PROG-ROCK:
ASIA/JOHN WETTON: The Asia Story Featuring John Wetton DBLCD
CD1 is a sixty-six minute CD that features immaculate sound quality live tracks, most of which are red-hot and dynamic renditions of tracks from the first three Asia albums, all or most seemingly recorded live in Russia from the sound of the opening announcements, and along the way you'll find versions of 'Sole Survivor', 'Don't Cry', The Smile Has Left Your Eyes', 'Heat Of The Moment' and more of the band's finest anthemic classics, with John Wetton on corking vocal form. Interpsersed with these are a Geff Downes instrumental based around 'Video Killed The Radio Star', and Asia's version of King Crimson's 'Book Of Saturday'. All in all, it's sixty-six minutes of sheer class anthemic AOR prog of the finest quality- in every department-and, for anyone who doesn't already possess it, totally essential listening.
CD2 is just John Wetton - well,not JUST Wetton, but a solo album - well, not JUST a solo album, but the 'Arkangel' studio album - well, not JUST the 'Arkangel' album - in fact, to be more accurate, not ALL of the 'Arkangel' album - but before you start to maon, if you've not got the album, then the fact they've actually left off the two weakest tracks anyway, make this 12-tracker a much more enticing prospect, especially considering what a powerful and truly anthemic album, this one turned out to be - you only have to hear the sheer prog-power of 'The Last Thing On My Mind' for proof of this - while the rest of the album, from heartfelt ballads that still sound immense, to the more fiery peaks that crop up along the way, all glued together with some steaming arrangements and as fine a vocal as you'll encounter from Wetton, makes this an album worth hearing and then some. At this price - you really can't go wrong.
BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: Gold DBL CD
A selection of tracks from the two, immaculate quality, live albums, 'Nexus - Live' and 'Revival-Live' with about 85% of each album present here, and if you've not got either album and, like me, you're a part time fan of the band who glories in the Polydor years and the first two live albums and not much else, then this low-priced set is worth its weight in butterfly wings. I was really surprised at just how superb the performances of tracks that I used to love and cherish, such as Mocking Bird', 'For No-One', 'Poor Man's Moody Blues' and a sky-high 'She Said that features some soaring electric guitar work and still that gorgeous backing refrain from the synths and strings, actually are. Many tracks I wasn't familiar with, but the shorter ballads that pervade a lot of the album are presented here with tenderness and passion, sometimes gently acoustic, sometimes band-driven, but always heartfelt and a joy to hear. Yes, as a part-time fan of the band, this is great stuff and at this price, something I genuinely will be playing, even though I've no intention of going any further.
CARAVAN: Grey, Pink And Gold DBLCD
Over two hours of immaculate quality sound live recordings of the band taken from the live albums that they've had out on the CRL label. This excellently priced double gathers together some of the finest performances from those albums and features what amounts to the definitive contemporary live "Best Of" for this band that you'll come across. The highlights of CD1 are the two lengthy, near twenty minute tracks that are the legendary 'Nine Feet Underground' with synthesizer replacing the original organ leads, possibly sacrilege to the seventies fan, but to anyone into really good, solid prog-rock, it's manna from heaven, and the addition of sax gives the piece much more of a mid-seventies Pink Floyd flavour, again more "prog" than "Canterbury" and one darned good reason for you to get this if you've never tried the band's music before and you're more of a prog fan than a Canterbury fan. The album closes with the epic 'For Richard' a piece that rises from peak to peak before simmering down only to climb even higher and featuring more sterling synth work allied to sinuous flute, soaring sax and biting guitar leads as the epic track rolls on. Before this, snappy and tasty renditions of classics such as 'Headloss' with a gorgeous upper register vocal from Pye Hastings, plus the seminal 'In The Land Of Grey And Pink' and three other pieces, all go to make up a disc that's worth the price of the set on its own.
But, move over to CD2 and you get a staggering seventy-six minutes of music that incorporates some brilliant performances of extended tracks and medleys, of which the fifteen minute one that includes such things as 'Dabsong Conshirtoe', Matching Mole's 'O Caroline', 'Love In Your Eye' and more Caravan classics, is just superb, while the rolling rhythms and flowing leads that make up the ten minute combination of 'Memory Lain, Hugh/Headloss' is quite superb with some high-flying violin work from Richardson just one of the instrumental highlights of the track. Overall, a winner by anyone's standards.
COUSINS & CONRAD: High Seas CD
To me this sounds more as you would have imagined the Cousins/Wakeman album to have sounded than it actually did, because the core of this album revolves around some highly anthemic songs wrapped up in swathes of synths and string synths to form these almost orchestral sounding, hymnal songs delivered in that trademark voice that is immediately and distinctively that of The Strawbs' Dave Cousins. Some of the tracks stir the blood, some warm the heart, some feature soaring electric guitar, some are just strings and piano, but, if you like the sound of Cousins' voice and are into songs that are more like semi-symphonic, synths-dominated, strings-all-over-the-place anthems, then this album will suit you hands down.
DIMENSION X: So….This Is Earth CD
Comes roaring in with a vengeance and you'r5e immediately thinking of a prog-metal version of Gentle Giant, with all manner of intricate time signiatures and criss-crossing melodies, with a similarly soaring and sounding vocal rising above it all, as the entire thing is fuelled by pummelling bass, crushing drums and guitar riffs powerful enough to light up Carlisle. But also in there are synths and keyboards, notable a rather solidly played piano that sounds like the guy's wearing lead-lined gloves to play the thing, and complete with searing guitar solos, a massive production and some quality song-writing, this band simply steams through the album's 8 tracks and fifty-two minutes of music with ease and passion. The near seventeen minute 'Xeno's Paradox' that forms the centrepiece of the album embodies all these elements in one seriously blasting prog-metal epic, the piano almost in direct opposition with the punishing riffs and rhythms while the vocalist soars and flies on top, again the piece going through more changes than a cross-dresser's wardrobe. In a way, it's close to unique but easy to enjoy, splitting the divide between rock and prog, right down the middle.
EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER: Gold DBLCD
Wowie Zowie - this is good. With all tracks licensed from eagle Rock, sadly there are no sleeve notes to say where anything comes from, but that makes you listen to this album for what it is - and that is one red hot live album. The first disc is really a tale of two styles - half electric, half acoustic. It opens with three minutes of 'Toccata' featuring Palmer before moving onto this huge eighteen minute medley of acoustic songs such as 'Take A Pebble', 'Still You Turn Me On' and 'Lucky Man', all delivered with appropriately heart-felt passion from the golden tonsils of Mr Lake, while the mid-section is taken with this melodic, rolling and highly engaging Emerson piano solo. After this, you get a near twenty minute 'Karn Evil' that features some incendiary drumming and powerhouse gong-bashing from a five minute and quite extraordinary solo courtesy of Palmer once again, before the main body of the 'Brain Salad Surgery' centrepiece ensues, with some fiery synth soloing from Emerson duelling between organ and synth as the piece rises to a climax at the nine minute mark before segueing into the next part of the song as the band drive forward providing one of the most passionate live renditions of the track, their trademark interplay and soloing, red hot and glowing, with some fantastic seventies-styled organ work from Keith Emerson bringing joy to the hearts of all ELP fans who want a seriously hot rendition of this masterwork. Following this comes a four minute powerhouse performance of 'A Time And A Place', five more minutes of Emerson's piano work in the form of 'Piano Concerto No 1' while the CD ends with a sensitive acoustic rendition of 'From The Beginning', hardly leaving a dry eye in the house.
The centrepiece of CD2 is a twenty-two minute live version of 'Fanfare For The Common Man/Blue Rondo A La Turk' which not only sounds immaculate, as the familiar strains of the classic track begin and then the band just launch into this sea of synth soloing and rhythmic powerhouse driving that takes you to the five minute point before the cyclical organism that is 'Rondo' blasts into existence with Emerson whipping up a storm on moog, piano and organ as the band follow in red hot pursuit, and what follows is one of the finest versions of the piece that you'll hear. Elsewhere, it's a tale of the electric trio providing some spot-on, immaculate quality live version sof classics such as 'Hoedown', 'Touch And Go', 'Tiger In A Spotlight', 'Knife Edge', a rare outing for 'Bitches Crystal', a full 'Lucky Man', a brief acoustic respite for 'Honky Tonk Train Blues' before it all ends in majestic fashion with a five minute medley of '21st Century Schizoid Man/America'. As something that is essentially a live set of corking performances as opposed to just another "best of", and at this REMAKABLE PRICE. you simply can't get anything less than 100% enjoyment out of this - essential, even for those who've got other versions.
FROGG CAFÉ: Fortunate Observer Of Time CD
OK - tell me now - what prog albums do you know that feature trombone solos? Violin solos, yes, but trombone? I can only say that if the Hot Rats era Zappa band was somehow miraculously to become a prog band overnight, this album would be the result. It's so unique, there isn't even a name for it - symphonic prog is close but sends out the wrong message, while likening it to Kansas is nowhere near telling the whole story, either. It's all taken pretty sedately too, almost orchestral in its conception, and deceptively complex, but just as you've got it pegged, it turns around and surprises you. Revolving around a core instrumentation of guitars, keyboards, violin and occasional mellotron/trombone, the songs themselves are more in that "neo-prog" vein with a vocalist who has one of those typical "neo-prog" vocals. It is decidedly "prog" but very much down-to-earth in its attitude and approach, certainly with a distinct seventies vibe running through it, but with so much to take in on first hearing, also difficult to say definitively whether or not you actually like the thing - jury's out here, I have to say - time will tell.
GENTLE GIANT: Live In New York 1975 CD
Presumably promoting the 'Free Hand' album in the USA, this is a recording of the band in concert and it's one of the finest of their recent archive recordings that I've yet heard. The sound is mixing desk quality, no hiss or other unwanted noises, and the performance is when they were at the top of their tree, with a passionate rendition of 'Funny Ways' alongside an all-guns-blazing attack on the track 'Free Hand'. Overall, if you're a fan of the band, then this one certainly won't let you down.
STEVE HACKETT: Live Archive 05 DBLCD
Three things:
1)It's all instrumental 2) It's acoustic 3)It's beautiful
CD1 is all Hackett on acoustic guitar and I have to say that, for me, this was the better of the two CD's since, as a lover of things like Kottke, Fahey, Lang, Johnson and the like, I do love a sensitively played solo acoustic guitar providing that there's a human heart beating behind the music and playing and it's not just technical crap like McLaughlin, Dimeola and the like, and this is certainly the former with some melodic and highly engaging compositions - covers and originals - along the way.
CD2 is also all instrumental and this is where me and the music parted company. It's all very well played and passionately delivered, but I don't like flute in this context, and since the other two musicians are John Hackett on flutes and Roger King on keyboards, you can see why it wasn't my idea of fun. The term "acoustic" here is also slightly misleading as there are string synths and what sounds like a mellotron cropping up on selected tracks so the presence of a much warmer, more textural musical delivery is greater than you might think. But, like flute or not, you can't deny the beauty of the pieces -again originals and covers - and, as a whole package of acoustic music, you'd have to have a hard heart not to get something out of it.
HAMADRYAD: Safe In Conformity CD
Ever reviewed an album? Well, you must have in your mind or you wouldn't be here. Anyway, there occasionally comes along an album that IS a good album, that you actually listen to with intent for the duration of the album, quite happy to hear what's going on. But then you come to write the review and you can't think of a darned word to say about it.
PINK FLOYD: Live Anthology DVD
A collection of rare TV footage from the 1967 and 1968 line-ups of Pink Floyd. From the Barrett-era, you get 'Set The Controls' from UK TV, 'Interstellar Overdrive' excerpt from some TV prog I'd never heard of, and what I considered to be incredibly rare footage of 'Jugband Blues'. The rest ranges from just after Gilmour joined the band and so you have a rare promo film shot for the 'It Would Be So Nice' single, liver performances broadcast on French TV of 'LetThere Be More Light" and 'Flaming' an American TV broadcast of 'Cymbaline', a Japanese TV broadcast of 'Eugene', a UK TV broadcast of 'Sysyphus' and more. Over a total running time of 67 minutes, the film quality is more than acceptable for the archive nature of the footage and the sound quality is just fine also. As archive releases go, this is pretty well spot on.
PORCUPINE TREE: Up The Downstair+Staircase Infinities - 2004 Remaster DBLCD
Let's hear it for…..Gavin Harrison!! Who? Oh yes…..he's the drummer; you see, what makes this "new" version of 'Downstair' such a vastly superior album from any version you've heard before, is the drumming - for it is Mr Harrison who has completely replaced the old pre-programmed drum tracks on the original with "real" drums, and played an absolute blinder to make this already good album into something positively incredible. Apart from that, the album has been completely remastered, and even a few new guitar lines replacing older ones, so that it now sounds stronger, more muscular and totally cohesive. So, onto the album itself - I've not heard a copy for ten years so for me it's like a whole new album - and taken on that level, the combinations of songs and instrumentals take your breath away for their sheer class and quality in every way. You see, the thing that made - and still makes - this band so unique in today's music, is that they don't sound like anyone else, they don't conform to a particular genre and they play what they want to play - all of which makes this, amazingly the first album proper, all the more of a treat. With Steve Wilson doing practically everything except drumming and making the tea (although for all I know, he might make a mean cuppa!!), you just can't believe after all these years that this was effectively the "band's" debut album. It just oozes atmosphere, strength and intensity through every pore, an instrumental such as the ten minute title track, showcasing every facet of what makes this guy such a musical genius - you have great elements of Gong & Pink Floyd in there, but even that's tenuous - as the track just climbs higher and higher on waves of string synths, swooping Tim Blake-style space synths, soaring electric guitar leads and driving rhythms, only to drop back to a whisper before increasing the intensity briefly then ending on a hushed note - just fantastic. A good proportion of this album is instrumental - a forerunner of the heady heights of ecstasy to come on the 'The Sky Moves Sideways' album - but then you get a song such as the six minute 'Fadeaway' that is pure emotional bliss, that languid, almost sultry, vocal above a backdrop of string synths, glissando guitars, psychedelic flute and sliding, gliding rhythms, so emotive and with a human heart, as the song begins to climb and soars to the heavens. But there's a bonus - you also get the whole of the 'Staircase Infinities' EP - and that's every bit as good.
RAY WILSON: Live DBLCD
Presented in immaculate sound quality, this album walks over any of his studio albums. I've never been a fan of the guy thinking that his voice sounded just too darned dry on the studio albums, but live, well, he's an entirely different prospect. There's a warmth in his vocal that you just don't get on the studio albums and to describe his vocals here as a good cross between vintage Peter Gabriel & John Wetton, would not only be close to correct, but pretty well spot on. Across 32 tracks, of which one third of them are "classic" Genesis cover versions, you get what can be described as an "intimate" gig from an electric band performance with the occasional solo acoustic spot such as the gorgeous rendition of the Genesis cover 'Follow You Follow Me' alongside the addictive and warmly passionate self-composed, electro-acoustic performance of the wonderfully chorus-laden 'Change'. Towards the end of CD1's 17 tracks, he takes on the Genesis track 'I Can't Dance' and gives us a really charged rendition with some deliciously grungy guitar riffs that take the track into a whole new dimension. With a fine set of originals, an impassioned performance of 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' and a band that can really deliver the goods, I'd say forget the studio albums and you owe it to yourself to get this album - if you like great songs immaculately played and sung, then there's few finer live albums around right now.
PSYCH/SPACE-ROCK/STONER:
ACID KING: III CD
Crushingly heavy stoner rock from a trio featuring a female lead vocalist/guitarist who can sing in the distance with the best of them, as this awesome slowly moving river of sludge bass, solid drums and dense guitars provides the music above which the vocals rise - just - and you can hear the lyrics in the main thanks to a wonderful production job that makes this album both stoned yet clear. Of its kind, it's got the perfect balance of slow yet melodic while the playing is varied and consistent enough to keep you hooked without ever feeling that it's just one-dimensional, with enough instrumental room to allow the band to show it means business. A curiously unheralded talent that deserves to be massive.
ALIEN DREAM: Lucid Dream CD
On first hearing of this brand new studio album, the reaction I had was a complete surprise - for it was one of shock! Which is actually a good thing in this context because it proved to me that this guy really is a budding musical genius. Previous albums have followed a trail whereby a mix of Ozrics & Grateful Dead on the early couple of albums, moved into a mix of Ozrics, Hillage & Gong for the next couple and then finally finding a mutant hybrid of instrumental psychedelic space-rock that would take the last two albums into a spiraling, soaring and wondrously played and constructed league of their own. But the common theme was one of melodic clarity, rhythmic strength and quite gorgeous depths. Music in which you swam quite happily.
This one is different. You could drown in this one! For Mr Blackman has produced an instrumental psychedelic album that's taken space-rock into a wholly new symphonic dimension, and the key word is intensity. The moment you put this on your player, the thing that strikes you - almost literally - is the immense wall of sound that erupts from the speakers. It's still got structure, melody, rhythmic cohesion and more, but the depth and sheer density, is almost suffocating. But, you get over the first forays into this new world, move onto 'Dream Voyager' and find four minutes of music that, while similarly intense, expands into a whole new horizon as the guitar just goes supernova and the endless layers of bass, drums, synths, space synths and more guitars provide the awesome accompaniment that makes it climb to new peaks of musical ecstasy. The next track, 'Reaching For The Sun', starts off in slightly more relaxed mode but then gradually builds on layers of rhythms, waves of guitars and tons of absolutely classic vintage '73-era Hawkwind-esque space synth swoops to provide a track that will have you jaw-dropped in amazement as the intensity becomes greater, the sound becomes stronger and the whole thing becomes a smoking sonic cauldron of nuclear proportions, and even better is that this segues right into 'Departing The Spiral Galaxy', a title that pretty well sums up what your head is doing at this point as the intensity increases, the music rises to greater heights, what feels like an endless universe of guitars, synths, space synths, bass, drums scythes through the airwaves and almost implodes but avoids this by dropping down to a magical calm - if calm is the word - where the synths soar and dive, wah wah guitar flies out, the rhythms become choppier and the whole huge soundscape is a phased, psychedelic slice of heaven that makes Pink Floyd's 'Interstellar Overdrive' sound like Bucks Fizz in comparison, as this monumental epic continues - and you realize that you're already two and a half minutes into the next track and you've not noticed. This is sensational stuff - the likes of which no-one's dared done before - in many ways this is what Acid Mothers promised but never delivered and it beats that band hollow. By the time 'This Is Paradise' fades around the eight minute point, you're ready for a more chilled-out slice of psychedelic space-rock and that's exactly what you get as this incredible track, 'The Navigator's Trance', comes into being, a slow but muscular rhythm base driving a sea of synths and a galaxy of space synth swoops as the lush keyboard melody provides the heart and the searing but languid guitar lead, the head, before the whole thing suddenly changes and dives headlong into a supercharged sea of awesome electric slide guitar and strident, solid rhythms, again the whole sound having such a density that you think it goes on forever, as the immense musical mountain moves inexorably onwards. At this point, you're only half way through the tracks, and already it's been a mind-bending ride of excellent, enjoyable and positively awe-inspiring proportions. What follows is every bit as good, trust me.
