GENERAL:
GROUNDHOGS: Hoggin¹ The Page BOOK
The Groundhogs¹ Classic Years by Martyn Hanson Foreword by Captain Sensible
DIMENSIONS: A4 Softback EXTENT: 128 Pages and includes numerous unseen pictures from the band's archives
PUBLISHED: By Northdown Publishing in October 2005
CONTENTS: The Groundhogs¹ are one of British rock¹s legendary names. Cutting their teeth backing the legendary John Lee Hooker in 1964, they went on to cut a series of influential blues-rock albums 'Thank Christ For The Bomb', 'Split' (a Top 5 LP) and 'Who Will Save the World', to name but three. They supported the Rolling Stones by the band¹s special request, were favourites of late, great DJ John Peel (who played one side of 'Thank Christ For The Bomb' straight through) and graced many major 1970s festivals. Guitarist Tony McPhee was invited to audition for several supergroups (the Stones included) but elected to stay and steer the Hogs through four decades, on and off. He, along with past and present Groundhogs members, have collaborated with writer Martyn Hanson, author of well received books on Emerson Lake And Palmer and the Nice, to produce the first ever biography of a band whose place in British rock history is assured. The Groundhogs¹ have been hugely influential on many of today¹s bands: Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), Steven Malkmus (Pavement), and Karl Hyde (Underworld) are all major fans, as is Captain Sensible (the Damned) who writes the foreword, while guitar magazines regularly profile McPhee as one of his generation¹s leading players. The Guardian recently referred to an album by 'the increasingly influential Groundhogs' not bad for a band that formed 40 years ago! Authorised by the band and extensively illustrated from their archives, Hoggin¹ The Page will be eagerly awaited by blues fans, rock fans and guitarists alike. It will be promoted via many major rock and blues magazines, while planned radio interviews include Radio 2¹s Paul Jones Show 'Tony McPhee is an absolute genius. The Groundhogs were a mixture of blues, psych and pop that¹s never been bettered. The finest prog rock you can get. It changed my life!': Captain Sensible
RA: Duality CD A band new to me but if this is anything to go by, they should be as much a household name in the worlds of AOR and "soft rock" as The Outfield, It Bites, 'Talk'-era Yes & The Police, 3 acts with which they have much in common on a musical and song-writing level. The vocals are harmonious and strong, the choruses anthemic and addictive, the guitar playing strong and streaming. But the songs are all around the four minute mark, well written, brilliantly arranged and produced and just sensational so that you'll not only want to go on to the next one as you listen, but the moment the album's finished, all you'll want to do is go back and play it all over again. The songs are solid, commercial without being pop, full of great vocal leads and harmonies, guitars shining, shimmering and searingly brilliant all over the show, while the rhythm section is crisp, crunchy, tight and superbly produced. There's even a cover of The Police's anthem 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' that just blows the original out of the water and is simply amazing, with guitars blazing, solid drumming and pounding bass propelling the surging and Police-meets-Ouftfield vocals - someone should have put this out as a single - it'd be huge!! That said, every song on this album is magic and I cannot recommend this highly enough.
SPACE NELSON: Don't Panic CD
They call themselves a "progressive rock band from Detroit" - but there are eight songs in 32 minutes, what you'd call economical but effective guitar solos, keyboards used more as textural backdrops and a strong rhythm section. When you think about it, that's not a bad description of a band such as Rush, who wouldn't call themselves a prog band, play short tracks in the main and yet are loved by the prog-rock fraternity. This band don't sound anything like that, but they are in a similar position, if you get my drift. They write great songs, feature some sterling guitar work on well arranged songs, have a full sound thanks to the extra guitars and keys and possess a strong rhythm section that propels it all forwards. The vocals are more mid-range than anything with harmonies and choruses that really add spice, although you'll be hard pressed to find what you'd call a "hook" on any of them, so that while you're loving what you're hearing, it takes a few plays to get them inside your head. The arrangements are excellent, allowing the tracks to breathe and fly without any long-winded soloing or without going too near an overtly rock-based setting. Yet every song has an anthemic quality to it thanks to the huge-sounding production and those solid arrangements, some faster than others and all of them raising your adrenaline levels to some degree or other. Thanks to its length, the album is simply one sizzling song after another, all of them enjoyable and every one a song you'll want to hear again. It's not rock, it's not prog, it's not even psych - in many ways, it's none and yet it's all three. I listened to the whole thing in one sitting when doing the review and I suggest you do the same - you'll want to, for sure, and if you get off on the idea of Rush with a less high register vocal, then this will suit you down to the ground. Solid, strong and sheer quality.
GUITAR MUSIC/GREAT GUITARISTS:
AISLES: The Yearning CD
Well, it's a prog-rock album - standard structures, tracks ranging from four to over sixteen minutes, the "trad" prog-rock line-up of guitars, synths/keys, bass, drums and vocals, plenty of instrumental space, relaxed lead vocals, delicate vocal harmonies, vari-paced tracks that range from expansive and fragile to solid and powerful, synth and guitar duelling, strings to provide extra layers, piano to provide more contrast, arrangements that are complex, flowing, twisting, turning, melodic and dynamic - in essence a good, example of well-played prog that has one foot in the "trad" camp and the other in the "neo" camp. Competent, strong, heartfelt and atmospheric.the "trad" camp and the other in the "neo" camp. Competent, strong, heartfelt and atmospheric.
CANCER CONSPIRACY: The Audio Medium CD
Instrumental album based primarily around electric guitars as the main leads with solid rhythm section backing and keyboards used both as sound fillers and the occasional co-lead - al in all a bit like the way
Djam Karet do things. Now it's funny you should mention them………….because that's what sprang to mind on hearing this collection of fiery and more sedate instrumentals. Hovering a bit closer to the fringes of psychedelia at one end and contemporary shoegazing at the other, what gives this the nod to a prog-rock fraternity keen on guitar jamming is its sense of melody and twisted time signiatures, both of which operate together on the album's 9 tracks, but this band manage to tie up two seemingly at odds ways of doing things, into something that gels and coalesces to create a set of solid, flowing guitars-driven instrumentals that really gives back what you put in. It's not as fragile as most prog, preferring to power things along on tidal waves of surging rhythms and scorching guitars, but it possesses melody and dynamics that make it something into which you want to sink your teeth and ears. The album ends with a near twenty three minute title track that starts as a fiery twelve minutes of full-on power with guitars and rhythm section on fire before segueing into the three minutes of soundscaping that leads into the slowly steaming dynamics of guitars and keys that is the drum-less thirds segment before finishing you off with another four minutes of searing heat from the guitars and rhythm section, all the time the sound stretching from horizon to horizon as it fills your head with stars. A stunning album and one that you would do well to investigate - hot stuff and then some.
GAK OMEK: Return Of The All Powerful Light Beings CD
It may be one guy on guitar, guitar synthesizer and digital drums, but it sounds like a prog-rock orchestra - the sounds of guitars, bass, drums, "keyboards", "electronics" and "strings" soaring from the CD in majestic fashion. The opening fifteen minute title track adds a keyboard player and drummer (kit) to start the album with this huge-sounding anthemic instrumental that has the prog adrenaline flowing almost as soon as it begins, as an emerging electric guitar lead suddenly erupts in a cloud of "synths", guitars and drums, as good a prog-rock orchestra as it gets. Then the lead guitar shines out as the track drives forward, this expansive sound having the hairs standing up on the back of your neck as the melodies twist and turn, both solid and powerful yet full of emotion, and it's this construction and arrangement that turns the track into the most stunning instrumental on the album. A further 6 tracks last between three and eleven minutes, and, apart from extra keyboards on the shortest track, it's all the one guy - but, as I say, you'd never know it, as the complex and melodic instrumentals unleash such a variety of sounds, you'd think there was a team of guitarists, synth players and drummers. The lead guitar work throughout is razor sharp while the sounds and arrangements never veer towards self indulgence, preferring to let a more melodic and muscular flow be the central hub around which the vari-paced tracks revolve. Comparisons? Hard one - perhaps a symphonic instrumental Tony Levin, mixed with electronic Synergy style anthemic backgrounds, and multi-layered Hackett-style textures. But it's more than all that - a veritable prog symphony in its own right and it works a treat.
OUTERDRIVE: Hallucinations CD
A guitar-bass-drums trio playing some of THE most exquisite, shoegazing instrumental post-rock around and certainly one of the best examples of the style. While most of the arrangements are taken at a pace that you'd called "relaxed", there's a slow-burning sea of brooding power going on at the heart of the music, giving you the feeling that it's all about to erupt at any minute - but it never does. Instead, the guitars flow and soar and explore the cosmos with ringing, shimmering, cascading, soaring, rising, falling, echoed, driving chords and structures while all around and below, the solid electric bass and drums provide a backing that is almost organically sympathetic to the universes into which the guitar travels. On the second track 'Side Show', there is a section where the band does fire up and take off, but then it all comes down to earth in this immaculate and gorgeous sounding sea of guitar flow and rhythmic drive, as all the time extra textures are added to provide depth and drama. But the overall ambient strength and feel of the music carries on uninterrupted, the trio taking your head to places it never gets to go without exploding it at the same time. There's a definite whiff of early seventies Krautrock in the air across tracks running up to close on eleven minutes, while the mix of surging and driving instrumental work is always balanced by the slower, more emotive structures, and the end result is one stunning example of instrumental post-rock fusion that you simply can't fault.
WINTER EQUINOX: Safe And Sound CD
What you'd call a tasty little album, which is another way of saying that it's mix of shoegazing guitar-based, melodic post-rock, more pastoral, melodic almost "New Age" electro-acoustic flutes and keyboards and occasional forays into guitar-squall "out-rock". All of which results in an album of mostly instrumentals that starts by sounding a bit like the slightly less powerful side of Mogwai, continues sounding like a less intense answer to Mellonova on the album's one song and then proceeds to deliver an amazingly varied yet cohesive and enjoyable set of instrumentals within a sort of rhythmically consistent, multi-textured set of melodic compositions that always seem to offer something new while staying within their selected genre of music, that is overtly accessible post-rock with a slight orchestral sounding twist. For me , despite the fact that it's instrumental, easily accessible, atmospheric, sometimes more cyclonic, mostly flowing and melodic, and generally guitars-led, with keyboards, strings and flutes taking some lead, co-lead and textural roles, there is either something missing for which I need further listens to find out, or it's simply too "sweet" sounding for what I want out of this sort of music, being the guy who prefers firepower to delicacy. That said, it gives you an idea of what to expect, so if this sounds relaxed and digestible enough, then the chances are that you're going to enjoy it from start to finish.
INDUSTRIAL:
FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY & FRIENDS: The Best Of Cryogenic Studio DBL CD
This fantastic value double CD provides nearly all of the original 'Cryogenic Studio Vol 1' album with selected highlights from the second volume, all making for one immense and brilliant double, showcasing Leeb & Fulber's many bands and simply stunning music.
Originally, I did this massive and detailed review for 'Vol 1', but decided 'what the hell' and instead pruned it down to this:
This album has no bad tracks. It is made up of lots of synths and electronic drum/rhythms, it is more the industrial end of the synth market in terms of the dynamics of the rhythms and the power of the melodies and yet it is a roaring cauldron of steaming music for all but the last track where it mellows down and builds to a climax. The album represents a set of unreleased tracks from a quintet of groups connected by the musical genius of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, in this case Equinox, Frontline Assembly, Pro-Tech, Delerium and Synaesthesia. It's an all instrumental offering, save a few barely audible bits in one of the FLA tracks, and if you like the music of any one of the bands on the CD, you are sure to like the rest as long as you like it dynamic and smokin'. The Synaesthesia track is the last one and uses undulating bass, string synths and cascading lead synths with a brilliant atmosphere to the layers that unfold. The rest feature loads of great rhythms, layer upon layer of synths and electronics and a massive sound that you just can't help but enjoy. Overall, an utterly fantastic album.
Then, 'Vol 2' came along and I reviewed it thus - the glue that binds all these bands is the guiding hand and musicianship/compositional genius that is Bill Leeb who, together with cohorts Fulber & Paterson, have created six synth-based groups that inhabit an electronic territory that will appeal to the sequencer brigade in the synth markets, the rhythmic factions in the ambient territories and the melodic armies of the industrial movement. All the tracks feature layer upon layer of synths and electronics, electronic and sampled drums/percussion, with some of the fullest sounding, flowing synth music around, each possessing the complete and perfect mix of rhythms, melodies, layers and textures, all wrapped up in a modern electronic setting that crosses ambient, synth, industrial and beyond, with an ease of accessibility, a tightly knit strength and an appeal that is so wide as to astound most synth fans who hear it. So, whether you want more in your sequencer music than you are getting, whether you have whole-heartedly embraced ambient, techno and Kiss-FM, whether you want industrial electronics with melody and structure, this is one album you wouldn't have though of buying but, by not doing so, one in which you are seriously missing out on some of the finest music around today from the Canadian creative geniuses that are this trio.
So there you have it - the only way of getting the music is now on this package, so you owe it to yourself to discover something different and rewarding, and that's all of this mighty double CD.
PROG ROCK:
CANCER CONSPIRACY: The Audio Medium CD
Instrumental album based primarily around electric guitars as the main leads with solid rhythm section backing and keyboards used both as sound fillers and the occasional co-lead - al in all a bit like the way
Djam Karet do things. Now it's funny you should mention them………….because that's what sprang to mind on hearing this collection of fiery and more sedate instrumentals. Hovering a bit closer to the fringes of psychedelia at one end and contemporary shoegazing at the other, what gives this the nod to a prog-rock fraternity keen on guitar jamming is its sense of melody and twisted time signiatures, both of which operate together on the album's 9 tracks, but this band manage to tie up two seemingly at odds ways of doing things, into something that gels and coalesces to create a set of solid, flowing guitars-driven instrumentals that really gives back what you put in. It's not as fragile as most prog, preferring to power things along on tidal waves of surging rhythms and scorching guitars, but it possesses melody and dynamics that make it something into which you want to sink your teeth and ears. The album ends with a near twenty three minute title track that starts as a fiery twelve minutes of full-on power with guitars and rhythm section on fire before segueing into the three minutes of soundscaping that leads into the slowly steaming dynamics of guitars and keys that is the drum-less thirds segment before finishing you off with another four minutes of searing heat from the guitars and rhythm section, all the time the sound stretching from horizon to horizon as it fills your head with stars. A stunning album and one that you would do well to investigate - hot stuff and then some.
CRYPTIC VISION: Live At ROSFest CD
Wow!! What a band - what a performance -what an album! On only their third concert, this new band set the stage alight with a performance of classic prog-rock proportions and this is the document of that set. A perfect sound quality mixing desk recording, this is the sound of prog-rock as it should be played - loads of instrumental passages, soaring solos, searing leads, great vocals delicious harmonies, a solid rhythm section - it's all here and then some. The opening track, a trilogy of 'Introspective/Contemplation (xcerpt)/Grand Design', is indicative of what's to come. It opens with this mighty sound of the band whipping up a prog storm, building on waves of synths and guitars above a driving rhythm section before Yes-like harmony vocals appear, the strong lead voice of singer Todd Plant enters, does a brief vocal, then the band take off again and the whole track just leave you open-mouthed at the sheer epic quality of it all, synths and guitars flying over strong bass and drums. Then at the eight minute mark, this amazing sea of Yes-like harmonies soars in and the effect is spellbinding, so powerful yet such a potent and pure prog-rock brew. The vocals then take on those trademark multi-part harmonies and leads that Yes had down to a tee, and this is the sort of prog that would undoubtedly appeal to a Yes fan, even though the band is entirely original. As a fourteen minute opening track, this is one of the finest starts to a live prog-rock album I've heard in years. But it just gets better - the next track is the sixteen minute 'In A World' - and this is awesome. Featuring an initial sea of organ, synths, guitars and rhythm section it then opens out into a gorgeous solo from the piano with drums backing, as mellotron choirs soar , the guitar rises up from below, the whole thing hangs suspended, stops and a lone acoustic guitar rings out - just amazingly well done - a the vocal appears and the song portion begins. Then it takes off as the band and harmony vocals are added, before trailing down again to synth, acoustic guitar and lead vocal as the whole thing builds once more with some wailing synth soloing and finger-flying acoustic guitar, before the whole band steams in and a synth solo just soars above it all to jaw-dropping proportions. Superb - and still six minutes to go!! Then the electric guitar leads the way as a red hot solo flies into life above the huge-sounding band and solid rhythms. A brief quiet section for a brief vocal takes place before the band gather strength and roar to the end on an amazing finale. Stunning! A strong five minute 'Acension' leads into a two minute keys/synths solo and then the rocking four minutes of proggy power that is 'Shock Value'. The album ends with a near fourteen minute track, The Progledy', that seamlessly melds together tracks by Spock's Beard, Kansas, Yes, Dream Theater, Genesis & Emerson, Lake And Palmer and you don't need me to tell you that it's absolutely sensational stuff. A bonus track in the form of a studio demo of 'In A World' completes the album, and there's no way you'd know that it's a demo, for sure, as the studio version here is just immense, with the band playing a blinder and giving just a hint of how mumumental the next studio album is going to be, as the sixteen minute track becomes one of those seriously astounding prog-rock epics that you're just going to want to play and play and play, with searing instrumental work, stunning vocals and harmonies, and just a great way to end what has been one of the best prog-rock live albums released in 2005 (and probably beyond that). Awesome!
ELEGANT SIMPLICITY: Anhedonia / Studies In Heartbreak Each CD
Arguably the most underrated force in instrumental prog-rock in the whole of the UK, the project has been inactive for a while but now it's back with two new albums that complement each other perfectly. The first is a single track, seven part concept album with tracks ranging from a couple at three and five minutes to a massive nineteen minute epic. Musically we're talking proper instrumental prog - none of yer flashy fusion or jazz-rock - this is the real deal and you'll not hear a finer set of drums, bass, guitars, mellotrons, synths and keyboards tracks performed with such attention to detail and yet so powerful and cohesive as on this album. There is so much on which to focus over its near seventy minute running time that for a track-by-track breakdown, we'd be here all night. Suffice to say that if you love powerful instrumental prog with tons and tons of lead work from synths, guitars, organ, mellotrons, then you'll just die for this album. It flows, it's melodic, it never bores and it's got a huge huge sound but is produced to sound just fantastic.
The compositions go through everything from full-on multi-layered melodic attack to glorious passages of flowing synths and keys, rivers of bass and skies of mellotrons never far away, but for the most part it's pretty powerful stuff with some sizzling guitar leads - just listen to the opening minute of the second part where the guitar, mellotron, drums, bass, organ and synth simply fly, and you won't fail to be impressed and want this album - right now!!!. I would love to go into more detail but I just want you to know that this is one album you have to get that you surely won't regret.
'Studies' is also instrumental, with 7 tracks ranging from one and a half to fourteen minutes and, overall, is a more sedate, more introspective set of tracks. That said, the majority of the album is solid and uptempo, still purely instrumental prog-rock, but with more of a yearning, reflective quality to it. The mellotrons, keys and guitars continue to flow and fly, but there is also now acoustic guitar to give an added emotive quality to the tracks, while the lead electric guitar and mellotrons continue to make their presence felt. In many ways, it's a bit similar to a less indulgent seventies Focus mixed with an instrumental 'Foxtrot-era Genesis with plenty of atmospheric melodies and strident prog-rock passages but ones that never leave the melody behind, which is where it scores so highly as a cohesive and enjoyable album.
Overall, with both of these in your possession, you'll have two of the finest prog-rock instrumental albums around, not only around right now, but two of the best in the last few years and beyond.
FLOYDIAN PROPULSION PROJECT: Pink Floyd CD
You will just not believe this album………..I mean, you just won't believe it…………….
It's not very often in my life these days that I will get a CD in here, put it on the machine, and spend 78 minutes listening to it, in absolute awe, open-mouthed, with my jaw bouncing up and down off the floor in sheer disbelief while there's a mile-wide grin on my face at the same time. Welcome to the machine……..
The production on this thing is flawless, the mixing awesome and the execution, frankly mind-blowing, as one utterly incredible album unfolds.
So, what is it that merits this accolade - well, in short, someone has taken twenty (or less- you'll see when you hear it) Pink Floyd tracks, and converted them into electronic remixes. Now, you may say (if you are a Floyd fan of long-standing) "so what's new about that - there were the bootleg trance mixes and the Out Of Phase remix albums". The simple answer is that never before has this idea been so brilliantly conceived and delivered as it is here. Taking all sorts of excerpts from a wide range of Pink Floyd tracks, the Project have converted them into multi-layered, multi-textured, crisp and crystalline sounding, essentially ambient electronic tracks. But that's by no means the whole story - in there too are a huge wealth of samples taken from a myriad sources - some from Floyd film soundtracks, some from classic films, some from classic science fiction films and scientists - all combining with the electronics, the Floyd templates and more to provide a set of tracks that is mind-bending in its presentation, sound and, above all, ideas - I mean, this mob must have been smoking some quite incredible substances to have come up with something like this. Sometimes the Floyd template will run around, alongside or underneath the original music, while at others the music will veer off at a tangent or do some quite frankly wondrous things, the trance mix of 'Keep Talking', a perfect example of the latter, while the end (I won't spoil it) of 'Signs Of Life' will have you spluttering your beverage out with amazement. It's wild, it's ambient, it's trancey, it's so musically satisfying with huge depth, amazing bass and electronic/electro-percussive rhythms, plenty of Floyd guitar licks in there too, and loads more synths setting the controls for the heart of your brain, samples galore and just the most unreal thing I've heard in years. Essential listening.
GAK OMEK: Return Of The All Powerful Light Beings CD
It may be one guy on guitar, guitar synthesizer and digital drums, but it sounds like a prog-rock orchestra - the sounds of guitars, bass, drums, "keyboards", "electronics" and "strings" soaring from the CD in majestic fashion. The opening fifteen minute title track adds a keyboard player and drummer (kit) to start the album with this huge-sounding anthemic instrumental that has the prog adrenaline flowing almost as soon as it begins, as an emerging electric guitar lead suddenly erupts in a cloud of "synths", guitars and drums, as good a prog-rock orchestra as it gets. Then the lead guitar shines out as the track drives forward, this expansive sound having the hairs standing up on the back of your neck as the melodies twist and turn, both solid and powerful yet full of emotion, and it's this construction and arrangement that turns the track into the most stunning instrumental on the album. A further 6 tracks last between three and eleven minutes, and, apart from extra keyboards on the shortest track, it's all the one guy - but, as I say, you'd never know it, as the complex and melodic instrumentals unleash such a variety of sounds, you'd think there was a team of guitarists, synth players and drummers. The lead guitar work throughout is razor sharp while the sounds and arrangements never veer towards self indulgence, preferring to let a more melodic and muscular flow be the central hub around which the vari-paced tracks revolve. Comparisons? Hard one - perhaps a symphonic instrumental Tony Levin, mixed with electronic Synergy style anthemic backgrounds, and multi-layered Hackett-style textures. But it's more than all that - a veritable prog symphony in its own right and it works a treat.
GALACTIC ANTHEMS: Before The Drone CD
Is it prog-rock? Yes!
Is it synth music? Yes!
Is it good? Yes!
Well, that's ticked all the right boxes - so let me explain that this is good - it's not great - but it is good - although if you fancy the idea of a synths/keys dominated instrumental prog-rock album that sound s like something that Keith Emerson & Rick Wakeman might have recorded in the early seventies provided they'd had a glimpse into the future and realised that you could use bouncing electronic drum rhythms rather than go through all that hassle and have a real drummer!! Anyway, despite some of the rhythms being a tad "fairground", it's solid and you can't argue with that. Above that, this arsenal of synths, keys, strings and percussive synth sounds provide a huge array of melodies and layers that give a very symphonic element to the proceedings, It's all easily digestible so that there's nothing on here that's going to tax your brain in any way. I found it all too insipid, despite it's tight and solid production, multi-layered arrangements and admittedly powerful playing, but others who aren't quite the had-banger that I've become, might well find this to be pretty well spot on.
