Brave New World

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metal2 Comments

Superficial differences aside, ‘Brave New World’ is quintessential Iron Maiden. Those references to English literature, sober yet deceptively dark overtones, and compositions bordering on progressive metal. Not to mention the galloping bass lines, rich melodic riffs and vocals absolutely operatic – all essential Iron Maiden signatures.

For a song named after the early 70s British horror flick, The Wicker Man might seem deceptively upbeat. But, Brave New World is straight disturbing —“Dying swans twisted wings, beauty not needed here.” — seems to mirror Aldous Huxley’s own dystopian vision. Accessible, and threateningly catchy choruses – “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, you’ve got to kill to stay alive” – illustrates just one of those reasons why Iron Maiden is still that dominant heavy metal life form on this planet.

How a whimsical – “Is this a new reality. Something makes me feel that I have lost my mind” – effortlessly regresses into more horrific hues – “Lost in a dream of mirrors, lost in a paradox. Lost and time is spinning, lost a nightmare I retrace” – is baffling.

Azazel — The fallen angel, sets the tone for a mercilessly melodic Out Of The Silent Planet. Lyrics are not exactly C. S. Lewis’s fiction, but it’s a blend of catchy riffs and vivid imagery. “Withered hands, withered bodies begging for salvation. Deserted by the hand of Gods of their own creation.” — anticipating an eventual apocalypse — “Nations cry underneath decaying skies above. You are guilty, the punishment is death for all who live.” Finally, leaving the listener reeling with a devastating chorus – “Out of the silent planet, dreams of desolation. Out of the silent planet, Come the demons of creation”.

A markedly refined take is reserved for the end. Actually, any civilized mind would have already pondered —“When a person turns to wrong, is it a want to be, belong? –– “But what makes a man decide, take the wrong or righteous road” — indeed “There’s a grey place between black and white.” More decisively — “But everyone does have the right to choose the path that he takes”.

The artistic sensibilities that shaped Iron Maiden are all being subtly explored here – “We all like to put the blame on society these days. But what kind of good or bad a new generation brings. Sometimes take just more than that to survive be good at heart. There is evil in some of us no matter what will never change.” Essentially, where others adopt contentious naive stands, Iron Maiden simply enlightens, illustrating that not so thin line separating the rare eminent from the mediocres.

Image Attribution:
By Raph_PH (IronMaidenO2_270517-24) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Damanek’s Debut is Literally (and Metaphorically) On Track

On By Erik HeterIn Progressive rock4 Comments

damanek-headertop

One of the most satifying things a music fan can do is make a new discovery.  That happened to me lately as I was given a review copy of Damanek’s debut album, On Track.  Lucky me.  On Track is one of the best releases I’ve heard in what has been a pretty good year for prog releases.

A little background here is in order – Damanek is the brainchild of Guy Manning, who among other things is a veteran of The Tangent.  For this release, Manning is the chief composer and lyricist.  Beyond that, there are numerous contributors to the album.  Among them, Manning borrows from his former band to tap Luke Machin on the electric guitar, Marek Arnold contributes on a number instruments (his sax figuring prominently),  and numerous other musicians play their part.

The first track, Nanabohza and the Rainbow, sets the tone for the album.  Beginning with some native-sounding beats, the song evolves into a jazzy looseness (the latter being very pervasive throughout the album).  The aforementioned saxophone makes its first appearance toward the end of the song, along with some superb piano, with the song closing on some motifs that could be described as mid-Eastern.  That’s quite a palette, and it’s only the first song.

Long Time, Shadow Falls follows next, and has a bit more of a new-agey feel to it, with some African rhythms to drive the point home.  Lyrically, the song is a commentary on poaching and preservation (or more precisely, the lack of the latter), and the music is most effective in underscoring the message.

Track three, The Cosmic Score, is largely piano driven and is the most relaxing track on the album.  Arnold’s sax makes an appearance midway through, playing off the piano, followed by a synth solo that harkens back to first golden age of prog in the 1970’s.  Lyrically, The Cosmic Score is sung on a grand scale; musically, it invites you to kick back and relax as you contemplate.

The musical palette widens even further on the next track, Believer – Redeemer.  If you have ever been looking for some funk/R&B influence in your prog, then this is the track for you.  The Santucci Horns (as they are known in the album credits) provide some brass here with trumpet and trombone to further accentuate the dominant influence here.

The following track, Oil over Arabia, begins with some jazzy piano and guitar before the saxophone once again joins in the fun.  Midway through, the pace picks up and the song begins to rock out a bit more, and eventually Arnold provides some excellent clarinet to the song as well.  Lyrically sparse, this is almost an instrumental track, and a damn good one at that.  As with all the songs, the playing is top notch, but this one really stood out to me.

The Big Parade has a somewhat Beatle-esque sound to it, and it’s not hard to imagine John Lennon circa 1968 writing or singing a song like this. The fact that it is an anti-war song makes this all the more so.  This song qualifies as the most quirky diversion on the album, and despite its protesting nature, it’s a fun listen.

The melancholy Madison Blue is up next.  This is a relatively simple track musically, primarily driven by the piano.  Here, however, what sounds like a small string section and the flute beautifully underscore the mood of the piece, which lyrically concerns the loss of someone dear.

Saving the epic for last, the album closes with the 13 minute plus Dark Sun.  The first five minutes or so feature a slow groove with Arnold’s clarinet adding some nice color at various points.  Midway through, the pace picks up dramatically, with excellent guitar work by Machin, some jazz-tinged electric piano and more of Arnold’s clarinet (come to think of it, I can’t think of many prog albums where the clarinet played such a prominent part).  Some very proggy organ is also included before the song slows down and eventually returns to the same groove with which it began.  It’s a quite-satisfying musical journey.

In closing, On Track has some of the best musicianship of any album I’ve heard in quite some time, and that’s saying quite a bit given the plethora of outstanding progressive rock releases we’ve seen this year and for several years running now.  Overall, the music is a, well-balanced mix of styles, including classic and modern prog, jazz, and various world music styles, tastefully and seamlessly combined.  As debut albums go, this one is a smashing success.

The Albums that Changed My Life: #6, Songs of Travel & On Wenlock Edge by Ralph Vaughan Williams

On By kruekuttIn classical, folk music1 Comment

by Rick Krueger

In our casually audiophile age of 96 kHz/24 bit BluRays and 180-gram virgin vinyl, it may be hard to comprehend what a difference digital recording made when it came of age in the late 1970s.   I remember cueing up Keith Jarrett’s Concerts: Bregenz, München and being blown away as much by the background silence, the clarity and depth of the piano sound, and the extended dynamic range as by Jarrett’s freewheeling improvisations.  The compact disc was still in the future — but at that point, after suffering through muddy, distorted mass-produced pressings of way too many albums, it seemed like that future was all upside.

Classical record companies were the most fervent backers of digital recording from the beginning; the prospect of “perfect sound forever” made both corporate executives and their target demographic (single men with money or credit to burn — surprise!) salivate in anticipated ecstasy.  Certainly, as I built a classical collection during graduate school, the word “Digital” on the front cover of a record always counted in its favor.

That’s one reason I picked up the album pictured above.  Another reason: I’d already heard some fine Mahler recordings by the young conductor Simon Rattle, precociously helming the scrappy City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.  And there was one more burning question: was Benjamin Britten right about Ralph Vaughan Williams?

Continue reading “The Albums that Changed My Life: #6, Songs of Travel & On Wenlock Edge by Ralph Vaughan Williams” →

Gord Downie, 1964-2017

On By kruekuttIn Rock and RollLeave a comment

by Rick Krueger

In August of 2016, my wife and I vacationed in Stratford, Ontario — one of our favorite places to visit, due to its internationally acclaimed theater festival and its lovely riverside parks.  Picking up local classic rock stations as we crossed into Canada, I noticed lots of talk about The Tragically Hip’s upcoming concerts in London and Toronto.

I’d heard of The Hip, but never got into them — partially because I’d moved away from metro Detroit, where good Canadian bands could easily score airplay and well-attended shows.   I was surprised at the amount of hubbub around this tour; it was only after we returned to the States that I learned the reason for the buzz.

The Hip’s lead singer and lyricist, Gord Downie, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the worst kind of brain cancer, late in 2015.  After finishing the 2016 album Man Machine Poem, the band decided on one last go-round of Canada’s hockey rinks, winding up in their Ontario hometown of Kingston in front of 6,700 fans in the local arena, thousands more on the surrounding streets, and a national audience on CBC.

Honestly, the music of The Tragically Hip is little more than well-executed, basic rock — lots of Rolling Stones and John Mellencamp grooves ranging from competently shambolic to tightly locked in.  The secret sauce was Downie’s surreal, shamanistic lyrics.  Stirring together a underdog outlook, the perspective of Canadians from the “great wide open” and random streams of consciousness (sometimes improvised live as the band rocked on — sperm whales were a recurring theme), they were fascinating precisely because they were sharp yet ambiguous, complex — even openly, defiantly confused.  At their best (in my view, on the album Fully Completely and the compilation Yer Favourites) the group was pretty compelling.

Gord Downie passed away last night at the age of 53.  To say he leaves behind a grateful nation is not an exaggeration.  You can see and hear what Geddy Lee had to say about The Hip last year as the farewell tour wound down here, and read a well-wrought appreciation of Downie’s take on Canadian identity here.  Banger Films (the folks responsible for the Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage) have completed a film about The Hip’s final days, Long Time Running; it’ll be streamed on Netflix starting November 26.  And check out the Yer Favourites compilation below.  I especially recommend “Fiddler’s Green,” Fifty-Mission Cap,” “Courage (for Hugh MacLennan),” “Fireworks” — and if you only have time for one track, the fierce “At the Hundredth Meridian.” 

“If I die of Vanity, promise me, promise me
That if they bury me some place I don’t want to be
That you’ll dig me up and transport me
Unceremoniously away from the swollen city breeze, garbage bag trees
Whispers of disease, and acts of enormity
And lower me slowly, sadly, and properly
Get Ry Cooder to sing my eulogy …”

 

THE VOID: Working on the Second Birzer Bandana Album

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

image1As some of you might remember, fellow progarchist Dave Bandanna (of the English prog band, Salander) graciously asked me a year ago to write lyrics for a new band/project, called Birzer Bandana.  We released that album, BECOMING ONE, earlier this year.

I’ve now written the lyrics for the second album–a concept album revolving around the mystery of a man trapped somewhere and in some way on a starship heading into a black hole. As with the first album, this new one explores existential questions of life, love, loss, and hope. For better or worse, these are themes I, personally, can’t escape, and, frankly, it’s really healthy for me to write them down in lyric form.

Dave just sent me a working version of the 14-minute track, “The Void.” To my mind, this is Dave’s best craftsmanship as a composer.

To write “I’m excited” would be the grand understatement of the day. Dave’s work is nothing short of brilliant.  I’ll be equally excited to share it with everyone someday. . . .

UNTOLD TALES: Glass Hammer’s Tolkienian Prog

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rock2 Comments
untold tales
The latest from Glass Hammer and Sound Resources.

Pensive, deep, and resonating strings eagerly invite listeners to immerse themselves utterly, fully, and completely in the album.  From there, keyboards swirl in anthemic Emerson-esque majesty until the entire orchestra begins what is nothing less than an all-encompassing and fetching fanfare.

We the listener feel not the abstraction of the music, but its tangibility.  We might very well be able to touch it.  We are not “fans” witnessing a spectacle from afar, hoping to catch a mere glimpse from our balcony seats the smiles that pass between Susie and Fred, the nods between Aaron and Steve, or which guitar Alan is using on this or that tune. No, nothing like any of this. With UNTOLD TALES, we the listeners are members of the artistic endeavor as a whole, as much a part of the band as those on stage, and just as fundamental to the artistic success of it all.

Continue reading “UNTOLD TALES: Glass Hammer’s Tolkienian Prog” →

soundstreamsunday: “Starless” by King Crimson

On By Craig BreadenIn art rock, jazz rock, Progressive rock5 Comments

kingcrimsonKing Crimson appeared in 1969 as an island, on the far side of the bridge joining a tiring psychedelic scene to a studied, if no less freaky (for its age), “progressive” rock.  In its nearly fifty years the group’s membership has drifted in and out through orbits around guitarist Robert Fripp, his steady hand and heart dissolving and reforming Crimson as there is music for it to play.  As Fripp assembled the band’s third incarnation, Crimson was riding a wave of popularity the rewards of which didn’t settle entirely well with him, and in promising a more difficult, rockier terrain he was able to lure drummer Bill Bruford, looking for a similar fresh start, from megaprog juggernaut Yes.  With violinist David Cross and bassist/vocalist John Wetton, the band created three albums in quick succession, ranking among their diverse best.  1974’s Red, the last of the trio, is an able summation of Crimson to that point, before Fripp forcibly retired the band (he would let Crimson lie dormant until a brilliant, left-field return in 1981).  The music is a metallic, abrasive take on contemplating the dying of the light, its mood no doubt reflecting Fripp’s, and his band’s, growing uneasiness.

In its lyric, “Starless” is an extension of the previous album’s title, Starless and Bible Black,  but the resemblance more-or-less ends there.  It has more in common with the grandeur of Crimson’s first record, In the Court of the Crimson King, mellotrons drifting into Fripp’s signature sustained tones, with Wetton’s vocal part an overtly dramatic (such was Wetton’s m.o., but here it works) preamble to a long instrumental passage as heavy a piece of jazz metal fusion as has ever been created.  For all his professorial demeanor and seriousness, Fripp loves a good stoner riff, and the tension he can build around such beasts — harmonic, exploratory — separates him from the pack.  Brainy, yes, but beguiling, gorgeous, devastating.

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.

Arktis

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Emperor ceased to exist, but Ihsahn continued to pursue that trajectory. While musically more ambitious, his work is still firmly grounded in that very bedrock of symphonic black metal. Arktis, like his other records, explore diverse genres/themes and prods a range of emotions.

Staying clear of progressive metal clichés, Ihsahn crafts splendidly heavy and sublime melodies. Even the fiercely romantic “My heart is of the north” involves thick riffs, and a jarring keyboard reminiscent of 70s Emerson Lake and Palmer. Making that brief mellow moment — “And should my spirit soften like snow in early spring, or waver in the sultry haze, that soothing summers brings“ — quite exceptional.

Fascinating how whispering vocals – “Static, Dogmatic, Death cult, Fanatic” – can be this threatening with electronica. Transition into some grinding industrial metal — “I’d rather live a life in sin. And take the devil’s fall” — cannot be more elegant. With a measure of painfully moving vocals – “What kind of promises could justify the sacrifice you make? “ – Ihsahn paints a vivid landscape. But eventually ends with his signature, absolutely devoid of all sentiments, grating vocals.

Exhibiting those exquisite symphonic prog aesthetics, like 70s Genesis or Gentle Giant, Arktis is poignant, layered, and at times emotionally distressing – “Longing for the hopeless. Losing all to own the end”.

Melancholic solos when accompanied by keyboards — layered over measured strumming and painful clean vocals – “You chose a life at war. Now choose a worthy enemy. You know, it doesn’t always have to be yourself” – blazes a grim road. Musically and lyrically, Ihsahn teleports the listener straight into vaults of emotional desolation.

In spite of prominent extreme metal elements, long time Rush listeners should be immediately taken with that very familiar background keyboards in ‘Until I Too Dissolve’. But we are still skimming the surface, influences are multitude and diverse. Ihsahn traverses a progressive metal territory decked with stunning jazz to bleak black metal. Intense and sublime, Arktis, in Ihsahn’s own lyrical terms is a masterful “conjurer of sorrow”.

By Jonas Rogowski (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Lunatics United: A Partial and Subjective Guide to the Singles of Tears for Fears

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment
TEARS_FOR_FEARS_FLIP-421478
The first TFF b-side compilation, 1991.

Though best known in the prog community for their actual albums–such as SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR or EVERYBODY LOVES A HAPPY ENDING–Tears for Fears is also the master of the single.  Perhaps this is an artifact of the innumerable remixes of the 1980s, the decade of their origins, or, perhaps, the ideas of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith just never stop and cannot be contained by an album. Looking over their history as a band and as individuals, I think I’ll choose the latter explanation.  Throughout the band’s thirty-four year career, amazingly enough, Tears for Fears has only released six studio albums.  In that same period, though, the band has released dozens of singles, each different in style, theme, and genre.  While their albums tend toward the progressive pop of PET SOUNDS by the Beach Boys or SKYLARKING by XTC, their singles range all over the place, traversing and, at moments, transcending, both space and time.

One can, however, effectively divide the singles into three types: covers; rock and pop cinematic outbursts; and prog and electronica experimentalism.  The band has released these in a variety of forms: box sets; cd singles; one compilation album; and as bonus tracks.

Continue reading “Lunatics United: A Partial and Subjective Guide to the Singles of Tears for Fears” →

I Love You But I’m Lost: New Tears for Fears

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rock2 Comments
ruletheworld
The new greatest hits compilation from Tears for Fears.  Available November 10, 2017, from Mercury Records.

As I’ve had the opportunity to argue many times over on Progarchy, Tears for Fears is my favorite pop band, and I consider Roland Orzabal the greatest living writer of pop music. Huge claims, I know.  But, then again, I’m from Kansas, and I’m a Birzer.  If I didn’t speak with apparent hyperbole, my brain and soul might just very well explode.

My feelings toward TFF have been with me since I first heard SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR, 32 years ago.  If my convictions about TFF and Orzabal have wavered, I’ve not been aware of such.

Seeing them live has only further convinced me in my claims.

The new single–while, to me, surprising in the direction taken–does nothing to alter my previous claims.  Now available on iTunes, the new single is the first music the band has released since the 2014 Record Day exclusive EP of three covers, READY BOYS AND GIRLS?  Before that, the band had released two new songs as bonus tracks on its 2005 live album, SECRET WORLD.

The new single is a rather direct pop-dance single, with rave-like keyboards, high-pitched vocals, and an anthemic refrain.

For those of us hoping for a brand new album, we’re a bit disappointed, as the new single comes with a new greatest hits package, RULE THE WORLD.  A second new single, “Stay,” also appears on RULE THE WORLD (itself, available on November 10, 2017, from Mercury Records).

Let’s hope and pray that the rumored album, THE TIPPING POINT, is still forthcoming.