Ayreon Universe (Blu Ray) – Ayreon Introduction… Well Arjen Lucassen is back with another new release only this time it’s a live concert and not a new album. I have to say this is quite a spectacular show that the guy as put on and arranged with Joost van den Broek. It must of took […]
I will admit, I find it rather hard to believe that this song is already fifteen years old. Stunning. For an all-too-brief moment, Oceansize was it. The ultimate prog, space rock, space prog (labels!!!) band in the world. Combining psychedelic and often nonsensical lyrics with heavy rock and atmosphere cords and walls of sound, Oceansize seemed far far removed from its namesake–the song of by the utterly bizarre Jane’s Addiction.
Oceansize jumped into the music without trepidation. Nothing from the band felt forced or contrived, though the lyrics and the music shouldn’t have worked most of the time. But, it always did.
Continue reading ““Massive Bereavement” by Oceansize (Second Spring #8)”
If you’re part of the Grand Rapids Symphony and Chorus, here’s how:
“We submitted a proposal, and Carnegie got interested in us,” [music director Marcelo] Lehninger said. “There was one specific program in the season that they really enjoyed, and they had a date available, and we could go there the week after we performed the programming in Grand Rapids. So, it was just all the stars aligning,” he laughed. “We said ‘you know what, let’s go now.’”
So a week from tomorrow, I’ll be on a plane for New York City, one of nearly 250 instrumentalists and singers making the pilgrimage. We settle in Thursday, rehearse Friday morning, let it rip on April 20th at 8 pm, then head back home on Saturday — hopefully basking in the satisfaction of a job well done!
(And yes, everybody’s practicing, practicing, practicing these days.)
Vikrit is a progressive metal band from India influenced by variety of different styles. The band has been together for over seven years, but earlier this year they put out their debut EP The King in Exile.
It could easily be said that Vikrit plays progressive metal with elements of heavy metal/hard rock and extreme take on the prog metal genre, and fans of likes such Lam of God, Pantera, Periphery, Mastodon, and Opeth are apt to find something familiar in their sound. Tracks generally consist of simple dominating metal chord patterns with more complex underlying melodies. Instead of focusing on technical musicianship, each track of The King in Exile attempts to evoke a certain mood or feeling – and it does this quite well. Most tracks revolve around a central musical theme, but they manage to repeat themselves without feeling repetitive. Though the music is never too heavy or too relaxed, it still manages to span a wide range of musical styles, with tracks that are equal parts dark, calm, angry and passionate. It is vibrant with emotional quality, and the music is very refined – The King in Exile certainly has a high production quality, and the members of Vikrit know how to complement each other well.
That is, in fact, the album’s greatest strength. The music and the vocals suit each other very well, and combine to create the emotional experience that is the album’s best quality.
Ultimately, The King in Exile is very well made for what it is. While those who prefer more complex melodies won’t find it enthralling, it is clear that Vikrit’s members are quite talented, and the simple nature of the music is more of a stylistic choice than an indicator of poor musicianship. The King in Exile left quite a good impression on me. It is subdued but expressive, with little technicality but a lot of feeling.
The King in Exile is available from iTunes.
I’m honestly not sure what I could write about this song that I’ve not already written here and elsewhere. I first encountered McLachlan back in 1993 when her stunning (to this day, one of my favorite albums) FUMBLING TOWARD ECSTACY revealed just how professional and innovative “alternative” music could be. If there’s an artist who puts her (or him) self more into the music than did the younger McLachlan, I have yet to encounter that artist.
I remember telling some women friends of mine that I had discovered McLachlan, only to find that the really cool women in graduate school already knew McLachlan from her first two albums–which, I was informed, were far superior to this third one. Admittedly, after purchasing TOUCH (1989) and SOLACE (1991), I had to agree that they were excellent. They still weren’t FUMBLING.
Continue reading “Second Spring #7: “Fear” by Sarah McLachlan”
Taking the name of the song from lyrics by Pink Floyd, Pure Reason Revolution offered some of the best existentialist-electronica prog of the first decade of the 21st century with the fourth track–“Bright Ambassadors of Morning”–from their first and finest studio album, THE DARK THIRD. The entire album is nothing if not a masterpiece, a blistering and loving whole, a deep and abiding well of creativity.
Not until nearly six minutes into the album does a human voice even appear, letting the listener know that this album is a work of art, not an attempt at popular cash-making.
The album itself deals with the dream state of human existence–the one third of our lives in which we allow the sandman to invade and Morpheus to rule.
TimeLord emailed me over the weekend, and we “talked” nothing but Pure Reason Revolution. Since receiving the first email from my favorite progarchist Canadian philosopher, I’ve not listened to much else. Three days later, and it seems critical to make this track my sixth Second Spring.
Continue reading “Second Spring #6: “Bright Ambassadors of Morning” by Pure Reason Revolution”
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So, Pain of Salvation makes a grand return to their metal roots — album does manage to pack more than adequate amounts of dissonance and melody. ‘The Beatles’ like undercurrents still remain intact. In short, along with caustic riffs and coarse vocals, we get more than subtle glimpses of blues rock — vividly expressed through the same old characteristic Pain of Salvation torment.
Drums run a tad out of phase with hardcore punk like riffs — effortlessly blending into those matching vocal screams — add those precise temporal switches and the rare combination of aggression with progressive metal harmony is complete.
Heavy and mellow – discordant and melodic – In the Passing Light of Day integrates not just sonic contradictions, but emotions uncomfortably fragile for heavy metal – “You’re watching me slowly slip away, Like the passing light of day, Watching our colors turning grey, Like the passing light of day”
Rated 5/5 – for that unparalleled experience.
Image Attribution:
By Selbymay [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons
The Doors built its finest work around straight-ahead rock’n’roll, adding a whirling, baroque jazz samba momentum from the alchemy of keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore, all schooled in the post-bop cool permeating, by the mid-1960s, the many stripes of a blossoming California pop music scene. Jim Morrison brought the goods of fame, an impassioned thunderhead vocal whether singing his own lyrics or Krieger’s (the band’s most successful writer), and a hip pin-up beauty boosting the band’s pop darling status. (There is great irony here, as the New York Factory crowd crowed over Morrison’s veneer — with appropriate Warhol-esque fascination — and Morrison himself did everything he could to make and then deface his pretty boy shell, revealing the rot within, in one of rock’s most infamous stories of self-creation/immolation.) At the core of Elektra’s push to advance American rock in the wake of the British Invasion, the Doors — along with label mates Love, the Stooges, and the MC5 — subverted from within, using their musicianship and Morrison’s undeniable charisma to chart a course for a freedom in pop music that contained the seeds of both progressive rock and punk. In this they were like the Velvet Underground, although their east coast analogue never achieved anywhere near the popular impact of the Doors (V.U.’s influence notwithstanding).
Of their six studio albums with Morrison, all of which have their strengths, the self-titled debut is the Doors’ most cohesive LP. Released in the first days of 1967, it counterpointed the hippie cheer of the Sgt. Pepper era, playing to rock’s shadowy furies and heavily influenced by the day-glo punk creep of Love, a band greatly admired by Morrison and which, although still months away from its masterpiece Forever Changes, had already taken the dive into the seamy pop noir that Los Angeles inspired in those who saw desperation in greater relief the brighter the sun shone. It was a darkness with extreme definition, fascinating to both Arthur Lee and Jim Morrison, and the Doors came out of the gate startlingly fully formed in concept and execution, with Manzarek’s keys and Krieger’s unusual, flamenco/finger-style guitar conjuring a smooth jazz carnie ride driven by Densmore’s muscular but lithe drumming. Nothing else sounded remotely close to the Doors, thanks in large part too to producer Paul Rothschild and engineer Bruce Botnick, who used the studio as if they were recording a jazz group, attaining a clean, lively separation absent from the period’s rock recordings. Chalk this up to Elektra’s genius and artist-first philosophy.
Krieger’s “Light My Fire” was the band’s first great success, although its shortened radio single eviscerates its midsection, which contains one of rock’s great guitar solos and instrumental interplay that made its artists’ statement clear: this wasn’t the Wrecking Crew or session players, but a group intent on pushing limits as a band, as if that in itself meant something. Even the simple final line — “Try to set the night on fire” — Morrison treats as life or death (to this day few singers can build towards and deliver the final utterance of a song as Morrison could). More revolutionary for its time than it now might seem — and diminished by Oliver Stone’s clunky telling of its creation — “Light My Fire” and the first Doors record as a whole established the notion of a rock group as artistically independent from its record company, a sea change in American music in the late 1960s. For all of the attention focused on Jim Morrison’s histrionic deterioration and Ray Manzarek’s eulogizing of the Lizard King, the Doors were a cooperative, artistic effort that continues to influence, and haunt, rock groups that hew the edge.
soundstreamsunday presents one song or live set by an artist each week, and in theory wants to be an infinite linear mix tape where the songs relate and progress as a whole. For the complete playlist, go here: soundstreamsunday archive and playlist, or check related articles by clicking on”soundstreamsunday” in the tags section.
Five days of listening to Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, another couple of days with Octavarium — no doubt, with this band mind is always in a great place. But, “just when I thought I was out…Bryan pull me back in”. Black Clouds & Silver Linings is the last Dream Theater album I thoroughly enjoyed. Always play it from start to finish – like how all progressive albums should be explored. On top of their usual run-of-the mill complexity; we get to hear some grungy riffs, narrative vocals, extended melodic passages and a violin. Essentially, it’s another astonishing display of Dream Theater School of craft.
Years ago I used to be a regular at this metal bar. The place had two categories of head-bangers — ones who resented Dream Theater, but admired Tool. Then there was the faction obsessed with the former, but at best indifferent towards Tool. Most of the Dream Theater critics were tripped by that brazen exhibitionism. Usual complaints include: they take themselves too seriously, or the band is mostly about Rudess and Portnoy sharing time slots whenever Petrucci takes a break. LaBrie is awfully off-pitch was also a rather popular opinion. Myung was generally spared from these searing insightful dissections.
Perpetually warring metal tribes aside, Tool is also a lot about that brazen self-indulgent exhibitionism. As much as these bands differ musically, they do share that striking quality. So it’s merely a question of choice – of your brand of pretentiousness. My preference is obvious, but more crucially, Dream Theater tickets are affordable.
Image Attribution:
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By dxburbuja [Public domain or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
Progarchy 
