It is now New Year's Eve and time to complete the top 10 of 2012. Here is the upper half of that list.
5. American Hollow: Last Dream Before Dawn
(Album: Screaming into the Void)
We continue our American tour with American Hollow, a group from Salt Lake City that formed only four years ago and released their debut album Whisper Campaign in 2010. The prog metal album sounded more than just a little monotonous to me, but this year's new EP Screaming into the Void contains much more varied styles and moods. The second track of the EP, Last Dream Before Dawn even reminds me of Blackfield's best, most melodic output. The song cannot be found in YouTube, but here are links to both Spotify and, for those who don't use that service, also to the group's web page:
American Hollow - Last Dream Before Dawn (web page link)
4. Echolyn: Locust to Bethlehem
(Album: Echolyn)
Our American tour concludes in Pennsylvania, at Echolyn headquarters. Their excellent, self-titled new album was released in June and contains several highlights, one of which is this beautiful song. At its beginning, the guitar and drums give the listener a nice set of false expectations. What begins sounding like a mellow blues rock track, builds up to a memorable art rock piece with big sounds and even string arrangements to boot. Unfortunately, I cannot find the entire track anywhere to link here, but there is a 90-second sample in iTunes (link to Finnish iTunes below, change to your home country if you live elsewhere) and under it, there is also a short YouTube snippet from the recording session of the song's string sequences.
90-second sample in iTunes
3. Muse: Save Me
(Album: The 2nd Law)
One of the year's most pleasant surprises was the British art rock band Muse, whose latest album The 2nd Law contained a couple of truly exceptional highlights. The real pinnacle is Save Me, which achieves perfection in the melody-driven guitar rock/pop genre. It is the highest ranking, shall we say regular piece of music on the list before we ascend to new heights. The best two tracks are Art with a capital A, music that will hopefully be remembered for decades to come. This is not to say the Muse's achievement isn't absolutely great as well, its greatness is just slightly different.
2. Sigur Rós: Valtari
(Album: Valtari)
The Icelandic art rock group Sigur Rós is the only artist to appear twice in the top 10. Their new album's title track is a lengthy ambient instrumental that contains immense power. Rarely has a composition so perfectly reflected the cover of the album it is taken from. The desolate, somehow arctic looking seascape tinged in filthy green and slightly out of focus is the kind of an image that the cold sounding, yet unbelievably beautiful melody brings to mind. Most of its running time, Valtari just runs rings around itself - not attempting to go anywhere, but enjoying its staying power instead. Valtari is one of those rare recordings in popular music that elevates from mere entertainment to an artistic work of the highest calibre.
1. Storm Corrosion: Drag Ropes
(Album: Storm Corrosion)
Anticipating a heavy prog metal album and then hearing this as its opening track was one of those all too infrequent moments that are the artistic equivalent of being hit on the head with a large wooden board. When hearing it, I was under the mistaken impression that Steven Wilson's creativity had not been peaking recently, which made hearing this unbelievable masterpiece all the more surprising. Wish I were surprised like this more often. The 9 minute, 47 second song is very close to my 10-minute maximum limit and represents a musical style that is really difficult to pin down. And just look at this beautiful video that has been made to support the song and its message. Incredible. Year's best in every way.
Like I wrote in the first part of this story, my favourite long (over 10-minute) song or composition of 2012 is Speaking in Lampblack by Echolyn. Let's embed it below as well, for comparison, as it happens to be available in YouTube. Paradoxically, at 10 minutes and 45 seconds it is only 58 seconds longer than Drag Ropes, yet gets classified as a longer work due to the 10-minute limit having been crossed. Check out both, and you will have listened to 20 minutes of very best music released this year.
It should be fairly obvious, based on these lists, that my favourite artists this year have been 1. Echolyn, 2. Storm Corrosion, and 3. Sigur Rós. I would have to place Echolyn to number one spot, because the level of greatness is most consistent on their album. Storm Corrosion and Sigur Rós are very close to each other in this respect.
There is now also a Spotify playlist available containing as many of the listed songs as possible. Not everything listed here is available in Spotify, so I cannot call it "Best of 2012", let's simply call it "2012 Highlights". It will also contain some songs and compositions that did not quite make it to the list, but which to my mind are also very good and worth a listen.
maanantai 31. joulukuuta 2012
sunnuntai 30. joulukuuta 2012
Best of 2012, part 2
So here we are, with ProgActive's list of the top 10 songs or instrumentals that run under 10 minutes each and have been released during 2012. It might be worthwhile to point out once again that there might be other masterpieces that we have missed but these are the ones we haven't.
The list seems varied in that among the ten, only one artist appears twice and there is music from several different countries. Although the list has been compiled from a prog point of view, it is not a prog list. In fact, the songs that can be classified purely as prog, are clearly in a minority here. But most of the titles listed have at least some kind of prog connection or have been influenced by it. Before moving to Iceland, we begin our tour in the U.K.
10. Anathema: Untouchable, Part 1
(Album: Weather Systems)
While the album Weather Systems was already mentioned as a disappointment in part 1 of this story, there is no denying that its opening track works really well. Melody and instumentation are impeccable, and the overall feel is familar from previous releases like We're Here Because We're Here (2010) and the masterful reworked compilation of older works, Hindsight (2008). If only the rest of the album had been as good as its first track!
9. Sigur Rós: Ég anda
(Album: Valtari)
The new album by the Icelandic group Sigur Rós was this year's biggest surprise. I honestly thought that they had already lost their creativity and didn't pay any attention to the new release when it first came out. Boy, was I wrong! Valtari is easily their second best album ever, following the undying masterpiece that was ( ) (2002). Ég anda is also an opening track and, unlike Anathema's song above, gives promises that the rest of the album is actually able to keep. Below, there is a link to the song accompanied by a strange video.
8. Arcana: Somnolence
(Album: As Bright as a Thousand Suns)
This short, moody, even sombre instrumental piece is also the opening track of the album. It runs just under two minutes but leaves an indelible impression on the listener, and precisely like the previous song on the list, makes promises that the rest of the album can easily keep. Arcana, that initially sounded like a cheaper version of Dead Can Dance, has now fully grown to real artistic merit of their own. I am eagerly waiting for more music like this from Sweden.
7. Motorpsycho: Into the Mystic
(Album: The Death Defying Unicorn)
Having already visited Iceland and Sweden, there is not a long way to check out Norway as well. The fanciful and fairly far-out musical fable called The Death Defying Unicorn by Trondheim's best known group Motorpsycho does not begin but ends with this outstanding track that proves one thing: prog is fun! And it sounds like they have had plenty of it when writing and performing this truly excellent piece of music that can leave the listener simply exhausted with pure joy.
6. OSI: Wind Won't Howl
(Album: Fire Make Thunder)
Now is the time to move to the United States, for the first but not the last time on the list. OSI is the prog metal group originally formed by Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos and the original keyboardist of Dream Theater, Kevin Moore, also of Chroma Key fame. On their fourth album Fire Make Thunder, drums are played by Porcupine Tree's Gavin Harrison. Expectations were high following the outstanding previous studio album Blood (2009) but the overall end result turned out to be disappointingly mediocre. Except for this one great song, for which there is no full recording available either in YouTube or Spotify. But you can check out a 35-second sample below: Wind Won't Howl plays between 2:23 and 2:58.
The remaining best five tracks of the top 10 will turn up here tomorrow!
The list seems varied in that among the ten, only one artist appears twice and there is music from several different countries. Although the list has been compiled from a prog point of view, it is not a prog list. In fact, the songs that can be classified purely as prog, are clearly in a minority here. But most of the titles listed have at least some kind of prog connection or have been influenced by it. Before moving to Iceland, we begin our tour in the U.K.
(Album: Weather Systems)
While the album Weather Systems was already mentioned as a disappointment in part 1 of this story, there is no denying that its opening track works really well. Melody and instumentation are impeccable, and the overall feel is familar from previous releases like We're Here Because We're Here (2010) and the masterful reworked compilation of older works, Hindsight (2008). If only the rest of the album had been as good as its first track!
9. Sigur Rós: Ég anda
(Album: Valtari)
The new album by the Icelandic group Sigur Rós was this year's biggest surprise. I honestly thought that they had already lost their creativity and didn't pay any attention to the new release when it first came out. Boy, was I wrong! Valtari is easily their second best album ever, following the undying masterpiece that was ( ) (2002). Ég anda is also an opening track and, unlike Anathema's song above, gives promises that the rest of the album is actually able to keep. Below, there is a link to the song accompanied by a strange video.
8. Arcana: Somnolence
(Album: As Bright as a Thousand Suns)
This short, moody, even sombre instrumental piece is also the opening track of the album. It runs just under two minutes but leaves an indelible impression on the listener, and precisely like the previous song on the list, makes promises that the rest of the album can easily keep. Arcana, that initially sounded like a cheaper version of Dead Can Dance, has now fully grown to real artistic merit of their own. I am eagerly waiting for more music like this from Sweden.
7. Motorpsycho: Into the Mystic
(Album: The Death Defying Unicorn)
Having already visited Iceland and Sweden, there is not a long way to check out Norway as well. The fanciful and fairly far-out musical fable called The Death Defying Unicorn by Trondheim's best known group Motorpsycho does not begin but ends with this outstanding track that proves one thing: prog is fun! And it sounds like they have had plenty of it when writing and performing this truly excellent piece of music that can leave the listener simply exhausted with pure joy.
6. OSI: Wind Won't Howl
(Album: Fire Make Thunder)
Now is the time to move to the United States, for the first but not the last time on the list. OSI is the prog metal group originally formed by Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos and the original keyboardist of Dream Theater, Kevin Moore, also of Chroma Key fame. On their fourth album Fire Make Thunder, drums are played by Porcupine Tree's Gavin Harrison. Expectations were high following the outstanding previous studio album Blood (2009) but the overall end result turned out to be disappointingly mediocre. Except for this one great song, for which there is no full recording available either in YouTube or Spotify. But you can check out a 35-second sample below: Wind Won't Howl plays between 2:23 and 2:58.
The remaining best five tracks of the top 10 will turn up here tomorrow!
lauantai 29. joulukuuta 2012
Best of 2012, part 1
2012 is coming to an end, so what better time than right now to wrap up its music offerings and create yet another "best of" list which I'm sure the world is not lacking this time of year. While writing this, I am fully aware of the futility of such an effort: there's no way I have even heard all of the year's most significant songs and compositions. I am likely to discover many of them later. So the top 10 that follows cannot really be the final word on 2012 - only a list of the most impressive songs I have heard so far. Yet this is not to belittle the list, or say it has no significance: I have heard some pretty amazing pieces of music this year already.
Before going any further, let's make one thing absolutely clear. Even though the name of the blog is ProgActive, what follows is not a collection of best progressive rock albums and songs. There are no genre limitations here. All that matters is the quality of the music, not where it may be pigeonholed. Obviously, I do lean considerably towards prog in my preferences, but am not limited only there.
Before getting to the songs themselves, a few words about the albums of 2012. Here at ProgActive we don't really celebrate them, although in some exceptional cases they may receive honorable mentions. I firmly believe that the way music is collected and listened to has already permanently changed. The album by a single artist or group is really no longer the defining unit when it comes to a collection of music. A playlist is. Even back in the early 1980's when I first started compiling "year's best" lists (I think my first was in 1981, topped by The Garden by John Foxx), I was more interested in individual tracks than entire albums. There is even more reason for that now that the availability of digital downloads means that purchasing individual songs is more and more common as opposed to buying entire albums - be they in digital or physical format.
In spite of that, if we do have a brief look at 2012 albums next, there is one release that can easily be selected above all others. It is in fact the one and only new album I bought this year: the self-titled album by the American symphonic prog group Echolyn which I already reviewed back in August. It is a slightly uneven piece of work, but an impressive one nonetheless.
Many other album releases that I anxiously waited for in advance turned out to be disappointing. Anastasis, the first studio album by Dead Can Dance in 16 years, is one that comes to mind in particular: high expectations that were met by mediocre results. Anastasis is not bad, and it's certainly better than the group's previous two releases: the completely aimless Into the Labyrinth (1993) or the too ethnic for its own good Spiritchaser (1996), but that's all you can say for its defense. On the Dead Can Dance scale, Anastasis is still well below average.
In much the same way, two groups that had shown promise on their earlier releases, Anathema and OSI let me down with their new albums Weather Systems and Fire Make Thunder, respectively. And an even bigger letdown than these two was All the Wars by The Pineapple Thief, on which I failed to find anything truly interesting whatsoever. Considering the group's earlier masterworks, this came as a definite surprise. Compared to it, even Sounds That Can't Be Made by Marillion seemed satisfying: I expected next to nothing and got exactly what I expected.
Of course, 2012 albums included some pleasant surprises as well. Many better works came from artists that I wasn't paying particular attention to beforehand. For example, a year ago I had already more or less forgotten about the Icelandic group Sigur Rós, whose 2008 album with the unpronounceable title had been such a huge disappointment back when it came out that I didn't even bother to listen to their new album Valtari until several months after its release, only to realise that they had made a really, really impressive return to form.
Another album for which I had low expectations to begin with was the debut album of Storm Corrosion. This was due to Steven Wilson's apparent growing interest towards heavy metal. When he decided to collaborate with Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth, I assumed that they would produce some kind of a black prog metal album that would contain a lot of growling vocals and be of little interest to me. As it turned out, I was wrong, and pleasantly surprised. There are no metal riffs at all on Storm Corrosion the album. Instead, it contains some of this year's best musical moments, although it is a noticeably uneven piece of work, just like Echolyn.
One more Swedish artist worth mentioning is the goth / dark ambient group Arcana, whose latest album As Bright as a Thousand Suns was released under my radar, but which I luckily stumbled across a little later and found many good moments contained therein.
Next, we narrow down the scope of the actual top 10 of 2012. As before, I have eliminated really long songs from the list because, at least to me, they seem like an art form of their own. Already in the 1980's, I compiled a separate list for them, drawing the line to 10 minutes. This year, there haven't been too many candidates in the "longer than 10 minutes" category, so it is then Echolyn who dominate that list, with Storm Corrosion a close second.
Echolyn's brilliant Speaking in Lampblack (10 mins. 45 secs.) would be my very first recommendation, closely followed by Island (16 mins. 38 secs.) from the same album. It would be advisable to also check out Storm Corrosion's Ljudet innan (10 mins. 7 secs.) as well as their album's title track (10 mins. 2 secs.). But that's really all the really outstanding long tracks from 2012 I have been able to discover so far.
Following this, we finally move on to the top 10... due to be ready and published right here either tomorrow or, at latest, on Monday, New Year's Eve. Please be sure to come back and check out the finest tracks running under 10 minutes and released during 2012.
Sigur Rós: Valtari
Before going any further, let's make one thing absolutely clear. Even though the name of the blog is ProgActive, what follows is not a collection of best progressive rock albums and songs. There are no genre limitations here. All that matters is the quality of the music, not where it may be pigeonholed. Obviously, I do lean considerably towards prog in my preferences, but am not limited only there.
Before getting to the songs themselves, a few words about the albums of 2012. Here at ProgActive we don't really celebrate them, although in some exceptional cases they may receive honorable mentions. I firmly believe that the way music is collected and listened to has already permanently changed. The album by a single artist or group is really no longer the defining unit when it comes to a collection of music. A playlist is. Even back in the early 1980's when I first started compiling "year's best" lists (I think my first was in 1981, topped by The Garden by John Foxx), I was more interested in individual tracks than entire albums. There is even more reason for that now that the availability of digital downloads means that purchasing individual songs is more and more common as opposed to buying entire albums - be they in digital or physical format.
OSI: Fire Make Thunder
In spite of that, if we do have a brief look at 2012 albums next, there is one release that can easily be selected above all others. It is in fact the one and only new album I bought this year: the self-titled album by the American symphonic prog group Echolyn which I already reviewed back in August. It is a slightly uneven piece of work, but an impressive one nonetheless.
Many other album releases that I anxiously waited for in advance turned out to be disappointing. Anastasis, the first studio album by Dead Can Dance in 16 years, is one that comes to mind in particular: high expectations that were met by mediocre results. Anastasis is not bad, and it's certainly better than the group's previous two releases: the completely aimless Into the Labyrinth (1993) or the too ethnic for its own good Spiritchaser (1996), but that's all you can say for its defense. On the Dead Can Dance scale, Anastasis is still well below average.
In much the same way, two groups that had shown promise on their earlier releases, Anathema and OSI let me down with their new albums Weather Systems and Fire Make Thunder, respectively. And an even bigger letdown than these two was All the Wars by The Pineapple Thief, on which I failed to find anything truly interesting whatsoever. Considering the group's earlier masterworks, this came as a definite surprise. Compared to it, even Sounds That Can't Be Made by Marillion seemed satisfying: I expected next to nothing and got exactly what I expected.
Anathema: Weather Systems
Of course, 2012 albums included some pleasant surprises as well. Many better works came from artists that I wasn't paying particular attention to beforehand. For example, a year ago I had already more or less forgotten about the Icelandic group Sigur Rós, whose 2008 album with the unpronounceable title had been such a huge disappointment back when it came out that I didn't even bother to listen to their new album Valtari until several months after its release, only to realise that they had made a really, really impressive return to form.
Another album for which I had low expectations to begin with was the debut album of Storm Corrosion. This was due to Steven Wilson's apparent growing interest towards heavy metal. When he decided to collaborate with Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth, I assumed that they would produce some kind of a black prog metal album that would contain a lot of growling vocals and be of little interest to me. As it turned out, I was wrong, and pleasantly surprised. There are no metal riffs at all on Storm Corrosion the album. Instead, it contains some of this year's best musical moments, although it is a noticeably uneven piece of work, just like Echolyn.
One more Swedish artist worth mentioning is the goth / dark ambient group Arcana, whose latest album As Bright as a Thousand Suns was released under my radar, but which I luckily stumbled across a little later and found many good moments contained therein.
Next, we narrow down the scope of the actual top 10 of 2012. As before, I have eliminated really long songs from the list because, at least to me, they seem like an art form of their own. Already in the 1980's, I compiled a separate list for them, drawing the line to 10 minutes. This year, there haven't been too many candidates in the "longer than 10 minutes" category, so it is then Echolyn who dominate that list, with Storm Corrosion a close second.
Echolyn's brilliant Speaking in Lampblack (10 mins. 45 secs.) would be my very first recommendation, closely followed by Island (16 mins. 38 secs.) from the same album. It would be advisable to also check out Storm Corrosion's Ljudet innan (10 mins. 7 secs.) as well as their album's title track (10 mins. 2 secs.). But that's really all the really outstanding long tracks from 2012 I have been able to discover so far.
Following this, we finally move on to the top 10... due to be ready and published right here either tomorrow or, at latest, on Monday, New Year's Eve. Please be sure to come back and check out the finest tracks running under 10 minutes and released during 2012.
lauantai 13. lokakuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: What Have We Sown? (song) by THE PINEAPPLE THIEF
Album: What We Have Sown
Year: 2007
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 27 mins. 23 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
Back in June, when I was compiling the Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces list, there was one song in particular that I had a problem with classifying. The song in question was Remember Us (2003), by the British indie rock / prog group The Pineapple Thief. I have already mentioned it earlier, when writing about the album whose closing track it is: Variations on a Dream.
Remember Us is a beautiful, long, even touching song that refers to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But is it really prog? I wasn't sure of that, so it was very easy to drop it out of the top 20 and think of it as #21. More recently, I have come across another song by the same group that might be close to that same rank: a long prog masterpiece, absolutely, but not quite worthy of the top 20.
The Pineapple Thief's 2007 album What We Have Sown is one of those recordings that I have somehow overlooked for a long time. Once again, thanks go to Spotify. It was only about one month ago that I noticed this album listed there and checked it out. It didn't take long to realise that What We Have Sown is overall one of the group's better efforts.
On top of that, it didn't take long to notice what was easily the most essential track on the album. What Have We Sown? is a long, challenging, constantly evolving song that runs for nearly half an hour. And what a rewarding half hour it is! This is prog at its best: creative, challenging, and unforgiving. What Have We Sown? offers neither an easy entrance nor an effortless way out. This is not a background musical piece. It requires you to really concentrate.
There are prolonged instrumental passages that have an ominous feel to them. The vocal passages are considerably easier on the ear, but they offer only temporary relief. The track opens with individual sounds that are more like sound effects than instrumentals parts of a composition. Overall, the long song fits perfectly the slightly off-kilter, almost supernatural feel of the album cover. It is an example of modern prog art at its very best, and definitely not far outside the Top 20 list of long prog masterpieces of all time.
Year: 2007
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 27 mins. 23 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
Back in June, when I was compiling the Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces list, there was one song in particular that I had a problem with classifying. The song in question was Remember Us (2003), by the British indie rock / prog group The Pineapple Thief. I have already mentioned it earlier, when writing about the album whose closing track it is: Variations on a Dream.
Remember Us is a beautiful, long, even touching song that refers to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But is it really prog? I wasn't sure of that, so it was very easy to drop it out of the top 20 and think of it as #21. More recently, I have come across another song by the same group that might be close to that same rank: a long prog masterpiece, absolutely, but not quite worthy of the top 20.
The Pineapple Thief's 2007 album What We Have Sown is one of those recordings that I have somehow overlooked for a long time. Once again, thanks go to Spotify. It was only about one month ago that I noticed this album listed there and checked it out. It didn't take long to realise that What We Have Sown is overall one of the group's better efforts.
On top of that, it didn't take long to notice what was easily the most essential track on the album. What Have We Sown? is a long, challenging, constantly evolving song that runs for nearly half an hour. And what a rewarding half hour it is! This is prog at its best: creative, challenging, and unforgiving. What Have We Sown? offers neither an easy entrance nor an effortless way out. This is not a background musical piece. It requires you to really concentrate.
There are prolonged instrumental passages that have an ominous feel to them. The vocal passages are considerably easier on the ear, but they offer only temporary relief. The track opens with individual sounds that are more like sound effects than instrumentals parts of a composition. Overall, the long song fits perfectly the slightly off-kilter, almost supernatural feel of the album cover. It is an example of modern prog art at its very best, and definitely not far outside the Top 20 list of long prog masterpieces of all time.
sunnuntai 9. syyskuuta 2012
Very strong recommendation: And Then There Were Three... (album), by GENESIS
Year: 1978
Country: United Kingdom
Spotify link (Entire remastered album)
YouTube link (Entire album)
And now, the gloves come off. I am now going to write something extremely controversial. When I did this same thing before, I was called an idiot. But yes, nevertheless, in my opinion which is not even particularly humble, the 1978 release And Then There Were Three... is the best album Genesis ever made. So there. This, combined with the opinion that Going for the One (1977) is the best Yes album ever, resulted in said insult.
This may not be a very popular opinion among prog fans, and some of them can be, shall we say, slightly fanatic about the correct order of things. But hey, come on, what is the alternative? To call the excruciatingly boring Selling England by the Pound (1973) the pinnacle of the group's output? Like they used to do here, although it has now gone down to third place over there?
Let's discuss And Then There Were Three... and do it properly. At the time, everyone remembered well enough the immensely disappointing departure of Peter Gabriel. He decided not to continue with Genesis in 1975, in the middle of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour. And leave he did, upon its completion. As a result of that shock, Genesis spent some time looking for a new lead singer, until they finally decided that Phil Collins was the right choice.
The band continued their recording career. First came the extremely enjoyable A Trick of the Tail, then the slightly weaker but still fully satisfactory Wind and Wuthering (both 1976). It seemed like everything was going to be all right after all. And this is when the bomb dropped. The lead guitarist Steve Hackett decided to leave Genesis as well. And then there were three...
I don't really have a concrete idea what the mood among the remaining three members of Genesis was in the aftermath of Hackett's decision. But it must have been hard. First, the key member and unquestionable leader of the group decides to leave. Then, another member does the same. It must have looked like there was no future for the group.
It is this desperation that must have given Genesis exactly the right frame of mind to write this unbelievable set of songs that they have never surpassed. At this point, it seems that the keyboardist Tony Banks had to assume the leader role within the group, which certainly affected the end result: And Then There Were Three... is a keyboard driven symphonic prog album in much the same way as Danger Money by U.K. was driven by Eddie Jobson's keyboards one year later.
This setup is particularly emphasized by one of the greatest opening tracks ever, Down and Out, where it is Banks's keyboards that drive the track forward and make it memorable along with its extremely peculiar time signature which is more than enough to remind the listener that this is a genuine progressive rock album.
Masterpiece after masterpiece keeps coming. Snowbound is easily the greatest song Mike Rutherford ever composed. Burning Rope is one of the best symphonic prog songs of the decade, along with Down and Out. Possibly The Lady Lies is the only song that outdoes them both, even though at its climax it ashamedly rips off Tony Kaye's piano sequence in A Venture (1971) by Yes. Even the mandatory single hit, very commercial Follow You Follow Me is a genuinely beautiful song that you can't help liking even though it has nothing to do with prog.
The only two tracks that can be considered less than masterful are Ballad of Big, a western story that, while it is a perfectly fine song, fails to really impress; and more importantly, Scenes from a Night's Dream. The only humorous track on the album is its only true failure. Like so many times before, whenever Genesis tries to be funny, they suck. See also Robbery, Assault and Battery; The Return of Giant Hogweed; Lurker etc.
I bought And Then There Were Three... in September 1979, and after repeated listenings, came to the conclusion that it was the best album I had ever heard. This is something I no longer agree with. In hindsight, I think Going for the One by Yes is even better. These two albums from the late 1970's represent everything that I value in music. Both have strong keyboardists and are very melody driven yet not in a straightforward way.
These are the top two albums I can think of. It is therefore all the more surprising that the third album in my personal all time top three was made in the 2000's. I guess I should write about that one next.
For Genesis, this masterful period turned out to be short-lived. Tony Banks handed over the group leading duties to Phil Collins, and we all know how that turned out. Genesis quickly transformed into a meaningless pop group in the vein of Collins' highly successful solo album Face Value (1981). As a result, they wrote one or two pretty good tracks even in the early 1980's but the masterful phase that both began and ended with And Then There Were Three... was forever lost.
By the time Invisible Touch (1986) came out, a genuine music fan no longer knew whether to laugh or cry. Whatever remains of musical genius was left, Collins drove to the ground with his weepy and whiny pop songs that would have better suited someone like Celine Dion to interpret. It is therefore all the more satisfying to think that, before all this happened, the group had a moment of uncertainty and produced at least one masterpiece, before succcumbing to blatant commercialism.
Country: United Kingdom
Spotify link (Entire remastered album)
YouTube link (Entire album)
And now, the gloves come off. I am now going to write something extremely controversial. When I did this same thing before, I was called an idiot. But yes, nevertheless, in my opinion which is not even particularly humble, the 1978 release And Then There Were Three... is the best album Genesis ever made. So there. This, combined with the opinion that Going for the One (1977) is the best Yes album ever, resulted in said insult.
This may not be a very popular opinion among prog fans, and some of them can be, shall we say, slightly fanatic about the correct order of things. But hey, come on, what is the alternative? To call the excruciatingly boring Selling England by the Pound (1973) the pinnacle of the group's output? Like they used to do here, although it has now gone down to third place over there?
Let's discuss And Then There Were Three... and do it properly. At the time, everyone remembered well enough the immensely disappointing departure of Peter Gabriel. He decided not to continue with Genesis in 1975, in the middle of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour. And leave he did, upon its completion. As a result of that shock, Genesis spent some time looking for a new lead singer, until they finally decided that Phil Collins was the right choice.
The band continued their recording career. First came the extremely enjoyable A Trick of the Tail, then the slightly weaker but still fully satisfactory Wind and Wuthering (both 1976). It seemed like everything was going to be all right after all. And this is when the bomb dropped. The lead guitarist Steve Hackett decided to leave Genesis as well. And then there were three...
I don't really have a concrete idea what the mood among the remaining three members of Genesis was in the aftermath of Hackett's decision. But it must have been hard. First, the key member and unquestionable leader of the group decides to leave. Then, another member does the same. It must have looked like there was no future for the group.
It is this desperation that must have given Genesis exactly the right frame of mind to write this unbelievable set of songs that they have never surpassed. At this point, it seems that the keyboardist Tony Banks had to assume the leader role within the group, which certainly affected the end result: And Then There Were Three... is a keyboard driven symphonic prog album in much the same way as Danger Money by U.K. was driven by Eddie Jobson's keyboards one year later.
This setup is particularly emphasized by one of the greatest opening tracks ever, Down and Out, where it is Banks's keyboards that drive the track forward and make it memorable along with its extremely peculiar time signature which is more than enough to remind the listener that this is a genuine progressive rock album.
Masterpiece after masterpiece keeps coming. Snowbound is easily the greatest song Mike Rutherford ever composed. Burning Rope is one of the best symphonic prog songs of the decade, along with Down and Out. Possibly The Lady Lies is the only song that outdoes them both, even though at its climax it ashamedly rips off Tony Kaye's piano sequence in A Venture (1971) by Yes. Even the mandatory single hit, very commercial Follow You Follow Me is a genuinely beautiful song that you can't help liking even though it has nothing to do with prog.
The only two tracks that can be considered less than masterful are Ballad of Big, a western story that, while it is a perfectly fine song, fails to really impress; and more importantly, Scenes from a Night's Dream. The only humorous track on the album is its only true failure. Like so many times before, whenever Genesis tries to be funny, they suck. See also Robbery, Assault and Battery; The Return of Giant Hogweed; Lurker etc.
I bought And Then There Were Three... in September 1979, and after repeated listenings, came to the conclusion that it was the best album I had ever heard. This is something I no longer agree with. In hindsight, I think Going for the One by Yes is even better. These two albums from the late 1970's represent everything that I value in music. Both have strong keyboardists and are very melody driven yet not in a straightforward way.
These are the top two albums I can think of. It is therefore all the more surprising that the third album in my personal all time top three was made in the 2000's. I guess I should write about that one next.
For Genesis, this masterful period turned out to be short-lived. Tony Banks handed over the group leading duties to Phil Collins, and we all know how that turned out. Genesis quickly transformed into a meaningless pop group in the vein of Collins' highly successful solo album Face Value (1981). As a result, they wrote one or two pretty good tracks even in the early 1980's but the masterful phase that both began and ended with And Then There Were Three... was forever lost.
By the time Invisible Touch (1986) came out, a genuine music fan no longer knew whether to laugh or cry. Whatever remains of musical genius was left, Collins drove to the ground with his weepy and whiny pop songs that would have better suited someone like Celine Dion to interpret. It is therefore all the more satisfying to think that, before all this happened, the group had a moment of uncertainty and produced at least one masterpiece, before succcumbing to blatant commercialism.
tiistai 28. elokuuta 2012
Review: Echolyn (album), by ECHOLYN
Echolyn: Echolyn
USA 2012
Release date: 9 July
Ray Weston - lead and backing vocals
Brett Kull - guitars, lead and backing vocals
Tom Hyatt - bass, backing vocals
Paul Ramsey - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Christopher Buzby - keyboards, backing vocals
1. Island (YouTube link)
2. Headright
3. Locust to Bethlehem
4. Some Memorial
5. Past Gravity (YouTube link)
6. When Sunday Spills
7. Speaking in Lampblack (YouTube link)
8. The Cardinal and I
Pennsylvania's pride Echolyn is generally labeled as a representant of symphonic progressive rock, which is the most common and easily accessible subgenre of prog. Much like before, on their new album they frequently border on regular mellow rock, not sounding much like prog at all. The more challenging sequences, on the other hand, become all the more surprising for this very reason. Echolyn is really not an easy album to access; it is only very good at giving such a false impression.
The group's previous release The End is Beautiful (2005) is already seven years in the past - a longer period of silence, recording-wise, than what was experienced when they broke up in the aftermath of As the World (1995) only to regroup for Cowboy Poems Free (2000). The long period of perfecting new material can be heard: overall, the new album is an improvement on its predecessor.
In comparison with the hard rock influences of The End is Beautiful, the new album gives an impression of serenity, calm and effortlessness. The previous album definitely had its moments as well, but the more mellow soundscape of Echolyn is not only easier on the ear, but also more melody driven.
The real centerpiece of the entire album is its opening track, Island. A brave choice, considering that a potential album buyer might be turned off by it. Island runs nearly 17 minutes and even though it begins with easy enough rock riffs, it soon delves deep into prog territory that might be a turn off for some potential album buyers. Even I wasn't too crazy about the song to begin with, until a few listenings later. Eventually I learned to appreciate the track which clearly is among the very best of the group's output.
The second track Headright is way easier, and also much shorter. In terms of form it is a much more traditional rock song. This also applies to the following track, the infinitely beautiful Locust to Bethlehem, which proves the maturity of Echolyn and I think it might just be my personal number one favourite on the entire album. This is admittedly a close call with track number 7.
Until now, we have been doing really, really well. But following the first three tracks, there is an additional three that, while still pretty good, are nowhere near as convincing. This is not to say that they are not worthy of the group or this album, but to me, they sound like weaker efforts than the previous three. The mellow, easygoing feeling persists but composition-wise, we seem to descend to only average instead of good or great.
The seventh track that saves the day, is the stunning Speaking in Lampblack, my second nominee for the best track on the album. Consisting of several, distinctly different movements that are linked together and running nearly 11 minutes, we are now again in melodic rock territory: easy to access, with only very minor prog influences.
And speaking of those, they make a magnificient return on track 8 which is the closing track of the double album. To begin with, I totally dismissed The Cardinal and I as a somewhat failed experiment of some kind. Hardly a discernible melody and little else of any interest. Boy, was I proven wrong upon repeated listenings! Now, the closing track is one of my definite favourites on the album: a real stress test for anyone's capability to stand progressive rock.
Echolyn shares the same title as the group's debut, released in 1991. This is a somewhat peculiar choice of title, as it is guaranteed to cause confusion between the two recordings. Already, iTunes informs us that the release year of this new album is 1991, and similar mixups will certainly reoccur.
Another strange choice is the decision to release Echolyn as a double album. The first four tracks have been stored on Disc 1 and the remaining four on Disc 2. This wouldn't be strange in itself, had those two separate discs been recorded nearly full. But no, they are both half empty. The entire combined running time of the eight tracks is just under 71 minutes which means that they would have been easy to fit on a single disc.
The double album status of course has its effect on pricing. The iTunes download alone costs a whopping 17,99 euros in the eurozone, and if you want to buy physical discs that will cost you well over 20 euros, depending on where you make the purchase. This is not very nice. Just look at Dream Theater, many of their albums are about as long but have been released on a single disc and priced accordingly.
Time for closing statements. While the new album's peaks are not as high as some of their previous albums', Echolyn is nonetheless an outstanding effort and what's best about it is its even quality. At best, Echolyn is great and even at its worst, pretty good. The quality "valley" that consists of tracks four through six is not a deep gorge that you want to jump across as soon as you can.
Considering all this, it is my humble opinion that overall, Echolyn is the second best album Echolyn has ever made. Sure, the peaks of As the World are way higher than anything presented here, but that album also contained several really weak tracks that you really do want to jump across. Echolyn has no such failures. It is like a Formula 1 driver that reaches the second place in the championships without winning a single race. It is one of those rare albums that has no really weak tracks. Only the second time for Echolyn.
Yes, that is correct. A decade ago Echolyn already released one album that also didn't contain a single weak track. In fact, it contained only one track. While the new Echolyn is a really, really good album it naturally pales in comparison with Mei (2002) whose title track is the eighth greatest Long Prog Masterpiece of all time. That is the album that the group will hopefully be remembered for, in the decades to come. Get your hands on both, and you have the best possible introduction to this excellent prog group who will hopefully release many, many more albums. I certainly hope we don't have to wait another seven years for the next one.
USA 2012
Release date: 9 July
Ray Weston - lead and backing vocals
Brett Kull - guitars, lead and backing vocals
Tom Hyatt - bass, backing vocals
Paul Ramsey - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Christopher Buzby - keyboards, backing vocals
1. Island (YouTube link)
2. Headright
3. Locust to Bethlehem
4. Some Memorial
5. Past Gravity (YouTube link)
6. When Sunday Spills
7. Speaking in Lampblack (YouTube link)
8. The Cardinal and I
Pennsylvania's pride Echolyn is generally labeled as a representant of symphonic progressive rock, which is the most common and easily accessible subgenre of prog. Much like before, on their new album they frequently border on regular mellow rock, not sounding much like prog at all. The more challenging sequences, on the other hand, become all the more surprising for this very reason. Echolyn is really not an easy album to access; it is only very good at giving such a false impression.
The group's previous release The End is Beautiful (2005) is already seven years in the past - a longer period of silence, recording-wise, than what was experienced when they broke up in the aftermath of As the World (1995) only to regroup for Cowboy Poems Free (2000). The long period of perfecting new material can be heard: overall, the new album is an improvement on its predecessor.
In comparison with the hard rock influences of The End is Beautiful, the new album gives an impression of serenity, calm and effortlessness. The previous album definitely had its moments as well, but the more mellow soundscape of Echolyn is not only easier on the ear, but also more melody driven.
The real centerpiece of the entire album is its opening track, Island. A brave choice, considering that a potential album buyer might be turned off by it. Island runs nearly 17 minutes and even though it begins with easy enough rock riffs, it soon delves deep into prog territory that might be a turn off for some potential album buyers. Even I wasn't too crazy about the song to begin with, until a few listenings later. Eventually I learned to appreciate the track which clearly is among the very best of the group's output.
The second track Headright is way easier, and also much shorter. In terms of form it is a much more traditional rock song. This also applies to the following track, the infinitely beautiful Locust to Bethlehem, which proves the maturity of Echolyn and I think it might just be my personal number one favourite on the entire album. This is admittedly a close call with track number 7.
Until now, we have been doing really, really well. But following the first three tracks, there is an additional three that, while still pretty good, are nowhere near as convincing. This is not to say that they are not worthy of the group or this album, but to me, they sound like weaker efforts than the previous three. The mellow, easygoing feeling persists but composition-wise, we seem to descend to only average instead of good or great.
The seventh track that saves the day, is the stunning Speaking in Lampblack, my second nominee for the best track on the album. Consisting of several, distinctly different movements that are linked together and running nearly 11 minutes, we are now again in melodic rock territory: easy to access, with only very minor prog influences.
And speaking of those, they make a magnificient return on track 8 which is the closing track of the double album. To begin with, I totally dismissed The Cardinal and I as a somewhat failed experiment of some kind. Hardly a discernible melody and little else of any interest. Boy, was I proven wrong upon repeated listenings! Now, the closing track is one of my definite favourites on the album: a real stress test for anyone's capability to stand progressive rock.
Echolyn shares the same title as the group's debut, released in 1991. This is a somewhat peculiar choice of title, as it is guaranteed to cause confusion between the two recordings. Already, iTunes informs us that the release year of this new album is 1991, and similar mixups will certainly reoccur.
Another strange choice is the decision to release Echolyn as a double album. The first four tracks have been stored on Disc 1 and the remaining four on Disc 2. This wouldn't be strange in itself, had those two separate discs been recorded nearly full. But no, they are both half empty. The entire combined running time of the eight tracks is just under 71 minutes which means that they would have been easy to fit on a single disc.
The double album status of course has its effect on pricing. The iTunes download alone costs a whopping 17,99 euros in the eurozone, and if you want to buy physical discs that will cost you well over 20 euros, depending on where you make the purchase. This is not very nice. Just look at Dream Theater, many of their albums are about as long but have been released on a single disc and priced accordingly.
Time for closing statements. While the new album's peaks are not as high as some of their previous albums', Echolyn is nonetheless an outstanding effort and what's best about it is its even quality. At best, Echolyn is great and even at its worst, pretty good. The quality "valley" that consists of tracks four through six is not a deep gorge that you want to jump across as soon as you can.
Considering all this, it is my humble opinion that overall, Echolyn is the second best album Echolyn has ever made. Sure, the peaks of As the World are way higher than anything presented here, but that album also contained several really weak tracks that you really do want to jump across. Echolyn has no such failures. It is like a Formula 1 driver that reaches the second place in the championships without winning a single race. It is one of those rare albums that has no really weak tracks. Only the second time for Echolyn.
Yes, that is correct. A decade ago Echolyn already released one album that also didn't contain a single weak track. In fact, it contained only one track. While the new Echolyn is a really, really good album it naturally pales in comparison with Mei (2002) whose title track is the eighth greatest Long Prog Masterpiece of all time. That is the album that the group will hopefully be remembered for, in the decades to come. Get your hands on both, and you have the best possible introduction to this excellent prog group who will hopefully release many, many more albums. I certainly hope we don't have to wait another seven years for the next one.
sunnuntai 19. elokuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: Variations on a Dream (album), by THE PINEAPPLE THIEF
Year: 2003
Country: United Kingdom
Spotify link (Entire album, 2011 remastered edition)
YouTube link (We Subside)
YouTube link (Vapour Trails)
YouTube link (Resident Alien)
YouTube link (Remember Us)
Variations on a Dream, by the British prog group The Pineapple Thief, can be considered a cult classic. The group was formed at the end of the 1990's and had at this point released two previous albums: Abducting the Unicorn (1999) and 137 (2001). It wasn't until their third album that they made their real breakthrough, and deservedly so.
Were the entire album as exceptionally great as its standout tracks We Subside, Vapour Trails, Resident Alien and Remember Us, it would easily have earned the honour of ProgActive's Very Strong Recommendation. But, even as it is, any album that contains four masterpieces clocking well over half an hour, is most definitely worth checking out even though the rest of the album varies only between very good and satisfactory. The album may contain ten tracks in total, but it is these four that use well over half of its running time.
Since their formation, The Pineapple Thief has really been one man's band. The founder, Bruce Soord has always been the unquestionable artistic leader. Under his direction, the group has until now released a further five albums: 10 Stories Down (2005), Little Man (2006), What We Have Sown (2007), Tightly Unwound (2008) and Someone Here is Missing (2010). Right now, we are less than three weeks away from the release of The Pineapple Thief's ninth studio album All the Wars.
While most of the recent albums have shown exceptional quality here and there, the group has never truly surpassed their third outing. The opening track of Variations on a Dream, We Subside, is one of the greatest masterpieces of the 21st century and is also a definite fan favourite. I must say that I don't really appreciate the silly lyrics but the music is unbelievable. At the beginning, The Pineapple Thief sounds like a classical music ensemble and while a guitar rock instumentation is added later on, we end the track as it began: as something that might have been composed by Bach or Beethoven.
In much the same way, the album's third track Vapour Trails suffers from almost meaningless lyrics but displays another version of the group's masterful sound. The beautiful melody is this time played with regular, acoustic guitar driven instumentation, with no classical music influences present. The sixth track, Resident Alien, is a beautiful instumental that once again employs string arrangements.
The original release contained only ten tracks and also had a different cover artwork from last year's remastered edition, pictured above. This is how the original release looked like:
The album's closing track Remember Us is the other undying masterpiece on it, in addition to We Subside. Clocking over 16 minutes, this magnum opus is associated with 9/11 for reasons I am not aware of. Yes, sure, the album was released two years after the terrorist attack that brought down the WTC in New York, and its tone is sad, sombre even, so I guess it may be a 9/11 song even though that isn't really mentioned in its lyrics. Here they are in their entirety:
I know everything
We say no
But it doesn't mean a thing
Follow everything
But we know
It doesn't mean a thing.
Come on, it's over
Remember us when we're gone
It's over, for sure
And that's it for a 16-minute song. I see no reference to one particular terrorist attack, but be that as it may, it certainly works as a sort of a requiem to its victims. The mood is extremely sad and the melody is incredibly beautiful. Variations on a Dream may end to a very sorrowful note, but is nonetheless one of the very best albums released during the new century.
Country: United Kingdom
Spotify link (Entire album, 2011 remastered edition)
YouTube link (We Subside)
YouTube link (Vapour Trails)
YouTube link (Resident Alien)
YouTube link (Remember Us)
Variations on a Dream, by the British prog group The Pineapple Thief, can be considered a cult classic. The group was formed at the end of the 1990's and had at this point released two previous albums: Abducting the Unicorn (1999) and 137 (2001). It wasn't until their third album that they made their real breakthrough, and deservedly so.
Were the entire album as exceptionally great as its standout tracks We Subside, Vapour Trails, Resident Alien and Remember Us, it would easily have earned the honour of ProgActive's Very Strong Recommendation. But, even as it is, any album that contains four masterpieces clocking well over half an hour, is most definitely worth checking out even though the rest of the album varies only between very good and satisfactory. The album may contain ten tracks in total, but it is these four that use well over half of its running time.
Since their formation, The Pineapple Thief has really been one man's band. The founder, Bruce Soord has always been the unquestionable artistic leader. Under his direction, the group has until now released a further five albums: 10 Stories Down (2005), Little Man (2006), What We Have Sown (2007), Tightly Unwound (2008) and Someone Here is Missing (2010). Right now, we are less than three weeks away from the release of The Pineapple Thief's ninth studio album All the Wars.
While most of the recent albums have shown exceptional quality here and there, the group has never truly surpassed their third outing. The opening track of Variations on a Dream, We Subside, is one of the greatest masterpieces of the 21st century and is also a definite fan favourite. I must say that I don't really appreciate the silly lyrics but the music is unbelievable. At the beginning, The Pineapple Thief sounds like a classical music ensemble and while a guitar rock instumentation is added later on, we end the track as it began: as something that might have been composed by Bach or Beethoven.
In much the same way, the album's third track Vapour Trails suffers from almost meaningless lyrics but displays another version of the group's masterful sound. The beautiful melody is this time played with regular, acoustic guitar driven instumentation, with no classical music influences present. The sixth track, Resident Alien, is a beautiful instumental that once again employs string arrangements.
The original release contained only ten tracks and also had a different cover artwork from last year's remastered edition, pictured above. This is how the original release looked like:
The album's closing track Remember Us is the other undying masterpiece on it, in addition to We Subside. Clocking over 16 minutes, this magnum opus is associated with 9/11 for reasons I am not aware of. Yes, sure, the album was released two years after the terrorist attack that brought down the WTC in New York, and its tone is sad, sombre even, so I guess it may be a 9/11 song even though that isn't really mentioned in its lyrics. Here they are in their entirety:
I know everything
We say no
But it doesn't mean a thing
Follow everything
But we know
It doesn't mean a thing.
Come on, it's over
Remember us when we're gone
It's over, for sure
And that's it for a 16-minute song. I see no reference to one particular terrorist attack, but be that as it may, it certainly works as a sort of a requiem to its victims. The mood is extremely sad and the melody is incredibly beautiful. Variations on a Dream may end to a very sorrowful note, but is nonetheless one of the very best albums released during the new century.
torstai 9. elokuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: Ibby it is (instrumental), by HAPPY THE MAN
Album: Crafty Hands
Year: 1978
Country: USA
Running time: 7 mins. 50 secs.
YouTube link
Happy the Man is an American prog band formed in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1973. Their self-titled debut (1977) is considered one of the essential American prog albums of the 1970's and I definitely must agree, although Happy the Man the album is noticeably uneven. Great at its best, slightly embarrassing at its worst. Even so, overall, it is the group's best work.
Only one year later, Happy the Man released their sophomore effort Crafty Hands, which had absolutely no commercial impact and led to the dissolution of their recording contract. And, one must admit, it is a weaker effort than its predecessor. It starts out quite well, then slowly dwindles into mediocrity. At the very beginning, there are a couple of pretty good tracks. Then there is track number 3 which is an unbelievable masterpiece. After that, the only remaining decent track seems to be the only non-instrumental one, Wind Up Doll Day Wind.
The masterpiece in question is the nearly 8-minute instrumental track called Ibby it is, simply phenomenal both as a composition and an achievement in skillful use of musical instruments. It is one of the best examples of one simple truth that I am aware of. While progressive rock may be perceived as something truly serious and joyless by the general public, it is in fact the most fun musical genre there is. You simply cannot listen to the impeccable skill and fun the guys have playing this track, without a wide grin on your face. Prog equals FUN! Oh, yes.
Happy the Man's peculiar name probably originates from a relatively unknown Genesis song from the Peter Gabriel era - unknown due to the fact that it was never included on any of their albums. This seems quite fitting, as the group's sound is not very American. Instead, they sound a lot like the British symphonic prog groups of the era.
Gabriel played an important role in helping Happy the Man get a recording contract in the first place, albeit inadvertently. He personally met them in the summer of 1976, following his departure from Genesis, while looking for new musicians to be his new "band". Eventually, he decided against them, but it was this encounter that led to sufficient attention towards Happy the Man that they were able to sign a recording deal with Arista, and release their first two albums.
Following Crafty Hands, Happy the Man released only a couple of collections of their early recordings which sound more like rehearsals than proper studio albums (the 37-minute epic Death's Crown is an obvious standout), until 2004 when their third real studio album was finally released. The Muse Awakens contains mostly instrumental music, which seemed to be their strong suit also earlier on.
The main reason for the group's instrumentals always sounding better than their songs is that they never had a strong vocalist. One of the original members Stanley Whitaker handled the singing duties in addition to playing guitars, but was never really much of a singer. Although he could certainly carry a tune, most of the time he sounded really unsure of himself, almost apologetic. During particularly emotional passages he even tended to pipe a falsetto vibrato that may or may not have been fully intentional.
Ibby it is doesn't suffer from uncertain vocal work. It is an exceptionally well played symphonic prog instrumental that employs eccentric time signatures. When it really gets going, it gives you an impression of getting airborne and circling you with its complicated melodies that move and change shape rapidly. The group is working at the peak of their creativity, most of which went into their debut album, but some luckily still remained and gave us this undying masterpiece.
Year: 1978
Country: USA
Running time: 7 mins. 50 secs.
YouTube link
Happy the Man is an American prog band formed in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1973. Their self-titled debut (1977) is considered one of the essential American prog albums of the 1970's and I definitely must agree, although Happy the Man the album is noticeably uneven. Great at its best, slightly embarrassing at its worst. Even so, overall, it is the group's best work.
Only one year later, Happy the Man released their sophomore effort Crafty Hands, which had absolutely no commercial impact and led to the dissolution of their recording contract. And, one must admit, it is a weaker effort than its predecessor. It starts out quite well, then slowly dwindles into mediocrity. At the very beginning, there are a couple of pretty good tracks. Then there is track number 3 which is an unbelievable masterpiece. After that, the only remaining decent track seems to be the only non-instrumental one, Wind Up Doll Day Wind.
The masterpiece in question is the nearly 8-minute instrumental track called Ibby it is, simply phenomenal both as a composition and an achievement in skillful use of musical instruments. It is one of the best examples of one simple truth that I am aware of. While progressive rock may be perceived as something truly serious and joyless by the general public, it is in fact the most fun musical genre there is. You simply cannot listen to the impeccable skill and fun the guys have playing this track, without a wide grin on your face. Prog equals FUN! Oh, yes.
Happy the Man's peculiar name probably originates from a relatively unknown Genesis song from the Peter Gabriel era - unknown due to the fact that it was never included on any of their albums. This seems quite fitting, as the group's sound is not very American. Instead, they sound a lot like the British symphonic prog groups of the era.
Gabriel played an important role in helping Happy the Man get a recording contract in the first place, albeit inadvertently. He personally met them in the summer of 1976, following his departure from Genesis, while looking for new musicians to be his new "band". Eventually, he decided against them, but it was this encounter that led to sufficient attention towards Happy the Man that they were able to sign a recording deal with Arista, and release their first two albums.
Following Crafty Hands, Happy the Man released only a couple of collections of their early recordings which sound more like rehearsals than proper studio albums (the 37-minute epic Death's Crown is an obvious standout), until 2004 when their third real studio album was finally released. The Muse Awakens contains mostly instrumental music, which seemed to be their strong suit also earlier on.
The main reason for the group's instrumentals always sounding better than their songs is that they never had a strong vocalist. One of the original members Stanley Whitaker handled the singing duties in addition to playing guitars, but was never really much of a singer. Although he could certainly carry a tune, most of the time he sounded really unsure of himself, almost apologetic. During particularly emotional passages he even tended to pipe a falsetto vibrato that may or may not have been fully intentional.
Ibby it is doesn't suffer from uncertain vocal work. It is an exceptionally well played symphonic prog instrumental that employs eccentric time signatures. When it really gets going, it gives you an impression of getting airborne and circling you with its complicated melodies that move and change shape rapidly. The group is working at the peak of their creativity, most of which went into their debut album, but some luckily still remained and gave us this undying masterpiece.
torstai 2. elokuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: The Seven Dreams (album), by GOLDBUG
Year: 2010
Country: USA / United Kingdom
Spotify link
After having flirted with the mainstream for a short while, we are now back deep, extremely deep in progressive rock territory. I was unable to find Goldbug in YouTube and was actually rather surprised to find them in Spotify - hence the link above. Their first release The Seven Dreams from a couple of years ago remains a stunning and challenging masterpiece that really requires you to concentrate on listening instead of simply hearing.
Influenced by jazz and avant garde as well as prog, and obviously improvised for a considerable part, The Seven Dreams is the result of a collaboration between veterans of said genres. Arguably the best known of the group members is flutist and saxophonist Theo Travis, a former member of Gong and Soft Machine who has also worked with Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame. Another connection to King Crimson comes via drummer Eric Slick, a member of the Adrian Belew Power Trio, Belew obviously formerly known as the second guitarist of King Crimson since the early 1980's.
Together with bassist Barry Meehan and guitarist Tim Motzer, who, in his past, has collaborated with former Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit (sorry about the deluge of references here), they have created a truly astounding album that really begs for some sort of a continuation. I have no idea if Goldbug is going to continue to record following this initial offering, but would be truly excited about such a prospect.
On this album, the two longest tracks are arguably the least interesting, although far from mundane. The 11-minute-plus works Scratching the Third Eye and The Past is Still Present sound slightly underdeveloped in relation to their running time. Mind you, this is a very, very minor complaint: they are outstanding pieces of music but do not quite match the rest of the album which is nothing short of flawless.
The Seven Dreams is easily one of the most significant prog albums of the 2010's. It is not very easy to access, but extremely rewarding for listeners with patience and an endless desire to experiment, discover, and readiness to expand the boundaries of their musical taste.
Country: USA / United Kingdom
Spotify link
After having flirted with the mainstream for a short while, we are now back deep, extremely deep in progressive rock territory. I was unable to find Goldbug in YouTube and was actually rather surprised to find them in Spotify - hence the link above. Their first release The Seven Dreams from a couple of years ago remains a stunning and challenging masterpiece that really requires you to concentrate on listening instead of simply hearing.
Influenced by jazz and avant garde as well as prog, and obviously improvised for a considerable part, The Seven Dreams is the result of a collaboration between veterans of said genres. Arguably the best known of the group members is flutist and saxophonist Theo Travis, a former member of Gong and Soft Machine who has also worked with Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame. Another connection to King Crimson comes via drummer Eric Slick, a member of the Adrian Belew Power Trio, Belew obviously formerly known as the second guitarist of King Crimson since the early 1980's.
Together with bassist Barry Meehan and guitarist Tim Motzer, who, in his past, has collaborated with former Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit (sorry about the deluge of references here), they have created a truly astounding album that really begs for some sort of a continuation. I have no idea if Goldbug is going to continue to record following this initial offering, but would be truly excited about such a prospect.
On this album, the two longest tracks are arguably the least interesting, although far from mundane. The 11-minute-plus works Scratching the Third Eye and The Past is Still Present sound slightly underdeveloped in relation to their running time. Mind you, this is a very, very minor complaint: they are outstanding pieces of music but do not quite match the rest of the album which is nothing short of flawless.
The Seven Dreams is easily one of the most significant prog albums of the 2010's. It is not very easy to access, but extremely rewarding for listeners with patience and an endless desire to experiment, discover, and readiness to expand the boundaries of their musical taste.
sunnuntai 29. heinäkuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: Three Fact Fader (album), by ENGINEERS
Year: 2009
Country: United Kingdom
Spotify link (Entire album)
YouTube link (Clean Coloured Wire)
YouTube link (Helped By Science)
YouTube link (Emergency Room)
One of the absolute best albums of the 00's has very little, if nothing to do with prog. The outstanding British group Engineers is a pop/rock group that belongs to the shoegazing subgenre of pop made famous by outfits such as the better known French duo Air. While their type of pop music may not be particularly challenging to a listener, Engineers are an exceptional group nonetheless. Their capability of creating beautiful, memorable melodies without descending into meaninglessness is truly exemplary.
Three Fact Fader, released three years ago, was their second full length album and so far remains their crowning achievement. Even though some less powerful tracks are included, there are enough masterworks to achieve a classic status overall. The album opens with the modern classic Clean Coloured Wire which is actually based on a sample of Watussi, by the German group Harmonia, a track from their 1974 album Musik von Harmonia.
As great a song as Clean Coloured Wire is, I personally think it still pales in comparison with Helped By Science, possibly the greatest pop song of the decade. It is the one track where the Engineers' talent for building melodies shines brighter than anywhere else. Emergency Room builds a highly effective wall of sound on top of yet another attractive melody. Other standouts on the album include the title track Three Fact Fader as well as Crawl from the Wreckage, neither of which I was able to find in YouTube, so therefore no links are available above.
Engineers made their recording debut with an EP called Folly in September 2004. That recording already showed significant promise, opening with one of their all time greatest songs A Given Right. A single release Forgiveness followed in February 2005, containing an even greater work called Stake to Glory, one of the most beautiful pop songs of that year - maybe even the whole decade.
After these smaller releases, the self-titled, full length debut album Engineers was finally released in March 2005. This extremely impressive beginning of a recording career was then interrupted for well over four years, until Three Fact Fader came out in July 2009. As impressive as the debut album had been, its follow-up was even better. It seemed that Engineers could do nothing wrong.
Well, it turned out that they could. Their third album was rushed into an eagerly waiting market at the end of September 2010. In Praise of More was, in every way, as much of a disappointment as the earlier recordings had been pleasant surprises. Suffice to say, it wasn't a terrible album, but not a particularly good one either. At the time we are waiting to see how Engineers are going to recuperate from this disappointment.
Commercially, Engineers never did particularly well with Three Fact Fader, let alone its successor. Their debut peaked at #84 on the U.K. chart and generated some attention towards them, but neither one of the following two albums was able to reach a chart position.
Country: United Kingdom
Spotify link (Entire album)
YouTube link (Clean Coloured Wire)
YouTube link (Helped By Science)
YouTube link (Emergency Room)
One of the absolute best albums of the 00's has very little, if nothing to do with prog. The outstanding British group Engineers is a pop/rock group that belongs to the shoegazing subgenre of pop made famous by outfits such as the better known French duo Air. While their type of pop music may not be particularly challenging to a listener, Engineers are an exceptional group nonetheless. Their capability of creating beautiful, memorable melodies without descending into meaninglessness is truly exemplary.
Three Fact Fader, released three years ago, was their second full length album and so far remains their crowning achievement. Even though some less powerful tracks are included, there are enough masterworks to achieve a classic status overall. The album opens with the modern classic Clean Coloured Wire which is actually based on a sample of Watussi, by the German group Harmonia, a track from their 1974 album Musik von Harmonia.
As great a song as Clean Coloured Wire is, I personally think it still pales in comparison with Helped By Science, possibly the greatest pop song of the decade. It is the one track where the Engineers' talent for building melodies shines brighter than anywhere else. Emergency Room builds a highly effective wall of sound on top of yet another attractive melody. Other standouts on the album include the title track Three Fact Fader as well as Crawl from the Wreckage, neither of which I was able to find in YouTube, so therefore no links are available above.
Engineers made their recording debut with an EP called Folly in September 2004. That recording already showed significant promise, opening with one of their all time greatest songs A Given Right. A single release Forgiveness followed in February 2005, containing an even greater work called Stake to Glory, one of the most beautiful pop songs of that year - maybe even the whole decade.
After these smaller releases, the self-titled, full length debut album Engineers was finally released in March 2005. This extremely impressive beginning of a recording career was then interrupted for well over four years, until Three Fact Fader came out in July 2009. As impressive as the debut album had been, its follow-up was even better. It seemed that Engineers could do nothing wrong.
Well, it turned out that they could. Their third album was rushed into an eagerly waiting market at the end of September 2010. In Praise of More was, in every way, as much of a disappointment as the earlier recordings had been pleasant surprises. Suffice to say, it wasn't a terrible album, but not a particularly good one either. At the time we are waiting to see how Engineers are going to recuperate from this disappointment.
Commercially, Engineers never did particularly well with Three Fact Fader, let alone its successor. Their debut peaked at #84 on the U.K. chart and generated some attention towards them, but neither one of the following two albums was able to reach a chart position.
lauantai 28. heinäkuuta 2012
Very strong recommendation: Never the Same (song), by ECHOLYN
Album: As the World
Year: 1995
Country: USA
Running time: 7 mins. 56 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
The American progressive rock group Echolyn peaked quite early. While I consider Mei (2002) their true masterpiece, it seems that the majority of their fans prefer the earlier release As the World (1995) which was their third full length album and the first one recorded for a major label. It was this album and the band's differences of opinion with Sony Music that actually caused them to split up for several years, only to reform five years later to record Cowboy Poems Free (2000).
While As the World contains several powerful songs, I have always felt it to be way too uneven in comparison with Mei. For every truly masterful song such as Entry 11-19-93, One for the Show and A Habit Worth Forming there are at least a couple of forgettable ones included. But the real masterstroke comes at the end. The last of the - count them! - 16 tracks on the album is the absolute masterpiece that is still to be surpassed in the entire output of the group.
Never the Same concludes As the World in a grandiose fashion. The subject of the 8-minute song is nothing less than life everlasting.
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there I did not die
I say to you I will see you again
On the other side someday
The group's message about nothing ever really dying might seem silly were it not supported by possibly their strongest composition ever. After repeated verses, the chorus expands to proportions that are at the same time pathetic and extremely moving. And no matter whether you take the idea of reincarnation or an everlasting soul seriously, you cannot help being impressed by the way Echolyn deliver this particular message. You must have a heart of stone if your eyes are still dry by the time the song starts to fade out, repeating the following lines.
After the song is over
The dance goes on, so dance away
When all is said and done
Remember what's been given
Not taken away
Year: 1995
Country: USA
Running time: 7 mins. 56 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
The American progressive rock group Echolyn peaked quite early. While I consider Mei (2002) their true masterpiece, it seems that the majority of their fans prefer the earlier release As the World (1995) which was their third full length album and the first one recorded for a major label. It was this album and the band's differences of opinion with Sony Music that actually caused them to split up for several years, only to reform five years later to record Cowboy Poems Free (2000).
While As the World contains several powerful songs, I have always felt it to be way too uneven in comparison with Mei. For every truly masterful song such as Entry 11-19-93, One for the Show and A Habit Worth Forming there are at least a couple of forgettable ones included. But the real masterstroke comes at the end. The last of the - count them! - 16 tracks on the album is the absolute masterpiece that is still to be surpassed in the entire output of the group.
Never the Same concludes As the World in a grandiose fashion. The subject of the 8-minute song is nothing less than life everlasting.
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there I did not die
I say to you I will see you again
On the other side someday
The group's message about nothing ever really dying might seem silly were it not supported by possibly their strongest composition ever. After repeated verses, the chorus expands to proportions that are at the same time pathetic and extremely moving. And no matter whether you take the idea of reincarnation or an everlasting soul seriously, you cannot help being impressed by the way Echolyn deliver this particular message. You must have a heart of stone if your eyes are still dry by the time the song starts to fade out, repeating the following lines.
After the song is over
The dance goes on, so dance away
When all is said and done
Remember what's been given
Not taken away
sunnuntai 22. heinäkuuta 2012
Recommendation: From Dust to the Beyond (song), by GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT
Album: The End of the Beginning
Year: 2002
Country: Ireland
Running time: 5 mins. 17 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
Once again, this recommendation is not prog, but closely related. The Irish post rock group God is an Astronaut has made some pretty good post rock albums for a full decade now. From Dust to the Beyond is the outstanding second track from their very first album The End of the Beginning (2002), which I think is still the standout, possibly the best song they have made. Or composition is probably the right word here, since like the rest of their output, it is an entirely instumental piece.
God is an Astronaut has three members, and their work is best described as a combination of post rock, ambient and electronica. What makes them stand out among many similar groups is their keen ear on memorable melodies. Also, they never seem to over-utilize the noisy guitar riffs that spoil most of the post rock groups for me. Their music is mainly synthesizer and melody driven, and as such, is exceptionally well made.
From Dust to the Beyond is the best example and introduction to the group's output I can think of. Yet even though that composition is from their debut album, it doesn't mean that their later output would be of lesser value somehow. Many of my very favourite tracks are in fact from their most recent album Age of the Fifth Sun (2010), such as Dark Rift and Paradise Remains. Also, be sure to check out the track that carries one of my all time favourite downer titles, When Everything Dies which can be found on the All is Violent, All is Bright (2005) album.
Between 2002 and 2010, God is an Astronaut has released five full length albums and one EP which in any case contains nearly as many tracks as the official albums. ProgActive recommends!
Year: 2002
Country: Ireland
Running time: 5 mins. 17 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
Once again, this recommendation is not prog, but closely related. The Irish post rock group God is an Astronaut has made some pretty good post rock albums for a full decade now. From Dust to the Beyond is the outstanding second track from their very first album The End of the Beginning (2002), which I think is still the standout, possibly the best song they have made. Or composition is probably the right word here, since like the rest of their output, it is an entirely instumental piece.
God is an Astronaut has three members, and their work is best described as a combination of post rock, ambient and electronica. What makes them stand out among many similar groups is their keen ear on memorable melodies. Also, they never seem to over-utilize the noisy guitar riffs that spoil most of the post rock groups for me. Their music is mainly synthesizer and melody driven, and as such, is exceptionally well made.
From Dust to the Beyond is the best example and introduction to the group's output I can think of. Yet even though that composition is from their debut album, it doesn't mean that their later output would be of lesser value somehow. Many of my very favourite tracks are in fact from their most recent album Age of the Fifth Sun (2010), such as Dark Rift and Paradise Remains. Also, be sure to check out the track that carries one of my all time favourite downer titles, When Everything Dies which can be found on the All is Violent, All is Bright (2005) album.
Between 2002 and 2010, God is an Astronaut has released five full length albums and one EP which in any case contains nearly as many tracks as the official albums. ProgActive recommends!
keskiviikko 18. heinäkuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: Rubycon (album), by TANGERINE DREAM
Year: 1975
Country: West Germany
Running time: 34 mins. 55 secs.
Spotify link (Part 1)
Spotify link (Part 2)
YouTube link
In addition to Mike Oldfield, whose best work I just discussed, another emerging talent from the mid-1970's who was initially labelled as belonging to the progressive rock field, was the West German electronica group Tangerine Dream. Their output, like Oldfield's, was disqualified from the top 20 long prog masterpieces list so, as a sort of a goodwill gesture, I am recommending their work among the very first choices in the new article series.
The reason that, at the time, artists like Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield were classified as prog makers, was of course that no one had the benefit of hindsight in the 70's. Both artists differed radically from the rock'n roll norm, just like prog artists did, and as a result, they were all labelled as representants of the same genre. In a way, this is in fact true. Both Oldfield's and Tangerine Dream's music was truly opening new paths towards until then uncharted territories in the field of popular music. But now, looking back, it is easy to see that their routes took them to very different destinations than, say, Yes or Genesis, and also using different methods.
Rubycon is Tangerine Dream's sixth album and their second to a major label - said major label being Virgin, sames as Oldfield's. Before its release, The West German group had been active for nearly eight years, and undergone several lineup changes. Even well known electronic music wizard Klaus Schulze was a member in 1969 and 1970, and performed on the group's debut album Electronic Meditation (1969).
But the true leader of the group has always been Edgar Froese, who was already there when the band was formed in West Berlin of 1967, and who continues to be the only founding member to have remained with the group. Tangerine Dreams's second and third albums, Alpha Centauri (1971) and Zeit (1972) continued to build their reputation as some of the most important members of the Krautrock movement, but it wasn't until their fourth album Atem (1973) that they made an international breakthrough.
Atem received some rave reviews also abroad, most importantly in the U.K. where Richard Branson saw the group's immense potential and signed them on to Virgin Records. As a result, they released their most higly praised recording, Phaedra (1974). And this is once again the point where I must part ways with the general opinion. While I cannot deny the undeniable power of Phaedra, I have never liked it best in Tangerine Dream's discography. It feels too sterile and distant to me. I have always preferred the next effort Rubycon, which to my mind is the only Tangerine Dream album that you absolutely must own - if you want to own any of them, that is.
Rubycon constists of two parts, one on each side of the vinyl release, each clocking just over 17 minutes, and is a masterpiece of early electronic ambient music. It is the pinnacle of the group's output: they had matured enough to produce truly memorable melodies and sound effects with the virtually pre-historic equipment they had available at the time, and still the end result is relatively easy to access, unlike Phaedra.
Tangerine Dream's "golden era" that had begun with Atem continued a couple of recordings onward - Ricochet (also 1975), Stratosfear (1976), Sorcerer (1977) - after which the quality of their music started to deteriorate. It was around the same time that the only other genius besides Froese in the group, Peter Baumann, departed and thus left a hole in the lineup that no successor was ever able to fill. By the early 1980's, half of the group's output had started sounding like elevator music; by the end of the 1980's, all of it did. The contract with Virgin expired, strangely enough, following the release of their best album in many years: Hyperborea (1983).
Tangerine Dream still exists in some form, but I would strongly urge not to seek out its recent output. Instead, simply concentrate on their 1970's recordings. In the 1980's, their most memorable works have been the already mentioned Hyperborea; the title tracks of both White Eagle (1982) and Underwater Sunlight (1986); and any film soundtracks they made during that decade. The rest is for completists only.
Country: West Germany
Running time: 34 mins. 55 secs.
Spotify link (Part 1)
Spotify link (Part 2)
YouTube link
In addition to Mike Oldfield, whose best work I just discussed, another emerging talent from the mid-1970's who was initially labelled as belonging to the progressive rock field, was the West German electronica group Tangerine Dream. Their output, like Oldfield's, was disqualified from the top 20 long prog masterpieces list so, as a sort of a goodwill gesture, I am recommending their work among the very first choices in the new article series.
The reason that, at the time, artists like Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield were classified as prog makers, was of course that no one had the benefit of hindsight in the 70's. Both artists differed radically from the rock'n roll norm, just like prog artists did, and as a result, they were all labelled as representants of the same genre. In a way, this is in fact true. Both Oldfield's and Tangerine Dream's music was truly opening new paths towards until then uncharted territories in the field of popular music. But now, looking back, it is easy to see that their routes took them to very different destinations than, say, Yes or Genesis, and also using different methods.
Rubycon is Tangerine Dream's sixth album and their second to a major label - said major label being Virgin, sames as Oldfield's. Before its release, The West German group had been active for nearly eight years, and undergone several lineup changes. Even well known electronic music wizard Klaus Schulze was a member in 1969 and 1970, and performed on the group's debut album Electronic Meditation (1969).
But the true leader of the group has always been Edgar Froese, who was already there when the band was formed in West Berlin of 1967, and who continues to be the only founding member to have remained with the group. Tangerine Dreams's second and third albums, Alpha Centauri (1971) and Zeit (1972) continued to build their reputation as some of the most important members of the Krautrock movement, but it wasn't until their fourth album Atem (1973) that they made an international breakthrough.
Atem received some rave reviews also abroad, most importantly in the U.K. where Richard Branson saw the group's immense potential and signed them on to Virgin Records. As a result, they released their most higly praised recording, Phaedra (1974). And this is once again the point where I must part ways with the general opinion. While I cannot deny the undeniable power of Phaedra, I have never liked it best in Tangerine Dream's discography. It feels too sterile and distant to me. I have always preferred the next effort Rubycon, which to my mind is the only Tangerine Dream album that you absolutely must own - if you want to own any of them, that is.
Rubycon constists of two parts, one on each side of the vinyl release, each clocking just over 17 minutes, and is a masterpiece of early electronic ambient music. It is the pinnacle of the group's output: they had matured enough to produce truly memorable melodies and sound effects with the virtually pre-historic equipment they had available at the time, and still the end result is relatively easy to access, unlike Phaedra.
Tangerine Dream's "golden era" that had begun with Atem continued a couple of recordings onward - Ricochet (also 1975), Stratosfear (1976), Sorcerer (1977) - after which the quality of their music started to deteriorate. It was around the same time that the only other genius besides Froese in the group, Peter Baumann, departed and thus left a hole in the lineup that no successor was ever able to fill. By the early 1980's, half of the group's output had started sounding like elevator music; by the end of the 1980's, all of it did. The contract with Virgin expired, strangely enough, following the release of their best album in many years: Hyperborea (1983).
Tangerine Dream still exists in some form, but I would strongly urge not to seek out its recent output. Instead, simply concentrate on their 1970's recordings. In the 1980's, their most memorable works have been the already mentioned Hyperborea; the title tracks of both White Eagle (1982) and Underwater Sunlight (1986); and any film soundtracks they made during that decade. The rest is for completists only.
sunnuntai 15. heinäkuuta 2012
Very strong recommendation: Hergest Ridge (album), by MIKE OLDFIELD
Year: 1974
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 40 mins. 13 secs.
Spotify link (Part 1)
Spotify link (Part 2)
YouTube link (Excerpt from Part 1)
Following the immense success of his debut album Tubular Bells (1973), the humble and shy composer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield retreated to English countryside, obviously more than just a little scared of his unexpected success. While staying there, he composed and recorded his sophomore album, and I cannot resist comparing his situation to George A. Romero's zombie trilogy, even though in reality they have absolutely nothing in common.
The original Tubular Bells (like Night of the Living Dead) is the classic that everyone remembers and appreciates. But its follow-up Hergest Ridge (like Romero's Dawn of the Dead) is the vast improvement on the original, in terms of artistic quality.
When composing Tubular Bells, Oldfield was the first of his kind, creating a masterwork that had no similar predecessors. When composing Hergest Ridge, he had a predecessor, composed and performed by no one else but himself, which helped him achieve a clear vision of how to improve on it. And improve on it he did. Hergest Ridge is right up there with Beethoven's 5th and 9th Symphonies, among the greatest compositions ever created.
The instrumental work is divided into two separate movements, due to the restrictions of the vinyl LP. If one absolutely had to decide which movement is better than the other, one would probably have to choose the first one, even though the opening as well as the finale of the second part is certainly some of the most beautiful instumental music ever created.
Some time after the release of the album, problems arose. Oldfield himself came to the unexpected conclusion that the original mix had too many instruments and therefore felt too noisy and overarranged. He decided to create a new mix with less instruments. For any fan with any appreciation for musical genius, this was obviously an insane move but because of it, this far inferior mix was for a very long time the only mix available on CD. The only lucky ones were the ones who had bought the vinyl version, including myself. Except of course that they couldn't upgrade it to CD, which I did, not knowing that it contained a different mix. One of the least played CD's in my collection, to be sure.
This very, very unfortunate state persisted for years, even a couple of decades. It wasn't until 2010 that the original mix was finally released on CD, as a part of a Deluxe Edition that also contained other mixes of the album. Here is the new album cover that you can recognize the corrected version from:
So, when you want to hear this masterpiece in its original form, make sure that you either buy this CD and choose the "original 1974 stereo mixes", or check them out via Spotify links above. Music doesn't get much better than this!
Due to its "new age", straightforward nature, Hergest Ridge was disqualified from the top 20 long prog masterpieces list. Had this not been the case, both parts had made it to top 10, and Part 1 had most likely taken 3rd place from Starless, by King Crimson. But to be perfectly honest, this is not a progressive rock work, although at the time of its release it seemed to belong to the same genre.
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 40 mins. 13 secs.
Spotify link (Part 1)
Spotify link (Part 2)
YouTube link (Excerpt from Part 1)
Following the immense success of his debut album Tubular Bells (1973), the humble and shy composer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield retreated to English countryside, obviously more than just a little scared of his unexpected success. While staying there, he composed and recorded his sophomore album, and I cannot resist comparing his situation to George A. Romero's zombie trilogy, even though in reality they have absolutely nothing in common.
The original Tubular Bells (like Night of the Living Dead) is the classic that everyone remembers and appreciates. But its follow-up Hergest Ridge (like Romero's Dawn of the Dead) is the vast improvement on the original, in terms of artistic quality.
When composing Tubular Bells, Oldfield was the first of his kind, creating a masterwork that had no similar predecessors. When composing Hergest Ridge, he had a predecessor, composed and performed by no one else but himself, which helped him achieve a clear vision of how to improve on it. And improve on it he did. Hergest Ridge is right up there with Beethoven's 5th and 9th Symphonies, among the greatest compositions ever created.
The instrumental work is divided into two separate movements, due to the restrictions of the vinyl LP. If one absolutely had to decide which movement is better than the other, one would probably have to choose the first one, even though the opening as well as the finale of the second part is certainly some of the most beautiful instumental music ever created.
Some time after the release of the album, problems arose. Oldfield himself came to the unexpected conclusion that the original mix had too many instruments and therefore felt too noisy and overarranged. He decided to create a new mix with less instruments. For any fan with any appreciation for musical genius, this was obviously an insane move but because of it, this far inferior mix was for a very long time the only mix available on CD. The only lucky ones were the ones who had bought the vinyl version, including myself. Except of course that they couldn't upgrade it to CD, which I did, not knowing that it contained a different mix. One of the least played CD's in my collection, to be sure.
This very, very unfortunate state persisted for years, even a couple of decades. It wasn't until 2010 that the original mix was finally released on CD, as a part of a Deluxe Edition that also contained other mixes of the album. Here is the new album cover that you can recognize the corrected version from:
So, when you want to hear this masterpiece in its original form, make sure that you either buy this CD and choose the "original 1974 stereo mixes", or check them out via Spotify links above. Music doesn't get much better than this!
Due to its "new age", straightforward nature, Hergest Ridge was disqualified from the top 20 long prog masterpieces list. Had this not been the case, both parts had made it to top 10, and Part 1 had most likely taken 3rd place from Starless, by King Crimson. But to be perfectly honest, this is not a progressive rock work, although at the time of its release it seemed to belong to the same genre.
lauantai 14. heinäkuuta 2012
Recommendation: Lydia (song), by PARADISE LOST
Album: One Second
Year: 1997
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 3 mins. 32 secs.
YouTube link (below average audio quality)
The sixth album by Paradise Lost, entitled One Second was released 15 years ago to the day, on 14 July 1997, so it seems more than fitting to celebrate one of the British group's most interesting songs today. The album was a departure for the group who had become known as makers of death and doom style metal. This time around they had taken a much more commercial approach to music making. This most certainly culminated in Soul Courageous, a straightforward pop song masquerading as hard rock that must be familiar to any rock/pop fan active at that time.
Hiding among the twelve melodic rock tracks leaning a bit towards the gothic, is one song that should catch even a prog fan's interest. Now I must immediately emphasize that track #3 on the album, Lydia most definitely isn't prog. But it has some interesting things going on that, in my opinion, make it remotely prog related. Not only does this make it my own personal favourite in the group's output, but might also be of interest to other prog fans.
Lydia is an exemplary piece of music making by any definition, but what really makes it stand out is its peculiar song structure. To begin with, you already have a very ominous, even slightly threatening, doom-laden atmosphere when you enter the song following a short instrumental introduction, which sounds almost monaural.
Through the searching lights that weave and dart
Comes the stranger that cares not for your heart
The pain of living life this way
Must take its toll on you some day
Lydia opens with verse and then proceeds to chorus. These two are repeated as you might expect a regular pop song to do, although this is anything but. The ominous lyrics are left hanging in the air after the repeat of the chorus, leaving the listener to expect a conclusion of some kind.
The frail skin that bleeds
Emotionally on guard
But instead of bridge, or another repeat of verse, what follows is an unexpected sequence that does repeat the verse but does so without lyrics. We have a cliffhanger. The second chorus has left the story kind of open and one is expecting it to continue. There must be a conclusion somewhere, even though it is unexpectedly delayed.
But alas, following the instumental version of the verse, there is a short sequence of screeching guitars, and an abrupt end. Nothing is ever concluded. Everything is left open. Rules of structuring a song are not observed. I love it.
Later on, Paradise Lost have started moving back towards a more metal sound, unlike, for example, their former colleagues Anathema. Many of their songs made in the 2000's have been very good, but I don't think they have ever surpassed this short and weird gem from 15 years ago.
Year: 1997
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 3 mins. 32 secs.
YouTube link (below average audio quality)
The sixth album by Paradise Lost, entitled One Second was released 15 years ago to the day, on 14 July 1997, so it seems more than fitting to celebrate one of the British group's most interesting songs today. The album was a departure for the group who had become known as makers of death and doom style metal. This time around they had taken a much more commercial approach to music making. This most certainly culminated in Soul Courageous, a straightforward pop song masquerading as hard rock that must be familiar to any rock/pop fan active at that time.
Hiding among the twelve melodic rock tracks leaning a bit towards the gothic, is one song that should catch even a prog fan's interest. Now I must immediately emphasize that track #3 on the album, Lydia most definitely isn't prog. But it has some interesting things going on that, in my opinion, make it remotely prog related. Not only does this make it my own personal favourite in the group's output, but might also be of interest to other prog fans.
Lydia is an exemplary piece of music making by any definition, but what really makes it stand out is its peculiar song structure. To begin with, you already have a very ominous, even slightly threatening, doom-laden atmosphere when you enter the song following a short instrumental introduction, which sounds almost monaural.
Through the searching lights that weave and dart
Comes the stranger that cares not for your heart
The pain of living life this way
Must take its toll on you some day
Lydia opens with verse and then proceeds to chorus. These two are repeated as you might expect a regular pop song to do, although this is anything but. The ominous lyrics are left hanging in the air after the repeat of the chorus, leaving the listener to expect a conclusion of some kind.
The frail skin that bleeds
Emotionally on guard
But instead of bridge, or another repeat of verse, what follows is an unexpected sequence that does repeat the verse but does so without lyrics. We have a cliffhanger. The second chorus has left the story kind of open and one is expecting it to continue. There must be a conclusion somewhere, even though it is unexpectedly delayed.
But alas, following the instumental version of the verse, there is a short sequence of screeching guitars, and an abrupt end. Nothing is ever concluded. Everything is left open. Rules of structuring a song are not observed. I love it.
Later on, Paradise Lost have started moving back towards a more metal sound, unlike, for example, their former colleagues Anathema. Many of their songs made in the 2000's have been very good, but I don't think they have ever surpassed this short and weird gem from 15 years ago.
keskiviikko 11. heinäkuuta 2012
Strong recommendation: Drag Ropes (song), by STORM CORROSION
Album: Storm Corrosion
Year: 2012
Country: United Kingdom / Sweden
Running time: 9 mins. 47 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
Now that we have the long prog masterpieces top 20 out of the way, let's start checking out some other prog songs and compositions well worth the fans' attention. I am starting a new article series where I recommend individual songs or entire albums that I think are worth any prog fan's while, be they actual prog or somehow related to the genre. I will let you know in the article itself, whether I think the song or album in question can be labelled as "genuine" progressive rock or if not, but is worth checking out anyway.
Recommendations come in three classes. Recommendation means that the piece of music getting written about is definitely worth a listen, should an opportunity to do so present itself. Strong recommendation, as is the case here, means that you should actively seek to hear the piece of music in question, as soon as it is convenient, instead of passively waiting for a chance to hear it. Very strong recommendation indicates that you should drop everything that you are doing right there and then, and start listening immediately after completing the reading of the article. This is usually helped by Spotify and/or YouTube links at the top of the page.
Drag Ropes, by Storm Corrosion is the only truly awesome new track I have happened to come across this year. It proves once again that imaginative and endlessly creative progressive rock is alive and well still today. Listening to it for the first time, via Prog'opolis podcast was a genuinely jaw-dropping experience.
Looking back, I think my astonishent was largely due to false expectations, although that doesn't make the track any less astounding. Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson had displayed a growing interest towards metal oriented prog for a while already, so when I heard about his collaboration with the frontman of the Swedish progressive metal group Opeth, Mikael Åkerfeldt, I naturally assumed that this was Wilson's chance to go really metal. And for this reason, I wasn't really looking forward to the album, not being a big fan of prog metal.
The resulting album Storm Corrosion however defied those expectations. It is a very interesting and complex, if slightly uneven prog rock album far removed from actual metal. Drag Ropes is its opening track, and it is easily the strongest song on the entire album. Only the closing track Ljudet Innan comes even close. But while the other songs between these are not quite on par with them, that doesn't mean that they aren't worth listening to. This is quality music by artists still in the height of their creativity and, in my opinion, a vast improvement to Wilson's last year's ambitious but hermetically sealed solo album Grace for Drowning, which was an ultimately disappointing listening experience.
The best thing about Drag Ropes is that, when listening to it, you are completely unable to second-guess the next direction it's going to take. This is prog rock at its very best: unstructured, unexpected and therefore all the more satisfying. I guess the biggest reason for my jaw dropping at the end was that I had been expecting the metal riffs to explode to the front, but even knowing that they won't be there, this is a difficult tune to start whistling afterwards.
Behind the YouTube link above there is a really nice video made to accompany the song, be sure to check it out. And if you hear of another prog rock track made in 2012 and sounding this good, or even better, be sure to let me know about it. I would be truly amazed to discover such a masterpiece.
Year: 2012
Country: United Kingdom / Sweden
Running time: 9 mins. 47 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
Now that we have the long prog masterpieces top 20 out of the way, let's start checking out some other prog songs and compositions well worth the fans' attention. I am starting a new article series where I recommend individual songs or entire albums that I think are worth any prog fan's while, be they actual prog or somehow related to the genre. I will let you know in the article itself, whether I think the song or album in question can be labelled as "genuine" progressive rock or if not, but is worth checking out anyway.
Recommendations come in three classes. Recommendation means that the piece of music getting written about is definitely worth a listen, should an opportunity to do so present itself. Strong recommendation, as is the case here, means that you should actively seek to hear the piece of music in question, as soon as it is convenient, instead of passively waiting for a chance to hear it. Very strong recommendation indicates that you should drop everything that you are doing right there and then, and start listening immediately after completing the reading of the article. This is usually helped by Spotify and/or YouTube links at the top of the page.
Drag Ropes, by Storm Corrosion is the only truly awesome new track I have happened to come across this year. It proves once again that imaginative and endlessly creative progressive rock is alive and well still today. Listening to it for the first time, via Prog'opolis podcast was a genuinely jaw-dropping experience.
Looking back, I think my astonishent was largely due to false expectations, although that doesn't make the track any less astounding. Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson had displayed a growing interest towards metal oriented prog for a while already, so when I heard about his collaboration with the frontman of the Swedish progressive metal group Opeth, Mikael Åkerfeldt, I naturally assumed that this was Wilson's chance to go really metal. And for this reason, I wasn't really looking forward to the album, not being a big fan of prog metal.
The resulting album Storm Corrosion however defied those expectations. It is a very interesting and complex, if slightly uneven prog rock album far removed from actual metal. Drag Ropes is its opening track, and it is easily the strongest song on the entire album. Only the closing track Ljudet Innan comes even close. But while the other songs between these are not quite on par with them, that doesn't mean that they aren't worth listening to. This is quality music by artists still in the height of their creativity and, in my opinion, a vast improvement to Wilson's last year's ambitious but hermetically sealed solo album Grace for Drowning, which was an ultimately disappointing listening experience.
The best thing about Drag Ropes is that, when listening to it, you are completely unable to second-guess the next direction it's going to take. This is prog rock at its very best: unstructured, unexpected and therefore all the more satisfying. I guess the biggest reason for my jaw dropping at the end was that I had been expecting the metal riffs to explode to the front, but even knowing that they won't be there, this is a difficult tune to start whistling afterwards.
Behind the YouTube link above there is a really nice video made to accompany the song, be sure to check it out. And if you hear of another prog rock track made in 2012 and sounding this good, or even better, be sure to let me know about it. I would be truly amazed to discover such a masterpiece.
sunnuntai 8. heinäkuuta 2012
Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces #1: Awaken, by YES
Album: Going for the One
Year: 1977
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 15 mins. 31 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
The album Going for the One by Yes has a special meaning for me. In the late 1977, I heard the title track of the album played in the radio a few times and it immediately caught my attention. The real turning point for me was 23 December of that same year, when I saw the band performing another track from the same album, Wonderous Stories, "live" in Finnish television.The clip is obviously a playback, as you can see right here. But anyway, this is the single moment that, at the age of fourteen, converted me into a progressive rock fanatic, which I still am and always will be.
At the time, it was kind of hard to be a fan of prog, or indeed any kind of rock music, in Finland. There was no internet, and therefore no Spotify or iTunes. There was no CD either. There were LP's, but I had no player, and little money to buy one. There were cassettes, for which we had a radio / cassette player in the house, but only with mono sound. I didn't have too much money to spend on cassettes, either. There was the radio, but most of the time they didn't play any modern music. A couple of times a week there was one half hour show, which is how I came to hear Going for the One in the first place.
In the spring of 1978, I had finally spared enough money from my weekly allowance to buy the original cassette of Going for the One the album, and after that there was no turning back. To this day, I still consider it the greatest album I have ever heard. Its closing track Awaken is the greatest long prog masterpiece ever made. Its title track would definitely be the greatest short prog masterpiece ever made, if I ever bothered to make a separate list for those, which I won't. Going for the One is the only song I have heard hundreds of times during my life that still gives me goosebumps almost every time.
For Yes, Going for the One meant a happy return for keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who had been absent for well over three years, concentrating on his solo career. During that time, Yes had made only one new studio album, Relayer (1974, see #9) with Wakeman's temporary replacement, Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz. When Wakeman returned, he did so with a renewed vigour and inspiration, and this can plainly be heard from the end result.
The group came together in late 1976 to start recording their new album, and did so in the unlikeliest of places. For a reason best known to band members themselves, they chose Switzerland. Possibly Moraz had some influence on that. The actual place where recording took place, was Mountain Studios, which at the time was located in Montreux (they have moved away since). Inside the album sleeve, there is even a photograph of the apparently happy prog band in a Swiss lakeside location. Montreux is located on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva.
For the magnificient closing track Awaken, as well as another track called Parallels, a church organ was needed. To be able to record its sound properly, Yes reserved a small church in a neighbouring town of Vevey, also on the lakeside, a short distance towards west by northwest, and transferred Wakeman's organ sequences using telephone wires to the studio in Montreux. This may not sound like much of an accomplishment today, but was quite a technical feat in early 1977.
And it is indeed Wakeman's church organ that gives character to Awaken, although he opens it with a piano solo that is in no way discernible from modern classical music. This kind of opening may already scare off some potential listeners, making the track sound even more challenging than it really turns out to be. Wakeman's performance with both the piano and the Vevey church organ is among the very best he ever performed as a member of Yes.
But in spite of that, Awaken is not solely Wakeman's tour de force. The greatness of the track partly lies in the fact that for once, Steve Howe's electric guitar is an equally strong presence, and no less significant. Howe does some of this best guitar work ever on Awaken. This is a departure from albums like Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973) where Wakeman's keyboards completely dominated The Remembering, and following that, Howe was given his own separate standout track The Ancient.
When on top of both Wakeman and Howe's exceptional performances the rest of the band is also working at its peak, and with truly considerable compositional inspiration, it is no wonder that the end result reached a classic status. By that, I naturally don't mean only the career of Yes, but the history of music in general. Awaken is the only completely flawless long prog masterpiece I could think of, and therefore the well deserving number 1 in our top 20.
Once again, commercial success followed, perhaps against the odds. Going for the One the album was hardly an easy listen, yet it made it all the way to #1 on the U.K. album charts and remained in the top 40 for 21 weeks. Wonderous Stories was a top 10 single hit which would have been unheard of only a few years earlier. On the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Chart, the album stayed for exactly the same duration of 21 weeks, and peaked at #8.
Year: 1977
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 15 mins. 31 secs.
Spotify link
YouTube link
The album Going for the One by Yes has a special meaning for me. In the late 1977, I heard the title track of the album played in the radio a few times and it immediately caught my attention. The real turning point for me was 23 December of that same year, when I saw the band performing another track from the same album, Wonderous Stories, "live" in Finnish television.The clip is obviously a playback, as you can see right here. But anyway, this is the single moment that, at the age of fourteen, converted me into a progressive rock fanatic, which I still am and always will be.
At the time, it was kind of hard to be a fan of prog, or indeed any kind of rock music, in Finland. There was no internet, and therefore no Spotify or iTunes. There was no CD either. There were LP's, but I had no player, and little money to buy one. There were cassettes, for which we had a radio / cassette player in the house, but only with mono sound. I didn't have too much money to spend on cassettes, either. There was the radio, but most of the time they didn't play any modern music. A couple of times a week there was one half hour show, which is how I came to hear Going for the One in the first place.
In the spring of 1978, I had finally spared enough money from my weekly allowance to buy the original cassette of Going for the One the album, and after that there was no turning back. To this day, I still consider it the greatest album I have ever heard. Its closing track Awaken is the greatest long prog masterpiece ever made. Its title track would definitely be the greatest short prog masterpiece ever made, if I ever bothered to make a separate list for those, which I won't. Going for the One is the only song I have heard hundreds of times during my life that still gives me goosebumps almost every time.
For Yes, Going for the One meant a happy return for keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who had been absent for well over three years, concentrating on his solo career. During that time, Yes had made only one new studio album, Relayer (1974, see #9) with Wakeman's temporary replacement, Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz. When Wakeman returned, he did so with a renewed vigour and inspiration, and this can plainly be heard from the end result.
The group came together in late 1976 to start recording their new album, and did so in the unlikeliest of places. For a reason best known to band members themselves, they chose Switzerland. Possibly Moraz had some influence on that. The actual place where recording took place, was Mountain Studios, which at the time was located in Montreux (they have moved away since). Inside the album sleeve, there is even a photograph of the apparently happy prog band in a Swiss lakeside location. Montreux is located on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva.
For the magnificient closing track Awaken, as well as another track called Parallels, a church organ was needed. To be able to record its sound properly, Yes reserved a small church in a neighbouring town of Vevey, also on the lakeside, a short distance towards west by northwest, and transferred Wakeman's organ sequences using telephone wires to the studio in Montreux. This may not sound like much of an accomplishment today, but was quite a technical feat in early 1977.
And it is indeed Wakeman's church organ that gives character to Awaken, although he opens it with a piano solo that is in no way discernible from modern classical music. This kind of opening may already scare off some potential listeners, making the track sound even more challenging than it really turns out to be. Wakeman's performance with both the piano and the Vevey church organ is among the very best he ever performed as a member of Yes.
But in spite of that, Awaken is not solely Wakeman's tour de force. The greatness of the track partly lies in the fact that for once, Steve Howe's electric guitar is an equally strong presence, and no less significant. Howe does some of this best guitar work ever on Awaken. This is a departure from albums like Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973) where Wakeman's keyboards completely dominated The Remembering, and following that, Howe was given his own separate standout track The Ancient.
When on top of both Wakeman and Howe's exceptional performances the rest of the band is also working at its peak, and with truly considerable compositional inspiration, it is no wonder that the end result reached a classic status. By that, I naturally don't mean only the career of Yes, but the history of music in general. Awaken is the only completely flawless long prog masterpiece I could think of, and therefore the well deserving number 1 in our top 20.
Once again, commercial success followed, perhaps against the odds. Going for the One the album was hardly an easy listen, yet it made it all the way to #1 on the U.K. album charts and remained in the top 40 for 21 weeks. Wonderous Stories was a top 10 single hit which would have been unheard of only a few years earlier. On the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Chart, the album stayed for exactly the same duration of 21 weeks, and peaked at #8.
lauantai 7. heinäkuuta 2012
Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces #2: Milliontown, by FROST*
Album: Milliontown
Year: 2006
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 26 mins. 35 secs.
YouTube link
Did you ever notice how in the Bible whenever God needed to punish someone?
Make an example?
Or whenever God needed a killing?
He sent an angel.
Would you ever really want to see an angel?
Well, it's like I already wrote before (#18). Frost* is the absolute best new progressive rock band that I have come across in many, many years. And while their second album Experiments in Mass Appeal (2008) is a truly fine piece of work, it still pales in comparison with the powerhouse that was their debut. Released in the summer of 2006, there really are no weak tracks on Milliontown and strongest of them all is the title track which closes the album and runs for nearly half an hour.
Not only is Milliontown a real motherlode of continuous invention, it is also played by musicians that are masters of their instruments and the production values of the album are simply stupefying. I haven't heard a single album in that entire decade that sounded as good. On the debut album, band leader Jem Godfrey is particularly fond of big sounds and the way they were recorded cannot fail to impress, even if the music isn't to a listener's liking.
Like many other tracks in the top 20, Milliontown is also comprised of several movements. The first three of them use almost precisely the first half of its running time: the third movement (entitled The Only Survivors) ends at exactly 13 mins. and 16 secs. into the song. And this is a very important point. Until then, Milliontown has progressed like the very best symphonic prog song ever composed, performed and recorded. Nothing surpasses this first half, not even the upcoming #1 of this list.
Herein lies the song's only weakness that ultimately causes it to fall from the first place to the second. Frost* has played an impeccable prog masterwork and escalated it to a level so incredibly high that it becomes their own undoing. The beginning of the fourth movement brings us back down from prog heaven fast, and the band doesn't exactly know how to successfully tie it to the slightly pompous ending of the previous movement. And that's it. It takes them nearly two minutes to get back on track, but even then, nothing during the rest of the song really feels quite like its first half.
Milliontown's only flaw is that it peaks too early.
Later on, Frost* catches up the speed once again and the instrumental sequence that almost closes the track is once again magnificient. Following the just about perfect ending, a weird thing however happens. There is a silence that lasts approximately 20 seconds, after which there follows a short epilogue played with a piano. This is another slight flaw in the song. I have never understood why this epilogue was necessary. It's not bad, but it's not really needed either. Is this supposed to be a minute and a half long "hidden track" at the end of the album that is not even meant to be a part of Milliontown the song?
These almost meaningless imperfections notwithstanding, Milliontown is the most perfect piece of music that mankind has ever been able to produce. You can imagine my astonishment when, escaping the awfulness of the Eurovision Song Contest finals in the evening of 16 May 2009, I followed Apple's iTunes Genius Recommendation to check this album out and then spent an evening of listening to it with my headphones on, in an ecstatic state to say the least.
While it may be Jem Godfrey who has fathered Frost* and is the person to mostly thank for this incredible album as well as song, I once again want to emphasize that the musicianship on the album is also of the very highest order. John Mitchell must be one of the best guitar players working today, and Milliontown gives him ample opportunities to prove just that. Similarly, Andy Edwards is one of the three best drummers I know of, right up there with Terry Bozzio and Neil Peart.
So, Jem, please! Try to get the third Frost* album done as soon as you can and when you do, please give John and Andy their deserved chances to shine like they do on Milliontown! I trust you to include the new #1 top 20 long prog masterpiece on that forthcoming album! For now, you will have to do with the second place.
Year: 2006
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 26 mins. 35 secs.
YouTube link
Did you ever notice how in the Bible whenever God needed to punish someone?
Make an example?
Or whenever God needed a killing?
He sent an angel.
Would you ever really want to see an angel?
Well, it's like I already wrote before (#18). Frost* is the absolute best new progressive rock band that I have come across in many, many years. And while their second album Experiments in Mass Appeal (2008) is a truly fine piece of work, it still pales in comparison with the powerhouse that was their debut. Released in the summer of 2006, there really are no weak tracks on Milliontown and strongest of them all is the title track which closes the album and runs for nearly half an hour.
Not only is Milliontown a real motherlode of continuous invention, it is also played by musicians that are masters of their instruments and the production values of the album are simply stupefying. I haven't heard a single album in that entire decade that sounded as good. On the debut album, band leader Jem Godfrey is particularly fond of big sounds and the way they were recorded cannot fail to impress, even if the music isn't to a listener's liking.
Like many other tracks in the top 20, Milliontown is also comprised of several movements. The first three of them use almost precisely the first half of its running time: the third movement (entitled The Only Survivors) ends at exactly 13 mins. and 16 secs. into the song. And this is a very important point. Until then, Milliontown has progressed like the very best symphonic prog song ever composed, performed and recorded. Nothing surpasses this first half, not even the upcoming #1 of this list.
Herein lies the song's only weakness that ultimately causes it to fall from the first place to the second. Frost* has played an impeccable prog masterwork and escalated it to a level so incredibly high that it becomes their own undoing. The beginning of the fourth movement brings us back down from prog heaven fast, and the band doesn't exactly know how to successfully tie it to the slightly pompous ending of the previous movement. And that's it. It takes them nearly two minutes to get back on track, but even then, nothing during the rest of the song really feels quite like its first half.
Milliontown's only flaw is that it peaks too early.
Later on, Frost* catches up the speed once again and the instrumental sequence that almost closes the track is once again magnificient. Following the just about perfect ending, a weird thing however happens. There is a silence that lasts approximately 20 seconds, after which there follows a short epilogue played with a piano. This is another slight flaw in the song. I have never understood why this epilogue was necessary. It's not bad, but it's not really needed either. Is this supposed to be a minute and a half long "hidden track" at the end of the album that is not even meant to be a part of Milliontown the song?
These almost meaningless imperfections notwithstanding, Milliontown is the most perfect piece of music that mankind has ever been able to produce. You can imagine my astonishment when, escaping the awfulness of the Eurovision Song Contest finals in the evening of 16 May 2009, I followed Apple's iTunes Genius Recommendation to check this album out and then spent an evening of listening to it with my headphones on, in an ecstatic state to say the least.
While it may be Jem Godfrey who has fathered Frost* and is the person to mostly thank for this incredible album as well as song, I once again want to emphasize that the musicianship on the album is also of the very highest order. John Mitchell must be one of the best guitar players working today, and Milliontown gives him ample opportunities to prove just that. Similarly, Andy Edwards is one of the three best drummers I know of, right up there with Terry Bozzio and Neil Peart.
So, Jem, please! Try to get the third Frost* album done as soon as you can and when you do, please give John and Andy their deserved chances to shine like they do on Milliontown! I trust you to include the new #1 top 20 long prog masterpiece on that forthcoming album! For now, you will have to do with the second place.
perjantai 6. heinäkuuta 2012
Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces #3: Starless, by KING CRIMSON
Album: Red
Year: 1974
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 12 mins. 19 secs.
YouTube link
Had this top 20 been voted for by a large number of prog fans instead of only myself, I believe the most likely #1 would have been one of two alternatives. One of them is Close to the Edge, by Yes, which I have dared to place sixth. I think it would have been the less likely winner in a general poll as well. The more likely winner would have been Starless, by King Crimson, which I have dared to place third.
Starless seems to be almost everyone's favourite prog song, probably because it allows easy access to prog also to the fans of hard rock leaning a bit towards heavy metal. It doesn't have the ethereal quality of, say, Close to the Edge which might seem a bit too whimsical to many straight rock fans. Starless has immense, undeniable power. It contains very strong notes and riffs. It represents masculinity in a genre that, in general, seem to savor feminine traits. To put it shortly, it kicks ass in a way few prog songs do.
I have no problem admitting that Starless is an extremely powerful piece of music that can easily leave the listener stunned and speechless, and is definitely one of the best of its kind ever made. Why the third place, then?
When compiling the top 20, I listened to my favourite long prog pieces over and over again. As a result of repeated listening, I came to realise that, while my top 3 songs were almost equally great, I was able to point out one flaw in Starless. A very, very minor one, but a flaw nonetheless. The same thing applied to #2, which we will get to soon enough. But I couldn't find a single flaw, not even a minor one, in my third winner candidate which has now ascertained its place as #1.
Starless is the closing track of Red, which in turn is the closing album of the trilogy recorded by the Fripp - Wetton - Bruford incarnation of King Crimson (1973 - 1974). The opening track of the first album of said trilogy, Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part 1 was already discussed a while ago (#10). The middle album of the trilogy, Starless and Bible Black is a forgettable affair, with no standouts on its track list.
Red, on the other hand, is one of the most highly appreciated albums by King Crimson, right up there with the group's classic debut In the Court of the Crimson King (1969). Starless is not the only outstanding track on it: both the instrumental title track and Fallen Angel are fan favourites. Overall, we are talking about an album of exceptional quality. Sad, then, that Fripp decided to disband King Crimson in its wake. The group didn't return until 1981, with the vastly inferior album Discipline, performed by a vastly inferior lineup.
Starless begins with a beautiful melody played with mellotron, guitar, bass and drums, and sung by Wetton with a genuine feeling as only he knows how. This introduction occupies only approximately three minutes, after which we face the track's real challenge. The beautiful theme is replaced with Fripp's guitar playing a theme that soon starts to sound a bit repetitive. But slowly, it keeps on building and ascending, while Wetton's bass and Bruford's percussion begin to accompany it with increasing presence and volume.
This phase uses several minutes: the slowly building guitar theme, with bass and percussion background growing ever more forceful, until it is finally time to up the ante with a fast, jazz influenced sequence that has some fine saxophone work by guest musicians Mel Collins (soprano) and Ian McDonald (alto). When the song has ascended to new heights unimaginable at the beginning, it is then suddenly closed by the opening theme which now receives a whole new meaning when played in high volume and new strength. The song reaches an incredibly strong climax and then ends.
It is this contrast between the mellowly played and sung, beautiful opening theme, and its aggressive, extremely powerful instrumental repeat at the end that gives Starless its strength. When listening to the last minute of the track, you kind of relive the beautiful opening in a totally different context, and cannot help being overwhelmed by the masterful handling of the theme in its two vastly different forms.
The very, very minor flaw of Starless that I referred to earlier, is the repetitive quality of Fripp's guitar work in between the opening and closing sections. One cannot help thinking that Starless would have been an even stronger track had the middle section been a little shorter and less repetitive - and as such, ineligible for the top 20. This is a minor complaint but, at the great masterpiece level we have now entered, significant enough to determine the difference between #1, #2 and #3 of all time.
Year: 1974
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 12 mins. 19 secs.
YouTube link
Had this top 20 been voted for by a large number of prog fans instead of only myself, I believe the most likely #1 would have been one of two alternatives. One of them is Close to the Edge, by Yes, which I have dared to place sixth. I think it would have been the less likely winner in a general poll as well. The more likely winner would have been Starless, by King Crimson, which I have dared to place third.
Starless seems to be almost everyone's favourite prog song, probably because it allows easy access to prog also to the fans of hard rock leaning a bit towards heavy metal. It doesn't have the ethereal quality of, say, Close to the Edge which might seem a bit too whimsical to many straight rock fans. Starless has immense, undeniable power. It contains very strong notes and riffs. It represents masculinity in a genre that, in general, seem to savor feminine traits. To put it shortly, it kicks ass in a way few prog songs do.
I have no problem admitting that Starless is an extremely powerful piece of music that can easily leave the listener stunned and speechless, and is definitely one of the best of its kind ever made. Why the third place, then?
When compiling the top 20, I listened to my favourite long prog pieces over and over again. As a result of repeated listening, I came to realise that, while my top 3 songs were almost equally great, I was able to point out one flaw in Starless. A very, very minor one, but a flaw nonetheless. The same thing applied to #2, which we will get to soon enough. But I couldn't find a single flaw, not even a minor one, in my third winner candidate which has now ascertained its place as #1.
Starless is the closing track of Red, which in turn is the closing album of the trilogy recorded by the Fripp - Wetton - Bruford incarnation of King Crimson (1973 - 1974). The opening track of the first album of said trilogy, Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part 1 was already discussed a while ago (#10). The middle album of the trilogy, Starless and Bible Black is a forgettable affair, with no standouts on its track list.
Red, on the other hand, is one of the most highly appreciated albums by King Crimson, right up there with the group's classic debut In the Court of the Crimson King (1969). Starless is not the only outstanding track on it: both the instrumental title track and Fallen Angel are fan favourites. Overall, we are talking about an album of exceptional quality. Sad, then, that Fripp decided to disband King Crimson in its wake. The group didn't return until 1981, with the vastly inferior album Discipline, performed by a vastly inferior lineup.
Starless begins with a beautiful melody played with mellotron, guitar, bass and drums, and sung by Wetton with a genuine feeling as only he knows how. This introduction occupies only approximately three minutes, after which we face the track's real challenge. The beautiful theme is replaced with Fripp's guitar playing a theme that soon starts to sound a bit repetitive. But slowly, it keeps on building and ascending, while Wetton's bass and Bruford's percussion begin to accompany it with increasing presence and volume.
This phase uses several minutes: the slowly building guitar theme, with bass and percussion background growing ever more forceful, until it is finally time to up the ante with a fast, jazz influenced sequence that has some fine saxophone work by guest musicians Mel Collins (soprano) and Ian McDonald (alto). When the song has ascended to new heights unimaginable at the beginning, it is then suddenly closed by the opening theme which now receives a whole new meaning when played in high volume and new strength. The song reaches an incredibly strong climax and then ends.
It is this contrast between the mellowly played and sung, beautiful opening theme, and its aggressive, extremely powerful instrumental repeat at the end that gives Starless its strength. When listening to the last minute of the track, you kind of relive the beautiful opening in a totally different context, and cannot help being overwhelmed by the masterful handling of the theme in its two vastly different forms.
The very, very minor flaw of Starless that I referred to earlier, is the repetitive quality of Fripp's guitar work in between the opening and closing sections. One cannot help thinking that Starless would have been an even stronger track had the middle section been a little shorter and less repetitive - and as such, ineligible for the top 20. This is a minor complaint but, at the great masterpiece level we have now entered, significant enough to determine the difference between #1, #2 and #3 of all time.
Tilaa:
Blogitekstit (Atom)