New Big Big Train Album–in 2 Days!

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock4 Comments

Big Big Train will release a brand new album on June 23 – only two months after our latest release ‘Grimspound’! The Second Brightest Star is a companion album to Folklore and Grimspoundand features seven new songs (about 40 minutes) which “explore landscapes, rivers and meeting places and take the listener on voyages of discovery across the world and to the stars.”

In addition, the record will come with a bonus selection of 30 minutes of music (named ‘Grimlore’) where songs from Folklore and Grimspound are presented in extended format.

Tracklist:

  1. The Second Brightest Star
  2. Haymaking
  3. Skylon
  4. London Stone
  5. The Passing Widow
  6. The Leaden Stour
  7. Terra Australis Incognita

Grimlore

  1. Brooklands Sequence
    (i) On The Racing Line
    (ii) Brooklands
  2. London Plane Sequence
    (i) Turner On The Thames
    (ii) London Plane
  3. The Gentlemen’s Reprise

The Second Brightest Star is the last album in a cycle of releases which started back in 2009 with The Underfall Yard album. Our writing over this period has focused on the English landscape, the people that work on the land and their folklore stories. The band will be moving on to different landscapes and subjects in future years as we play more shows outside of England. But we had a few more stories left to tell and wanted to bring them together on The Second Brightest Star.

You can listen to a stream of the new album’s title track on Soundcloud.

The album is available to order from Burning Shed and The Merch Desk. It’s available in limited edition double gatefold 180g seafoam green vinyl, CD and on hi-resolution 24/96 download. All vinyl copies will include a code for a complimentary hi-res download.

The Second Brightest Star will be released on Spotify and other download and streaming services at a later date in July.

An Important Note for Progarchy Readers

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock3 Comments

Dear Progarchy Readers,

Just FYI–because of changes in WordPress well beyond our control, nearly 5,000 of you lost your registration to this site about two weeks ago.  I’m terribly sorry.

If you’d like to sign back up as “followers,” we’d be grateful.  If you don’t, however, we certainly don’t blame you!  What a screwup.

Screen Shot 2017-06-20 at 4.09.53 PM

Anyway, I’ve received a number of emails asking me if, for some reason, this or that person was intentionally kicked off the site.  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  Not a single person was kicked off or restricted.  Whatever else we are, we’re dedicated to free speech and free debate.  Keep your language PG-13, and you’re in!  Say what you want and what you will.

Progarchy.com is a free-speech, libertarian republic, bordering on anarchy.  Free minds, free markets, free will.

Yours, Brad (ed)

Rick’s Retroarchy: Love Beach by Emerson, Lake and Palmer

On By kruekuttIn progressive rock7 Comments

by Rick Krueger.  (Third in a series; you can also check out reviews of Works Volume 1 and Works Volume 2.)

My first reaction to Love Beach (purchased at the Grosse Pointe location of Harmony House, after hearing “The Gambler” on Detroit rock radio in November 1978) wasn’t about the music.  It was about the merchandising insert included with the first pressing.  I think my actual thoughts were something along the lines of, “They’re selling satin Love Beach jogging shorts?!?”

Continue reading “Rick’s Retroarchy: Love Beach by Emerson, Lake and Palmer” →

Rush and The Tangent: Influences and Speed

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock1 Comment

This morning, Andy Tillison, the mighty and mischievous redhead of the prog world, posted this wonderful essay on how much Rush has influenced him and his music.

***

Delayed yesterday owing to the highly unpleasant news about Jonas – and only because I know he’s on the mend – here is the FOURTH of the albums I have chosen to represent some of the influential albums on The Tangent’s career. Once again to stress that this is not a chart, a “best of” – nor is it an effort to say or imply that The Tangent sound like this. Because today – i do not think we sound anything like this band, who (like the previous artist) hail from Canada

rush moving pictures
Perhaps THE greatest album in prog history?

So far my choices have been street credible and artistically laudable I think – and there will be those who heave a sigh of disappointment when they see that I chose an album by Rush. Indeed, I spent many years not having a great deal of time for this group and they didn’t really hit me until the mid 80s. But when they did… they did.

What I find so appealing about Rush – is something that Sally had also identified, independently of me before either of us met.. and that to us – to try an explain, is the MOTION in which Rush songs set themselves. Where many progressive bands take a stand on the hilltops- taking a view of the broader vista, Rush are always IN the landscape, travelling through it – usually at some speed! They’re looking at the hills that others are standing on – as they whizz past gas stations and motels, steel works and a very very familiar real world environment.

Continue reading “Rush and The Tangent: Influences and Speed” →

Sarah Slean: “Holy Ground” from Metaphysics @sarahslean

On By Time LordIn progressive rock2 Comments

Submitted for your consideration on this day of rest, here is Sarah Slean performing “Holy Ground” off her new album Metaphysics, for CBC Music Festival:

soundstreamsunday: “Mission (A World Record)” by Electric Light Orchestra

On By Craig BreadenIn glam rock, progressive rock, Rock and RollLeave a comment
ELO_NewWorldRecord
soundstreamsunday HQ

I never knew anyone who wasn’t at least a little bit of a fan of Electric Light Orchestra.  My age privileges me in remembering hearing new ELO songs on the radio when I was a kid — it was almost impossible I think for DJs to screw up their set with ELO, as the band’s music straddled so many genres at one time — and although I never owned any of their albums until I was in my 40s (I can’t believe it either), not liking their music would be akin to not liking having any fun.  But along with that fun came a musicality and seriousness of songwriting that could get you scratching your head, too.  In the words of the old ad, this stuff was good and good for you.

Those were the days….  Launched on record in 1971, by 1976 ELO had five albums under their belt and their sixth, A New World Record, would distill Jeff Lynne’s profound ambition into a back-to-front nine-song pop-prog epic 36 minutes long.  While many fans cite ELO’s next record, 1977’s Out of the Blue, as the masterpiece (and in some ways it is), that double album’s aesthetic really gestated on A New World Record: late-era Beatles laid across heavy accents of American R&B and soul, filtered through an army of instruments and tracks.  Lynne’s achievement in 1976 was to make this happen succinctly, in service of his writing, which produced the best kinds of love songs — those without the hey babies — full of heartbreak, hope, and hooks.  Always the hooks, the insanely catchy melodies.  And so the album is packed with genuine chart hits: “Telephone Line,” “Livin’ Thing,” the odd and wonderful “Do Ya,” the dopey but tolerable “Rockaria!”  Pop done and undone to the level of the avant-garde, it’s so ridiculous.  But it’s at the end of the album’s sides where the sweetness isn’t so much cleansed as qualified, adding a complex finish to the confections preceding.  So the album closer “Shangri-La” declares in its operatic final two minutes a return to paradise, either towards or away from the pain of love, and the last cut on side A is a puzzle that resolves in a lyrical, gorgeous sadness.

ELO_MissionLyrics
From the LP lyric sheet, the (artfully incomplete) words to “Mission (A World Record)”

There is nothing straightforward in “Mission (A World Record),” the central lyrics of which are “watching all the world go by” and — not even printed in the liner notes — “how’s life on Earth?” The rest of it could be a starry sci-fi mini-epic or the rant of a tenant at a mission hospital, or both.  But, astral projection or interstellar travel aside, the song concerns itself primarily with a melody, guitar line, and arrangement that read like maps of a future Radiohead.  A vibe of desolate beauty, of being left behind, linked with a prophecy or the ramblings of a seer, a paranoid android or a subterranean homesick alien.

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 above.

Pretentious NRO “review” of prog rock fails in multiple ways….

On By carleolsonIn Prog, progressive rock19 Comments

… including the following:

(us.fotolia.com/pathdoc)

• It’s condescending. And clichéd. Those of us who have followed prog for more than 20 minutes, unlike Mr. Kyle Smith, author of “Prog Rock: A Noble but Failed Experiment” (NRO, June 15, 2017), are all too familiar with the chortling and snorting that progressive rock is silly, outlandish, over-the-top, nerdy, self-indulgent, and—yes, you guessed it—pretentious. Kudos (I guess) to Smith for recycling all the usual jabs and wrapping them up in a few sentences; it must have taken some talent to do so:

Progressive rock is the nonpolitical description that stuck to the pretentious, arty, classical-and-jazz-influenced bands, most of them English, who created the music fad of the early 1970s. With their mystical themes, their surreal and sci-fi album covers, their outlandish costumes (capes, fox heads), their obsession with faeries and aliens and loopy 20-minute synthesizer solos, bands such as Peter Gabriel–era Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer led rock down a bizarre sonic detour first mapped out by the Beach Boys on Pet Sounds and the Beatles on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Prog rock was the exclusive domain of a certain kind of nervous, experimentally minded, cautiously intellectual young white guy. It was nerd rock. College rock. Dungeons & Dragons rock. Pimply-virgin rock.

This reminds me of how I was told, growing up in a Fundamentalist home, that all rock music was “of the devil,” that it was all about sex and drugs, that most albums featured nefarious, masked lyrics, and that it involved little talent (but plenty of hedonism and self-destructive behavior). In fact, there is a small element of truth to some of this, just as Smith’s smirking descriptive contains some shards of truth, while missing so much it becomes nothing more than a weird form of cultural virtue-signaling. Neither approach—the sophisticated sneering or the fundamentalist frothing—provides much in the way of context or content. Which is unfortunate, since the context and content of prog—then and now—are quite fascinating. Continue reading “Pretentious NRO “review” of prog rock fails in multiple ways….” →

Review: Anubis – The Second Hand

On By NickIn progressive rockLeave a comment

Anubis - The Second Hand

I haven’t had anything similar on my musical plate for a while, so Anubis’ fourth album The Second Hand was an interesting, beautifully surprising and absolutely brilliant variation. Again Anubis mixes progressive sounds with cinematic elements top notch instrumentation with the addition of dynamic riffing and amazing vocals. The outcome is a unique sound that is quite inimitable and rare to find. How much you enjoy the new record will mainly depend on how you respond to this incredible mix and the singing style used by the vocalist. Anyway Anubis rules, especially at night.

The Second Hand is a concept album charting “the downfall of an aging media mogul, James Osbourne-Fox, who, after a severe brain injury is left paralysed and imprisoned in his own body and left to contemplate the futility of his life of corporate success.” The Second Hand is for sure full of emotion and humanity and the way the Australian band reproduces in music the story and the psychosis of the protagonist is wonderful.

Anubis

As it’s the case with most concept albums, The Second Hand requires time and patience to be understood and to gain the listener’s estimation and it will reward open minded audience. Play it in the dark to fully experience its great music.

The album kicks off with the title song which sets the tone and the mood for the rest of the 9-track record. There’s something disarmingly powerful about vocals from Robert James Moulding that add incredible depth to a song. The intermittent piano notes are just perfect and the dramatic keyboard sound is like a nice shade of color you don’t notice on painting but that painting wouldn’t be the same without it. A great bonus.

“Fool’s Gold” starts exactly where the title track ends but adding a dark shadow to the overall atmosphere. There are still vocals but now are slower and they mix perfectly with the other instruments. The bass is gorgeous and the way the song turns into a more ambient and atmospherical dimension is great. It’s such a damn good track. “These Changing Seasons I” is a slow voice-and-piano piece that also perfectly fits the story and musically serves as an intermediary between the album’s parts. The album continues with “The Making of Me” which feels straightforward for the most part, with vocals leading the game on this one. “While Rome Burns” comes with an atmosphere reminiscent of Pink Floyd; slow synths-driven opening with guitar work influenced by David Gilmour, it certainly is one of the highlights here. “Blackout” is far more song-oriented piece in a classic intro-verse-chorus manner, but it also includes some of the best instrumental work during its almost 8 minutes.

“These Changing Seasons II” is another slow-burning piece with Moulding in the leading role, accompanied with the acoustic guitar strumming. The 16-odd minutes epic “Pages of Stone” is a centrepiece where the band absolutely gives their best. It includes everything crucial for the story: an atmospheric cinematic intro and perfect delivery by the whole band.

An album which engages on a variety of levels, with The Second Hand Anubis have delivered something of power, emotion and beauty and one which sets you thinking on a variety of different levels. More importantly it’s a cracking good listen (especially through headphones) and one which familiarity only continues to improve.

The Second Hand is available from Bandcamp.

The New Yorker Takes on Prog

On By Thaddeus WertIn progressive rock4 Comments

There’s a nice piece on prog rock by Kalefa Sanneh in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine. Clearly, the author isn’t sure what to make of the genre, but he gives a fair assessment of its early years, and the unfair treatment rock critics dished out in the seventies. I wish he had written more on the current thriving scene, but it’s nice to get some respect in a mainstream publication.

You can read “The Persistence of Prog Rock” here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/19/the-persistence-of-prog-rock