Best of 2014, part 2

Welcome to the second part of our Best of 2014 blog entry, where we reveal ProgActive's Top 10 songs and instrumentals for the year ending tonight.

10. THE PINEAPPLE THIEF: Bond (from Magnolia)
The British guitar driven art rock group The Pineapple Thief is a long standing favorite of mine, so it comes as no surprise that the best songs from their most recent album make it to the year's Top 10 - particularly since Magnolia sounds to me a little better than their previous effort, 2012's slightly disappointing All the Wars. Bond is the new album's closing track: a short, effective, slightly melancholic and even desperate sounding song that I instantly liked when listening to the album for the very first time back in September.

9. FAITH NO MORE: Motherfucker (single)
The punk-ish American rock group Faith No More released six studio albums between 1985 and 1997, then quit. After a long pause, there are now once again signs of life. A seventh album will be coming out next spring, ending an 18-year long (!) break, and the first single taken from it was released about a month ago. And what a fun filled rock song it is! Initially, I though I would give Motherfucker a honorary mention only, but after re-listening to it a couple of times I was convinced. The song is definite Top 10 material, and I am eagerly waiting for the full length album release.

8. IQ: Hardcore (from The Road of Bones)
The British neo-progressive rock group IQ began their career in the early eighties, at around the same time with Marillion. Their musical style has changed much less than their perhaps more famous colleagues who are now just another pop rock group. Last spring's The Road of Bones is an ambitious progressive rock album that once again awakened me to their existence: I had completely missed 2009's Frequency but have now listened to both albums repeatedly. Hardcore is a ten-minute epic that exemplifies everything that has always been good about IQ.

7. ANATHEMA: Take Shelter (from Distant Satellites)
So, there is one track on Distant Satellites after all that I consider to be Top 10 material: the beautifully composed closing track of the entire album that is more restrained than many others on it when it comes to instrumentation. In this song, Anathema begins with quiet tones and even though the soundscape widens and gains volume later on, there are never such nervousness inducing, loud guitar riffs as on many other equally beautiful tracks on the album. Anathema are still working in their prime, and I am excited to hear what kind of work they will succeed in producing next.

6. PEPE WILLBERG: Leikitään (from Pepe & Saimaa)
We have now entered Top 6 which, like I wrote earlier, marks the beginning of real masterpieces on the list. What we have here is something unheard of: not only is there a Finnish song on our "year's best" list but it is actually quite high on it. Leikitään (in English, Let's Play) opens Pepe Willberg's album Pepe & Saimaa which was released last spring and immediately caught attention over here. Willberg is a veteran rocker, having began his career already in mid-sixties. Recently he has spent years under radar but this lovely album with even some classical influences marks an astonishing comeback.

5. THE PINEAPPLE THIEF: Coming Home (from Magnolia)
My favorite track from Magnolia is short but has nonetheless a great impact. Coming Home embodies everything that was always great about guitar rock but also adds The Pineapple Thief's unique artistic excellence into the mix. The end result is arguably greater than the sum of its parts, yet there is definitely nothing to complain about those parts. Bruce Soord and his bandmates have veered further away from progressive rock with their latest two album releases; my wish for them would be to turn back and make again something like the undying classic What Have We Sown? (2007).

4. HAKEN: Crystallised (from Restoration)
Last year, we had a 20-minute progressive rock epic at #9 on the list; this year, we have one at #4. Before 2013, I used to create separate ranking lists for songs that are under ten minutes and over, since then I have given that up. Crystallised shows that it is perfectly possible to evaluate longer and shorter works using the same criteria. True; successful longer form always tends to impress more, but when making longer tracks the artist always runs a risk of including weaker passages. This is particularly true here: in places, Haken's masterwork is Top 2, maybe even Top 1 material. In others, it sounds a bit artificial. Eventually I felt that fourth place on the list would suffice.

3. HAKEN: Earthlings (from Restoration)
Last year, we had the same artist at #1 and #2. This year, we have one at #3 and #4. In many ways, the beautiful Earthlings is actually weaker of the two Haken songs, but its strength lies in that there are really no weak passages in it. There are in Crystallised. A much quieter work, it is a lovely song that is enjoyable throughout and carries virtually no flashes of overtly technical instrumental solos and sequences that are Haken's trademark but can at worst sound like virtuosos bragging with their playing skills. This group is currently perhaps the greatest hope of progressive rock's future in the world.

2. IQ: The Road of Bones (from The Road of Bones)
The title track of the new IQ album is an exercise in perfection. It has been designed like a mathematical formula that I know can be a turn off for some. When music sounds like it has been engineered, it loses a lot of spontaneity. In some cases it is a turn off even for me, but here the whole thing works so perfectly that you cannot help but listen in awe. Beginning very quietly and sustaining that tone for nearly two thirds of its running time, The Road of Bones peaks in a heavy metal-ish sequence that gives me chills almost every time, only to return back to quieter notes for its closure. The veteran British group has created a modern progressive rock masterpiece.

1. ENGINEERS: It Rings So True (from Always Returning)
This year's winner is however not progressive rock. My old favorite Engineers has astonished me with year's best level performances before, such as Stake to Glory (2005) and Helped By Science (2009). Now, they did it again. It would be too much to say that on their new album they returned to form - most of the album is really only middling in terms of songwriting quality - but its standout track immediately felt like the year's greatest achievement after I had listened to it only a couple of times in August. Nothing else ever came close. Engineers are pure magicians when it comes to writing unforgettable melodies, and here their talent once again shines like no one else's.

Best of 2014, part 1

Another year in music is almost over, so it's time for ProgActive to once again select its best achievements. As before, we won't be discussing entire albums but individual tracks. And like last year, we will divide this issue into two parts: today, we will go through some overall observations and assign honorary mentions to five songs that we felt were exemplary but didn't quite make it to our Top 10. Then, on New Year's Eve, we will publish our actual Top 10.

Last year, Steven Wilson took the first two spots on the list with his masterpieces from The Raven That Refused to Sing album. In 2012, the winner was one of Wilson's projects, namely Storm Corrosion. This year, as far as we know Wilson hasn't released anything so we will finally have someone else win. Unlike Wilson, one of our past favorites Anathema has released a new album which is worth mentioning here, so let's begin with its opening track The Lost Song Part 1.

It has been challenging to evaluate and rank Anathema's latest release. The group continues to make fine music, but their arrangements have become a little too noisy for me. Many of the album's tracks start well, like the one embedded above, only to get marred by earache inducing electric guitar work towards the end. Excellent compositions, not so enjoyable execution. This is the main reason why I have ended up handing them honorary mentions, even though many tracks on the album such as parts 2 and 3 of The Lost Song and Dusk (Dark Is Descending) are really good.

Another group with a lengthy history and roots in much heavier material than what they currently play, is Swedish Opeth. They released their new album Pale Communion in late summer and while it was a really decent effort, sounding much more like genuine seventies prog than metal, I have had a hard time picking any standouts from it. Overall, a very good album but there are few individual tracks to get really excited about. Here is our favorite, an instrumental called Goblin that at least fully deserves its honorary mention.

2014 was not particularly enjoyable for seventies prog fans in some other respects. Just think about it: both Yes and Pink Floyd released new albums and both of them were among the weakest releases in the genre! The new Yes album Heaven & Earth sounds like the group should already have quit; the new Pink Floyd album The Endless River for the most part contains hugely disappointing, extraneous material from The Division Bell sessions two decades earlier and has been promised to be the group's last effort. Fine, but wouldn't it have been a grander exit to have left this virtually useless compilation unreleased and been content with The Division Bell as their swan song?

So, no honorary mentions to those two, I was just wondering aloud. All three of our remaining ones go to beautiful instrumentals that are pretty compositions but don't really have the edge that would have been required to enter our actual Top 10. First up is the Texan post rock group This Will Destroy You whose new album Another Language was released in mid-September without much fanfare. I probably wouldn't have even noticed, had the album not appeared in Spotify and had that service not sent me a notification e-mail about it. I felt that it wasn't a particularly strong release overall but there were a couple of pleasant tracks on it, the most memorable of them the somehow fragile sounding The Puritan.

I have a feeling that this year has been weaker than 2013, and that is not only due to Steven Wilson's absence. I am looking at the final Top 10, to be published on New Year's Eve, and it seems that even there, only the Top 6 represents true greatness. What is encouraging about it is that, of those six tracks, three are genuine, wall-to-wall progressive rock which promises good things for the genre in the future. Complicated, artistically ambitious rock is still alive and well. The remaining three tracks in top six also border on prog but should be classified as art rock. One of them bears classical influences, one is reminiscent of nineties guitar rock and one sounds like an exceptionally moody pop song. We'll get into more details in only two days.

One of the first album releases of the year was Rave Tapes by Scottish post rock group Mogwai, an old favorite, out on 20 January. We found their instrumental Heard About You Last Night immediately after that which was only about three weeks after compiling the Best of 2013. That led to thinking that with that track, the next year's best list had already started to form. Well, OK, no. Mogwai does deserve to be mentioned but the track is not quite strong enough to enter our Top 10.

Compiling "the best of the year" lists immediately when the year ends always leaves one slightly in doubt. I am fairly certain that I have succeeded in finding most of the best the year has had to offer, but there is always the possibility of unintended omissions because some new song still remains among those I have not heard. In fact, that is a certainty; it is another thing altogether if hearing all those missed tracks had actually caused a significant change on the list.

For example, I have heard several really good 2013 tracks that I had not heard when I compiled last year's list, but that didn't seem to matter much. Only The One You Are Looking for is Not Here by Katatonia and Heartstrings by Frost* would have been mentioned but would not have affected the list by much. Katatonia's song is so good that it might have robbed the tenth place from Boards of Canada; Frost* would have been outside Top 10 anyway. Trusting that this year is not much different, I will publish my Top 10 with confidence.

Finally, we return to Anathema whose new album Distant Satellites also contains one pleasant instrumental that I like but which isn't quite Top 10 material. The track is called Firelight and it has been embedded above. We are now content with our five honorary mentions for tracks that were considered for inclusion in the Top 10 but didn't quite make it. On 31 December, we will get to the ones that did.

Top 250: #1 - #5

ProgActive has been using Apple's iTunes regularly since early April of 2006. At first, with a 60 GB iPod and later with more recent and advanced devices. During these 8 years and 8 months, the counters for individual tracks have never been reset. Roughly four years ago, a faulty iTunes update caused a loss of over a month's worth of playing statistics, but otherwise we still have complete playtime information stored that has accumulated all the way from 2006.

When we started this series on 8 June this year, there were 6,236 tracks in ProgActive's iTunes collection. Back then, we decided that we wanted to find out what the most played tracks in the collection after approximately 98 months of listening were. So we stopped the counter on 6 June at 6 in the morning and have been listing those favourites since. Time has finally come to finalize this series with the best of the best: Top 5.

5. Clean Coloured Wire, by Engineers
(Three Fact Fader, 2009)

The British shoegazers Engineers are the only group that have succeeded in getting not one or two but three entries in our Top 10. In the previous entry, we already discussed Stake to Glory (#8). Now, we have reached the masterful opening track of their pinnacle album Three Fact Fader (2009) and there will still be a third one further ahead. Clean Coloured Wire is already their tenth song in the Top 250, meaning that their grand total is going to stand at eleven. Quite an achievement; they beat even Porcupine Tree. But not an undeserved one, as you can hear below.

For a long time we weren't aware that the song is actually using a sample. The electronic loop that the song begins with and which runs all the way through it has been lifted from a track called Watussi, by the West German group Harmonia; the opening track of their 1974 album Musik von Harmonia. Knowing this did lessen our excitement about the greatness of the track a little but it is nonetheless a magnificent piece of modern, pitch perfect pop music with some art rock thrown in for good measure. That said, there is still one track on this very same album that outshines it.

4. The 1978, by Steven Wilson
("Harmony Korine" single B side, 2009)

We are not entirely sure if the correct year here is 2008 or 2009. Steven Wilson released his first solo album (using his own name, anyway) Insurgentes towards the end of 2008. At some point, there was also a two disc Deluxe Version of the release that contained a few extra tracks on the second disc. The last one of these had no title then, but was named The 78 when it was released as a "B side" to the song Harmony Korine (#61) which was released as a vinyl single in 2009. Embedded below is a fan made video for the song.

As great as Harmony Korine is, The 78 is way better, proving once again that it is not uncommon for B sides to beat their A sides. More a straightforward hard rock song than a progressive effort, it grabs you right at the start with its excellent percussion loop and never lets go. Electric guitars are loud and kind of hard to the ear; lyrics very simple and exceptionally pessimistic - sounding like something that Wilson's bandmate Aviv Geffen might have written.

3. Helped By Science, by Engineers
(Three Fact Fader, 2009)

The third and final Engineers song in our top 10 is their greatest masterpiece. The British group's eleventh track on the entire list is a perfect achievement in mellow pop music that has been on repeat for long enough to reach top three. Not only is it a great composition; what makes it stand out is the way it manages to change key in the middle of a bar and do it without sounding artificial or contrived. We have been mesmerized by this song ever since we heard it for the first time and cannot help but recognize its genius. Just listen to it below and see if you agree.

There is little else we can think of to write about our favorite British shoegazer band. Three Fact Fader is their best album so far. They have followed it with two more releases: In Praise of More (2010) and Always Returning (2014), both of which have been considerably more uneven albums than their near perfect predecessor. Hopefully the group will continue their good work for years to come and perhaps repeat the success of their release from five years ago.

2. Chronos Deliverer, by Glass Hammer
(Chronometree, 2000)

Here is the highest ranking debut on the list. The American progressive rock group Glass Hammer now appears on it for the first time. This happens here, on second place - talk about a one hit wonder! Glass Hammer's 2000 album Chronometree contains this absolutely perfect piece of keyboard driven symphonic prog that we have been playing over and over again. Besides its peerless composition, another great detail about the song is its genial use of female choir that works immensely well. Somehow the group has managed to keep nearly all of their music out of YouTube, so here is a Grooveshark link instead.

Choros Deliverer - Glass Hammer

Glass Hammer have always been great admirers of progressive rock legends Yes. This should be perfectly obvious from Chronos Deliverer already. But even more revealing is the fact that the entire album Chronometree is an intentional homage to that other group's output. And to complete said homage, singer Jon Davison was chosen to actually join Yes a couple of years ago, as their new lead singer. This meant a hiatus for Glass Hammer since Davison isn't allowed to work with other projects during his stay in Yes, however long it may be. We haven't been very excited about the rest of Glass Hammer's output although some of it is pretty good - here is the shining exception that can be qualified as a genuine masterpiece.

1. Milliontown, by Frost*
(Milliontown, 2006)

ProgActive's number one track ever is safely ahead of its competition. No other song comes even close to the number of times it has been played. What's even more impressive is that number in relation to the track's running time. It surprises even us that the song we have played by far the most times in our iTunes collection runs well over 26 minutes. You would think that a shorter track would have a much easier task to climb this high but here is the exception to really challenge that rule, or at least the assumption of its existence.

Milliontown is a magnum opus that consists of several parts, like many of the similar seventies 20-minute prog classics did. It is the single greatest piece of modern progressive rock that we know of, which largely explains why it has become number one on our list already some years ago and has successfully held that position since. It represents all that is best in the genre; an endless flow of invention that has been composed and is played with unmatched virtuoso. In particular, it is John Mitchell's guitars and Andy Edwards's drumming that pack an unparalleled punch.

To close this series, some history data. We have been interested in the most played tracks in our collection before and it seems that initially it was Once by Blackfield, now outside top 10, that held the top spot for a long time during the early years. It wasn't until January 2008 that Bravado by Rush took the first place - only to temporarily lose it back to Once during spring, then reclaim the throne come next fall.

Following this, Bravado was our number one track for nearly two years, until some time in the summer of 2010 Chronos Deliverer (now #2) took the top spot, with Milliontown a close second, and Bravado dropped to third place. Finally, some time in late 2010, Milliontown overtook Chronos Deliverer and has been number one ever since. And, as the very last note: since 8 June this year, Helped By Science has actually overtaken Chronos Deliverer for the second place but still far behind Milliontown.

Top 250: #6 - #10

Top 250 by ProgActive will now be finalized by listing the best of the very best, Top 10, in the last two entries of the series. In this elite group, there are only seven different artists. Five of them appear once. One of them appears twice. One of them appears three times. And, even though Blackfield has had lots of songs on the list and many of them very close to the top, they are not the artist appearing three times. Let's start with them.

10. 1,000 People, by Blackfield
(Blackfield II, 2007)

The other masterpiece on Blackfield II besides Once (#13) is the very next track on it. There are many types of beautiful music in existence; Aviv Geffen's talent lies in writing perhaps the most mournful type. The incredibly moving 1,000 People is a close relative to a more recent Geffen downer, Dissolving With the Night (#29) from the third Blackfield album. It is actually a reworking of an original song, sung in Hebrew by Geffen, for which he co-wrote the English lyrics with bandmate Steven Wilson.

Of all the songs written by Geffen, this one is in the top two of the most depressing ones. It makes you wonder why the man writes so much about longing to be gone from this life. Dissolving With the Night continued in exactly the same vein four years later. However, in spite of its subject matter 1,000 People is not a mournful tune in the same sense as, say, Adagio in G Minor by Tomaso Albinoni. It is a lovely if also sad song backed with a piano and strings and it used to play in a really heavy rotation. Hence, the tenth place in overall ranking.

9. Fear of a Blank Planet, by Porcupine Tree
(Fear of a Blank Planet, 2007)

Another track from another Steven Wilson project from 2007, Fear of a Blank Planet is the exhilarating opening track from the album carrying the same title. 1,000 People was Blackfield's ninth entry on the list; this one is Porcupine Tree's 15th, making them the artist with most entries on it by far. This is, finally, their last one; PT is one of those artists who have only one entry in the Top 10. Embedded below is Fear of a Blank Planet as the full length album version.

Lasse Hoile has created a music video for the song that can also be found in YouTube in glorious high definition. Unfortunately, on the background the track itself has been shortened from 7 minutes and 32 seconds to only 4 minutes and 19 seconds, so it didn't feel appropriate to embed it here. The album was actually a disappointment to us but this title track kicks ass - in particular, the first four minutes or so. After that it gets a bit repetitive. Great song by the British prog group who have de facto disbanded following 2009's horrendously disappointing The Incident.

8. Stake to Glory, by Engineers
(Forgiveness, 2005)

This song by Engineers is one of our most memorable finds in recent years. The same year the group released their self titled full length debut album they also released an EP length collection of songs called Forgiveness. It contained a single of that same title that was also included on the debut album, and a couple of other songs that weren't. Easily the best of them is Stake to Glory, which in our opinion is also better than anything on the actual debut album. Sometimes B sides can be better. Please listen to the song below.

As you can hear, the chorus of the song has been arranged like one of the pompous Phil Spector produced hits of the sixties. This nod to that particular era is interesting, but what makes this song truly great is the exceptional quality of the songwriting. Engineers have proven to be masters of composing unforgettably beautiful tunes, and this song is a shining example of that particular talent. Even though we didn't find this track until early 2010, it has managed to accumulate a respectable amount of listening and hence climbed to the eighth place on our all time list.

7. Perfect World, by Blackfield
(Blackfield, 2004)

Remember when we mentioned weighing Gravity Eyelids by Porcupine Tree (#30) against another song when trying to decide our number one favorite song of the entire 2000's? This is that song. Perfect World is the crowning achievement of Blackfield's career that they have never surpassed, although 1,000 People admittedly comes close. Like Where is My Love? (#24) it is not listed among the actual tracks of the album, but has been placed as one of the three bonus tracks of the two disc version.

Once again, a somewhat pessimistic message from Blackfield. This world is far from perfect, and cannot be mended: I wish we were reborn to a perfect world. This is not a direct statement about wanting to leave this particular plane of existence but an implication nonetheless. And this is where the group's outstanding success finally peaks. They have now appeared on the list a full ten times - seven times in the Top 40 alone. They won't appear again further up.

6. Bravado, by Rush
(Roll the Bones, 1991)

The Canadian prog metal giant Rush feels like a surprise find this far up on the list. In spite of being fans in the eighties, we seem to have almost forgotten about the group later on. As a result, they have appeared on the list only once before, with Animate (#155). Bravado is a song from one of their less than classic albums that we initially overlooked but noticed a little later on. Since then, this song has grown on us. We are happy to state that now we think it is the finest, most accomplished song in Rush's career, even though their greatest classics were made years earlier.

Roll the Bones the album arrived in a difficult era for the group. During the latter half of the eighties they had, album by album, veered further away from their prog laced heavy rock roots, until Presto (1989) finally became their first release that we actually removed from our CD collection shortly after buying it. Bravado also has a polished tech rock sound but it doesn't hurt at all when the quality of the songwriting is this high. A masterpiece from a great band, born at an unexpected point in time.

Top 250: #11 - #15

Recently, the nature of our Top 250 has been that there is a certain, limited number of artists whose songs and instrumentals keep appearing repeatedly on the list. This time, we show some variety by introducing not only one but two debutants who appear here for the first time, even though we are now nearing the Top 10. Let's begin with one of these newcomers.

15. Analyse, by Thom Yorke
(The Eraser, 2006)

OK, perhaps the Radiohead singer has appeared on the list before but not as a solo artist. Radiohead has so far had three songs on the list, with Videotape ranking highest (#152). Singer Yorke's solo album came out eight years ago, at a time when the best days of the group were already behind them. In our opinion, The Eraser is hardly a great album, but it contains a couple of interesting tracks and one masterpiece which is of course Analyse, embedded below.

The song imprinted itself to our memory perhaps a bit too easily when it played during the closing credits of Christopher Nolan's masterful 2006 film The Prestige. We felt already dumbfounded enough when the credits started to roll, and then there was also this absolutely stunning piece of mellow rock playing on the soundtrack. However, it would be unfair to suggest that Analyse didn't have merit also on its own. Proof of that lies in the fact that it has been able to take the 15th place on our list which has required some heavy rotation - without a film playing at the same time.

14. Peacock Tail, by Boards of Canada
(The Campfire Headphase, 2005)

The Scottish electronic music duo Boards of Canada, on the other hand, is no newcomer on this list. They have appeared three times previously, with Dayvan Cowboy (#60), Satellite Anthem Icarus (#75) and Julie and Candy (#168). The first two of those are both from their peak album The Campfire Headphase, as is Peacock Tail, our number one favorite track in their recorded output. By now that we are this far up on the list, it feels like every song is our favorite from each artist, signifying that they probably won't appear further up on the list. Which is probably true for Boards of Canada, as well as Thom Yorke.

Embedded above is a great achievement in electronically produced instrumental music. Once again, a relatively simple but infinitely beautiful passage of music has been composed. It is then simply repeated over and over again, and made interesting by adding new layers of variable instrumentation. Unlike the Maju track described in the previous blog entry, Peacock Tail doesn't come back down; instead, it simply soars higher and higher until the soundscape has been filled and it is time to fade out. Bliss.

13. Once, by Blackfield
(Blackfield II, 2007)

Blackfield is fast becoming one of, if not the most successful artist on the list. Prior to this, they have appeared on it already seven times. Four of these appearances are as recent as Where is My Love? (#24), Scars (#27), Dissolving With the Night (#29) and Pain (#34). It seems that the British - Israeli duo has really been able to strike a chord in us. Once is the opening track of their (once) eagerly awaited second album that was released in early 2007. At the time, we were already familiar with the first one and couldn't wait for more of the same to become available.

Once was released in advance of the actual album to serve as its preview. We remember finding it somewhere, listening to it and being very satisfied. The song had a bit more of a rock and roll feel than virtually anything on the debut album, which we felt was a peculiar choice, but the chorus sounded extremely beautiful. The rest of the album didn't live up to the expectation set by Once; it had one other great track, two or three pretty good ones - and also several forgettable ones. Once serves as its opening track.

12. Your Kettle, by Portal
(Blood Red Tape, 2008)

Here comes the other first time appearance listed in this blog entry! And what a surprise it is. Portal is  (or was) a virtually unknown Canadian progressive metal group who luckily take it relatively easy with their metal, limiting its use to hard, tightly played guitar riffs. They play their prog with an incredible precision that still somehow sounds effortless. There is also an Australian extreme black death metal band that has the same name, please be sure not to mix these two.

Your Kettle, embedded above, is a ten-minute masterpiece in complicated, metal laced progressive rock. We found it only about four years ago, yet in only half the time that many other artists have had it has managed to climb all the way to the twelfth place on the list. Blood Red Tape is Portal's third full length album, following A Taste of Things to Come (2001), The Vast Expanse Diminishing (2003) and an EP length release called Element (2005). We know of no more recent releases and the band may have split since their web site hasn't been updated in several years. But what a classic track they released before that happened!

11. On the Mend, by Foo Fighters
(In Your Honor, 2005)

The American rock group Foo Fighters has appeared on the list three times before this, most recently with the lovely Over and Out (#26). On the Mend is that song's stunning companion piece, yet another lovely track taken from the acoustic Disc 2 of the group's ultimate masterpiece In Your Honor. Rising this far up on the list has obviously been helped by an ideal release date, shortly before April 2006 when we started compiling it. But that is of course not the only reason for such a high ranking.

A better reason is that, as you can hear if you click what's embedded above, On the Mend is one of the best and most moving songs ever written about lost love. The lyrics, backed up by the most beautiful of melodies, compare losing a loved one to recuperating from an exceptionally severe illness. It is a question of survival: one more day that I've survived, another night alone. Foo Fighters are working at the very peak of their powers here. Needless to say, then, that they won't be appearing in the Top 10. Who will? Let's get into that next time.

Top 250: #16 - #20

Finally, we have reached the Top 20 of our Top 250 list. For a change, in this section all five tracks are from different artists and even more refreshingly from such artists that didn't appear last time or haven't appeared in a while in general. There is even one debutant on the list this high up.

20. We Subside, by The Pineapple Thief
(Variations on a Dream, 2003)

The British prog related guitar art rock group The Pineapple Thief has appeared on the list a few times before. Vapour Trails (#67), Remember Us (#113) and Resident Alien (#206) were all taken from their early masterpiece Variations on a Dream; only What Have We Sown? (#222) is from a more recent album. Our track number 20 is also from their pinnacle album, in fact it is the opening track. In our opinion, it is easily the finest song that the group has released.

When it comes to lyrics, We Subside is nothing special. But when it comes to music, it is absolutely brilliant. It elevates guitar rock into an art form. As you can hear by clicking the video embedding above, the song opens like a piece of classical music and manages to sustain that impression even when more regular rock instrumentation is introduced a little later on. Art rock has rarely been quite this artsy, and one might accuse the group of almost crossing the fine line between art and the artificial. We don't think they do that. In all the best ways, We Subside simply works.

19. Sending a Signalling Glance, by Maju
(Maju-1, 1999)

Immediately preceding the new millennium, the Tokyo based instrumental electronic music group Maju debuted with Maju-1 which perhaps isn't quite as significant a success as their second album that came out the following year. Still, it contains our number one favorite track in their output. Sending a Signalling Glance is nothing less than a perfect piece of electronic music. Its structure is very simple: a relatively simple melodic passage is repeated several times but in each iteration it becomes deliciously varied while new synthesizer sequences are added - and towards the end, removed.

Maju has appeared on the list twice before, with Once Again, I Revert to That Perspective (#55) and I Drew a Final Breath in the Dream (#106). Both of those two compositions are taken from their next album Maju-2 (2000). This one remains our favorite; there will be no more Maju songs further up on the list. We may have already mentioned that the group's publicly declared ambition is to describe what it is like to live in modern Tokyo through means of instrumental music. Sure sounds like that life is quite enjoyable. Mellow, even.

18. It's Natural to Be Afraid, by Explosions in the Sky
(All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, 2007)

The previous blog entry (#21 - #25) seemed to imply that there would be no more surprises in store on the list - just more of the same. This track goes to disprove that. The Texan post rock group Explosions in the Sky has not appeared on the list at all prior to this, so it is one of the highest rated debuts on it. (Fourth highest, in fact - there will be not only one but two first time appearances next time, on places #11 - #15, and one even in the top five!)

This lengthy instrumental captured our attention originally because of its memorable opening sequence - the first four minutes and ten seconds. However, the rest of the composition is also great. It is kind of strange to see a post rock group this high on the list since we have never been big fans of that particular genre of rock - the typical noisy guitar sounds irritate us too much. But here, the Texas group has evidently succeeded in mesmerizing the side of us that enjoys ambient music. Hence, a place in the Top 20.

17. All the Blue Changes, by No-Man
(Together We're Stranger, 2003)

There are no Blackfield or Porcupine Tree tracks present this time around, but what would a Top 250 blog entry be without Steven Wilson or at least one of his many projects? Mr. Wilson has made music with Tim Bowness as No-Man since the early nineties and the duo has appeared on the list already five times before, with Soft Shoulders (#81), All Sweet Things (#130), Truenorth (#161), Close Your Eyes (#185) and Pigeon Drummer (#219).

All the Blue Changes is the first pick from their peak album, 2003's impressive Together We're Stranger. This effortlessly beautiful song has played at ProgActive endlessly: it is one of those tracks that you never seem to grow tired of and is arguably the finest piece of work that No-Man has ever released as a recording. Sad, then, that it looks like the duo is now on an endless hiatus, with Steven Wilson busy with his solo career. Following Together We're Stranger, there has been only one more album release, Schoolyard Ghosts, and even that was six and a half years ago.

16. Emergency Room, by Engineers
(Three Fact Fader, 2009)

The British shoegazers Engineers need no further introduction. They have appeared on the list already seven times before, most recently with Thrasher (#37), A Given Right (#52) and Said and Done (#64). A major favorite of ours, obviously. Their peak album is not hard to select: Three Fact Fader, released five years ago, is an astonishing achievement even though its greatness didn't come as a total surprise. Their almost equally excellent self titled debut from 2005 already showed enough promise for music fans to expect great things from the group.

When it begins, Emergency Room sounds perhaps a little non-typical for Engineers - as well as for the top positions on this list. The guitar sounds are hard rocking and the soundscape seems overly filled with instruments. On top of that, the composition doesn't at first sound like it's going to be anything special. This false impression is quickly fixed when we reach chorus and suddenly realize that this is actually one of the group's most memorably written songs with some particularly beautiful passages repeating themselves over and over again. Rock meets mellow pop with incredible results.

Top 250: #21 - #25

For a change, there are no debuting artists among the five tracks we will be listing this time. Every single one of these groups has already appeared on the list further down. Several times, in fact. Ahem...

25. No Me No You, by Frost*
(Milliontown, 2006)

Last time, Frost* took a short break from appearing on the list but here they are once again. No Me No You is perhaps the hardest rocking track on their debut album Milliontown (2006). Coming right after the instrumental opening track Hyperventilate, it is the first real song on the album and might give the casual listener a misleading impression of what kind of music the band makes (as might the opening track as well, but for different reasons). No Me No You is definitely progressive rock, but the guitar riffs would be right at home on a heavy metal / hard rock album. Please do check it out by playing back the video embedded below.

Another thing that you immediately notice about No Me No You is its immensely big sounds. This is where Jem Godfrey's background as producer truly becomes obvious. The man has always been fond of sounds a mile both high and wide, and this is one of the best examples of that liking. Perhaps this might also be a good moment to point out that other members of the group are also exceptional musicians. Just listen to the masterful John Mitchell to get an idea of how great progressive rock guitarists can be.

24. Where Is My Love? by Blackfield
(Blackfield, 2004)

We will write this song down as a 2004 release appearing on repeat offender Blackfield's debut album, although the finalized version of it actually appeared on Blackfield II (2007). It is true that the track list of the debut in its original form doesn't include this song, but it appears on its bonus disc along a couple of other tracks. That version has been called a demo version but it sounds perfectly ready to us and in fact it is the version that we have in our iTunes collection instead of the slightly different Blackfield II version.

Once again, an immensely beautiful Blackfield song has been written solely by Aviv Geffen who seems to be the much more melancholic party in that group. The track is dominated by truly outstanding guitar work. Their goosebump inducing sounds make this sound like a better composed version of a rock song made famous by one of the British guitar rock groups of the nineties like, say, Oasis. Even though the song tells about a search for a lost loved one, it is actually one of the happiest sounding songs composed by Geffen. Remember, this is the same man who wrote the excruciatingly downbeat Dissolving With the Night (#29).

23. Saline, by Frost*
(Experiments in Mass Appeal, 2008)

Wait a minute, didn't we discuss Frost* only moments ago? Well, here they are again, with a much more mellow and beautiful song than No Me No You, picked from their second album for a change. It looks like we did a lot of listening to both of the group's first two albums back in 2008 and 2009 at which time they were both very close to the top. Now that we no longer listen to them quite as regularly as we used to back then, their best songs have slowly started descending on the list and three of them have fallen out of the Top 20. Yes, there will be a third Frost* song in this same blog entry, fear not!

Together with Dear Dead Days (#54), Saline forms the centerpiece of the Experiments on Mass Appeal album. But unlike that hard rocking song with its desperation filled lyrics, it is a much more delicate work of art. The group's brilliant drummer Andy Edwards has nothing to do, and even guitarist John Mitchell has had to leave his electric guitar be and perform with an acoustic one. Saline is one of the songs on the second Frost* album that would have been right at home even on their brilliant debut. A true masterwork - but then, aren't these all?

22. Blackest Eyes, by Porcupine Tree
(In Absentia, 2002)

Porcupine Tree is yet another repeat offender on the list, having already appeared on it an incredible 13 times before this. Will this fourteenth appearance finally be the last one? Certainly the majority of their best songs have already been mentioned, so there can't be very many left, if any at all. Blackest Eyes is of course the energizing opening track of our number one favorite album in their output, 2002's In Absentia. It alternates brief heavy metal sequences with more acoustic and mellow parts, thus creating a memorable contrast.

A random listener with a distaste towards metal may well get the wrong idea from the track's opening sequence. Even though Blackest Eyes does begin with some very heavy guitar riffs, it turns out to be a sweetly melodic song written at a high point of Steven Wilson's creativity as a songwriter. Also, it must have come as a small surprise to a Porcupine Tree fan considering the earlier albums that had never veered so close to heavy metal.

21. Hyperventilate, by Frost*
(Milliontown, 2006)

So it ends as it began. The track that takes the 21st place in our Top 250 is from the very same album as the 25th that opened this blog entry. The instrumental opening track of Milliontown precedes No Me No You on it and, like we already mentioned, perhaps gives a slightly misleading idea to the first time listener, being the only instrumental recorded Frost* track that we know of.

But when it comes to the music itself, there is nothing misleading about it. The quiet opening soon gives way to typical Frost* sounds: larger than life, complicated melodies played with impeccable precision. Someone once compared Hyperventilate to something from the soundtrack of a seventies Italian horror film. The soundscape feels much more accomplished than that but otherwise we can almost understand the comparison.