TeamRock and Prog are reporting that Trevor Horn will be playing with Yes, live on May 9-10. Amazing.
http://teamrock.com/news/2016-04-26/trevor-horn-to-join-yes-for-two-uk-shows
Fallujah – Dreamless – Album Review
Artist: Fallujah Album Title: Dreamless Label: Nuclear Blast Records Date Of Release: 29 April 2016 ‘Dreamless’ represents my first foray into the world of Fallujah but it most definitely won’t now be my last. Hailing from San Francisco, this heavy metal behemoth has produced a startling third album which has to be heard to be […]
https://manofmuchmetal.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/fallujah-dreamless-album-review/
A Not So Gentle Reminder: Anesthetize from Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree, ANESTHETIZE: LIVE IN TILBURG, OCTOBER 2008 (Kscope, 2cd/1dvd, 2015).
I’m a relative late comer to his music. As chance happened (as chance does), I actually turned on a radio (something I’d really not done since the late 1980s) while driving through Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the early fall of 2002. And, miraculously, at that moment, the station was playing something from IN ABSENTIA.
“Trains,” I think.
Continue reading “A Not So Gentle Reminder: Anesthetize from Porcupine Tree”
Album Review: The Syn — Trustworks ★★★★☆
Trustworks, the new album from The Syn, is magnificent. It’s a very easy listen, but it hits all the right prog/rock pleasure points. It’s so smooth, you could even use it as “starter prog” to get friends and loved ones hooked on the good stuff. It’s very soothing, but yet full of subtle musical skills.
I do like some tracks better than others. These are the ones that I think are absolutely fantastic: “Something That I Said” (5:10), “Lucifer Hesitating” (5:23), “The Wheel” (4:16), and the pull-out-all-the stops ultra-proggy closer, “Seventh Day of Seven” (14:50). Steve Nardelli‘s relaxed-dude vocal style works best on these four songs, and they are all super cool musical outings. I can’t get enough of listening to these tracks, whereas I frequently skip the others (especially the snoozily didactic title track).
Nardelli recorded Trustworks with co-producer Jonas Reingold and Swedish prog-rock band Moon Safari: i.e., Pontus Åkesson – guitars; Simon Åkesson – keyboards; Johan Westerlund – bass; Petter Sandström – vocals, acoustic guitar; and (now former Moon Safari member) Tobias Lundgren – drums.
There’s no school like old school. Do yourself a favor and get this album. It’s worth the price of admission simply for “Seventh Day of Seven” alone. But everything else is a bonus, and everybody will find a fave bonus track to dig. For me, that would be “The Wheel” — which is so groovy, I think that word may just need to make a comeback in order to allow us to properly describe this song.
Rock on, dudes!
The Enid, Dust to Glory.
The Enid, one of the most iconoclastic progressive bands have ploughed their own furrow over the last 40 years guided by the individual (some might say bloody minded) vision of Robert John Godfrey, a unique musical visionary who polarises opinion with his outspoken critiques, yet he has driven The Enid forward for the last 40 years and with the current tour being his last hurrah with the band as he steps back and lets the young blood in the current revitalised incarnation take over, I was lucky to catch up with Robert, and Enid vocalist Joe Payne last month before they flew of to Japan, to talk about their latest opus Dust.
Robert John Godfrey
Robert is one of the most erudite musicians I have ever interviewed, an intelligent and passionate individual he has so many ideas that we would veer off topic at a regular occurrence including several off the record chats that sadly I cannot reproduce here, witty, self deprecating and very down to earth I think when he steps aside from the stage work he should do a few ‘Evening with…’ theatre shows.
We started our chat by talking about their mighty fine new album Dust and Robert explained the albums concept and themes,
‘Basically there is stardust round and round us, and it’s the culmination of a trilogy, Dust is a prophetic look at where we’ve got to.
It’s about 7 things represented by a seven-point star, there are six things that are on a collision course with massive consequences, the environment vs consumerism, the sacred and the secular and wealth and poverty.
The seventh is something that might have been implicit at the Big Bang, when you got a Terry Pratchett disc world and the 6 points are all fighting each other and this enormous problem us something the next generation has to sort out is the legacy of the mess my generation have made. In this pretty devastated place at the end of it all you’ve got Love, which you must have had in place at the start.
Love, it’s what you’re left with at the end and the stuff of creation, the message that was behind (classic Enid album) Something Wicked this Way comes.
Is this the end? A punishment or a great forest fire, a reset. The trilogy is about the relationship between the one and the many.
It’s about being interested in ideas of mortality and what it means to be a believer, I honestly don’t know and don’t pretend to know.
I’ve spent my life half rationalising against the idea of God and the other half talking to him’ Continue reading “The Enid, Dust to Glory.”
My Top 10 Albums No One Else Likes or Listens To: Album #10
Yes, the title is an exaggeration. Perhaps it should be “albums no one admits to listening to or liking”! I’m sure there are plenty of others who like some of these albums. In fact, a few of these albums sold quite well. But reviews tended to be tepid, mixed, or worse. And in certain circles (yes, I’m looking at you, Rolling Stone magazine), most of these albums were either panned or scorned. Or they were simply ignored. (Deep question: “If Chris Cornell makes an album with Timbaland and no one listens to it, does it really exist?”)
The bottom line, I suppose, is that these albums tend to not fit comfortably into the larger body of an artist’s or band’s work. It might be that the album simply isn’t as good as other albums; or, it tended to be dismissed or downplayed because of apparent shortcomings or actual flaws. But, for me, these are often the most interesting albums, even if they are not the best albums. Just as really great people become more human and thus more fascinating when their flaws or failures are revealed or recognized, great artists reveal something in work that is “left field” or somehow not considered to be 10/10 material. (And, yes, I do consider ABBA to be a great band. Really. I’ll explain why soon enough.)
I’ll be posting my Top 10 “albums no one else listens to or likes” over the next few weeks. The first album on my list is: Continue reading “My Top 10 Albums No One Else Likes or Listens To: Album #10”
Third Voice Video and Information
A number of you have asked about the band and the music of Third Voice–I played “A Day Like Today” on PR Episode 6.
Here’s a link to the band’s website: http://www.thirdvoicemusic.com
And, here’s the video for the song I played. Enjoy!
An Interview with 3rDegree
In a perfect world I would just travel to New Jersey and buy the guys numerous “rounds” of their favorite adult beverages as we talk music. I want everyone not just talking about this band but buying their current album, back catalog, and next release. Full disclosure dictates that I confess: I love this band and named their 2015 album “Ones & Zeros: Vol. 1” as my favorite prog album of the year. In that perfect world I would interview Robert & company face to face. But second best (e-mail/cyber interview) with 3rDegree is still first degree cool! My “fan-boy” questions (I’m JW for Jay Watson) were graciously answered by most of the band: RJP (Robert James Pashman), PK (Patrick Kliesch), GD (George Dobbs), EP (Eric Pseja), Bryan Zeigler (BZ).
By the way, every true-blue East Coast prog fan needs to know that 3rDegree is playing live in 2016:
May 5: 10th Street Live, Kenilworth, New Jersey (with Circuline and Ryche Chlanda)
May 6: Aspire Hotel, Gettysburg, PA, (RoSfest)
May 19: Drom, New York, NY (with District 97, IZZ, and Tiles)
Politics in Rock: U2 and Rush
I want to thank Bryan, Craig, and Nick for such a civilized discussion regarding politics and art. I also want to thank the many commentators who joined in.
I only have a personal, autobiographical, inward-looking comment. I grew up in an extremely anti-war, pro-Catholic, libertarian household. I’m deeply thankful to my mom, my aunts, my maternal grandmother, and the Dominican nuns for teaching me that EVERY SINGLE HUMAN LIFE (regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, skin tone, etc.) matters.
Life is precious, and the good life is even more so.
Soundstream Sunday: “Impressions Of My Country / Foothill Patrol” by Gabor Szabo
…the next move, after Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4, pulls the thread of that piece’s guitar work and comes up with Gabor Szabo at his funky six-string best, in Stockholm in 1972. From the album Small World (available as a compilation with its sister album, Belsta River, as In Stockholm), “Impressions Of My Country / Foothill Patrol” is a duel with Janne Schaffer — a Swedish guitar hero known mostly for his work with Abba. In 1972 Szabo, a serious jazz cat with a penchant for interpreting pop tunes (and riding that line between elevator music and the sublime), might have been primed to explore this Hendrixian territory. The previous year his “Gypsy Queen,” from the album Spellbinder (Impulse, 1966), had been adapted to round out Santana’s cover of “Black Magic Woman” on the album Abraxas. That song reached number four on the charts, while Abraxas went to number one. Szabo’s approach on Small World may have been, in no small part, influenced by Santana. The usually clean tones are fuzzed out, wah-wah pedals are employed, and there is a freer, funkier feel to the proceedings. Coming from Szabo, though, it’s no surprise, and his experimentation with tone and feedback in the 60s, coupled with the use of his native eastern European melodies, helped define a psychedelic sensibility that lent itself to the jam.
Progarchy 