Marillion FEAR Sale (Yes, FEAR!)

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment
marillion-f_e_a_r_a_1
Marillion’s FEAR.  On sale again!

This just appeared on social media.  I can’t recommend this album highly enough.

***

Dear All,

Once again thanks to you all for being part of our pre-order campaign for
F E A R.

The album is now 18 months old and we are still surprised and overwhelmed by the positive reactions that we are still getting from you all.

The songs have been especially well received at our live shows and we thank you, as ever, for your continued support.

We are sending this message today as we have some leftover stock from the campaign which we have now decided to sell.

We are going to sell these at the same prices that were charged during the campaign.

CD (£12.00 plus postage) –
www.marillion.com/shop/albums/fearplcd85768947.htm

CD Signed (£18.00 plus postage) –
www.marillion.com/shop/albums/fearplcd53764589.htm

CD Special Edition (£30.00 plus postage) –
www.marillion.com/shop/albums/fearplcd68748927.htm

CD Special Edition Signed (£38.00 plus postage) – www.marillion.com/shop/albums/fearplcd21341265.htm

Best wishes

h, Ian, Mark, Pete and Steve

NAO4 Teaser Trailer

On By bradbirzerIn art rock, avant-garde, electronic, Kscope, post-rock, Prog, Progressive rock, psychedelic rockLeave a comment
NAO
Our last glimpse of real beauty–NAO’s compilation album.

Sam Healy–while complying with Big Euro Brother laws, regulations, and microintrusions–offered a wonderful teaser/trailer for the forthcoming North Atlantic Oscillation album, coming sometime this year.

Granted, it’s only a full-eighteen seconds worth, but it’s eighteen more seconds then we had before. . .

The Pillars of Prog, Part 2 – Nights in White Satin

On By Bryan MoreyIn Progressive rock6 Comments

Musically, the British are much better than us Americans at admitting the failures of modernity, especially as it relates to how we interact with each other as humans. Steven Wilson so brilliantly lamented the isolation of the city in his 2015 masterpiece Hand. Cannot. Erase. Before that, Andy Tillison of The Tangent masterfully critiqued the contemporary 9-5 lifestyle in 2013’s Le Sacre Du Travail. Long before either of these artists, however, The Moody Blues commented on typical modern life in their 1967 concept album, Days of Future Passed.

In part 1 of this series, I argued that King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” started progressive rock as we came to know it. I still stand by that remark, but I’ll add that The Moody Blues were certainly an integral pioneering band in this genre. Looking back, Days of Future Passed is certainly a progressive rock album, but it is not prog as Yes, ELP, or Genesis later popularized the sub-genre. King Crimson sparked a very particular sound that The Moody Blues likely influenced but did not directly spark. What Black Sabbath did for heavy metal, King Crimson did for prog. With that said, Days of Future Passed deserves attention in this series. Specifically, I’m going to look at “Nights in White Satin,” the most well-known and probably most influential track on the album.

Continue reading “The Pillars of Prog, Part 2 – Nights in White Satin” →

You Can’t Kill Rock n Roll…

On By Connor MullinIn Progressive rock7 Comments

greta-van-fleet

Fellow Progarchist Rick Krueger has already published a fine review of this young group, but here is my shout-out to Greta Van Fleet, up and coming rockers from the small town of Frankenmuth, Michigan. Inspired by Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and other blues-based rockers, these boys (ranging in age from 19-22) are an emerging force to be reckoned with in the music world. Check out their live performance at Coachella from April of this year and try telling me that rock n roll has died…

 

Still not sure about GVF? See what Robert Plant had to say about them.

 

The Madeira, Center of the Surf: Rick’s Quick Takes

On By kruekuttIn Rock and RollLeave a comment

Believe it or not, the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica includes an article on surf music, which defines the genre’s core sound (invented by Dick Dale) this way : “a distinctive style of electric-guitar playing that fused Middle Eastern influences, staccato picking, and skillful exploitation of the reverb amplifier (which he helped Leo Fender develop) to create a pulsing, cascading sound that echoed the surfing experience.”

Fast forward to today, and surf music (like progressive rock) continues as a strong, if insular subculture — doubtless one in which debates on “is [insert band name] really surf music?” find fertile soil.   In theory, The Madeira fit Britannica’s definition perfectly — at least as they describe themselves:

“The Madeira plays surf music born of screaming wind over the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert, deafening echoes of waves pounding the Gibraltar Rock, joyous late-night gypsy dances in the small towns of Andalucia, and exotic cacophony of the Marrakesh town square. It is the surf music of the millennia-old Mediterranean mysteries.”

And honestly, that’s exactly what the band’s new live album, Center of the Surf, sounds like.  Whether on roiling, high-speed workouts like the title track, “Leviathan”, “Hail Poseidon” and “Dilmohammed” or slower-burning explorations like “Into the Deep,” the Madeira’s drive and intensity never flag.  Ivan Pongracic’s scorching lead lines and Patrick O’Connor’s unflagging rhythm work serve up all the guitar you can stand and more, breaking through to surf nirvana; Todd Fortier on bass and Dane Carter on drums pump up the adrenaline, barreling through with unstoppable power and momentum.

And just when it seems Center of the Surf can’t get any more exciting, The Madeira are joined onstage by surf music historian/rhythm guitarist John Blair and Jonpaul Balak on second bass guitar.  The results on “Tribal Fury”, “Sandstorm” and “Intruder” are even more immersive: the thickened texture, intensified groove, and vaulting solo lines both amp up the thrills and bring out the lush romanticism at the core of the band’s melodies.

The audience at Surf Guitar 101’s 2017 convention erupts with delighted applause and encouragement at every opportunity throughout the Madeira’s set — and their reaction’s on the money!  Center of the Surf is music that bursts the boundaries of its genre; it’ll connect with anyone who loves rock composition and performance at its highest level.  Recorded and mixed by Beach Boys go-to producer Mark Linnet, this is a gleaming, glorious winner of an album.  Order it (and the rest of the band’s catalog) from Double Crown Records.

— Rick Krueger

The Inconsolable Secret

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rock1 Comment

In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

–C.S. Lewis, THE WEIGHT OF GLORY

It’s time to celebrate the depths and widths of all wisdom.  Time to pull out Glass Hammer’s 2005 masterpiece, The Inconsolable Secret.

GH IS

Conqueror (Lee Speaks)

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

Un’altra verità – Conqueror Introduction… The Conqueror’s last release to date came out in 2015. Though it’s not a studio release and is very much a live DVD/CD release that features the band back in 2014 at the Naxos on the 16th of May to which they was touring their last studio album to date […]

via Lee Speaks About Music… #82 — Lee Speaks About…

Amorphis (Man of Much Metal)

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

Artist: Amorphis Album Title: Queen Of Time Label: Nuclear Blast Date of Release: 18 May 2018 Just when you think that a band has reached their peak, they come along and prove you wrong. The moral of the story therefore, is never think that a band can’t improve upon a superb release, because they can. […]

via Amorphis – Queen Of Time – Album Review —

King Crimson, Live in Vienna: Rick’s Quick Takes

On By kruekuttIn Progressive rock1 Comment

What a surprise: another high-quality, take-no-prisoners live album from the current King Crimson.  Recorded at Vienna’s Museumsquartier Halle E on December 1, 2016, it’s a worthy successor to 2015’s Live in Toronto and Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind.  In fact, it pales only in comparison to 2017’s brilliant Official Bootleg: Live in Chicago (although I’m definitely biased in favor of that show).  Which is the main reason its release was postponed from last fall until now.

The biggest change for Crimson 2016 was adding British studio whiz Jeremy Stacey on drums and keyboards, temporarily replacing Bill Rieflin.  Stacey (with credits including Squackett, Steven Wilson, and Roger Daltrey’s upcoming album) fit in so well that Crimson became an eight-headed beast in 2017, as Rieflin returned to play full-time keyboards.  Stacey is inspired here, providing plenty of meaty thwack to complement Gavin Harrison’s stylish elegance and Pat Mastelotto’s anarchic onslaught, all immediately evident in the opening “Hell Hounds of Krim” and consistently displayed throughout the evening.

As a result, this version of Crimson rocks, loose, limber and hard.  The band opener “Pictures of A City” is riveting; the drumline and Tony Levin lay down a loping, patient groove that the rest of the group rides with grace and power.  Jakko Jakszyk punches out the vocals, Robert Fripp launches face-melting, angular guitar lines, and Mel Collins sketches a steamy, curvaceous sax solo.  When the whole thing shudders to a halt, you realize that breathing would be a good idea — it’s that immersive.

Newer originals like “Suitable Grounds for the Blues” and “Meltdown” prowl and pounce; chunks of 1980s and 1990s Crimson (including a stab at “Indiscipline,” with Jakszyk tentatively scatting Adrian Belew’s lyrics) are stripped down for maximum impact.  But the heart of Live in Vienna is unquestionably the band’s 1970s repertoire; the septet throws everything they’ve got into stately versions of “Dawn Song” and “Epitaph”, sprawling takes on “The Letters” and “Sailors Tale”, an “Easy Money” that nearly disintegrates before it gathers itself and roars back to life, a “Larks Tongues’ in Aspic Part Two” set afire by Collins’ incandescent playing, and of course “Starless”– lyrical, elegaic, edgy and irresistible as ever.

With the encores on a separate disc, David Bowie’s “Heroes” and “21st Century Schizoid Man” (in which Collins quotes Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train”!) are supplemented with a rare take on Starless and Bible Black’s “Fracture.” Recorded in Copenhagen, the 2016 version reimagines Fripp’s original guitar showcase as an ensemble piece — more controlled, but still heady and gutsy.  The album even provides a post-concert comedown, with Fripp’s pre-show Soundscapes enhanced by Collins & Levin solos, a potent chaser to previous sound and fury.

Even at two years’ remove, Live in Vienna ably stakes out where King Crimson is now — committed, in Fripp’s words, to the proposition that “all the music is new, whenever it was written.”  Be ready — the music may not go where you (and sometimes I) think it could, but it definitely goes somewhere special.

— Rick Krueger

 

FIREPOWER by Judas Priest (Heavy Metal Overload)

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

With Black Sabbath calling it a day in 2017, Judas Priest are now one of the oldest metal bands still on the go. They’re one of the genre’s most definitive, influential and original acts. But they’ve also been dogged by consistency problems for decades, making any new release equal parts exciting and fraught. While dodgy […]

via Judas Priest – Firepower (Review) — HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD