Progressive Rock Focus

I'm listening to Aurora (Bonus Tracks Edition), and the first (and title) track is very good indeed. The band are in fine form. I question slightly the mix of band and occasional orchestra, which sounds a bit odd to me, but it essentially works. The lyrics are suitably mystical nonsense, and the vocal melodies compete with the best Jon Anderson ever did with the added advantage of being in tune (see previous reviews of 'classic' Yes). Overall, a very strong start. I get the sense that Steve Howe is now the dominant instrumentalist - the keyboards are more supporting than front and centre. Turnaround Situation, the second track, suffers from that 'awkward lyric' syndrome which has afflicted Yes at times in recent years. To my ears, it sounds like a contrived set of words over an unimaginative song. That one's a miss for me. As the third song starts, I'm beginning to wonder if Yes are largely now a pastiche of themselves, but actually I think that's unfair...

I'm approaching this with a little trepidation, because I'm not really sure that Spinal Tap are a progressive rock band. But bear with me. Here's my argument. First, one of the main hallmarks of progressive rock is the long form song. Supper's Ready. Awaken. Thick As A Brick. American Pie. Can't Get You Out Of My Head. All of these are undeniably progressive rock. Spinal Tap are masters of the long form song. It's just that they condense them into short pieces. Stonehenge, for example, is clearly a long form song which has been cut down. There's at least fifteen minutes of material in there. Third, there are the mythological influences. Just because the reference is to English druids rather than Graeco-Roman gods makes no difference. Stonehenge is the English 'Fountain Of Salmacis'. And coming at last to the album I'm actually reviewing, let's talk about 'Let's Just Rock Again'. It's 'Final Countdown' keyboard riff is ...

I first saw IQ at the Hammersmith Odeon supporting Magnum. Magnum were a sort of Spinal Tap tribute band, prog-adjacent at times but not really interesting for me. I was there for the prog. And IQ did not disappoint. They were one of the leading lights of the neo-prog movement in the 1980s, desperately unfashionable but with a loyal set of fans. And now, they're back, with the album Dominion, released on March 28th, 2025. And, in summary, it's good, and it's classic IQ. Prog is a very wide genre, but one of the things most associated with it is long-form songs. The first song, 'The Unknown Door' is over 22 minutes long. Now, when you're writing a song that long, you have to make sure there are strong themes, and that those themes are repeated and varied. This is the basis of classical music, and for a reason: if you don't do it, the music turns into a medley, incoherent and rambling. The music has to take you on a journey, returning home after learning somet...

I decided to listen to this album with an open mind, because I'll be honest I've always disliked it. I've listened to it twice this morning and I'll try to be objective. In doing the research for this (yes! I do research!) I discovered that Eddy Orford left the project early on. And it sounds to me, frankly, like this album lacks anyone who knows what they are doing from a production side. On the first track, Future Times/Rejoice, the guitar, keyboard and vocal are all fighting each other for space in the mix, with the result that it sounds a complete mess. Yes did a similar thing with Going For The One, which is one of the most sonically busy songs I've ever heard, but there it works; here it doesn't. Steve Howe's guitar sounds like he's putting it through a bargain basement amp, Wakeman's keyboard sounds like a cheap Casio and Anderson's voice sounds thin and out of tune at times. In fact, the contrast with the Going For The One album couldn...

My mate James is the world's biggest progger. He has so many prog CDs he had to reinforce the floor of his flat. He once had a record player which was so expensive it took a team of four people to come in and install it. Some of these things might be true. Anyway, James asked me to review a Transatlantic album, so here we are. SMPT:e is the first album by  the prog supergroup which features Neal Morse (once of Spock's Beard), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Pete Trewavas (Marillion) and Roine Stolt (the Flower Kings). The style is very much classic neo-prog. It's almost a case study in how to make a prog album. Long songs, tick. Odd time signatures, tick. Big sound, tick. And so on. This is very much an album which consolidates the progressive rock sound rather than extends it. The first track, for example. It's 31 minutes long. It starts with a short atmospheric scene-setter before going into a high-tempo instrumental section and from there into more of a song section. Y...

Recently (https://progressive-rock-focus.blogspot.com/2025/01/true-by-jon-anderson-featuring-band.html) I reviewed the new Jon Anderson album. Well, he and his Band Geeks (that's what they are called) dropped a live album consisting of original Yes songs. Interestingly, he has stuck with the longer songs, including my absolutely favourite Yes song Awaken, from Going For The One. Now Jon Anderson is, at the time of writing, 80 years old. You might expect an 80-year-old to be struggling somewhat with his vocal performance, but if anything he sounds better than ever. I'm listening to Yours Is No Disgrace, and it sounds like the singing on the record. That is remarkable. This isn't just a "doesn't he sound great for his age" review. This is a "he sounds great, full stop" review. Bear in mind I'm not the biggest Jon Anderson fan, but I have to hand it to him, this is top notch. And the band. They are superb. They sound exactly like Yes. So much like Y...

I am going into this album completely cold. I haven't read anything about it. I am just going to listen to it and give my first impressions. Of course, first impressions are largely wrong when it comes to prog albums. It took me about three years to realise that Can-Utility and the Coastliners was one of the best Genesis songs, for example, after completely ignoring it. The first song is 'Objects Outlive Us' and it's twenty-three minutes long. First thing to say is that it's clearly Steven Wilson, with the complex harmonic turns and rhythms you expect. But there's something quite new about the vocal delivery. I can't quite pin it down yet, but it's something sharper, more focussed. Wilson is known for those beautiful washy vocal arrangements, but this is more direct. And it's great. The whole song is absolutely fizzing with musical ideas. In terms of the song's structure, it's more of the 'good bits stitched together' school of prog r...

What, Jethro Tull again? But Harold, you've just done a Jethro Tull review, what are you thinking of? Let's get Ian Anderson's voice out of the way first, because I've already talked about it last time. Yes, the very up-front sound is odd. Yes, there's a lot more spoken word stuff and less singing. Yes, the sound is different. But it's fine, in fact in places it's very rich in tone. Get over it! The album starts with Puppet and the Puppet Master, and you're thinking a bit of piano? That's not very Jethro Tull! And then it's the old bait and switch, because they go straight in to the most Tull sounding thing I've heard since Songs From the Wood. The thing that comes across most is that they sound like they're having fun as a band. This isn't an Ian Anderson solo album, there's a real band in there. This is probably down to the origins of the album as a set of instrumental pieces dating back quite a few years.  Next song is Curious ...

I approach today's Progressive Rock Focus with some trepidation, because I'm talking about Jethro Tull. That needs clarification. If you think Jethro Tull is more than just Ian Anderson, and has to include Martin Barre and Dave Pegg, then this won't be Jethro Tull for you. Maybe you'd also include Barriemore Barlow as drummer. Whatever. Let's call a thing a thing. This is an Ian Anderson project, with some additional musicians. Let's dwell no more on band politics. The music is as interesting as ever. Ian Anderson has reverted to a 'classic' 1970s Tull sound, and put aside the excessive synths of Under Wraps and other aberrations. There's lots of flute, lots of acoustic guitar, lots of bell sounds. Maybe in form and rhythm it's a little less adventurous than say Songs From The Wood, but not much. You could do a lot worse than starting with track 8, Trickster (And the Mistletoe). We're immediately in classic Tull territory, and it's great....

Take a deep breath. It's a new Jon Anderson album. My mate James (hi James!) really has a problem with Jon Anderson's lyrics, especially when he starts banging on about fairies and universal peace. I share his misgivings - his lyrics really can be insufferably twee at times. And because this is a Jon Anderson album, not a Yes album, there is clearly no-one there to reign in those tendencies. Having said that, if you can get over it, this sounds more like Yes than anything I've heard in the last thirty years. Anderson got involved with the Band Geeks when he heard a demo of 'Heart of the Sunrise' - which I hardly need remind you is from the classic 1971 Yes album Fragile. He thought the Band Geeks played like 1970s Yes and asked them to tour with him. I don't love everything Yes did in the 1970s. Parts of Tales from Topographic Oceans are self-indulgent nonsense. Some of Tormato is excruciatingly bad, especially what I call the effing whale song, which is about a...

I can't think of another artist who could feature on this blog who has been on the UK X Factor. I mean, the X Factor and progressive rock are not natural bedfellows. However, Tiger Moth Tales, one of the many projects of Peter Jones, is proper prog, and this album is a must listen for fans of the more melodic wistful end of the prog spectrum. The first song is called A Visit To Chigwick and to those of us born around the 1960s the cultural resonance is very clear. Consider Jones was born in 1980, it's a bit surprising he nails this so well, but he does. It clocks in at over 8 minutes, and I wouldn't be pushing it too far to suggest this is something of a masterpiece. For some people, it might err on the side of twee, but it's done with such enthusiasm and warmth that you'd have to be very cynical not to like it. Jones continues to mine English cultural references with track 2, Toad Of Toad Hall. It's not very serious, but again he's fully committed. It makes...

Oh my goodness I am listening to something amazing. I have just discovered, through a random association on Amazon Music (I was listening to Jadis), the incredible Rachel Flowers, an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. There's an excellent mini-bio on IMDb which I've linked below. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5231044/bio/ Composer is important, because these songs are not thrown together in five minutes. You can hear the thought and craft that went into them. On top of that, she's a great singer. And her lyrics are excellent! How do I describe her music? Well, it's definitely progressive rock. Extended themes. Three of the songs are longer than 10 minutes and the album clocks in at 67 minutes. The melodies, though, are out of this world. There's an American twist to some of them which at times reminds me of TV theme tunes, but in a good way. Kind of progressive rock and soft jazz. Track 7, for example, "The Darkness" has a sublime refrain which bui...

Today we're having a listen to the new album by our favourite prog rock band from Amsterdam, Focus. Still fronted by legend Thijs van Leer. If all you know of Focus is Hocus Pocus, then you're in for a bit of a treat. The album opens with Fjord Focus, the name of which I will move swiftly past. It's a glorious jam, rooted I would say in classic 70s prog, not unexpectedly. Great guitar work. Eminently listenable. The second track, Focus 13, starts with a guitar solo that strays close to the line of sentimental but just about stays the right side, before it morphs into something rather faster. Never obvious, always interesting, I have to say this really makes me want to listen to a lot more. I'll be honest, I've been put off for years by Hocus Pocus, which is, let's face it, a rather silly track. Good, but silly. The third track starts with piano. Harmonically sophisticated, and again just about staying on the right side of sentimental. Thijs clearly has a formida...

With a new album imminent from Public Service Broadcasting, it's time for a look. The Race For Space is an album from 2015, their second full studio album. The opening track is a beautifully written choral piece underpinning JFK's famous speech about going to the moon. It makes for a great opener, but reveals little about what's to come. On Sputnik, the album gets into its stride. Starting out as an extremely sparse piece of electronica, it develops by layering sounds rather than structurally. It works - over 7 minutes the track builds to a convincing conclusion. There's not a lot of harmonic complexity - this is about creating an atmosphere, not changes in tempo or key modulations. No singing - this album is mostly instrumental. The album uses a lot of spoken word samples to evoke the events of the 1960s (plus a little either side). Their use is mostly pretty well judged. Let's move on to track 5, EVA. Again, building an atmosphere on a riff, this time guitar-based...

This is an album from 1986. I am sure you remember 'Calling all the Heroes' - that's on here, and I'll talk about it later. But does it still stand up as a good album? Firstly, the production is very  80s. In places it is abrasively so - for example, the instrumental section most of the way through the first track. At times it's like someone is smacking you round the head with Phil Collins' snare. The drums are really over the top, and some of the synth sounds are extremely dated. At times (track 3) I thought I was listening to that dreadful track on Abacab with the horn section. I'm also not a big fan of the vocal. I find it a bit contrived, like someone trying a little too hard. Having got those gripes out of the way, let's talk about the good stuff. The melodies are terrific. All In Red, the second track, has a fabulous hook line. Whole New World has a great chorus. First and foremost, you can see that IT Bites put a lot of work into crafting catchy t...

To date, one person has read my review of Jadis - No Fear of Looking Down, so you can hardly accuse me of chasing numbers in my follow-up review of Somersault, their album from 2010. But so impressed I was by No Fear, I've been looking further into their catalogue. Opening track Live This Lie reminds me of 'IT Bites' - remember them? Funnily enough they are still going and I will be doing a review soon. There's a kind of 80s pop sensibility to Jadis which I find very engaging. The vocals are rhythmically and melodically interesting, the musical arrangement interesting, the harmony is full of interesting tweaks and turns. There's clearly a very creative musical intelligence. This song is a very long way away from a simple verse/chorus structure. And what a great ending! Second track Batstein (Batstein?) follows on stylistically. There's a kind of cheerful Englishness about Jadis which reminds me of Camel. And Steve Hackett in his most Narnia-esque mood. Great syn...

I can understand anyone who (a) doesn't think the 80s King Crimson albums are progressive rock or (b) finds them really difficult to listen to. I've only discovered these albums recently. Pure laziness probably. I find myself getting less and less interested in the first question as I continue to write these blogs. If you're the sort of person who only listens to music based on whether someone has labelled it progressive rock, rather than because someone has recommended it to you, you're probably missing out on all sorts of things. Sting's album the Soul Cages for example. https://progressive-rock-focus.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-soul-cages-by-sting.html This album follows on chronologically and stylistically from King Crimson's Discipline album. I reviewed that here: https://progressive-rock-focus.blogspot.com/2024/04/king-crimson-discipline.html I could pretty much cut and paste my comments from that review in here. Adrian Belew is still in David Byrne territory...

Today we're diving into the world of Jadis, who is of course the wicked witch of the Narnia books. Jadis have been around since the 1980s and were part of the neo-prog scene back then. I'm going to start with their 2016 album No Fear of Looking Down  for the very good reason that it come up first on Amazon. So, are they always winter but never Christmas, or are they turkish delight? Their songs generally seem to be in the 5 to 7 minute category. Experience leads me to expect extended rock songs rather than suddenly changing prog epics. The first song, Listen to me , bears this out. We're in Steve Hackett territory, I think - strong vocals, good melodies. Beautiful guitar sounds. I'm not so keen on the use of the Korg synth preset throughout the song but that's not going to bother you if you're not a total synth nerd like I am. Later on the same riff emerges again on guitar, and it works well. This is a strong opener, though it's firmly in neo-prog territory ...

Something new, and something a bit heavier. The Cyberiam is a rock band from Chicago. You can find out more here: https://thecyberiam.com/home First track has long spoken segments on it and it's a little jarring to my ears. The sung chorus is melodic but harmonically it's a little dull, relying on the same chugging chords over and over again. There's not really a lot to this song, I think. The second track has a spoken intro, and choosing a speech from the late Queen Elizabeth II is somewhat bizarre. It's a speech about the Commonwealth. Is it ironic? Why was it chosen? Is it just a way of referring to the queen - but for what reason? I'm baffled as to what this song is for. No singing on this track, so we're two tracks in and it's been mainly instrumental. Track 3 is an actual song, you know, with words and stuff, and it's the best so far. There's nothing outstandingly different harmonically, we're in fairly standard prog territory. It's wel...

Today, you may think I've completely lost it. Sting, a progger? What am I thinking? Bear with me. I would like to make the contention that Sting's 1991 album The Soul Cages is about as prog as it gets. First and foremost, it's a no-holds-barred concept album. Secondly, it uses a lot of clever harmonic turns. Third, its songs have a longer form - three of them are seven minutes or thereabouts. Sure, it doesn't have the endless twiddling guitar or keyboard solos often associated with prog. But think about Dark Side of the Moon. No-one would argue that's not prog - is this album so different? The first song, Island Of Souls, sets the tone. A great melody over a slow, mysterious pulsing synth line develops and builds. There are interesting harmonic and rhythmic changes. The keyboards are tasteful and atmospheric and there's even an appearance from the Northumbrian smallpipes, which is not something you can often say. The second song is a bit more poppy, of course, b...