Progressive Rock Focus

Mirror To The Sky is the twenty-third studio album by Yes. It was released in May 2023. So, how good is it, and how does it stack up against the other twenty-two studio albums? To what extent is this a pastiche of former glories, and to what extent does it try to say something new, or, you might say, progressive? First thing to say is that this Yes lineup is Jon Davison, Steve Howe, Geoff Downes, Billy Sherwood and Jay Schellen. So only Steve Howe remains from any of the 1970s line-ups, though of course some of the other members of the band have had a long history with the group. First of all, let's get over "if it ain't Jon Anderson, it ain't Yes". If that's what you think, there's no point having a further conversation. It might make it worse for you that Yes singers since Jon Anderson left under controversial circumstances in 2008 have effectively been Jon Anderson impersonators rather than bringing their own new style. But then what about Drama, with T...

This is an album from 2015, and I've picked it because I've just become aware of this guy through Prog Radio (as ever) and this seems like a good start. The first track on the album starts with some funky rhythm guitar and goes into a lovely vocal section. Complex rhythms abound and he sounds like he's having a lot of fun. But (and this will become a common theme) I'm not sure where's it going. Maybe it's not intended to go anywhere. The second track starts with a synth bass line that to me sounds a little at odds with the instrumentation of the rest of the track, but I think that's just a personal preference. The piece maintains a nice momentum over its 5 minutes or so, but I'm not sure there's enough there to satisfy a prog audience. The third piece features a nice vocal performance, but again the piece meanders around and I struggle to fit it into any sort of definition of progressive rock. The fifth track, however, starts to edge back into more f...

I'm quite surprised this surfaced on Prog Radio's new albums list. https://www.progradio.com/newalbums To call this progressive rock is to stretch the boundaries of that genre well beyond breaking point in my opinion. So why am I reviewing it? I'm finding that tough to answer, I'll be honest. Let's crack on with the review and see if I can work it out. https://thecasimirconnection.com/ According to their website, the Casimir Connection is a contemporary classical ensemble which "explores the boundaries between classical, folk and jazz". The sound centres around the piano, bringing in violin, double bass and saxophone. It's composed rather than improvised. The musicianship, as you'd expect, is excellent and the pieces range widely in dynamics and form. I think the folk influences come across most strongly in the violin playing but there is no obvious quoting. One of the problems with limited instrumentation in any genre is avoiding making every piec...

This album was released in September 1981 and you may well argue it's not a progressive rock album at all. It's certainly a long way from 1970s Flutes and Fairies. It is clearly influenced by Talking Heads. Remain In Light was released in 1980 and the stylistic influences are clear. Adrian Belew, King Crimson's singer on this album, worked on Remain In Light of course. Its emphasis is on rhythm rather than harmony, which dominated earlier King Crimson. The first song Elephant Talk really sounds like Talking Heads, Belew's vocal delivery almost a direct copy of David Byrne. But the instrumental arrangement takes it to another level. Fripp is clearly delighting in trying something new. In the second song, Frame By Frame, I can detect some XTC influences. Something about the vocal line strongly reminds me of Andy Partridge. I absolutely love this song. The third song, Matte Kudasai, sees a distinct change of mood, and you could be tempted into thinking it's quite strai...

So I come to Hawkwind with absolutely no baggage, which is how I'm spinning being completely ignorant of these musical giants. How I've managed to get to this age without hearing this band before I've no idea, but there you are. I can see from Wikipedia that Hawkwind's only consistent member is Dave Brock, still making music at the age of 82. I think it's really important to avoid qualifiers to reviews like "...this is impressive for an 82 year old ". The music stands or falls by itself. So I'm not going to be impressed by his age (although I am a bit). I'm two songs in, and it's not what I expected. The sound is structurally straightforward but full of ideas and variation.  The second song, The Starship, is full of energy and even though it's basically two chords its groove manages to hold the attention for the nearly 8 minutes of the song. The singing is not to the forefront, clearly Dave's voice is, not suprisingly, not holding up pa...

If that title is confusing it's because the album is called 'By Design Or By Disaster' and the band is called 'For All We Know'. You can find out more about them here: https://www.forallweknow.net/ Overall, we're in heavier territory rather than acoustic/folky prog. We're also at the end of prog which is less about long developed song structures and more about straightforward verse/chorus forms. Songs come in at around 4 to 7 minutes. The album opens with what you might call a prog pop song with a great guitar riff that reminds me of early XTC. The song smashes it with a cracking chorus - a good start to the album. The third song has a piano break about a third of the way through which is most definitely prog, but the musical development of the section doesn't quite deliver for me. Another great chorus though - these guys can certainly write an interesting melody. I really like the fourth track, 'The Future That Came Too Soon'. It has an interest...

You'll think I've gone mad today, because I'm reviewing an album that is, well, let's say not entirely new. But since I haven't heard it for a while, I thought I'd give it a listen and hear it with new ears. My ears are quite old, but you know what I mean. The album is Trespass by Genesis, the first prog album they made while they were still working out their style. Looking For Someone sees the band trying out quite a complex structure, and for the most part it works and hangs together. Gabriel's vocal is a bit - odd - the way he pronounces 'guess' is nothing short of peculiar - but you can hear his growing confidence. John Mayhew's drumming is a bit distracting, especially when the song gets going, but it's not bad, it's just not as good as Phil Collins. There are repeating themes, some lovely instrumental sections, until after the third repeat of the 'Looking For Someone' lyric there's quite a structural disconnect to my ear...

This album has got me thinking about what progressive rock is. In many ways, what I think of as 'progressive' rock is actually anything but, as it is strongly rooted in the 1970s and hasn't moved on since then. This is not an accusation you can level at AI AJ by Andy Jackson. This album is melodic, minimal (but not minimalist) and atmospheric. It makes use of some distinctly modern sounds - there's definitely a lot of use of granular synthesis in there, for example. There's also some great (can I say Gilmoureseque?) lead guitar. Many of the songs are deceptively simple, carefully building a consistent sound world rather than a traditional song. But they each have their own identity. Track 8, Dissolve, is a good example, because if I were to describe it in terms of its arrangement I wouldn't get much further than saying it's a weird guitar solo over some odd noises. However, that does a great disservice to it, because the whole is a great deal more than the s...

So many new prog albums! A great source for seeing what's coming up is ProgRadio's 'New Albums' page, which you can find here: https://www.progradio.com/newalbums According to this, thirty-three albums categorised by ProgRadio as prog were released in March 2024. To stay on top of all this I'd have to review more than one album per day! So I have to choose, and my choices are necessarily sometimes a little arbitrary. The Prog Collective, however, is not an arbitrary choice. It is, according to its own website, the world's finest prog rock supergroup. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's most definitely worth having a listen. So let's find our bearings. What kind of prog territory are we in? First thing to note is that there is no song longer than 5:09 on the album, so there's no epics. First track 'Darkest Hour' is entirely instrumental and while it sounds menacing and interesting, it doesn't really have any development or structu...

Steve Hackett released The Circus And The Nightwhale on 16th February 2024. You can find some details on Steve's website here: https://www.hackettsongs.com/news/album-steve-hackett-the-circus-and-the-nightwhale.html For those only familiar with Steve's work in Genesis, or his early solo albums, you might have some preconceptions about what you think this will sound like, but Hackett's sound has moved on a lot since those days. His guitar playing is never unnecessarily complex and full of delightful half-remembered melodic fragments which give you the feeling that you've heard it before. People Of The Smoke, the opening track, sounds like it's quoting from Grieg's In The Hall Of The Mountain King, for example. That's not a criticism - it works really well. Let's talk about that first track. It ranges widely in tone from one section to another but somehow works well as an integrated whole. For me, it has the feeling of an overture, setting the scene for th...