Author: Time Lord

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A Tip of the Hat to Rush

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John Petrucci has a great track-by-track commentary on the new Dream Theater album over at Music Radar.

Here are some highlights for the Rush-minded amongst us.

Here’s Petrucci on “The Looking Glass”:

“The song is definitely a tip of the hat to Rush. We’re such fans – they’ve been a huge influence on us, and we continue to admire and look up to them. One of the great things about them is how they write really uplifting songs with positive messages, but they always sound cool.

“It’s really interesting. The Spirit Of Radio, Limelight – those are big, big songs with big arena-rock riffs in a major key. Even Free Will has that. The songs aren’t dark, but they’re tough. It’s really hard to write something that can cut both ways like that, but that was my goal.

“The Looking Glass has a few different stylistic changes: There’s the Rush arena-rock major riff, but the verses are tricky as far as time signatures, and the style is a little darker. The pre-choruses are very pretty and flowing – they’re in half-time – and the choruses open up and get really hooky. From verse to pre-chorus to chorus to riff, you’ve got a lot of musical styles, and that helps to keep things interesting.”

And on “Surrender to Reason”:

“This was the first song that we wrote together for the album, so it’s really special to us. You know, we had our discussions, and we even had a meeting in the studio, but then it finally came down to us standing there with our instruments and looking at one another: ‘OK, let’s go!’

“I had the idea for an acoustic in the opener, but on the initial scratch versions I played a clean-sounding electric. Rich was a big fan of the electric, but I told him, ‘I really hear a 12-string there. Trust me, it’ll be cool.’ It almost went the other way, but in the end I put a Taylor 12-string on it.

“It has one of my favorite moments on the album, where John digs into a bass part. He has so much attitude and aggression – it’s great. Once the guitar solo starts, we’re back to trio land – again, harkening back to Rush. It reminds me of something like Working Man off their first album, just that raw bass, drums and guitar, with everybody going for it. The guitar has no delay and no reverb – it’s just dry, in your face, with a flanger on it. It’s one of the more aggressive, fun moments on the album.”

The Odyssey of Flying Colors

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Mike Portnoy comments on the new Flying Colors cover to Prog:

“I’ve been a Dregs fan since the mid-80s, and Odyssey was always one of my favorites. I even chose it for Dream Theater to cover on the Black Clouds & Silver Linings bonus disc in 2009. Playing this incredible instrumental each night with Steve and Dave was an honour — I hope I did it justice!”

Everybody Loves Haim

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Haim

Technically, it may not count as prog, but how can you — or anybody, for that matter — not love it?

Tom Breihan has a superb review over at Stereogum:

It can be tough to describe the music on Days Are Gone because it doesn’t fit neatly into any pre-ordained template, and it doesn’t have much to do with any internet micro-trend that’s currently grubbing attention for itself. There’s nothing remotely indie rock about HAIM. They absolutely leapfrogged the whole crusty-clubs circuit, and they’ll probably be playing near the top of festival bills by next summer. And their sound is lush and incandescent; it sounds expensive. In a less enlightened time, they’d be written off as corporate-pop anointed ones and dismissed accordingly. And they are corporate-pop anointed ones; their debut album is, after all, a major-label affair. But they also seem loose and unguarded and unforced in ways that would’ve made them look like complete aliens at, say, this year’s VMAs.

The one comparison that HAIM keep drawing is Fleetwood Mac, and that one makes sense; there’s plenty of that band’s sweeping studio-rat elegance in what they do. But there’s other stuff at work, too. “The Wire” and “Don’t Save Me” some of the oldies-radio glam-rock shuffle of T. Rex. In Este Haim’s full and rubbery basslines and in the widescreen shuffle of their beats, there’s more than a hint of Off The Wall-era Michael Jackson. The entire history of ’80s soft-rock radio lives in the emotive synth-dissolve of “Go Slow.” And plenty of the influences are newer, too. The sisters love to talk about R&B girl groups like TLC and Destiny’s Child, and when newer bands talk about those groups, they’re usually using the name-checks as a shorthand to describe a sort of lush digital sensuality. But with HAIM, what matters is the vocals themselves — the way one will take the lead and the other two will answer her parts back, or the ways that the voices will rhythmically push the music around into some unexpected places. And then there’s “My Song 5,” which is built on a gut-scraping computerized dubstep fuzz-bass but which never does anything obvious with it. And even when those more recent sounds aren’t apparent, they never sound like hacky ’70s-rock revivalists. Those older sounds, for them, are just a means, never an end unto themselves.

Their sound might be a hard thing to pin down, but it’s just impossibly easy to enjoy. Consider “Falling,” which sounded great at first and which has now grown on me to the point where I think it’s one of the year’s fullest and most accomplished pop songs. It’s an intricate song: The primly snappy backing vocals, the liquid rhythm section, the expertly-placed wafts of keyboard, the bluesily tossed-off guitar leads. But if you aren’t paying close attention, you aren’t noticing all the small and minute decisions that go into a song like this. You’re letting it wash over you, breathing it in, feeling the way it sighs and flutters. It’s a product of countless hours of tinkering and arrangement and studio work, and yet it sounds effortless. So does the rest of the album. It’s not an album that tries to push pop music forward or to carve out new subgenre space of its own. Instead, it’s an album that uses the entire history of pop music as a playground where none of the equipment is off-limits.

First Prog Obsession

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No surprise that for Dream Theater‘s John Petrucci it was Rush:

What was the first band you obsessed over?
Probably Rush. I started to get turned on to a bunch of different bands when I was in middle school/high school. I was turned onto The Who and Black Sabbath and Yes, and stuff like that. But Rush I obsessed over. I wanted to have every album. I wanted to know storylines, read all the lyrics, learn the songs and everything. So that was definitely the first one.

Was it with 2112?
Well, I first got turned on to them with Hemispheres. Songs from Moving Pictures were on the radio, but I didn’t really follow it. A friend of mine who was really into them was like, “Oh, you gotta listen to this song.” That’s where it all started.

“Rush are my biggest influence and favorite band”;

“to this day, I apply all of this information to my own style”

Vapor Trails Remixed

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Listen to Rush’s Vapor Trails Remixed over at Rolling Stone:

2013’s celebration of Rush includes the highly anticipated release of a remixed version of the band 2002’s album Vapor Trails. In 2009, two tracks from Vapor Trails (“One Little Victory” and “Earthshine”) were remixed for the Retrospective III collection, setting fans into a frenzy in anticipation of a possible remixed version of the entire album being released one day. Four years later, that day approached.

“Vapor Trails was an album made under difficult and emotional circumstances — sort of like Rush learning how to be Rush again — and as a result, mistakes were made that we have longed to correct. David Bottrill’s remixes have finally brought some justice and clarity to this deserving body of our work,” says Geddy Lee.

“Every song has been given a new life, from the fire of “One Little Victory,” “Secret Touch,” and “Ceiling Unlimited” to the melodic musicality of “Sweet Miracle” and “How It Is”… these songs have been redeemed. Thank you David!”

The remixed version of Vapor Trails is also be included in the 7-disc boxed set The Studio Albums 1989-2007, which features every studio album Rush recorded for Atlantic Records.

The collection includes the Gold & Platinum albums Presto (1989), Roll The Bones (1991), Counterparts (1993), and Test For Echo (1996), as well as their covers EP Feedback (2004) and the Billboard Top 5 album Snakes & Arrows (2007). The Studio Albums 1989-2007 features each album presented in a wallet sleeve that faithfully reproduces the original artwork (except for Vapor Trails, which features a reinterpreted version of the original cover) and is available on October 1st from Atlantic/Rhino.

And read about it over at Classic Rock: Vapor Trails is an important record, says Alex Lifeson.

Big Big Train loves Canada

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Big Big Train loves Canada!

That’s the only conclusion I can draw after receiving my Make Some Noise EP and my English Electric Full Power Deluxe Edition CDs in the mail today—Thursday.

I placed my order on the eve of release day—Monday.

That’s some pretty amazing postal service!

Is it because we are part of the Commonwealth?

Whatever the reason, I am ecstatic that I have these discs to enjoy for the weekend.

Thank you, Big Big Train!

Marvelous that this precious cargo arrives in British Columbia, at the end of Canada furthest from you, in such good time.

I am curious if any other members of the Commonwealth also have tales of superior postal service to report?

Or perhaps I should simply conclude:

Big Big Train loves its fans.

Well, thank you, BBT.

To you we return that wonderful gesture of David Longdon in the “Make Some Noise” video (3:43)!

Flying Colors — Live in Europe

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Flying Colors fans, there are awesome items available! Such as: bonus MP3 downloads with your pre-order.

Go ahead. Tap into the Infinite Fire:

EU: http://flyingcolors.mlgmerch.com
USA/Rest of World: http://flyingcolorsusa.mlgmerch.com

From Limelight to Looking Glass

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The new Dream Theater is officially out today. So let’s celebrate! This digital wonder is chock-full of mind-blowing prog virtuosity.

I’ve had it on the playlist all day (after downloading it last night, when I was first alerted that my pre-order was ready). Oh man, it is excellent.

Yet I must admit that “False Awakening Suite” sounded to me like a musical practical joke. It’s so overblown it’s hilarious. An intentionally head-fake false start? Oh well, great fun, however it was intended.

And then “The Enemy Inside” was already familiar, and much enjoyed, ever since it was first available for download back in August.

But finally, as of track three, I was irrevocably won over to this awesome album. “The Looking Glass” will thrill every Rush-loving prog soul out there. The guitar riff and faster-than-light drum fills, for example, are reminiscent of “Limelight” in the best possible way. What we have here is a tribute to musical geniuses by other musical geniuses. Simply superb…

Dude, it doesn’t get any better than this!

(Song of the Year, anyone? I will not argue with you; I simply direct you to the face-melting guitar soloing.)

Dude, it’s like “Limelight” multiplied to the power of five!

Yes, “The Looking Glass” has become an instant favorite of mine, along with “Along for the Ride.”

So… calling all Rush fans: I hereby put you on red alert. There are so many awesome shout-outs on this disc for you to get ecstatic over. (I love the invocation of the Peart Muse at the opening of “Surrender to Reason, for example.) Further, above and beyond paying stunning tribute to their masters, they are doing their own righteous thing and delivering all the prog goods you could ever ask for.

Go enjoy this solid slice of excellence, my prog metal-minded friends. You can’t go wrong with this album, especially if you were raised righteously—on Rush!

But if you need further testimony to convince you, here’s Simon Ramsey:

Closing colossus Illumination Theory is a conceptual 22 minute roller coaster delivered in five movements.  A feast of thrilling sequences hurl from the speakers one after the next before an existential narrative unfurls. After eight minutes of head-spinning riffs, the band fade out as ambient electronic soundscapes give way to a sweeping symphonic section that’s beauty and grace incarnate.

It then lifts off again as feisty soloing from Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci leads to a grandstanding climax rich in personal epiphany. It’s a telling finale that sends out a clear message — Dream Theater are a band creatively reborn, thriving in the here and now without relying on trusted formulas and past glories.

The Big Big Weekend

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King Alfred

The new BBT discs are out today. So let’s celebrate!

Alison Henderson reports over at PROG on her amazing BBT initiative, The Big Big Weekend. A small sample:

Strolling down to the River Itchen – another central feature of Winchester From St Giles’ Hill – and arriving at the statue of King Alfred, Greg gave an impromptu talk on why Alfred was a such great monarch. The finale, the ascent of St Giles’ Hill, proved steeper than many anticipated, but the vista from the top across the whole city was probably the tour’s defining moment.

Sounds like a fantastic weekend!

I say: let the prog pilgrimages continue!

Nice work, Alison:

Following the Big Big Weekend, Andy Poole had this to say: “This was an inspired piece of top quality derring-do by Alison to organise and host this event in Winchester, her home city and the lyrical seat of several BBT tunes. It was no surprise that the folk who joined us were thoroughly good company and keen to soak up and explore the historical and visual wealth of the city … and then enjoy a jolly good ruby!”

Greg Spawton

Inside the Great Hall

Kiss Your Fields Goodbye!

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This is too epic not to share.

And when you finish watching it, you can also go Rolling in the Higgs.