The Tangent, SLOW RUST OF FORGOTTEN MACHINERY (Insideout Music, 2017). Tracks: Two Swings; Doctor Livingstone; Slow Rust; The Story of Lead and Astatine; A Few Steps Down the Wrong Road; and Basildonxit.
Andy Tillison is not a happy man.
From the art work, to the vocal work, to the lyrics of this latest The Tangent album, SLOW RUST, Tillison has embraced a critical response to the rapidly growing and evolving fascistic, fascist-lite, and insular movements of the western world over the last several years. As artist, as man, and as thinker, Tillison hopes to stay the dark trajectory of the West or even, God willing, reverse it. While the great red-headed man of prog mischief has never backed away from controversial viewpoints, he’s rarely been this explicit.
Even the album cover makes one pause. Previously, Tillison has joked that he represents the dark side of prog, the antithesis, in particular, to Big Big Train, and the cover seems to project this rather profoundly, as a (presumably) single Muslim mother walks along dilapidated railroad tracks, holding the hands of her two daughters. The once majestic train has derailed, and the crossing sign (the closest thing to the viewer of the album) reads “go.” Clearly, several things have gone very, very wrong. There’s no hedgerow in the distance, only a ruined, collapsed, and spent civilization. There’s some blue sky showing, but it’s obscured by the ruddy reds of smoke and grit floating all too freely in a broken and war-torn world.
Continue reading “A Highly Rewarding Outing: SLOW RUST from The Tangent”
The figure “singing from the window in the Mission of the Sacred Heart” in 
I would assume that almost every reader of progarchy was surprised today by the announcement that Big Big Train would be releasing a new album in less than 48 hours. The band rightly offered PROG magazine an exclusive announcement as well as a link to one of the songs.
Progarchy 
