwards trajectory of the first three tracks on “Side A”. The wall of sound is still heavily rocking out, but it feels more straightforward than the preceding tracks. So we can gather ourselves to do it all over again — because “Side B” follows the same escalating pattern of “Side A”.

“Moon Heart Sun Head” (5:21) as track five just might be my favorite track — it is so hard to pick — because just like track one on “Side A” we get an usually powerful and highly effective guitar solo that functions to transport us to spiritual heights. Here, the singing guitar solo blasts off after a spoken-word set-up from some kind of guru voice. If that sounds on paper like it could be gimmicky, rest assured that no, it works amazingly well. Prog rock theurgy doesn’t get better than this.

“Gitanjali” (3:59) as track six continues the devotional voyage. Apparently the title word can be translated as “a prayer offering of song”. As with “Side A”, we are ascending once again as the tracks progress sequentially. Some cool sonic layering here will impress you. And the pauses and pacing work amazing things, pulling you in to the inner thinking of the riffs.

“Holy Fallout” (6:36) as track seven is a mind-blowing experience. Even though it is the longest track, we wish it could go longer. There are so many moods and feelings that it runs through. It has nifty rock-out sections with nimble dances of virtuosity and yet also atmospheric washes of contemplation. The guitar work here is incredible and highly impressive. What a great sound. The trio dynamics are spectacular and the drumming is especially graceful and delicately fierce.

“Endlessly Bountiful” (3:56) is the chill-out for the “Side B” trajectory and it ends the album on a suitably meditative note. If Plotinus had had a prog rock band, I imagine this would have been one of his favorite contemplative jams. Here we have a unique sonic experience that unfolds in layers and draws us in to the heart of this band’s musical beauty. There’s a nice Sigur Ros-like vibe here but with a unique twist. The mellow guitar outro that ends the whole thing is beyond perfect. What a sweet way to end such a stunning album.

Cynic — Kindly Bent to Free Us

Progarchist Rating: ★★★★★

Voyager — V ★★★★★

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Before I devoted a lot of listening time to this disc, I was warned that the back half of it wasn’t as good as the front. But the odd thing is that as I got to know the album better, it was actually the back half of it that I liked the best! The songs that made the best early impression on me began with “Embrace the Limitless” (track 6) and went on to the end (“Seasons of Age”, track 13).

The dopey repetition in the chorus of the first track (I instantly hated the repetition of the word “Hyperventilating”) and the almost-grating second track annoyed me in the beginning (“Breaking Down” seemed too slogan-ey as a chorus phrase to me: an undeveloped idea, not a full lyric). Only as I warmed to the whole album did I eventually come to enjoy the first five tracks maximally. It just took awhile. After all, the guitar solo break in “Hyperventilating” is awesome and the musicianship was stellar, as it is everywhere on this disc.

I came to think of the album in three sections: the first five tracks (which it took the longest for me to warm up to, due to their seemingly too-commercial sound); the middle three tracks; and the last five tracks.

“Embrace the Limitless” (track 6) is a refreshing burst of loopy synth metal energy. Where none of the first five tracks grabbed me, this one actually made me sit up and take notice. Then track 7 (“Orpheus”) gets all dark and cool and interesting with even a bit of guttural vocals to match its mythological underworld theme. And finally track 8 was able to get me totally enthused with its cool riffing action and intelligent lyrics (“The Domination Game”). For a while, I would just skip the first five tracks and begin listening at track 6 to the album — with the first five appended to my playlist at the end (to hear if I had time). Eventually, I came to love the whole album and I now just listen to it sequentially as released, with no more playlist shenanigans.

Despite the advance word on the album, for me the finest moments come in the last block of five songs. Track 8 (“Peacekeeper”) is borderline dopey with its almost too-cute lyrical conceit, but it actually maintains its perfect metal balance and never crosses the line for me. In fact, it became one of my early favorites (and remains so) because the music is so darn good. Okay, confession: I love the guitar work on this album. The guitar sounds are just so excellent and well produced. And this track is a prime example.

But the best is yet to come: Track 9 (“It’s a Wonder”) has a strong claim for totally favorite track, especially because of its out-of-left-field uber-cool outro, which I absolutely love; it makes me want to listen to the track on repeat, every time!

But then, instead of hitting the replay button, we get the treat of the epic-scale last three tracks. “The Morning Light” (track 11) is a glorious sonic marvel. It clocks in as the longest track (5:58) with metal riffs and keyboards taking us to the prog places we all want to go. Whew! What a ride! Can it get any better? Well, we actually get to catch our breath with track 12 (“Summer Always Comes Again”), a stunningly beautiful song that is completely unexpected as a ballad-ey break. It’s only 2:21 long, but we end up wishing the beauty could go on forever.

The album could have ended there, leaving us with a sweet sense of infinite beauty and infinite longing. Instead, we get total appetitive gratification with the amazing album-closer: Track 13, “Seasons of Age”. This song has a magical sound and it totally rocks its way out to a jaw-dropping, drum-whacking finale.

This is proggy metal at its most melodic and accessible. Don’t be a hater; embrace the excellence. Superb musicianship, luminous production, and superstar vocal stylings; this disc is the second one of my “Four for the Fourth of July“, star-spangled five-star album picks at the midpoint of 2014. (Or should I say… “V” stars?)

Voyager — V

Progarchist Rating: ★★★★★

Vanden Plas — Chronicles Of The Immortals: Netherworld (Path 1) ★★★★★

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Thanks, Gianna! You have saved me a bit of time by introducing the new Vanden Plas. Allow me to add my track-by-track impressions to your superb set-up.

I really like this disc a lot and have selected it as one of my star-spangled picks for this July 4. Chronicles Of The Immortals is an excellent album, destined for the year-end Top Ten. It’s definitely one of my mid-year five-star picks.

Track one (3:52) starts off with a spoken-word introduction that together with the background music and a bit of singing builds a sense of anticipation. Then track two “The Black Knight” (8:29) lets us know we are unquestionably in excellently epic prog-metal territory. By the time track three “Godmaker” (5:24) kicks in, any doubts about whether or not the listener is in the presence of something extraordinary will have been removed. Clearly, this is an organically coherent compositional tour-de-force.

Track four (1:39) is a bit of a prelude that lets us catch our breath. But then track five “A Ghost’s Requiem” (3:56) is a completely surprising and unexpected transmogrification of sacred music tropes. This brilliant track cements the disc’s five-star status and forms a musical launch pad for the mind-blowing tracks that follow. Track six “New Vampyre” (6:16) and track seven “The King and the Children of Lost World” (7:52) continue to elevate the disc to new heights, which is quite astonishing, because standard practice is to lead an album with your finest material but here we have an unfolding organic whole and its accelerating excellence becomes more and more manifest.

Track eight “Misery Affection” (5:08) mellows out a bit and displays another side of the band’s remarkable skills. But just when we have been soothed by the stunning beauty of that brief pause in the intense metallic action, we are overwhelmed by track nine “Soul Alliance” (6:39), which together with its successor, track ten “Inside” (6:42), are my favorite parts the album, because their instrumentation and composition is sheer perfection. Together they tie together the entire album and bring things to conclusion in a brilliant way.

The final track, in fact, is absolutely the most satisfying conclusion to an epic concept album whole that I have heard in a long time. Really, I can’t recall feeling such excitement, other than with the similar way it feels to listen to the end of “2112” by Rush. The last two minutes of Chronicles Of The Immortals are pure dopamine-infused prog bliss. As those gigantic concluding waves of chords wash over us in the last two minutes, I am even reminded of some Rush tropes from the first half of the eighties.

Thanks, Vanden Plas. You have given us one of the greatest, most essential prog albums I have ever heard. What an amazing gift you have shared with us.

Vanden Plas — Chronicles Of The Immortals: Netherworld (Path 1)

Progarchist Rating: ★★★★★

I Do Like Prog … How About You?

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Dominion Day

Canadian Mark Steyn celebrates Dominion Day with some thoughts about what makes a great song great:

That’s the very definition of songwriting: not words, not notes, not a lyric, not a melody, but the two so inextricably linked that they’re indivisible. Was the tune written to accommodate the lines or vice-versa? I asked Burton Lane and he couldn’t recall. “All I remember is that I thought it was a terrific idea for a song,” he said, “and we were so enthusiastic about it we wrote it very quickly, and I knew we’d got it right. Sometimes that happens.”

Happy Dominion Day (July 1) from the Great White North — home of RUSH!

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Happy Dominion Day from the Great White North — a.k.a., the home of RUSH!

“Et dominabitur a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos terrae” (Ps 72:8)

Citizens of Progarchy have been celebrating by drafting lists of their Top Ten Rush Albums EVER.

We have heard from Erik, Kevin, Brad, RJP, and Drew.

Et moi:

1. Moving Pictures 1981

2. Permanent Waves 1980

3. A Farewell To Kings 1977

4. Hemispheres 1978

5. 2112 1976

6. Signals 1982

7. Grace Under Pressure 1984

8. Power Windows 1985

9. Counterparts 1993

10. Fly By Night 1975

Next, to rock in a truly star-spangled Fourth, stay tuned to Progarchy.com …

… because over the next couple of days I will be revealing — halfway through the year — some of the utterly essential five-star albums of upper-echelon excellence already released in 2014, clearly destined for my end-of-year Top Ten.

Who needs to wait for the end of the year? It seems the best prog is already here!

So, prepare to celebrate …

King Crimson: “Venturing Unto Joy — Part 1” (2014)

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King Crimson 2014

From DGM:

Well, here we are. A bit of King Crimson 2014. One should always be wary of coming to judgement about anything based upon a clip that lasts less than a minute and a half but, but, but… Taken from the rehearsals in Elstree Studios, this snippet has four of the seven-piece Crimso clearly enjoying themselves. There’s a wealth of back and forth interplay detail between Reiflin and Harrison and of course Levin and Fripp not only grab the lapels but go straight for the jugular. Oh, never mind about the rush to judgement: this is King Crimson and they’re on fiery form!