Something Completely Different

Not according to me, according to ProgArchives.  I'm going to take the Progarchives' top 10 albums for each year, going back 50 (from last year, obviously) and review them here. But so as not to make it too boring for those not into, say, modern prog or vice versa, I'll begin with 1972 and do the number 10 album on their list from that year, then I'll go for the number 9 from 1973, 8 from 1974 and so on. Over the course, then, of this project, I'll get through a total of 500 albums, many of which - being all in the top ten of each year - you'll know and I'll know, but some I won't.

By the way, I'm not going to do my usual lengthy exploration and explanation of who the artist is or was; these are all top ten albums for each year so you should know them, and if you don't, then go look them up. I've half a thousand albums to get through, so you'll forgive me if I don't put my normal amount of research into these. Also I'm not doing track listings, for the same reason.

Note: Gold Rated tracks is probably obvious - best ones on the album; Silver Rated are good or great but just not standouts while Wood are absolute dross. Anything not shown in any of the three is considered all right but just not good enough to be Silver or Gold and not bad enough to be Wood.

Familiarity index (artist)
1 = Never heard of them or heard anything from them
2 = Heard of them but never heard anything by them
3 = Know of them, have heard one or two of their albums or songs
4 = Know them quite well, have heard some of their albums or songs
5 = Know them very well, have heard many of their albums
6 = Know them extremely well, have heard all or most of their albums

Familiarity index (album)

1 = Never heard of it
2 = Heard of it but have never heard it
3 = Heard it maybe once before
4 = Heard it many times
5 = One of my favourite albums

Next up...
(https://i.discogs.com/G3BGw1eOHOlmxtKApohKhynCuPju_Ac6NREUve4F9sA/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:268/w:280/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTcxMjM2/Ny0xMjE1MzkxNzI5/LmpwZWc.jpeg)


INDEX

Khan - Space Shanty (1972) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1014)
Le Orme - Felona e Sorona (1973)  (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1144)
Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom (1974) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1302)
Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn (1975)  (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1333)
Rush - 2112 (1976)  (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1401)
Eloy - Ocean (1977)  (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1468)
SBB - SBB [AKA: WOłANIE O BRZęK SZKłA AND SLOVENIAN GIRLS] (1978)  (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1565)
Steve Hackett - Spectral Mornings (1979) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1723)
Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 3/Melt (1980) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1846)
 Rush - Moving Pictures (1981)  (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1864)
 Kenso - Kenso II (1982) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=1929)
Eskaton - Fiction (1983) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=2141)
Brian Eno and Harold Budd - The Pearl (1984) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=2300)
Art Zoyd - Le marriage du ciel et de l'enfer (1985) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=2460)
Fates Warning Awaken the Guardian (1986) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=2584)
Voivod - Killing Technology (1987) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=2850)
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden (1988) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=3619)
Fates Warning - Perfect Symmetry (1989) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=4768)
Psychotic Waltz - A Social Grace (1990) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=5905)
Death - Human (1991) (https://scd.community/index.php?msg=6557)

Right then, let's go. Shimmery visual effects and warped music as we travel all the way back to 1972...


(https://i.discogs.com/cyYE__XT-8QWw9Mh0chKRgexCox5oGRD1tVLAz53Wwc/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:449/w:450/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE5MjQz/NjcyLTE2MjQ4Nzk1/ODMtOTg4Ni5qcGVn.jpeg)
Album title: Space Shanty
Artist: Khan
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Canterbury Scene
Year: 1972
Position on list for that year: 10
Chronology: 1 of 1
Familiarity with artist: 2
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): Stranded, Driving to Amsterdam, Hollow Stone
Silver Rated track(s): Stargazers
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: This album looks familiar. I didn't get to 1972 yet in my History of Prog journal, but I think I may be about to get there, and have seen it in the list of albums released that year. Actually, it looks like I'm still mired in 1971 but I'm sure I've seen this album. I can tell you that Gong legend Steve Hillage was in Khan, along with some other Canterbury folk (sorry) and that this was their one and only album. It's relatively short, which may be a good thing for me - just over the three-quarters-of-an-hour mark, with a total of six tracks, some of them obviously quite long. Now, those of you who know me will already know that the Canterbury Scene is not, well, my scene. I've listened to Caravan, Soft Machine, Gong and others and I really did not like what I heard. Goes back to the hippy/psychedelic thing I guess; Hawkwind once wrote that if you want to get into it, you gotta get out of it, and I've never been out of it in my life. In fact, I think it might be hard to find someone who is more consistently in, so trippy albums don't have the same effect on me that they might have on, for example, you. Doesn't mean I'll pan it, but my expectations are a little lower than were I going to review, say, a prog folk or a progressive metal or neo-prog album (no, not in 1972, I know, smartass!) so I'm sort of ready for the worst.

Let's see how bad it is.

It's certainly a product of the seventies, with that staggered guitar that comes through so much in hard rock and early metal, and of course psych; the main vocal melody reminds me of something but I can't place it. Uriah Heep maybe? Not sure. Nice slow organ run is pretty cool and this is of course the opener and title track (with an additional "includes the Cobalt Sequence and the March of the Sine Squadrons") and runs for nine minutes. It's pretty okay actually when the vocals drop out; instrumental work is indeed quite progressive in tone. I have to say, of the Canterbury albums I've listened to (and there have not been that many, but a few certainly) this is far and away the best. "Stranded" is really nice with a sprinkly piano and - oh, it's just broke out into hard guitar and warbling organ. Picking up speed but still nice. Even the vocal doesn't bother me on this. I see Hillage and Nick Greenwood seem to share vocal duties, so maybe I'm listening to a different singer? Anyway it's good and the instrumental passages are glorious. Much better than I had expected. That piano from Dave Stewart really makes the song.

That guitar bit there presages the big hit for the Alan Parsons Project, "Eye in the Sky", or to be more accurate, its instrumental intro, "Sirius". Wonder if Parsons listened to this album, or maybe David Paton did? "Mixed Up Man of the Mountains" has an odd kind of tra-la-la vocal with some truly exceptional guitar, and really, other than the somewhat stuttering start this album has not put a foot wrong since. That sounds like some Cat Stevens in there too, in the guitar riff? Some pretty rocky stuff going on now, as the track acquires teeth whereas up to now it's just been more or less lazily chewing the cud. To carry the analogy, such as it is, further, the song has been up to now cows in a field, until a bull charges in and takes control of the herd. It's heavier, is what I'm saying. And really good. One of the longer tracks, "Driving to Amsterdam" has a quite jazzy peppy uptempo organ running the melody, very breezy with some fine guitar from Hillage, and the vocal is lovely and relaxed, again reminding me of something, or I guess as whatever that something is, it comes well after '72, I should say that something reminds me of this. Well, you know what I mean.

Yeah I know what it is: ELO's "The Whale" and also parts of "Echoes", which in the case of the latter is in fact before this album, if only by a year. Certainly enjoying this. "Stargazers" has a very Van der Graaf Generator vibe to it, could imagine Hammill singing on this one, then the closer is another nine-minuter, with "Hollow Stone (Including Escape of the Space Pirates)" having a very stately kind of marching, almost triumphant feel to it, a low-key vocal and a sonorous organ arrangement. It's no surprise this album is in the top ten, the only surprise really being that it's that low. But then, when you look at the others in that list - Genesis, Tull, Yes - two Bancos? - quite a lot of RPI in fact, like four albums or something - maybe it's not that it's not good enough to get higher, just that other, better-known albums are preventing it from doing so by being voted for more. Does deserve to be a few places up though.

Personal Rating: 10

Space Shanty is a fine album even if I don't personally rank it as high as Caravan's finest or the Hatfield and the North albums or Of Queues And Cures by National Health.

It DOES have something of a follow-up as I believe the Steve Hillage album Fish Rising contains music intended for Khan's second release. It is also quite well liked. I have the T-shirt :)

I'm not familiar with this band but I really like the album art!

Dave Stewart who plays the keys here (not the guy from Eurythmics btw) is probably my biggest Canterbury hero :D

I love his stuff. He composed things like this miraculous tune (knowing fully well most may not immediately appreciate it):


.. Including many more wonderful things. He's also been a writer for at least one music magazine and still write for Sound on Sound, I believe. I've read some of his reviews for things I got for my studio.

Also he's published a couple of books on music composition and writing. Of course I had to have them. And he answered on DMs when I bugged him about the inspiration for the track posted above, so was very grateful for that. Overall he just seems like such a smashing guy. <3

Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 01, 2023, 09:21 PMSpace Shanty is a fine album even if I don't personally rank it as high as Caravan's finest or the Hatfield and the North albums or Of Queues And Cures by National Health.

It DOES have something of a follow-up as I believe the Steve Hillage album Fish Rising contains music intended for Khan's second release. It is also quite well liked. I have the T-shirt :)

I'm a big fan of Steve Hillage. If you like ambient electronic stuff his 1979 Rainbow Dome Music album is an absolute treat.

And so we travel a year forward in time, to the heady year of 1973, when Pink Floyd released their seminal Dark Side of the Moon, but at number 9 on the list for this year we find this, our first RPI album, but surely not our last.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d2/Felona_e_Sorona.jpg/220px-Felona_e_Sorona.jpg)
Album title: Felona E Sorona
Artist: Le Orme
Nationality: Italian
Sub-genre: Rock Progressivo Italiano
Year: 1973
Position on list for that year: 9
Chronology: 4 of 20 (or 21, see below)
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Felona, The Plan, Return to Naught
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): Sorona
Comments: This album appears to have been released both in Italian and English versions, though oddly enough, none of their other twenty albums have been. I don't know if it was just that it was so successful, some sort of breakout album, that it had to be re-recorded for the English-speaking market, or what, but in the same year there are two versions. Truth to tell, there are three versions of this album, another one put out in 2016, which looks like it might be a two-disc version of both Italian and English releases. Guess it must have been really popular. Obviously, for my own sake, I'm going to try to get the English language version if I can. And I can't. Okay, despite YouTube giving me an option to search for the English version the only one that comes up is the Italian one, so I guess for now I'm stuck with that.

This is even shorter than the Khan album, clocking in at just over a half-hour, with the longest track on it being the opener, at nearly nine minutes, but the rest of them are really quite short. An interesting thing, I would think, for an RPI band to decide to do. I guess you can see how Genesis became so popular in Italy, when this kind of thing was going on all over the country. I mean, I'm not sure if RPI came about as a result of, at the same time as, or before Peter and the boys, but there's very definitely an early Genesis feel to this opener, though I do also hear a lot of classical in it, mostly Bach's "Toccata and Fugue". Is it all instrumental I wonder? With a nine-minute opener you'd have to imagine no, but then, some bands have done that. This Winter Machine even have a ten-minute one - but no. There are the vocals now, and though I've no idea what's being sung, the voice is very clear and serene, at least on this track.

Tubular bells I think opening the second track which has, if anything, a very Spanish feel to it, with acoustic (Spanish?) guitar in a sort of singalong rhythm, almost nursery rhyme in its way (Nursery Cryme? All right, TH: enough with the damned comments in brackets! What brackets? Don't play dumb: you know the ones I mean. Oh, those brackets! Yes, those ones) - uh, where was I? Oh yeah. Some flute coming in and a VERY Alan Parsons sound (yes yes I know) with rippling piano and some really nice vocals on "Felona" (which I can't help thinking of felony but I'm sure it's a name or something - the English language version doesn't translate it so that's why I imagine it's a name). Ramping things up for "The Maker", the other "long" track - just shy of six minutes - with a galloping bass line and sort of shots on the keyboard, very dramatic. And then a piece that sounds ripped out of Genesis's "Fountain of Salmacis", though since both albums came out in the same year I don't know who copied who, if anyone, or if it's just coincidence.

Great sort of boogie piano then running along to take us into "Web of Time", a slow, melancholy ballad with another recognisable melody or motif in it, right it's from one of the SKY tracks, the album recorded ten years later, so again, one or the other. Either SKY copied this bit or heard it or, which is more likely, just one of those things. Sounds like a motorbike revving now - guess it's guitar effects - as "Sorona" comes in, and this one is short too, just shy of three minutes. Can't say I particularly like this one honestly. That constant revving sound is very very annoying and it doesn't stop, runs right through the entire track. Maybe it has something to do with the song; don't know and don't care. Next up is "The Plan", coming in on a shimmery descending keyboard line with possibly warped guitar or something and maybe (though I doubt it) something like a theremin? Very spooky and weird, then "The Balance" has again that kind of breezy Spanish or Latin feel, with acoustic guitar and a few blasts on the organ, and a low-key vocal, and we end with "Return to Naught" which seems to be a kind of reprise of the "Toccata" that opened the album.

Overall I'd say this is a decent RPI album, but like with many of them - and not just due, I think, to the language barrier - I find it a little hard to engage fully with it. On repeated listenings I feel it would probably click more with me, but I've 498 albums to go and I don't have the time for repeated listenings. I reckon it probably deserves its place on the list, though I feel there may be better RPI albums out there. Still, Le Orme are one of the giants of the scene, so it would not be fair to ignore that. Be interesting to see if we encounter them again in any future year lists. I'm sure we will.

Personal Rating: 8

QuoteI'm a big fan of Steve Hillage. If you like ambient electronic stuff his 1979 Rainbow Dome Music album is an absolute treat.

i like that one a lot!!! jftr he spells music with a ck musick which i think gives it a cool witchy vibe imo

trolls i wish you would also rank the album 1-10 or 1 to 5 stars or something

reading it - the entire time i thinking well should i listen to it or not

Quote from: TheNonSexual OccultHawk on Feb 03, 2023, 04:59 PM

QuoteI'm a big fan of Steve Hillage. If you like ambient electronic stuff his 1979 Rainbow Dome Music album is an absolute treat.

i like that one a lot!!! jftr he spells music with a ck musick which i think gives it a cool witchy vibe imo

Ah yes, you're right. I like that spelling too, it does give a very mystical energy to it.

Quote from: TheNonSexual OccultHawk on Feb 03, 2023, 05:04 PMtrolls i wish you would also rank the album 1-10 or 1 to 5 stars or something

reading it - the entire time i thinking well should i listen to it or not

There's no point in my ranking them. Progarchives have already done that. If you want to know if they consider it good or not, check "Position on the list for that year". As you probably know, I'm going backwards so the first album was no. 10 on their list for 1972, then the RPI one is 9 for that year, and so on. Whether they should be higher (or lower) largely, I think, depends on what's above them. You can always check out the list on PA and see what they have to say about each album. I'm just giving my impressions, but given that so many people have already ranked and scored them, I don't think it makes sense for me to do so.

In the case of the two so far, if you need them, I would rank Khan as a 10 and Le Orme at maybe 8. I'd listen to both, but if you have to choose one, choose Khan.

QuoteIn the case of the two so far, if you need them, I would rank Khan as a 10 and Le Orme at maybe 8

that wasn't so hard was it? thanks 💜

All right sod it. I'll do that in future. You can also check the Gold Tracks to see how many, or few, there are, which would be a reasonable metric as to what I think of the album. Grumble grumble... have to add another category.. mutter... cuss...

Interesting criteria considering a majority of the top 250 on PA are from the 70s. That being said it allows for a more interesting exploration of the more unknown 80's and onward albums.

That's not how it works. I choose the top ten album from 1972, top nine album from 1973, top eight album from 1974 and so on. Right now I've reached 1990. Once I get to 2022 I'll be going back to 1972 for the top nine album but that means we don't see a seventies album again once we exit 1979 until we've gone all the way to last year.

Anyway, on we go.

With a 70s album.  :)  8)

And so to 1974, where I'm somewhat depressed to find this at number 8.
(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/1035/cover_35181016102009.jpg)


Album title: Rock Bottom
Artist: Robert Wyatt
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Canterbury Scene
Year: 1974
Position on list for that year: 8
Chronology: 2 of 11
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): Alifib
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): Sea Song, Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road, Alife, Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road
Comments: I've heard, in the course of my History of Prog journal, two of Wyatt's albums. I do not recall enjoying either. Given that he's one of the leading lights behind Soft Machine, and my opinion of their first four or five albums, that's not entirely surprising. It's a bit off-putting that I'm faced with another CS album so soon, but then, this is the list and it's not like other projects where I randomly choose and can - if I wish (ssshh!) - cheat. Here, there is nowhere to hide, and what's on the list is what I have to listen to and review. And so, by that measure, I have to listen to and review this.

But I don't have to like it.

And I doubt I will.

Nice slow little Beatles-like opener anyway, very lazy and sort of swaying along, then the piano gets a bit discordant and the vocal when it comes in is a little weak at first, but then gets stronger and reminds me of early Divine Comedy yes I know. Well there are only six tracks on this, and none are epics so maybe it won't be so bad. Another forty-minute album: don't these people know what prog is? Well anyway this is called "Sea Song" and it soon gets really annoying with all the atonal stuff and some sort of clarinet or something going in the background, or maybe it's flute. The choral vocals (probably a Prophet; were they around in 1974?) adds something to the song, but it's not one I can say I like, not at all. The title track is a little better but I just don't like the guy's style at all. I don't know what it is about him; maybe it's the way the music keeps going sort of out of tune, which I'm sure is intentional but certainly is annoying to me, or maybe it's his habit of vocalise all the time, like scat singing. I mean, can he not sing lyrics?

We get all free jazz and improvisational then (how I hate that) in "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road", and sadly Mr. Wyatt did not follow her example; there's another track almost titled the same, and if it's like this I'll be banging my head against the wall. And it runs for like seven minutes. Mostly it appears to be instrumental, in fact it may be so all the way through: I'm on about minute three and there's only been that vocalise so far, and little of that (though not little enough) and as for the taped speech/masking/whatever the hell it is: enough, really now. Enough. And next up is "Alifib", whatever that means: Wyatt seems to enjoy a fair bit of the old wordplay, as evidenced by the two albums that bookend this, his debut End of an Ear and the next one, Ruth is Stranger Than Richard. Yeah, very clever, but clever titles don't make great albums, and for me, this is not a great album. Not so far anyway.

At least this track is more restrained, a nice smooth guitar line against some synthy keyboard giving quite a relaxed feel, just the thing after the last freeform-fest. Melody sounds very similar, as if it's some folk or traditional song or something. Maybe it's just me. Miles better than anything on this album so far anyway. Runs directly into "Alife" (which I had incorrectly read as "Alfie") as we get a squeaky sound against a spectral, haunting keyboard line and some sort of basic vocal almost spoken rather than sung. Back to the poor quality, at least for me, we go. Sigh. Oh well. Only one more track to go and I'll be done with this. Oh that squeaky sound is a clarinet I think, though it sounds as if he's having a conversation with a very irate goose or hen. I know how it feels. Clarinets played by the hilariously-appropriately-named Gary Windo!

Oh look! Album is produced by Nick Mason. I wonder is that the Nick Mason? Surely it is. And this track is sung (!) by another guy, not Wyatt. I still don't care. I hate this. Okay I don't hate it, that's not fair. But I really dislike and have no interest in it. And here's the other song like "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road", though this time it's, um, "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road". Right. Seems a bit better musically, not that that would be hard. Yeah but then it goes into feedback and some sort of repeated line in the vocal which just grates and grates till I want to turn this FUCKING ALBUM OFF! Even the great Mike Oldfield lending a hand on guitar here can't pull this out of the mire it's stuck in. Oh, and now there's someone speaking in what sounds like an exaggerated Scottish accent against what might be accordion or bassoon or some damn thing. Hey, I was right: I didn't like it.

Personal Rating: 3

QuoteThat's not how it works. I choose the top ten album from 1972, top nine album from 1973, top eight album from 1974 and so on. Right now I've reached 1990. Once I get to 2022 I'll be going back to 1972 for the top nine album but that means we don't see a seventies album again once we exit 1979 until we've gone all the way to last year.

that's a clever way to keep it interesting

QuotePersonal Rating: 3

preciate it

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 05, 2023, 08:19 PMThat's not how it works. I choose the top ten album from 1972, top nine album from 1973, top eight album from 1974 and so on. Right now I've reached 1990. Once I get to 2022 I'll be going back to 1972 for the top nine album but that means we don't see a seventies album again once we exit 1979 until we've gone all the way to last year.

Anyway, on we go.

With a 70s album.  :)  8)

And so to 1974, where I'm somewhat depressed to find this at number 8.
(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/1035/cover_35181016102009.jpg)


Album title: Rock Bottom
Artist: Robert Wyatt
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Canterbury Scene
Year: 1974
Position on list for that year: 8
Chronology: 2 of 11
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): Alifib
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): Sea Song, Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road, Alife, Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road
Comments: I've heard, in the course of my History of Prog journal, two of Wyatt's albums. I do not recall enjoying either. Given that he's one of the leading lights behind Soft Machine, and my opinion of their first four or five albums, that's not entirely surprising. It's a bit off-putting that I'm faced with another CS album so soon, but then, this is the list and it's not like other projects where I randomly choose and can - if I wish (ssshh!) - cheat. Here, there is nowhere to hide, and what's on the list is what I have to listen to and review. And so, by that measure, I have to listen to and review this.

But I don't have to like it.

And I doubt I will.

Nice slow little Beatles-like opener anyway, very lazy and sort of swaying along, then the piano gets a bit discordant and the vocal when it comes in is a little weak at first, but then gets stronger and reminds me of early Divine Comedy yes I know. Well there are only six tracks on this, and none are epics so maybe it won't be so bad. Another forty-minute album: don't these people know what prog is? Well anyway this is called "Sea Song" and it soon gets really annoying with all the atonal stuff and some sort of clarinet or something going in the background, or maybe it's flute. The choral vocals (probably a Prophet; were they around in 1974?) adds something to the song, but it's not one I can say I like, not at all. The title track is a little better but I just don't like the guy's style at all. I don't know what it is about him; maybe it's the way the music keeps going sort of out of tune, which I'm sure is intentional but certainly is annoying to me, or maybe it's his habit of vocalise all the time, like scat singing. I mean, can he not sing lyrics?

We get all free jazz and improvisational then (how I hate that) in "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road", and sadly Mr. Wyatt did not follow her example; there's another track almost titled the same, and if it's like this I'll be banging my head against the wall. And it runs for like seven minutes. Mostly it appears to be instrumental, in fact it may be so all the way through: I'm on about minute three and there's only been that vocalise so far, and little of that (though not little enough) and as for the taped speech/masking/whatever the hell it is: enough, really now. Enough. And next up is "Alifib", whatever that means: Wyatt seems to enjoy a fair bit of the old wordplay, as evidenced by the two albums that bookend this, his debut End of an Ear and the next one, Ruth is Stranger Than Richard. Yeah, very clever, but clever titles don't make great albums, and for me, this is not a great album. Not so far anyway.

At least this track is more restrained, a nice smooth guitar line against some synthy keyboard giving quite a relaxed feel, just the thing after the last freeform-fest. Melody sounds very similar, as if it's some folk or traditional song or something. Maybe it's just me. Miles better than anything on this album so far anyway. Runs directly into "Alife" (which I had incorrectly read as "Alfie") as we get a squeaky sound against a spectral, haunting keyboard line and some sort of basic vocal almost spoken rather than sung. Back to the poor quality, at least for me, we go. Sigh. Oh well. Only one more track to go and I'll be done with this. Oh that squeaky sound is a clarinet I think, though it sounds as if he's having a conversation with a very irate goose or hen. I know how it feels. Clarinets played by the hilariously-appropriately-named Gary Windo!

Oh look! Album is produced by Nick Mason. I wonder is that the Nick Mason? Surely it is. And this track is sung (!) by another guy, not Wyatt. I still don't care. I hate this. Okay I don't hate it, that's not fair. But I really dislike and have no interest in it. And here's the other song like "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road", though this time it's, um, "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road". Right. Seems a bit better musically, not that that would be hard. Yeah but then it goes into feedback and some sort of repeated line in the vocal which just grates and grates till I want to turn this FUCKING ALBUM OFF! Even the great Mike Oldfield lending a hand on guitar here can't pull this out of the mire it's stuck in. Oh, and now there's someone speaking in what sounds like an exaggerated Scottish accent against what might be accordion or bassoon or some damn thing. Hey, I was right: I didn't like it.

Personal Rating: 3

A breathtakingly well-written negative review of one of my top ten favorite albums of all time! :laughing: 
Seriously, though, not surprised that you hate it, given your dislike of free jazz in particular.
But "Sea Song" is one of my favorite songs ever!  Definitely in my top five.  So there!  :laughing:

Oh I always make sure I negatively review in the most positive way!  :laughing:
Well, I know my views aren't everyone's but sometimes I do tend to lose it a little. Wait till you see The Meat Grinder... :pssst:

Yeah I kind of knew what to expect. As I mentioned, I've, ah, endured, two of his albums already and my teeth are worn down from grinding them. I know he's a hugely respected artist, and probably with good cause, but he's definitely not for me. I'm sure our paths will cross again on my prog voyage through time though... shudder!

i've never heard it so i'll chime in later

Rock Bottom is also interesting as Robert Wyatt broke his back falling out of a window and became a parplegic while working on it. Some of the music was written in the hospital bed. There's a strange melancholy to the album half-hidden behind absurdity or ocean imagery etc. The title and cover art expresses this perfectly with rock bottom making you think of the absolute lowest point of someone's life, but the cover shows the rocky sea bottom.

Sea song is an endearing classic. I sometimes play it (not well) on piano :)

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 05, 2023, 09:09 PMOh I always make sure I negatively review in the most positive way!  :laughing:

And the funniest (in the best possible way!).  I've re-read your review twice and am still laughing (while crying  :laughing:).

Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 05, 2023, 09:19 PMRock Bottom is also interesting as Robert Wyatt broke his back falling out of a window and became a parplegic while working on it. Some of the music was written in the hospital bed. There's a strange melancholy to the album half-hidden behind absurdity or ocean imagery etc. The title and cover art expresses this perfectly with rock bottom making you think of the absolute lowest point of someone's life, but the cover shows the rocky sea bottom.

Sea song is an endearing classic. I sometimes play it (not well) on piano :)

Yes, it helps to know the background as you've described it, Guy - "a strange melancholy...half-hidden behind absurdity or ocean imagery" - perfect description.  Very cool that you play "Sea Song" on piano!  :)

By the way, I also found Rock Bottom a difficult listen at first and I still feel that way about parts of it, so I understand.

^ It was very much an acquired taste for me as well.  Grew on me over time, and it wasn't an easy journey.
But "Sea Song" I loved instantaneously and that was the initial *bait*.
I actually prefer this live BBC4 performance to the studio version.

https://vimeo.com/277844775

The Unthanks have a half-decent cover of it :) maybe you've heard?


Edit:

Quote from: ribbons on Feb 05, 2023, 09:25 PMI actually prefer this live BBC4 performance to the studio version.

https://vimeo.com/277844775

Oh very nice! How have I missed this?

Thanks for sharing!

^ Yes, I've heard that one; half-decent as you say, but I love this song so much that I'm almost grateful to come across any cover of it. 

Covered by Tears For Fears as well.

Now we can torture Trolls with cover versions!    :laughing:

Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 05, 2023, 09:31 PMEdit:

Quote from: ribbons on Feb 05, 2023, 09:25 PMI actually prefer this live BBC4 performance to the studio version.

https://vimeo.com/277844775

Oh very nice! How have I missed this?

Thanks for sharing!

You're very welcome - I love that performance.  :beer:

Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 05, 2023, 09:19 PMRock Bottom is also interesting as Robert Wyatt broke his back falling out of a window and became a parplegic while working on it. Some of the music was written in the hospital bed. There's a strange melancholy to the album half-hidden behind absurdity or ocean imagery etc. The title and cover art expresses this perfectly with rock bottom making you think of the absolute lowest point of someone's life, but the cover shows the rocky sea bottom.

Sea song is an endearing classic. I sometimes play it (not well) on piano :)

Damn it yes, I heard that. I think it was in the prog history journal (soon to make its appearance here) but I didn't notice it when I was reading this time. Must have been the red haze and my hands too busy making strangling motions...

Quote from: ribbons on Feb 05, 2023, 09:19 PM

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 05, 2023, 09:09 PMOh I always make sure I negatively review in the most positive way!  :laughing:

And the funniest (in the best possible way!).  I've re-read your review twice and am still laughing (while crying  :laughing:).

Ah thank you! I aim to please..

Quote from: ribbons on Feb 05, 2023, 09:36 PM^ Yes, I've heard that one; half-decent as you say, but I love this song so much that I'm almost grateful to come across any cover of it. 

Covered by Tears For Fears as well.

Now we can torture Trolls with cover versions!    :laughing:

Hah. I have self-control! I don't have to play... must.. not ... play... no! Keep hand away from... play... button... ARRRGGHHHH!!!!! Betrayed by my own flesh and blood!

I like Tears for Fears, but I can't say I care much for that cover :coldsweat: can we find more?

And speaking of Mike Oldfield...
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRA9PHWFEyfoiJ2O31yeiHLbm1f2QDOr6cGYhyemw3QUQPzDXhoCibBmebgSVkLJDu_wOc&usqp=CAU)

Album title: Ommadawn
Artist: Mike Oldfield
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Crossover Prog
Year: 1975
Position on list for that year: 7
Chronology: 4 of 26
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): None of this is really applicable here...
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: An interesting point here I didn't know is that after the phenomenal success of his debut album, the now-classic Tubular Bells, Mike Oldfield did not want another hit album. He was retiring from the limelight he had been most reluctantly and somewhat perhaps violently and certainly unexpectedly thrust into. He became a musical recluse, and this, his third album, was all recorded in a little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The title comes from an Irish word for idiot - amadan - but manages to also represent, you know, a bright new beginning for the artist. He would never have solo success again like he had with Tubular Bells, although his albums would all be huge sellers. Those who know his name outside of his fanbase quote that album and the one or two hits he had with other people, such as Maggie Bell on "Moonlight Shadow" and "Family Man" and Roger Chapman on "Shadow on the Wall". This has not stopped him becoming a multi-million-selling artist, but unless you're into his music, the above, plus the well-known Christmas instrumental piece "In Dulce Jubilo" (oh, you'd know it if you heard it, believe me) are going to be the sum total of your knowledge or experience of him.

Not at all surprisingly, both for him and for the time, this is an album of two tracks, both almost completely instrumental, though the closing section of part two, called "On Horseback" has some nonsense lyrics in Irish. I must say, he does look very Christ-like on the cover, doesn't he? The artist suffering for his art? Forcing his creation out despite his wish to be alone? Well maybe; I don't know. Those eyes are extremely blue, aren't they? Almost as blue as the Blue Stone of Galveston! (In-joke for those who know Blackadder, watch, um, another space). At any rate, it's the music we're concerned with, and it's an ambient, almost spiritual beginning to part one. Now, considering all the instruments he plays I'm not going to attempt to identify them, so, you know, suck it. I do wonder if this will build up in instrumental layers, like his famous debut? We'll see I guess. I can hear certain echoes of that album here for sure; probably never really get away from it. I think there are like four versions of it now, not including Tubular Bells II and III.

Some pretty powerful electric guitar now - I believe the guitar is his first love and instrument of choice, and it features fairly prominently in Tubular Bells too. Get a sense of the music not quite reaching a crescendo, but building in intensity now. Coming back down though with a breezy flute solo I think then joined by bass and some sort of keyboard and bouncing along with an almost Beatles flavour, heading nearly in a kind of brass band direction, though there's no actual brass. Not yet anyway. Slowing down even more now with a nice little soft piano and some choral vocals or Prophet ARP or something, then we get into some almost tribal drums with a native chant which reminds me of stuff which surfaced on later Peter Gabriel solo albums and, to a lesser extent, some of Paul Simon's work.

I suppose the idea of people rushing out to buy an instrumental album that has two tracks and runs for just over half an hour seems pretty unlikely now, but this was the 1970s and the likes of ELP, Yes and others were releasing albums of increasing complexity and length and decreasing numbers of tracks, and this went to number four in the charts. Wouldn't even stand a chance of getting into the top forty these days I'm sure. Maybe we had better attention spans back then, or maybe it was just the golden age of progressive rock, and Oldfield benefited from that. Of course, there would also be those who bought it as a reaction to having bought and liked Tubular Bells. Nevertheless, I think it was quite a feat to have this in the top five, and a tribute to the man's popularity and determination not to just write what the public wanted. He certainly stayed true to his vision, and it stood to him in the end.

Part two opens on a grand, stately keyboard and piano piece, slow and dramatic, then it fades away to a nice sort of stripped-down acoustic guitar in a kind of pastoral vein, with electric joining in and fleshing out the sound, before uileann pipes are added and now the tune has, not surprisingly, a very Celtic feel. You can just imagine looking out across the misty fields towards the cloud-shrouded mountains as a clear lake sparkles in the distance, the sun striking dazzling reflections off its surface, as the sheep go about their morning, unimpressed by nature's awe-inspiring beauty, and somewhere there's the gentle chug-chug-chug of a tractor working in the fields. The final piece is that "On Horseback", with the nonsense Irish lyric and it's kind of a bit odd after the two instrumental pieces. I guess one of his little jokes, like that country bit at the end of Tubular Bells II. Well now there are clearly English lyrics there too. Hmm. Okay. Good yes but I don't think I'd have been rushing out to buy it personally myself.

Not on this album when released, but a special version the next year (1976) included that "In Dulce Jubilo" which became his signature Christmas song. I still wouldn't be all that crazy about this album, but then, while of course I love Tubular Bells, I wouldn't class myself as a big Oldfield fan.

Personal Rating: 6

I am a big Oldfield fan and Ommadawn is my favorite of his. Gonna be fun to compare your review to mine once I get there in my 100 list.  ;)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/Rush_2112.jpg)
Album title: 2112
Artist: Rush
Nationality: Canadian
Sub-genre: Heavy Prog
Year: 1976
Position on list for that year: 6
Chronology: 4 of 19
Familiarity with artist: 5
Familiarity with album: 5
Gold Rated track(s): 2112, Tears
Silver Rated track(s): Something for Nothing, Lessons, A Passage to Bangkok
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: The concept album to end all concept albums? Rush's best album? There's evidence to support both arguments, but one thing is certain: though there had been concept albums before this, 2112 stood, and still stands to a large degree, as the most cohesive single-story concept in progressive rock, or perhaps any rock, and is certainly the first, or at least one of the very few, concept albums based around a science fiction theme. I mean, sure, Hawkwind were always going on about science fiction on their albums, but let's be honest: half the time it was hard to know what they were singing about, if they even knew themselves. 2112 was the brainchild of drummer and lyricist, the late, great Neil Peart, and concerns a society in which all forms of freedom are suppressed and banned, especially music. Against this backdrop, an ancient guitar is found, the "natural order" is threatened, and the album deals with really the struggle for free speech and free will, and ends with an attack on the Solar Federation, resulting in the freeing of all the worlds held under the power of the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx.

It's also possibly the first, maybe only, concept prog album to also have much heavier elements of rock in it. Look at others like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Rick Wakeman's The Six Wives of Henry VIII, or even later material such as Spock's Beard's Octane: most if not all of these, while they may have heavier guitar passages and some shouted vocals, adhere to the concept (sorry) of progressive rock: long, convoluted keyboard passages, acoustic guitar, lengthy intros and outros, suites, with instruments like flute, cello, violin and harp used. Rush didn't do that. Their concept (again, sorry) of prog rock was far more on the heavier side, which for my money really pushes them closer to the idea of being progressive metal, though this is classified on PA as "heavy prog", which it certainly is.

This was Rush's last chance saloon. Their first three albums had bombed, and despite the fact that I love it to death, the previous outing, 1975's Caress of Steel had not sold well, and audiences were shrinking at their stage shows. Or maybe that was just the drugs. Anyway, less people were turning up and the band were losing popularity. The label was considering dropping them, but gave them one more chance. Expecting an album with better commercial material and hit singles, what they got was the opposite of that: a side-long composition that tells a story, much in the vein of "The Necromancer" and "The Fountain of Lamneth" from the previous album, and yet which rocketed them to the status of prog gods, ensuring their longevity and popularity right up to today and beyond, even though they have now broken up. Rush stuck to their guns, refused to be pushed into making a pop prog album to satisfy their paymasters, and were rewarded in spades, as was the label.

Like all good concept albums, this opens on a overture, which runs for nearly five minutes, a suitably spacey intro with feedback and wind sounds and effects before the first blasts of Alex Lifeson's guitar punch through, and the whole thing takes off at a gallop, leaving you in no doubt that this is rock with a capital R, and hell, even an M too, perhaps. What? For Metal, dummy. Do I have to explain everything? Now, now! No need to get violent. I'll just... be over here. After the introduction we hear the lilting tones of Geddy Lee singing "The meek shall inherit the earth", as we power into "The Temples of Syrinx", where Lee comes into his own as we meet the Priests, who control the worlds of the Solar Federation and are a totalitarian theocracy bent on retaining power. Geddy Lee's high screeching voice is perfectly suited to singing the claim of the Priests as they lord it over their subjects and shriek out their arrogance.

Softly tuned guitar leads in "Discovery", as the protagonist (I think they refer to him as the Man) discovers the ancient guitar and wonders what it is. Clever indeed here how Lifeson plays the instrument as if he is only learning to understand how it works, then we hear the more restrained side of Lee, before the Man brings the guitar to the Priests, who unsurprisingly put it down and scream and shriek at him, throwing him out of the temple after having the guitar destroyed. This song shows the first example of one of the populace standing up to the Priests, which no doubt angers and worries them. A population can only be held in thrall by fear if everyone is so held; once one person begins to fight back, you can end up with a revolution on your hands. The song veers between quiet acoustic and powerful, upfront hard rock, ending in a soaraway solo from Lifeson, which would make you think he's going to be the hero, but it's not the case. One man can't take on the system, and so he wanders off, in despair now that his wonderful new discovery has been dismissed and taken from him.

"Oracle: the Dream" is another hard rock track, showing the Man that others exist beyond his planet, where music is not only allowed but celebrated and played openly, but he knows he can never be part of this and so in "Soliloquy" he loses what little hope he had and kills himself. It begins as a reflective acoustic style ballad but quickly kicks up into a punchy rocker as Lifeson lets loose. The "Grand Finale" then has the worlds of the Solar Federation taken over by another, unnamed enemy, who will, presumably, bring better times. Peart has said these are "the good guys", though there's never any mention of who they are. It's assumed the Priests will be kicked out, the Temples of Syrinx knocked down, and the computers that run the planet probably used to create the internet or PornHub or something.

After the breath-taking epic, the second side of the album is more in the nature, I think, of the previous albums, with the drug anthem "A Passage to Bangkok" raising a mischievous eyebrow, a good rock track and great fun, while to be honest "The Twilight Zone" (written about the show) is the one track I always forget on the album. It's all right I guess but if I had to pick a worst track on a classic, almost faultless album like this, it would be it. There's more really I suppose of a sense of actual prog rock about this than there is about most of the others on side two, but it just doesn't do anything for me. The next two are the only ones on the album not written by Peart, with Lifeson penning "Lessons", not surprisingly very guitar-led but kind of restrained in its way, while "Tears" is a soft ballad on Mellotron written by Lee, which comes very close to being my favourite on the album, other than the title of course. The album ends then on a rip-roaring "Something for Nothing" which rocks along with real purpose and a sense of bitter accusation in Lee's voice, perhaps a finger to the record executives who thought they knew what the world wanted from Rush, when the Canadian power trio had better ideas.

Rush ran into some problems when they name-checked Ayn Rand, upon whose novella Anthem much of the title track is based. They faced accusations of being right-wing, of supporting Nazism, which was certainly a major offence to Lee, whose parents were holocaust survivors. Soon enough though, the music media found new amusement and left Rush alone, and now that the album is reckoned one of the all-time best progressive rock albums, there's not really anything anyone can say to damage that reputation. Nor should they.

Personal Rating: 10

QuotePersonal Rating: 10

side one mos def but side two is like a six tbh

2112 is the only Rush album I've listened to with some consistency the last 10 years or so.

It rocks. Love it! 🤘🤘⚡💀🗡🎸

Quote from: TheNonSexual OccultHawk on Feb 06, 2023, 11:05 PM

QuotePersonal Rating: 10

side one mos def but side two is like a six tbh

Yeah I would agree but hell, you can't give 2112 anything less than a ten, really. I thought about 9 but nah, I love it too much.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Eloy_Ocean.jpg)
Album title: Ocean
Artist: Eloy
Nationality: German
Sub-genre: Psychedelic/Space Rock***
Year: 1977
Position on list for that year: 5
Chronology: 6 of 20
Familiarity with artist: 4
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): None
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: I've a strange relationship with Eloy. Goes back to my youth (yes yes shut up I was young once you know) when I used to hang around a record store called The Sound Cellar. You could go there and more or less listen to new music for the day, but in the end Tommy, who ran the place, usually tried to collar you to buy something. No such thing as a free lunch, this ain't a library etc. So when he asked me what I liked I told him progressive rock and he foisted Eloy's Performance on me. I had never heard of them, but he was good for new recommendations in a time before the internet, and I thought why not? So I bought it and brought it home, played it, was underwhelmed. I assumed Eloy were some new band, didn't know they've been going since the sixties. I took a chance on their follow-up, Metromania, and thoroughly disliked it, so that was Eloy for me.

Since then I've heard a few tracks on playlists, though only one full album, which I think I did for the history of prog journal - maybe Floating? Not sure - and it was meh, okay but nothing  great, as have been the tracks I've heard. So it's not like I don't like them, but I just don't think much of them. They've yet to write something, or at least I have to hear something I really like. That said, my own personal preferences don't necessarily matter here, as this is rated very highly on the list for 1977, but I'm just putting my own experience of the band in context. This is another very short album, with a mere four tracks, so I guess you could say it's the closest since Rush to a true prog rock album in terms of track lengths. Whether it will be a revelation, a borefest or another meh, I guess we'll see.

Sort of a Floydy opening with some good bass work and a kind of dramatic feel to "Poseidon's Creation", one of the longer tracks at just short of twelve minutes. Good boogie swinging guitar riff now and then the vocal comes in. You know, it's okay but the usual problem for me with Eloy, just doesn't hold my attention. A twelve-minute track is over and I can't even remember it when the second one begins. It's slower, with hollow percussion and lush synth with a low-key vocal, and it's called "Incarnation of the Logos", but they apparently don't last long because the next track is called "Decay of the Logos", and no, I don't know what a logo is (other than in the advertising sense, which I doubt is the case here) and no I don't care. Both these tracks run for just over eight minutes, which is at least mildly interesting, as you can say, or pretend, that these logos lived for as long as they died. Or something. Man I'm bored. You noticed, did you?

All right, let's try to concentrate here. There's a pretty bitchin' keyboard solo that kind of reminds me of Kraftwerk at their height, with a lovely pulsing bass line and I don't know, but it seems once the vocal comes in I lose interest. Maybe they'd be better - for me anyway - if Eloy were an instrumental band? Oh well, as Homer Simpson once noted, wishing won't make it so, and we work with what we have. But I can't get excited or even vaguely invested in the vocal or the lyric. I really don't care what it's about. I repeat though, the keyboard line is great. The sister track, as it were, "Decay of the Logos", I would expect to be a slower, more sombre affair. Is it? Well there's a dark bassy opening (though I think it's on guitar) and as you might imagine there would be, a sense of impending doom and an ominous feel about the piece, but then it breaks into a rocky sort of theme and I really no longer get that sense of something coming to an end. Maybe it's not meant to signify that. Again, I really don't care.

The final track is the longest, and the one with the weirdest title. "Atlantis' Agony at June 5th - 8498 13:15 Gregorian Earthtime" (told you it was weird, didn't I?) runs for fifteen and a half minutes, and starts out with a dark, spoken piece which possibly would be more comfortable on a power metal album, but it gets going then with a sort of ambient opening with wind and effects and all the usual stuff that you kind of expect on a track of this length. Oh, himself is back with some more speech. I expect this is a concept album, built perhaps around the legend of Atlantis or something, but I can't be bothered to look it up. I'm just that disinterested. It's a third of the way through now and I have to say not much has happened. It's not that I'm not listening: I am. But there just isn't too much to listen to. I suppose it's building up, but it's sure taking its time. The voice keeps talking over a kind of swirly synth but it's not doing much for me.

Some percussion coming in now and an actual vocal, but we're halfway through and I'm all the way through with this. It hasn't done anything to help me change my view of Eloy. I'm still bored stupid by them. Sorry. Bored intelligent then. The operative word is bored. And I am. Bored, that is. Very bored.

Personal Rating: 4

*** I don't agree with this classification though: Eloy to me, even if boring, are still symphonic prog.

I love Ocean and Eloy in general. I agree that the vocals aren't great. I just kind of tune them out half the time, the instrumental side of their music is great enough to counterbalance the less than stellar vocals.

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 06, 2023, 10:20 PM(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/Rush_2112.jpg)

Nice write up on 2112! I've loved this album forever.

Quote from: Mrs. Waffles on Feb 07, 2023, 06:56 PMI love Ocean and Eloy in general. I agree that the vocals aren't great. I just kind of tune them out half the time, the instrumental side of their music is great enough to counterbalance the less than stellar vocals.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Eloy as such, it's just to me they're, well, they're there, and that's about it. I can point to two songs, both off Performance (which I originally mistakenly believed was a live album - well you would, wouldn't you?) I can remember or can hum: "In Disguise" and "A Broken Frame". Nothing else I've heard has left any impression on me. I admit the instrumentation, the musicianship is first class, but honestly, you'd expect that in a prog band. I just don't see how they stand out from any of the other prog acts out there.

(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j5sDHx9l_rY/0.jpg)
Album title: SBB [AKA: WOłANIE O BRZęK SZKłA AND SLOVENIAN GIRLS]
Artist: SBB
Nationality: Polish
Sub-genre: Eclectic Prog
Year: 1978
Position on list for that year: 4
Chronology: 8 of 19
Familiarity with artist: 1
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Both tracks are gold
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Oh-oh. The genre tag "eclectic prog" often spells trouble for me. Sometimes it's just a catch-all to describe something that's maybe avant-garde, experimental or otherwise outside of the general prog spectrum, but has some prog credentials. Sometimes even avant-garde or experimental prog might be preferable, but here we are, and given that so many good prog bands have come out of Poland, maybe we'll be all right. There are only two tracks, so I can copy out the names, otherwise I don't think I'd be bothering, with all those odd accents and things. I don't know, but with two tracks at over 19 minutes each I'm going to assume this is instrumental? This is "Wołanie O Brzęk Szkła (Julia)" and has some really nice almost Gilmouresque guitar as well as what may be a sitar or something, very nice anyway, very relaxing. All right, so there are vocals. Seem almost ethereal, but again very nice.

Getting much rockier now with electric guitar and the future echoes of "Duke's Travels" in another of those surely weird coincidences I keep coming across. I mean, this melody is so like the Genesis track you would wonder if they stumbled over this album before they recorded it? But I expect it's just one of those things. Great music so far though and I have nothing negative to say at this point. And now there's a totally bitchin' harmonica solo worthy of the best of Supertramp against a rockin' boogie beat. This album just gets better. No wonder it's so high on the list for this year. Fantastic powerful keyboard run to end the track, and into the second one, which has a much shorter title, and opens on bouzouki with wind effects, quite stripped down as "Odejście (Anna)"  takes us on another nearly 20-minute odyssey of what I hope will be pure joy.

And it looks like it will be. After a slow, relaxed start we have a sort of pattering percussion and a whistling keyboard line with maybe feedback guitar and it's loping along now at a fine pace. Then it all slows down on a shimmery synth line with a crooned vocal, not yet any actual lyric but more vocalise, a soft acoustic guitar and chiming keyboard painting a magical backdrop before the singer comes in with the actual vocal. I suppose it's because they don't sing in English that these guys never seem to have broken out of their native Poland, and it's a real pity because this album, and this band, should be known worldwide. Mind you, prog fans obviously know where it's at, placing it near the top of 1978's list, where it certainly deserves to be. There's a duet now, kind of vocal harmony going on against the lush backing, sounds almost Vangelis at his most gentle and restrained. And now it's picking up again with a truly superb vocal into a kicking guitar piece, but wow is that not the main theme of "Echoes" being pretty liberally ripped off there? Oh hell, it's just such a superb album I can ignore that.

Personal Rating: 10 (would go higher if I could; it's that good!)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/SpectralMornings.png)
Album title: Spectral Mornings
Artist: Steve Hackett
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Eclectic Prog
Year: 1979
Position on list for that year: 3
Chronology: 3 of 28 (so far)
Familiarity with artist: 4
Familiarity with album: 3
Gold Rated track(s): The Virgin and the Gypsy, Spectral Mornings
Silver Rated track(s): Everyday
Wooden Rated track(s): The Ballad of the Decomposing Man
Comments: You'd think, being a prog head, that Hackett would be a shoo-in for me, but not so. I remember buying this album, foolishly thinking it would basically be another Genesis one. Why I thought that, I suppose only the stupidity of youth can attest to. Had Peter Gabriel's solo albums been Genesis ones? Phil Collins'? Mike Rutherford? Hell, the only one who even came close was Tony Banks. So why did I think an artist of Steve Hackett's calibre and talent, having lost faith in the direction Genesis were heading and leaving them, would turn out an album like Trick of the Tail or Selling England? So I was, obviously, very disappointed in this album, and, bar its final and title track, have heard it only once. I am gratified to see it so high in the list for 1979, a vindication of the man's talents even beyond Genesis, but this will be the first time I've listened to it with let's say a more open mind.

It certainly starts off well, with a nice proggy intro and then the vocal from Steve himself, though he shares vocal duties here with Pete Hicks. "Everyday" is a bouncy, uptempo tune with a hopping arpeggio on the keys, and maybe not quite as much of Steve's guitar as I might like, but right now it sounds better than I believed it was. That might change, of course, as the album goes on. We'll see. Better is the twelve-string acoustic on "The Virgin and the Gypsy", where the vocals are taken over by Hicks. To be fair, there's not a huge difference between the two men, so it's not such a shock and really, you could believe it's Steve singing both. A more laid-back, softer song with a sort of sense of maybe CSNY or early Eagles in the harmonies, lovely flute from (his brother?) John adds a sort of ethereal effect to the music, then the next two are instrumentals, "The Red Flower of Tachai Blooms Everywhere" having a very oriental sound to it, again slow and relaxing, while "Clocks (The Angel of Mons)" gives a nod to/rips off Floyd with ticking clocks and a slightly ominous-sounding keyboard opening, then kicks up and flies along before slowing down again. I'm not completely on board with this one; seems a little all over the place to me.

Back to vox then for "The Ballad of the  Decomposing Man (Featuring "The Office Party")"  and it's Steve behind the mic again. This is one I always remember hating, so we'll see whether or not that still holds true forty years on, and some. Yeah it's a total ELO/Beatles thing with vocoder work and a silly twenties-style melody that still kind of annoys me, though I suppose not as much as it did when I first heard it. Still not a clue what the fuck it's about though. The overdone Cockney accent is pretty infuriating and the sort of Caribbean percussion or marimbas or whatever it is just doesn't sit well with the rest of the track, so yeah, I can see he was stretching himself beyond prog and classical here, and fair play to him, but for me it doesn't work at all. And yes, I still hate it. Luckily we're back to instrumentals, with a nice classical guitar and flute on "Lost Time in Cordoba", though I have to say I don't think a lot of it - it's there, it's over, I don't remember what it was like.

Hicks returns for his final vocal outing on the very Genesisesque "Tiger Moth", with lots of ambient effects and dark synth, but again it goes into this sort of old-time twenties style and it doesn't do anything for me. Luckily, we end on what I consider the best track, the title, which is a long instrumental in very much Genesis style, reminding me of "Afterglow" for some reason, and on which Hackett can really show what he can do on the frets. A great closer to, I would still have to say, a fairly average album. Apologies to all his fans but after nearly forty years  (I'm going to say it) I still can't Hackett. Sorry sorry.

Personal Rating: 7

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/Peter_Gabriel_%28self-titled_album%2C_1980_-_cover_art%29.jpg)
Album title: Peter Gabriel/Melt
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Crossover Prog
Year: 1980
Position on list for that year: 2
Chronology: 3 of 10 (so far)
Familiarity with artist: 6
Familiarity with album: 4
Gold Rated track(s): Every single one is Gold
Silver Rated track(s): Nah
Wooden Rated track(s): You 'avin' a larf, mate?
Comments: I must admit, I'm surprised to see Gabriel's discography so small. I had convinced myself he had many more albums than that, and the number above includes those two orchestral ones. Wow. As far as his solo albums go, this is one of the very best, for me, with two pretty big hit singles, and shows kind of the last of the real eclecticism of his first three or four. After So became a massive worldwide hit and the single "Sledgehammer" a number one across the world, though he retained his own identity I feel Gabriel's music moved in a somewhat more poppish or at least commercial direction, with the experimentation evident on this and the previous albums largely absent. Not that you can predict what you will get on a Peter Gabriel album, but there aren't quite as many surprises and sudden left-turns as there are on 1978's Scratch or even his debut, Car.

So if Gabriel has two periods, as it were, they're marked by the fourth album, Security as the end of the "improvisational" ones, or the experimental or mixed-genre ones, largely, and the second period by So and continuing into Us and Up, as Gabriel became less "that guy from Genesis" and more "that guy who did Sledgehammer and who sang with Kate Bush." This album is full of future classics and two hits, with the powerful and claustrophobic "Intruder" kicking off proceedings, and to be honest I've seen him live and I don't think he's ever managed to capture the menace of this studio version. His versatile vocal range is very much in evidence here, as is his love of theatre. The first beginnings of what you might call tribal rhythms beginning to show themselves, and the whistle at the end is chilling as all hell. "No Self Control" is a great study of someone on the edge, similar in lyrical content to Iron Maiden's "Killers" and Pallas' "The Ripper", with some spooky xylophone and some weirdy jungle-type sounds in there too.

"Start" is perhaps the only Gabriel instrumental I know of; I really can't think of another. It's played mostly on bass and saxophone, and is pretty short, leading into "I Don't Remember", which continues the basic theme of a fracturing mind, madness and isolation that runs through this album. There's a lot of anger and frustration in the song, voiced first by Gabriel's unearthly howl that kicks it off, then it's a pretty mid-paced rocker with a real hook in, surprisingly enough, the bridge as well as the chorus. This could be seen as a follow-on from "No Self Control", as in that song, too, Gabriel was singing about not being able to remember things, and then we get the assassination of (perhaps) JFK recalled in "Family Snapshot", with the whole thing written from the view of the gunman. The opening and closing of the song is played on solo piano, giving it a lonely, haunting feel, but Gabriel is careful not to engender any sympathy for the assassin, even when he goes into his reasons for becoming the killer he is, right at the end, against almost single piano notes.

Gabriel goes full manic then for "And Through the Wire", aided by the fretwork of, of all people, Paul Weller. It's one of the rockiest tracks on the album and one of my favourites, with a great sort of ramp-up ending and takes us into the big breakaway hit, on which we hear his first real work with Kate Bush, who would of course later duet with him on "Don't Give Up". Here, though, she provides backing vocals only on "Games Without Frontiers", with its jerky, sort of kids' rhyme/game melody. Probably the first real impact our Peter made on the charts, and a song that made his name outside of Genesis and brought his music to a whole new audience. Things gets powerful and angry again then for "Not One of Us", which explores the idea of ostracisation, isolation and just being outside of the norm.

I always liked the simplicity of "Lead a Normal Life", the idea of someone sitting in an asylum watching the trees, but with the potential for horrifying violence, the soft, almost discordant piano notes which eventually descend into the mad chattering of jungle animals, drawing a musical image of how thin the line between sanity and insanity is. The closer is of course one of his most famous songs, the pain-wracked, furious, powerfully potent requiem for Steven Biko, which was the springboard for Gabriel's getting involved in human rights causes. It benefits immensely from a stirring African chorus both at the beginning and the end, with the ominous sound of a cell door slamming shut right at the end. Harrowing.

Personal Rating: 10

The only Peter Gabriel album I've listened through is So. I'll give Melt a try :) Sounds very interesting.

Thanks for a great write-up as usual 🙏

Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 16, 2023, 06:40 AMThe only Peter Gabriel album I've listened through is So. I'll give Melt a try :) Sounds very interesting.

Thanks for a great write-up as usual 🙏

he made a German version as well - i'm not sure if i like it better but at least just as much - this album is considerably better than So and So is an excellent record

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Moving_Pictures.jpg)
Album title: Moving Pictures
Artist: Rush
Nationality: Canadian
Sub-genre: Heavy Prog
Year: 1981
Position on list for that year: 1
Chronology: 8 of 19
Familiarity with artist: 5
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s):Tom Sawyer
Silver Rated track(s): Red Barchetta. YYZ, The Camera Eye
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: One of the Rush albums I have not heard, in fact just about everything after maybe Hemispheres or Permanent Waves is unknown to me. We've arrived at the top of the chart for 1981, so this must be a highly respected album. I see I have in fact heard almost all of side one through the live album Exit... Stage Left, so we have "Tom Sawyer", which became one of their biggest mainstream hits, sort of punches its way out of the album right out of the gate and sets the scene. Having heard the premise behind "Red Barchetta", though it's a fine song, I have to wonder about Neil Peart being just the tiniest bit lazy. He said it himself - I'm not projecting here - the song is about a time when cars are illegal and this guy finds a "Red Barchetta" and drives it. Sound familiar? Replace cars with guitars/music and what do you have? Good song though. Then we get the - well I can't say only, as I'm not sufficiently versed, as I said, in all the Rush albums, but the only one I've heard - instrumental in "YYZ", which became something of a signature piece for them.

After that it's all new to me. "Limelight" is a decent rocker, though I have to say I hear a little too much of the motif from "Don't Fear the Reaper" in there, and it doesn't really speak to me as a song itself, while just in case we forgot this is supposed to be a prog album, "The Camera Eye" runs for ten minutes and is split into two almost exactly equal parts, the first, "AKA New York" is mostly taken up by a sprightly instrumental section, and is an uptempo rocker, while "AKA London" ... well, to be honest it seems to just flow organically from the other part and I really can't tell the two apart on first listen. A good song altogether though, and it leaves us with two tracks which, again, are identical in length. I wonder was that planned? "Witch Hunt" comes in on a sort of atmospheric, eerie fade and then grinds along menacingly, while "Vital Signs" shows the band dabbling again in reggae, as they did on the previous album's "New World Man". I honestly can't say I think much of it, and despite its reputation I'm not overly impressed with this album really at all.

Personal Rating: 7

your write ups are great but in this case i think you're low balling it - it's a full five star classic in my book

to each his own but dang - still great work - fantastic journal

You know, I really wanted to like it. And I do. I just... don't love it, you know? For me, it's not a 2112 or a Hemispheres or A Farewell to Kings or a Caress of Steel. That could have to do with it being the first time I've heard it, and I took into account the three songs I knew, but of those I did not know, I just wasn't that impressed. I imagine with repeated listens, again, it would click, but time is a-wastin' and I ain't gettin' no younger. Ten down, four hundred and ninety to go, and that's without all the other many projects I got in the fire. Sometime maybe I'll give it the few listens it probably deserves, but here on this thread ya only get one chance to impress.

Quote2112 or a Hemispheres or A Farewell to Kings or a Caress of Steel

i think the best album side they ever made was side a of 2112 (i mentioned how great it is, already) and Steel is probably their most underrated

i think you might've been a little put off by the super glossy production of Pictures but the immaculate production is part of its profundity

i'm not trying to put words in your mouth but i think if the production was a little more raw those songs would've made a stronger first impact

it's not that there's anything wrong with that kind of production it's just that it's been used to cover other deficiencies in so many records since then that we've become suspicious of it

Melt and Moving Pictures are two of the best rock albums of the 80s, both stone cold classics.

this got me nostalgic for caress of steel so i just gave it a fresh listen - i don't care what anyone says it's a good album - i'll take side a or side b over 2112's side b

I love Caress of Steel as well. And I agree, I've always thought the second side of 2112 was kinda patchy.

this is the best of their early prog epics

(https://i.postimg.cc/MKrR3FCh/5-F986577-C001-4096-BFDA-E56-FD44-BFF86.jpg)

Agree with all of that, however it's really not the production. I don't mind slick, overproduced albums - I love Townsend's Epicloud to bits. I just didn't go crazy over the songs on the Rush album. I remember listening to Caress and it was like "Bastille Day", yeah ok, "I Think I'm Going Bald" bloody rubbish, "Lakeside Park" really nice then we hit the suite and HELLO! So there would be tracks probably on most Rush albums (and this does indeed include 2112) which I would call weaker ones, at least in my opinion, but then, that's true of almost any band, artist or album. I've already expressed my opinion on what is seen as the best and most popular Genesis album, but there are others that kind of suck too. I mean, "Absent Friends" on Nursery Cryme? "Ballad of Big" on And Then There Were Three? "Timetable" on Foxtrot? It's rare that you get an album that's a perfect ten, and that isn't even what I was looking for here. I had just hoped to be more impressed and, well, I wasn't, not as much as I had thought I would be.

can't stand Devin Townsend - 🤮

Quote"I Think I'm Going Bald" bloody rubbish

it really is

they liked to think they had a sense of humor but a song that bad is not a laughing matter

it's hard to believe it made the cut - they really couldn't scrape together something better? - i really believe that album wouldn't have gotten such bad reviews without that track - they almost disbanded that album was such a failure- that song almost killed rush!!!

Yeah it's like "Shamus" on Meddle isn't it: as Gilmour found out, it wasn't half as funny as he thought it was. I mean, apart from anything else, Rush would have been in, what, their twenties when that album was recorded. Who writes a song about, or even thinks about going bald in their twenties?!!

On Townsend; he's an acquired taste, and even then, there are some of his works I bloody hate, like Devlab and Ziltoid and stuff, but then he can come up with some truly lovely and powerful pieces. Bit of a dichotomy really. Much of his material I can leave where it is, but some of it really moves me.

Quote"Shamus"

Seamus?

i always liked that one tbh -

Having gone through the first top 10 then, from 10 to 1, which brought us to the beginning of the 1980s, it's time to revert to the bottom end of the chart and once again choose the number 10 album as we move up through time, into 1982.
(https://i.discogs.com/GOSPtNXOVQHt3iAUk2lE5HulJcNQ5VIueztvemWHfUY/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:598/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTMwMjIw/MzQtMTU4Nzg3NzE1/MS01ODM1LnBuZw.jpeg)
Album title: Kenso II
Artist: Kenso
Nationality: Japanese
Sub-genre: Jazz Fusion
Year: 1982
Position on list for that year: 10
Chronology: 2 of 10
Familiarity with artist: 1
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): None
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: Okay. Me and jazz fusion don't generally tend to get along well, but them's the breaks so let's see what this is like. Well there's no gentle easing in anyway, as we get going with boppy keys and flute and it's all very bright and breezy; I would assume there will be no vocals and that this is an instrumental album. I don't see a vocalist credited anyway. Some very very good guitar work for sure, as is the solo guitar on track two, but as with the few jazz fusion albums I've listened to, a lot of it seems to blend together. Nice piano on track four I think it is, gives a kind of lounge feeling, slowing things down from the somewhat frenetic pace of the album thus far. Joined by some turpuling synth (what? It's a perfectly cromulent word. Yes it is: I just made it up - that sort of thick, heavy, not-quite-trumpeting but not whistling noise a synth can make: turpuling. Look it up. No, wait: don't look it up).

Next one (I'm not writing track names as they're all in japanese and I'm lazy) has a sort of mid-seventies Tony Banks feel about it, blasting along on a trumpeting keyboard like something out of maybe "The Colony of Slippermen", certainly kicks the speed of the album up. Some sort of crazy sound like, I don't know, the very edge of children laughing or cartoon mice or some damn thing, tres weird, then the next one comes in on a slow, staggered percussion line with parping bass and swirly synth and some chiming, ringing guitar almost in the background. Builds up then into somewhat a confusion of sounds, which more or less ruins the effect for me, but hey there you go, me and jazz fusion etc yadda yadda. Settles down then on the back of a whining fast synth, again very seventies Genesis or Yes, then goes a bit eighties SKY. Hmm. Then there's springy, spongy, ambient squelchy synth (lots of "s" words in there, I know) in a much more sedate, almost elastic sense of music, think there's some piano in there too. Either some woman singing or maybe it's synthesised or taped.

The final track is the longest, just over seven minutes, and I guess it's really more of a jam than any of the previous songs, with some very good instrumentation certainly, but overall I don't think this album is for me. I see comments enthusing about it, and they probably should; if you're into jazz fusion then you'll probably love this. I'm not, and it's kind of okay to me but there's nothing here I'll remember once I'm done, and I don't see myself going back to it at any point.

Personal Rating: 5/10

QuoteKenso II

i had a feeling from your description i was going to love this and i did

great way to start off an easy sunday morning watching the sunrise with my dog checking this record out

i agree with the influences you pointed out and add jethro tull and weather report

Yeah like I said if you're a jazz fusion fan this is almost certainly for you. I'm not and it's not, but it certainly deserves its place in the list. Just, you know, not mine.

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 19, 2023, 05:05 PMYeah like I said if you're a jazz fusion fan this is almost certainly for you. I'm not and it's not, but it certainly deserves its place in the list. Just, you know, not mine.

yeah - i respect that and i'm glad you can give such an objective write up - i've tried going through the prog archives systematically but i like following your reports a lot more

like the rush production thing (where i still maintain i know better than you why you do or do not like something) i have my theory on why this doesn't resonate with you outside of just being too heavily jazz fusion infused - and this might be another way of saying you don't like fusion but i think it's because they never settle on a theme or a hook - it's in constant flux - but besides the bass i think this is almost entirely prog and only like 5% jazz so to me it's not really fusion - but whatever - looking forward to the next one

Typical progheads to lay claim to fusion jazz and anything avantgarde even when there's no "rock" in sight ;)

Quote from: Guybrush on Feb 19, 2023, 07:39 PMTypical progheads to lay claim to fusion jazz and anything avantgarde even when there's no "rock" in sight ;)

i'm sick of the japanese appropriating white people appropriating the music of black people - and calling it "prog-fusion"

You know, fuck it: I'm going to do it even if I get into trouble.

It wouldn't be prog fusion, it would be plog frusion...  :laughing:

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 19, 2023, 10:30 PMYou know, fuck it: I'm going to do it even if I get into trouble.

It wouldn't be prog fusion, it would be plog frusion...  :laughing:

a japanese girl once thought i was an idiot because i never heard of the crash - she was like very famous punk rock

when i figured out she was talking about the clash i was like yeah i know their music really well but she didn't believe me - she left the conversation thinking i didn't know who the clash are which has to be the most ironic reason i ever got shot down seeing as i know a whole lot about the clash

It's funny: you think it's a cartoon thing but it happens. We had a guy in our agent in Kyoto whom we all thought was called Locky (for handiness' sake I guess they all take western-sounding names) and after a while he lost it with my workmate. "Locky! Locky!" he fumed. "R-O-C-K-Y!" We finally got it. My god it was funny. A Japanese guy called Rocky!  :laughing:  :laughing:  :laughing:

(https://i.discogs.com/bau54TF3AVon2zPw-zXWDMfACbWX29-KMafTgrNzlA8/rs:fit/g:sm/q:40/h:300/w:300/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTMxNTU4/MTctMTQxMTk4MDc1/NC0xNzI4LmpwZWc.jpeg)
Album title: Fiction
Artist: Eskaton
Nationality: French
Sub-genre: Zeuhl (Lord have mercy on my poor soul!) (Copyright Edgar Allan Poe, 1842)
Year: 1983
Position on list for that year: 9
Chronology: 3 of 4
Familiarity with artist: 1
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Simplicious, Le Mort de Tristan
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: Ah Christ in a bucket! I'm no fan of jazz fusion, but I can take it in small doses, but Zeuhl? Based on my previous experience with Magma, I think on balance I'd rather listen to an endless tape loop of the sound of  a man dying from terminal flatulence! Some hope exists though, as I see these guys thought - correctly, in my view - that the idea of creating your own specific language for your music might just be a barrier to wider acceptance, so they opted to go for - oh. French. Well, at least I can get a half-idea of a few words, which is more than I could say for Magma. Nevertheless, I don't see this being an easy listen for me, but at least it's only a total of forty minutes long, so there is that.

All right then, allons-nous mes braves! Or something. Let's go. Got something that sounds like a photocopier running then lasers firing in a video game or something before the vocal comes in with a descending spacey synthline running and a decent melody, or at least a discernible one, which I don't remember hearing on the Magma album. Different vocalists, one a female the other a male, exchanging and sometimes combining and the music a lot more decent than I had been expecting, to be fair. The second track sounds like it's slower and more restrained, with a sedate drumbeat and what sounds like a sitar or maybe then flute taking the main melody, a bit Gabrielesque in ways. Okay then it bumps up and takes off into the usual Zeuhl patter, which I find nonsensical and annoying, but there it is.

And so it goes. Seems to be a fair bit of jazz fusion, as I understand it, on this, and it's certainly more accessible than the M word, in fact it's kind of not really what I would term a Zeuhl album at all. Other than the often annoying vocals with shrieks and chants, the music is mostly decent and I reckon given a few more listens I could get into this, whereas I could listen to Magma till the bovines return to their residence and I would still hate it. So that's definitely something I see as progress.

Personal Rating: 7

tbh there's something about magma that makes me want to vomit - they just get on my nerves

man i just listened to about 30 seconds of that and it sounds like the same goofy unpleasant style - hard pass

Only listened for a few secs, but it sounded a bit like Zeuhl meets Canterbury scene.

Might be an improvement on zeuhl, but not on Canterbury, I think. Still, might be fun I guess.

Yeah I was being kind, since I had trashed Magma so badly (see the history of prog journal: I refused to listen to their second album, ducking out of it like a girl) but in reality no, this kind of thing is not for me. Still, if you put a gun to my head and asked me to choose one or the other bands I'd almost certainly wet and shit myself, but eventually I would choose these guys over Magma.

Well, to be honest, I'd choose guys digging a road with a blunt jackhammer and learning on the job to listening to Magma.

QuoteWell, to be honest, I'd choose guys digging a road with a blunt jackhammer and learning on the job to listening to Magma.

me too, especially since those guys are einstürzende neubauten

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Budd_%26_Eno%27s_The_Pearl.jpg)
Album title: The Pearl
Artist: Harold Budd and Brian Eno
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Progressive Electronic (it says here)
Year: 1984
Position on list for that year: 8
Chronology: Eno with Budd, 2 of 2; Eno collaborative, 9 of 24; Eno overall solo 18 of 53
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): None of that nonsense here, son.
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: I'm not really sure anyone has a bad thing to say about Eno. Possibly deserving of the title of Bryan Ferry's Robert Fripp, it was he who made all the weird spacey sounds in Roxy Music, before they became more a pop band, and over his solo career, as you can see, he's had over fifty albums, written music for movies and worked with artists from Bowie and Byrne to Lanois and Cale, and is surely one of the most respected names, not just in ambient or electronic music, but in music full stop. This was the second of his collaborations with ambient musician Harold Budd, of whom I know nothing, but really, once Eno's name is on it the album has to be well worth listening to.

So let's do just that.

Really nice slow piano brings in "Late October", and it certainly conjures up images of frosted trees, iced-over lakes and hard blue skies, leaves scattered on the paths and roadways like a reddish-brown carpet crackling underfoot or scrunched under tyres by uncaring drivers basking in the warmth of their car's heating system. A simple piece, but extremely evocative, the more amazing that it seems to be just the one instrument (there may be other synthy things going on quietly in the background, but it's the piano that takes your attention, and there's no percussion at all). This piano music continues on into "A Stream with Bright Fish" (which is not, I think, about clever piscean endeavours to buy out Spotify) with a sort of more upfront sound and darker synth or soundscape of some sort lurking behind, giving a feeling perhaps of thunderclouds approaching on the horizon?

"The Silver Ball" comes again a little more to the fore with a sort of empty concert hall sound, the piano echoing loudly and again softer synth sounds behind. Trying to describe this music is probably not only futile but unnecessary; it's just really nice relaxing music mostly - so far - delivered via the keyboard of a piano and with real heart and emotion. And it continues in that vein, almost all piano music, almost all relaxing, ambient stuff, but hard to differentiate one track from another, not that I intend to try. A great album to fall asleep to, I would imagine, which is appropriate, as I read that Budd often plays night time concerts for his audience to nod off to. Well, it's hardly storming the stage now is it, or punching the air?

Personal Rating: 9

Yes! Classic ambient record, big fan of both of these gentlemen.

QuoteProgressive Electronic (it says here)

i've listened to that record many times it never once occurred to me that anyone on earth would call it prog

great record not prog though - pure ambient

Agree fully, but they seem to extend the definition of the genre to often crazy lengths. I mean, look at what they have AT THE TOP for 1991: Death's Human! I mean, progressive? Laugh? I nearly listened to Emerson, Lake and Palmer!  :laughing:

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 23, 2023, 04:51 AMAgree fully, but they seem to extend the definition of the genre to often crazy lengths. I mean, look at what they have AT THE TOP for 1991: Death's Human! I mean, progressive? Laugh? I nearly listened to Emerson, Lake and Palmer!  :laughing:

all that technical metal stuff is in the ballpark though with swift and abrupt changes and crazy time signatures and all that

Yeah I know. Just for me "it's prog, Jim, but not as we know it."  :laughing:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/Art_Zoyd_-_Le_mariage_du_ciel.jpeg)
Album title: Le mariage du ciel et de l'enfer
Artist: Art Zoyd
Nationality: French
Sub-genre: RIO/Avant-Prog
Year: 1985
Position on list for that year: 7
Chronology: 6 of 21
Familiarity with artist: 1
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): None (and it's not that they're not good, just it's hard to differentiate, like with the Eno album)
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: Well things just keep getting better and better for me, don't they? Whose idea was it to jump a spot ahead each year? I could have been listening to Marillion in 1983 instead of bloody Zeuhl, and this year I've missed out on Supertramp, IQ, Kate Bush and - oh, look! Marillion again. Who happen to top the 1985 chart. Oh well, I will get to them. But right now I'm saddled with a RIO album. And before anyone asks is that anything to do with Duran Duran, or indeed Brazil, no it is not: RIO, for those who don't know, stands for Rock In Opposition, an organisation dedicated to doing everything differently and as weirdly as possible, basically. Sounds like fun. AND this one is French too. AND written for a ballet. Can someone get me out of here?

No? All right then, I guess there's nothing to do but listen to this and see what it's like. Very oddly, the vinyl version only has five tracks, while the CD has nine, adding about twenty minutes on to the runtime. Which I'll listen to depends I guess on what YouTube decides to give me. Looks like I got the CD version, oh what a surprise. So we have booming thunder effects then an urgent piano followed by dark organ maybe, building up to a dramatic opening as the album begins, the first track running for eleven minutes. Slowing down now in a very doomy vein and some brass coming in. I will say that went in relatively quickly and I don't find it too avant-garde. The second track is longer, over eighteen minutes, somewhat more in the cinematic line, with a lot of hollow drumming and ticking and some effects. The next three tracks are all relatively short, and seem to be variations on the same basic melody, which gets very tiresome.

The next one is a nice little piano melody, with a sort of dissonant feel to it, but overall I wouldn't consider this too much outside my wheelhouse; certainly no Fantomas or John Zorn anyway. Not quite sure how these guys are "rocking in opposition", but this far it's certainly more than tolerable and nowhere near as weird or out-there as I had anticipated. There's a kind of neoclassical idea in the next one, lots of brass, strings, powerful percussion, and a lot of screaming shouting and muttering on the longest track, which runs for over fourteen minutes, but overall I'd say this is okay to listen to, hard to review, but not as beyond the pale as I expected it to be. Yes, it's probably a mild form of RIO, if indeed it even is that sub-genre, but if it is any sort of RIO at all, it's a reasonably gentle introduction into this sort of music. I certainly enjoyed this a lot more than I had thought I would.

Personal Rating: 7

Quoteadding about twenty minutes on to the runtime

i hate that - bonus material should be offered separately- it always makes listening to a record start to finish worse - even if the extra material is good

Quote from: ribbons on Feb 05, 2023, 09:05 PM

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 05, 2023, 08:19 PMThat's not how it works. I choose the top ten album from 1972, top nine album from 1973, top eight album from 1974 and so on. Right now I've reached 1990. Once I get to 2022 I'll be going back to 1972 for the top nine album but that means we don't see a seventies album again once we exit 1979 until we've gone all the way to last year.

Anyway, on we go.

With a 70s album.  :)  8)

And so to 1974, where I'm somewhat depressed to find this at number 8.
(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/1035/cover_35181016102009.jpg)


Album title: Rock Bottom
Artist: Robert Wyatt
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Canterbury Scene
Year: 1974
Position on list for that year: 8
Chronology: 2 of 11
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): Alifib
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): Sea Song, Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road, Alife, Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road
Comments: I've heard, in the course of my History of Prog journal, two of Wyatt's albums. I do not recall enjoying either. Given that he's one of the leading lights behind Soft Machine, and my opinion of their first four or five albums, that's not entirely surprising. It's a bit off-putting that I'm faced with another CS album so soon, but then, this is the list and it's not like other projects where I randomly choose and can - if I wish (ssshh!) - cheat. Here, there is nowhere to hide, and what's on the list is what I have to listen to and review. And so, by that measure, I have to listen to and review this.

But I don't have to like it.

And I doubt I will.

Nice slow little Beatles-like opener anyway, very lazy and sort of swaying along, then the piano gets a bit discordant and the vocal when it comes in is a little weak at first, but then gets stronger and reminds me of early Divine Comedy yes I know. Well there are only six tracks on this, and none are epics so maybe it won't be so bad. Another forty-minute album: don't these people know what prog is? Well anyway this is called "Sea Song" and it soon gets really annoying with all the atonal stuff and some sort of clarinet or something going in the background, or maybe it's flute. The choral vocals (probably a Prophet; were they around in 1974?) adds something to the song, but it's not one I can say I like, not at all. The title track is a little better but I just don't like the guy's style at all. I don't know what it is about him; maybe it's the way the music keeps going sort of out of tune, which I'm sure is intentional but certainly is annoying to me, or maybe it's his habit of vocalise all the time, like scat singing. I mean, can he not sing lyrics?

We get all free jazz and improvisational then (how I hate that) in "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road", and sadly Mr. Wyatt did not follow her example; there's another track almost titled the same, and if it's like this I'll be banging my head against the wall. And it runs for like seven minutes. Mostly it appears to be instrumental, in fact it may be so all the way through: I'm on about minute three and there's only been that vocalise so far, and little of that (though not little enough) and as for the taped speech/masking/whatever the hell it is: enough, really now. Enough. And next up is "Alifib", whatever that means: Wyatt seems to enjoy a fair bit of the old wordplay, as evidenced by the two albums that bookend this, his debut End of an Ear and the next one, Ruth is Stranger Than Richard. Yeah, very clever, but clever titles don't make great albums, and for me, this is not a great album. Not so far anyway.

At least this track is more restrained, a nice smooth guitar line against some synthy keyboard giving quite a relaxed feel, just the thing after the last freeform-fest. Melody sounds very similar, as if it's some folk or traditional song or something. Maybe it's just me. Miles better than anything on this album so far anyway. Runs directly into "Alife" (which I had incorrectly read as "Alfie") as we get a squeaky sound against a spectral, haunting keyboard line and some sort of basic vocal almost spoken rather than sung. Back to the poor quality, at least for me, we go. Sigh. Oh well. Only one more track to go and I'll be done with this. Oh that squeaky sound is a clarinet I think, though it sounds as if he's having a conversation with a very irate goose or hen. I know how it feels. Clarinets played by the hilariously-appropriately-named Gary Windo!

Oh look! Album is produced by Nick Mason. I wonder is that the Nick Mason? Surely it is. And this track is sung (!) by another guy, not Wyatt. I still don't care. I hate this. Okay I don't hate it, that's not fair. But I really dislike and have no interest in it. And here's the other song like "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road", though this time it's, um, "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road". Right. Seems a bit better musically, not that that would be hard. Yeah but then it goes into feedback and some sort of repeated line in the vocal which just grates and grates till I want to turn this FUCKING ALBUM OFF! Even the great Mike Oldfield lending a hand on guitar here can't pull this out of the mire it's stuck in. Oh, and now there's someone speaking in what sounds like an exaggerated Scottish accent against what might be accordion or bassoon or some damn thing. Hey, I was right: I didn't like it.

Personal Rating: 3

A breathtakingly well-written negative review of one of my top ten favorite albums of all time! :laughing: 
Seriously, though, not surprised that you hate it, given your dislike of free jazz in particular.
But "Sea Song" is one of my favorite songs ever!  Definitely in my top five.  So there!  :laughing:

i just finished my first listen amd it seems like the type of record that would take multiple listens to appreciate but i enjoyed it - i hate having big holes in my music knowledge but this is a work still in progress

That's cool. I'm certainly not arrogant or narissistic enough (yet) to expect everyone to agree with my opinions and share my reaction to albums. By all accounts this is a very highly-regarded recording so of course you may have a different view of it to me. For me though, highly reagrded would be me popping it on a high cliff and pushing it over, and regarding it falling into the depths with considerable satisfaction.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Awaken_the_guardian.jpg)
Album title: Awaken the Guardian
Artist: Fates Warning
Nationality: American
Sub-genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1986
Position on list for that year: 6
Chronology: 3 of 13 (so far)
Familiarity with artist: 2
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): None
Silver Rated track(s): Guardian, Time Long Past
Wooden Rated track(s): Everything else
Comments: Ah yes, this is much better. Firmly in my wheelhouse now. I haven't heard any Fates Warning but I know of them, and I do like my prog metal, so let's see what this is like. Acoustic opening kicks into a hard and heavy rocker on "The Sorceress", and I don't know if it's the YouTube I'm listening to, or if the album is badly produced, but the level seems very low, hard to hear the vocalist over the music, he seems to be straining. I'd have to say that overall I'd agree with the general consensus that this is far more on the metal side than the progressive, in fact I find it hardly prog at all. I'm reminded of the first two Kamelot albums, and how different they sound to the later material. This is, to me, basic, flat-out metal, not a keyboard or cello in sight, and in general, it's boring me. At least "Guardian" has an interesting guitar riff intro, and some sort of acoustic-like strumming, but I can still barely hear the vocalist. Honestly, I read praise for him and this album and I have to wonder what are these people smoking? This is bloody awful. How did this ever get onto any list, never mind a prog one?

I'm just sort of tuning it out now, waiting (praying) for it to end, and honestly, if this is the best Fates Warning can do then I will be investigating them no further, unless of course I have to and they have another album in the top ten for one of the years. But as a private listen, I'd rather be subjected to Emperor or Darkthrone or, hell, the sound of a bus crashing for forty minutes than listen to another poor album like this. And poor is being generous. I thought when I saw prog metal coming up that my ship had come in, but it seems there's a leak and the whole thing quickly sank to the bottom of the ocean. And I can't swim.

Personal Rating: 3

QuoteEmperor or Darkthrone

wtf u talkin bout, willis?

Not the greatest fan of black metal, but I'd rather listen to either band than these guys.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Killing_Technology.jpg)
Album title: Killing Technology
Artist: Voivod
Nationality: Canadian
Sub-genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1987
Position on list for that year: 5
Chronology: 3 of 15
Familiarity with artist: 2
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): None
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: Coincidentally, another prog metal album, though it's my understanding that Voivod are more thrash than prog, however it can hardly be as bad as Fates Warning, can it? Can it? Let's hope not. Okay well there's a somewhat industrial feel to the opener, and title track, with a beeping machine going and dark atmosphere before harsh guitar punches through on the back of galloping percussion, and yeah, from the off this sounds far more in the realm of thrash than progressive metal; very fast, very loud, very aggressive. Aggressive Prog? Singer actually reminds me a little of Jess Cox, original vocalist for the Tygers of Pan-Tang. Hmm.

As a metal album I'd rate this a lot higher, but in the realm of progressive metal I have to say that like Fates Warning it's pretty poor. It's not that it's not a great album - it is - but I find very little about it that I could call progressive as I understand the term. A great thrash metal album for sure, but progressive? Not for me, mate.


Personal Rating: 4 (prog) 8 (pure metal)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Talk_Talk_-_Spirit_of_Eden_cover.jpg)
Album title: Spirit of Eden
Artist: Talk Talk
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Progressive Pop
Year: 1988
Position on list for that year: 4
Chronology: 4 of 5
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): None of this is applicable on this album
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Any album labelled by critics as "pretentious" has to have decent prog rock credentials, and opening with a 22-minute suite is a good start. I only really know Talk Talk as a pop band, from their hit singles, but hell, if they can compose a suite and get up the nose of music critics then maybe they have a chance. It's a pretty ethereal opening, building slowly and even when it gets going the vocal is low-key and almost close to what you might consider shoegaze; very ambient and slow. That's "The Rainbow", first and indeed title part of the suite, with "Eden" following on a louder, guitar-driven melody as the vocal gets clearer against some hollow, almost metallic percussion, slow and measured. The singer reminds me of Steve Hogarth from Marillion, at times like yer man out of Gazpacho, but you know, I can see the problem here.

Most of this is so low-key and sung in an almost offhand way that it's hard to engage with any of it, much less remember it when it's over. Hell, it's hard enough to remember it as it plays through! I've just gone through part three of the suite and I didn't even realise it, and now we're into "Inheritance" and it doesn't sound all that different. This was definitely not an album written to create hit singles or power up the commercial charts, yet it made a decent showing, just scraping into the top twenty. Still, a major drop since its predecessor, The Colour of Spring hit number 8, though a better performance than the album before that, when It's My Life ended its chart climb well outside the top thirty.

I think probably the best way to appreciate this album (and probably the way it was intended to be appreciated) is as one long piece of music, with occasional short breaks between the tracks. A kind of symphony of emotion and feeling set to music. Taken in that manner, this is a very beautiful record, but I would not be taking tracks off it for a playlist.

Personal Rating: 7

The later Talk Talk albums are more acclaimed and influential and I get why, but The Color of Spring is my favorite album of theirs. Wonderful artsy pop record.

Eden is a clear 10/10 super masterpiece

Voivod is not good music

great reviews though

It's been a while since I listened Spirit of Eden now, but I like that album a lot. I find it a little hard to find time for that sort of music which is introspective, a little slow, but very beautiful. It's probably best to take one's time, plop on some headphones and just drown oneself in it, but that's something I almost never do these days.

most people don't want to do this but i think it's best to have a systematic lifetime listening plan

you don't have to be totally austere about it but you have to have something in place to keep the balance

that's one reason right now i'm not exploring music recs on here

i'm going through a review phase on stuff i've been lining up for about three years

it'll take a couple more months

Quote from: Guybrush on Mar 13, 2023, 08:54 AMIt's been a while since I listened Spirit of Eden now, but I like that album a lot. I find it a little hard to find time for that sort of music which is introspective, a little slow, but very beautiful. It's probably best to take one's time, plop on some headphones and just drown oneself in it, but that's something I almost never do these days.

I'm curious: why would I take a dump on my headphones??  ???

Quote from: Trollheart on Mar 13, 2023, 01:17 PM

Quote from: Guybrush on Mar 13, 2023, 08:54 AMIt's been a while since I listened Spirit of Eden now, but I like that album a lot. I find it a little hard to find time for that sort of music which is introspective, a little slow, but very beautiful. It's probably best to take one's time, plop on some headphones and just drown oneself in it, but that's something I almost never do these days.

I'm curious: why would I take a dump on my headphones??  ???

so you can listen to a bunch of  :poop: ?

This thread just went in the toilet.

(https://i.discogs.com/fsF8W3v6NtOYM5u2jbWU9sTlKMajsCC0dXnbVkRgiZ0/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:492/w:500/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTYxOTk5/NS0xMjE5ODk2NTUw/LmpwZWc.jpeg)
Album title: Perfect Symmetry
Artist: Fates Warning
Nationality: American
Sub-genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1989
Position on list for that year: 3
Chronology: 5 of 13 (so far)
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s):
Silver Rated track(s): Through Different Eyes, A World Apart, At Fate's Hands
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: So we're back with Fates Warning eh? Well according to Wiki this is an album which more deserves the genre tag, so we'll see. Heavy enough start and the production sounds much better this time around. Vocal is far better too, quite operatic really and much easier to hear. Initially I was thinking, still too straight-ahead metal but it's "progified" a little now by the second track. But again I kind of lose interest and though the music sounds okay there's not a single track here I can say I'll remember once the album is over. It just sort of goes by. Again I see gushing praise for it on YouTube, but I don't understand this level of devotion to the band. I guess they're just not for me.


Personal Rating: 5

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 01, 2023, 05:34 PMRight then, let's go. Shimmery visual effects and warped music as we travel all the way back to 1972...


(https://i.discogs.com/cyYE__XT-8QWw9Mh0chKRgexCox5oGRD1tVLAz53Wwc/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:449/w:450/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE5MjQz/NjcyLTE2MjQ4Nzk1/ODMtOTg4Ni5qcGVn.jpeg)
Album title: Space Shanty
Artist: Khan
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Canterbury Scene
Year: 1972
Position on list for that year: 10
Chronology: 1 of 1
Familiarity with artist: 2
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): Stranded, Driving to Amsterdam, Hollow Stone
Silver Rated track(s): Stargazers
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: This album looks familiar. I didn't get to 1972 yet in my History of Prog journal, but I think I may be about to get there, and have seen it in the list of albums released that year. Actually, it looks like I'm still mired in 1971 but I'm sure I've seen this album. I can tell you that Gong legend Steve Hillage was in Khan, along with some other Canterbury folk (sorry) and that this was their one and only album. It's relatively short, which may be a good thing for me - just over the three-quarters-of-an-hour mark, with a total of six tracks, some of them obviously quite long. Now, those of you who know me will already know that the Canterbury Scene is not, well, my scene. I've listened to Caravan, Soft Machine, Gong and others and I really did not like what I heard. Goes back to the hippy/psychedelic thing I guess; Hawkwind once wrote that if you want to get into it, you gotta get out of it, and I've never been out of it in my life. In fact, I think it might be hard to find someone who is more consistently in, so trippy albums don't have the same effect on me that they might have on, for example, you. Doesn't mean I'll pan it, but my expectations are a little lower than were I going to review, say, a prog folk or a progressive metal or neo-prog album (no, not in 1972, I know, smartass!) so I'm sort of ready for the worst.

Let's see how bad it is.

It's certainly a product of the seventies, with that staggered guitar that comes through so much in hard rock and early metal, and of course psych; the main vocal melody reminds me of something but I can't place it. Uriah Heep maybe? Not sure. Nice slow organ run is pretty cool and this is of course the opener and title track (with an additional "includes the Cobalt Sequence and the March of the Sine Squadrons") and runs for nine minutes. It's pretty okay actually when the vocals drop out; instrumental work is indeed quite progressive in tone. I have to say, of the Canterbury albums I've listened to (and there have not been that many, but a few certainly) this is far and away the best. "Stranded" is really nice with a sprinkly piano and - oh, it's just broke out into hard guitar and warbling organ. Picking up speed but still nice. Even the vocal doesn't bother me on this. I see Hillage and Nick Greenwood seem to share vocal duties, so maybe I'm listening to a different singer? Anyway it's good and the instrumental passages are glorious. Much better than I had expected. That piano from Dave Stewart really makes the song.

That guitar bit there presages the big hit for the Alan Parsons Project, "Eye in the Sky", or to be more accurate, its instrumental intro, "Sirius". Wonder if Parsons listened to this album, or maybe David Paton did? "Mixed Up Man of the Mountains" has an odd kind of tra-la-la vocal with some truly exceptional guitar, and really, other than the somewhat stuttering start this album has not put a foot wrong since. That sounds like some Cat Stevens in there too, in the guitar riff? Some pretty rocky stuff going on now, as the track acquires teeth whereas up to now it's just been more or less lazily chewing the cud. To carry the analogy, such as it is, further, the song has been up to now cows in a field, until a bull charges in and takes control of the herd. It's heavier, is what I'm saying. And really good. One of the longer tracks, "Driving to Amsterdam" has a quite jazzy peppy uptempo organ running the melody, very breezy with some fine guitar from Hillage, and the vocal is lovely and relaxed, again reminding me of something, or I guess as whatever that something is, it comes well after '72, I should say that something reminds me of this. Well, you know what I mean.

Yeah I know what it is: ELO's "The Whale" and also parts of "Echoes", which in the case of the latter is in fact before this album, if only by a year. Certainly enjoying this. "Stargazers" has a very Van der Graaf Generator vibe to it, could imagine Hammill singing on this one, then the closer is another nine-minuter, with "Hollow Stone (Including Escape of the Space Pirates)" having a very stately kind of marching, almost triumphant feel to it, a low-key vocal and a sonorous organ arrangement. It's no surprise this album is in the top ten, the only surprise really being that it's that low. But then, when you look at the others in that list - Genesis, Tull, Yes - two Bancos? - quite a lot of RPI in fact, like four albums or something - maybe it's not that it's not good enough to get higher, just that other, better-known albums are preventing it from doing so by being voted for more. Does deserve to be a few places up though.

Personal Rating: 10

finally i got around to this, it's definitely more is more prog when it comes to abrupt transitions - perhaps a bit too busy but definitely fun - the vocals are fine but when you go through these it becomes more and more apparent what a rare talent jon anderson is and how his voice played the biggest role in separating yes from the competition

Agree about Anderson upping the bar, however I think othera such as Lee, Gabriel and Hammill (his vocal model) should also be given credit. While prog rock might not have produced the most amazing singers, it certainly introduced us to some stunning vocal talents.

I think Greg Lake deserves to be mentioned as well, always loved his voice.

I think Space Shanty is okay, but there are better Canterbury albums out there. Quite a few, actually.

Hatfield and the North's two albums and National Health's first two are some examples. Comus mentioned Caravan's In The Land Of Grey And Pink and For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night in his review thread. I think Gong's albums You and Gazeuse! are more enjoyable.

I guess you'll stumble over these eventually if you keep doing this thread, Trollheart :)

I think classic Yes has such a splendid lineup in Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford and Steve Howe. Working together, they did some amazing stuff.

Although less known (and talking Canterbury scene), Hatfield and the North has a similarly great lineup in Richard Sinclair (vocals, bass), Dave Stewart (keyboards, also in Khan), Phil Miller (guitar) and Pip Pyle (drums). It's the best that scene ever produced.

Quote from: Mrs. Waffles on Feb 06, 2023, 03:44 AMI am a big Oldfield fan and Ommadawn is my favorite of his. Gonna be fun to compare your review to mine once I get there in my 100 list.  ;)

i liked it more than i thought i would

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 03, 2023, 04:40 PMAnd so we travel a year forward in time, to the heady year of 1973, when Pink Floyd released their seminal Dark Side of the Moon, but at number 9 on the list for this year we find this, our first RPI album, but surely not our last.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d2/Felona_e_Sorona.jpg/220px-Felona_e_Sorona.jpg)
Album title: Felona E Sorona
Artist: Le Orme
Nationality: Italian
Sub-genre: Rock Progressivo Italiano
Year: 1973
Position on list for that year: 9
Chronology: 4 of 20 (or 21, see below)
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Felona, The Plan, Return to Naught
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): Sorona
Comments: This album appears to have been released both in Italian and English versions, though oddly enough, none of their other twenty albums have been. I don't know if it was just that it was so successful, some sort of breakout album, that it had to be re-recorded for the English-speaking market, or what, but in the same year there are two versions. Truth to tell, there are three versions of this album, another one put out in 2016, which looks like it might be a two-disc version of both Italian and English releases. Guess it must have been really popular. Obviously, for my own sake, I'm going to try to get the English language version if I can. And I can't. Okay, despite YouTube giving me an option to search for the English version the only one that comes up is the Italian one, so I guess for now I'm stuck with that.

This is even shorter than the Khan album, clocking in at just over a half-hour, with the longest track on it being the opener, at nearly nine minutes, but the rest of them are really quite short. An interesting thing, I would think, for an RPI band to decide to do. I guess you can see how Genesis became so popular in Italy, when this kind of thing was going on all over the country. I mean, I'm not sure if RPI came about as a result of, at the same time as, or before Peter and the boys, but there's very definitely an early Genesis feel to this opener, though I do also hear a lot of classical in it, mostly Bach's "Toccata and Fugue". Is it all instrumental I wonder? With a nine-minute opener you'd have to imagine no, but then, some bands have done that. This Winter Machine even have a ten-minute one - but no. There are the vocals now, and though I've no idea what's being sung, the voice is very clear and serene, at least on this track.

Tubular bells I think opening the second track which has, if anything, a very Spanish feel to it, with acoustic (Spanish?) guitar in a sort of singalong rhythm, almost nursery rhyme in its way (Nursery Cryme? All right, TH: enough with the damned comments in brackets! What brackets? Don't play dumb: you know the ones I mean. Oh, those brackets! Yes, those ones) - uh, where was I? Oh yeah. Some flute coming in and a VERY Alan Parsons sound (yes yes I know) with rippling piano and some really nice vocals on "Felona" (which I can't help thinking of felony but I'm sure it's a name or something - the English language version doesn't translate it so that's why I imagine it's a name). Ramping things up for "The Maker", the other "long" track - just shy of six minutes - with a galloping bass line and sort of shots on the keyboard, very dramatic. And then a piece that sounds ripped out of Genesis's "Fountain of Salmacis", though since both albums came out in the same year I don't know who copied who, if anyone, or if it's just coincidence.

Great sort of boogie piano then running along to take us into "Web of Time", a slow, melancholy ballad with another recognisable melody or motif in it, right it's from one of the SKY tracks, the album recorded ten years later, so again, one or the other. Either SKY copied this bit or heard it or, which is more likely, just one of those things. Sounds like a motorbike revving now - guess it's guitar effects - as "Sorona" comes in, and this one is short too, just shy of three minutes. Can't say I particularly like this one honestly. That constant revving sound is very very annoying and it doesn't stop, runs right through the entire track. Maybe it has something to do with the song; don't know and don't care. Next up is "The Plan", coming in on a shimmery descending keyboard line with possibly warped guitar or something and maybe (though I doubt it) something like a theremin? Very spooky and weird, then "The Balance" has again that kind of breezy Spanish or Latin feel, with acoustic guitar and a few blasts on the organ, and a low-key vocal, and we end with "Return to Naught" which seems to be a kind of reprise of the "Toccata" that opened the album.

Overall I'd say this is a decent RPI album, but like with many of them - and not just due, I think, to the language barrier - I find it a little hard to engage fully with it. On repeated listenings I feel it would probably click more with me, but I've 498 albums to go and I don't have the time for repeated listenings. I reckon it probably deserves its place on the list, though I feel there may be better RPI albums out there. Still, Le Orme are one of the giants of the scene, so it would not be fair to ignore that. Be interesting to see if we encounter them again in any future year lists. I'm sure we will.

Personal Rating: 8

i enjoyed this a lot and coincidentally the vocalist actually reminds me of jon anderson

Quote from: Mrs. Waffles on Feb 07, 2023, 06:56 PMI love Ocean and Eloy in general. I agree that the vocals aren't great. I just kind of tune them out half the time, the instrumental side of their music is great enough to counterbalance the less than stellar vocals.

first listen

i thought the vocals were fine - reminded me of a poor man's greg lake

cool instrumentation - nice mood  - yeah

i might not like it as much as you but way more than th

still enjoying this journal

Well like I say, Eloy aren't a bad band. I don't even dislike them. I just find that I never remember any of their music, and for me, clearly, that's a bad thing. If there are no hooks, nothing to make me think about the music and recall it later, how good can it be (imo)? I find this with some prog bands, certainly not all, but it does then tend to be a measure of whether or not I listen to them again. I mean, I can quote/sing any Genesis album from start to finish, same with Marillion, Mostly Autumn, Arena, Threshold, a lot of others. There are bands of whose music I know and remember a lot, but not all, and then there are bands who just pass me by and I couldn't recall a single line if you put a (toy) revolver to my head. Eloy are in the latter category. And it's odd, cos I kind of want to like them, but I just keep coming up against the same huge wall of indifference with them.

I'll be getting this going again soon, don't worry.

i remember buying a stockhausen record and the shop owner stating he didn't like stockhausen because he couldn't whistle his music in the shower

It's definitely not like that with me. There are plenty of artists - prog and otherwise - whose music I could not whistle, if I could whistle, which I cannot - but I do like to be able to hum along while listening, or anticipate lyrics, or keyboard solos, acoustic bits, guitar solos, drums punching in (ah, the old Phil Collins syndrome, eh?) and I just have never got that with Eloy. At all. I'll keep listening to their music as it comes up on my playlists, and here, as I'm sure they have other albums in the top 500, but I imagine I'll probably continue forgetting it almost instantly too.

i'm not sure how much i value being memorable- it's an interesting music appreciation criterion actually

I think it's very important. If you don't remember a song/album, how you gonna want to recommend it? And remembering something or being familiar with it really strikes a chord then (not literally of course) when you put the album on again or hear it again. It's part of what I love about music: when you hear that song and it brings back those memories, reminds you of the first/last time you heard it. A real bridge to the past, very often. Nostalgia and music go quite well together for me. I was watching a TV show last week and all the music was eighties gold - Human League, Men at Work, Bon Jovi, Tears for Fears - and it really brought back good feelings of times before Karen's illness, before my mam's passing, before my aunt's passing, when I had money and more hair and not too much to worry about. I also like to get to know music: either learn or at least understand/recognise the lyrics, and most of my favourite albums I can sing and also hum all the music too as well. I know, when listening, where that guitar solo comes in (and can emulate it), where the drums crash, where everything fades dowm, how many verses/choruses there are etc. I feel a lot more connected to music that way.

Quote from: Trollheart on Apr 15, 2023, 08:13 PMif I could whistle, which I cannot

What's up? Do you have a harelip?

You know, buddy.. I would read your journal about you learning how to whistle 😗

right

yeah i get that but i don't know if lacking that is necessarily bad - i think it depends on what kind of music it is and how old you are and other factors

just because having a characteristic is a positive doesn't mean lacking that characteristic is a negative

Yeah, I get what Trollheart is saying but it only really applies to stuff that is both traditionally melodic and "song"-based. I've listened to hundreds of death metal and ambient albums where I only have vague conceptions of "how the songs go" but I still listen to them all the time and consider them favorites. Like I can follow them as I'm listening to them but it's not snappy tunes you can hum or anything. There are plenty of other memorable elements like rhythm, timbre, structure, etc.

(https://frinkiac.com/meme/S06E11/1224906.jpg?b64lines=WWVzIHllcywgaXQncyBhbGwKIGEgcmljaCB0YXBlc3RyeS4g)

Anyway, time I got my ass in gear and got back on the horse, to wildly mix metaphors.
And so
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Album title: A Social Grace
Artist: Psychotic Waltz
Nationality: American
Sub-genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1990
Position on list for that year: 2
Chronology: 1 of 5 (so far)
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Halo of Thorns, Another Prophet Song, I Remember, A Psychotic Waltz
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s): Strange
Comments: I remember these guys. Grindy tried to get me into them via Into the Everflow but I don't remember being impressed. This is their debut. Heavy as fuck from the beginning, very powerful vocals. The second track, "Halo of Thorns" has a very acoustic, sort of medieval opening then kicks up into a mid-paced semi-rocker/semi-ballad. Very impressive. Some really exceptional dramatic instrumentation in "Another Prophet Song", real prog metal fare, then I kind of find "Successor" a bit of a let-down after that, seems a bit confused and disjointed to me. I mean, it's not a bad track, I just find it hard to follow it. Not crazy about "In This Place" either, to be honest, and the spoken part really bugs me.

Things get back on track with the soulful "I Remember", quite possibly the ballad on the album, vocalist attended by what sounds like pipes of some sort, becomes quite anthemic fairly quickly, but I'd still, so far anyway, class it as a ballad. Ok it says here it's a flute, and I can hear it now. Very ethnic-sounding. Lots of weird electronic effects and a staggered intro then to "Sleeping Dogs" - oh my mistake: must be a short instrumental, only runs for a minute and a half and takes us into "I of the Storm" (so the calm before the storm perhaps?) which punches out of the speakers and grabs you by the - GAAAWWK! - eh, by the throat, yes. Marching and stamping and clomping all over the place like an army on their way to do some real mischief, it pounds along with real purpose, then not a title track but what you might call a signature track, "A Psychotic Waltz" is a slow grinder that just oozes menace with some truly introspective guitar which kind of reminds me of Maiden's "Strange World".

Next up in "Only In My Dreams" - oh no wait: that's Debbie Gibson isn't it? Always get those two mixed up. Easy mistake to make. This is "Only In a Dream", and it's a good mid-paced rocker, though I fear the quality may be starting to ebb as we near the end of the album. Prove me wrong, guys! Prove me wrong. Not sure they do with "Spiral Tower": it has a lot of creeping threat about it, but seems a little similar in ways to "I of the Storm" and kind of sounds a bit like a Zep/Dio hybrid. It's not bad, not bad at all, but I'm looking for better than not bad at this stage. "Strange" sounds like it might have more about it, nice kind of dramatic opening with spooky guitar and I think it's about to kick up any second now... and there it goes. Right I think it may have degenerated rather than developed into something. Sigh. Yeah that's absolute shit. And we have just the one track left, and it's... Nothing? Well, yeah, that's the title but it sounds like it could be really excellent. A strong finish? Let's hope so. Nah, not really. This album really nosedove at the end. What a pity.

Personal Rating: 7

Quote from: Trollheart on Feb 09, 2023, 02:52 AM(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j5sDHx9l_rY/0.jpg)
Album title: SBB [AKA: WOłANIE O BRZęK SZKłA AND SLOVENIAN GIRLS]
Artist: SBB
Nationality: Polish
Sub-genre: Eclectic Prog
Year: 1978
Position on list for that year: 4
Chronology: 8 of 19
Familiarity with artist: 1
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Both tracks are gold
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Oh-oh. The genre tag "eclectic prog" often spells trouble for me. Sometimes it's just a catch-all to describe something that's maybe avant-garde, experimental or otherwise outside of the general prog spectrum, but has some prog credentials. Sometimes even avant-garde or experimental prog might be preferable, but here we are, and given that so many good prog bands have come out of Poland, maybe we'll be all right. There are only two tracks, so I can copy out the names, otherwise I don't think I'd be bothering, with all those odd accents and things. I don't know, but with two tracks at over 19 minutes each I'm going to assume this is instrumental? This is "Wołanie O Brzęk Szkła (Julia)" and has some really nice almost Gilmouresque guitar as well as what may be a sitar or something, very nice anyway, very relaxing. All right, so there are vocals. Seem almost ethereal, but again very nice.

Getting much rockier now with electric guitar and the future echoes of "Duke's Travels" in another of those surely weird coincidences I keep coming across. I mean, this melody is so like the Genesis track you would wonder if they stumbled over this album before they recorded it? But I expect it's just one of those things. Great music so far though and I have nothing negative to say at this point. And now there's a totally bitchin' harmonica solo worthy of the best of Supertramp against a rockin' boogie beat. This album just gets better. No wonder it's so high on the list for this year. Fantastic powerful keyboard run to end the track, and into the second one, which has a much shorter title, and opens on bouzouki with wind effects, quite stripped down as "Odejście (Anna)"  takes us on another nearly 20-minute odyssey of what I hope will be pure joy.

And it looks like it will be. After a slow, relaxed start we have a sort of pattering percussion and a whistling keyboard line with maybe feedback guitar and it's loping along now at a fine pace. Then it all slows down on a shimmery synth line with a crooned vocal, not yet any actual lyric but more vocalise, a soft acoustic guitar and chiming keyboard painting a magical backdrop before the singer comes in with the actual vocal. I suppose it's because they don't sing in English that these guys never seem to have broken out of their native Poland, and it's a real pity because this album, and this band, should be known worldwide. Mind you, prog fans obviously know where it's at, placing it near the top of 1978's list, where it certainly deserves to be. There's a duet now, kind of vocal harmony going on against the lush backing, sounds almost Vangelis at his most gentle and restrained. And now it's picking up again with a truly superb vocal into a kicking guitar piece, but wow is that not the main theme of "Echoes" being pretty liberally ripped off there? Oh hell, it's just such a superb album I can ignore that.

Personal Rating: 10 (would go higher if I could; it's that good!)

just gave this a listen

damn there's a lot of prog out there

good one

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Human_Album.jpg)
Album title: Human
Artist: Death
Nationality: American
Sub-genre: Technical Death metal/Prog Metal
Year: 1991
Position on list for that year: 1
Chronology: 4 of 7
Familiarity with artist: 2
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): "See Through Dreams", "Vacant Planets"
Silver Rated track(s): None
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: This, my fellow prog heads, is where it all gets very strange and we step through the looking-glass... into Hell. Well, not quite, but who would have expected a death metal album not only in the top ten prog albums, but to top that list for this year?  But so it does: PA reliably inform me this is prog metal, though I have  my doubts. I've heard this I think twice, once for Metal Month and once perhaps on "Love or Hate", or maybe not. I know I have some experience with it. But I can't recall, on any of those occasions, feeling that it touched the prog metal standard at all. Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps it's too long ago now and I forget, or have changed my perception of the band. Whatever is the case, it really doesn't matter: PA say it's prog, put it at the top of their list for 1991, and so we have to give it a listen.

Perhaps take a crash helmet?

Interesting opening, like a kind of approaching drumbeat, then the guitars punch out and we have the classic death vocal, though I guess it's slower than would be usual on an album of this kind, sort of a fast Doom Metal thing. Some fine shredding definitely and Chuck Schuldiner's vocals make him sound like he's really in pain and roaring out his anger to the world. Jesus Christ ripping off a fine shred while throwing the horns! "Suicide Machine" comes with a built-in warning and you have to click "I understand and wish to proceed" before it will play! What is wrong with this world? Don't answer that. Anyway it's another fast pounding track but I can't see too much difference between it and the previous one; guitars are a little grittier and yeah I can hear his vocal striding along in a different way now.

"Secret Face" hammers along with Chuck grinding out the vocal again and some almost Maidenesque riffing from the boys; slows down and speeds up with quite choppy guitar but man is there some shredding on this! I hear some sort of vague Egyptian theme in "Lack of Comprehension", with some pretty brutal drumming (that's brutal in a good way) while it sounds like "See Through Dreams" has (gasp!) synth opening it and an almost orchestral feel to the guitars, the most purely musical of the tracks I've heard on the album so far. I find myself wondering if it might possibly be an instrumental? Kind of a cinematic idea to it, or at least that's how it comes across to me. Pretty damn excellent, and would easily qualify as my favourite on the album. Almost goes full electronic about halfway through, then some acoustic guitar before we're off and ripping, shredding and screeching away on the frets. Excellent.

"Cosmic Sea" has a lovely phased guitar opening for a moment, then it grinds along well, picking up speed as it charges headlong towards the finish line and that finish line arrives with the pounding grind of "Vacant Planets", thundering and rolling over everything and providing a very satisfying conclusion to a special album. Chuck, you're missed.


Personal Rating: 9 (as Metal) 6 (as prog)

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Album title: Heaven Born and Ever Bright
Artist: Cardiacs
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: RIO/Avant-Prog
Year: 1992
Position on list for that year: 10
Chronology: 6 of 8
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album: Zero
Gold Rated track(s):
Silver Rated track(s): The Alphabet Business Concern (Home of Fadeless Splendour), Snakes-a-sleeping
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Ah, more RIO music! Guess I must have really offended the gods of Prog. I believe the Cardiacs are well known in the avant-prog scene, but as I can't even get an invitation to their parties, I don't have a clue about them. RIO usually sends a little shiver of dread down my spine however, but we'll see. Explodes with a major chant, something like that thing you hear on the European football championships, very stirring and dramatic. Impressive stuff for sure, like listening to a choir at mass maybe. Next track, "She is Hiding Behind the Shed" is far more down and dirty, growly guitar and a sort of punk-style vocal, sort of reminds me of the Buzzcocks maybe. Pretty chaotic really but not too bad for RIO I guess. "March" then is built on a pretty solid bass line with a really weak vocal, barely audible really, at first anyway. Now it's taking shape on a group vocal, a little like, but not quite the same as, the opener. Riff in "Goodbye Grace" that really sounds like Maiden's later "The Duellist", but I would say this is so far the closest this album has come to outright punk in terms of speed and style.

Some good keyswork coming in now for about the first time since perhaps the album began, but this does seem to be a band more driven on a primal, guitar-focused sound, and this style continues on into "Anything I Can't Eat", at which point I do have to admit I get quite bored and begin to zone out a little. I mean, the guitars are great and these guys can play, but it's all a bit frenetic and directionless for me; guess that's RIO for you. But it's not for me. "Helen and Heaven" does at least slow things right down with a sharp acoustic guitar and a more restrained vocal, then we're back to mad breakneck speed for "Badblood" and I think there's some horns in "For Good and All" then "Core" is at least short, just over two and a half minutes. Have to be honest, I'm just waiting to get to the end now.

"Days is Gone" has a nice lively piano line and some cool brass, and it's really not all that bad, but then the closer "Snakes-a-sleeping" is bloody eight minutes long! I mean, sure, I know this is prog (apparently) but eight minutes of these guys makes me want to go a-slithering off, in the opposite direction. Maybe it will surprise me. Certainly has a nice Hammond opening and sounds a lot more prog than anything I've heard on this album so far. It takes a harder guitar line pretty quickly though, and I definitely don't like this guy's singing voice. Actually the track seems to end at the seventh minute, so I'm not sure why it's shown as being eight and a half, unless there's some stupid little coda thing on the end? Yeah, there's a stupid little coda thing on the end, a few seconds of confused noise following what sounds like an explosion. Christ.

I feel like I've been tricked into listening to a punk album in many ways, and while I suppose these guys will have other albums in this top 500 and I'll have to listen to them, I'm glad this one is over and I wouldn't of choice be listening to it again.


Personal Rating: 4/10

Is Cardiacs RIO? I never considered them that, but perhaps the prog community at large does. Maybe they played at a RIO festival.

Musically, I like "prunk" as in prog-punk 🙂

I've mostly only listened to Sing to God. It's a fun band and they have some good songs, although I find them a little dense and frantic and so I'm not sure I'd like to listen to a whole album in one sitting.. at least not Sing to God as it's a double album.

To answer your question almost half a year late, I don't know: I just go by what ProgArchives tells me.

Right then, where were we? Oh yeah...

(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/17/cover_364410972016_r.jpg)
Album title: Vemod
Artist: Anekdoten
Nationality: Swedish
Sub-genre: Heavy Prog
Year: 1993
Position on list for that year: 9
Chronology: 1 of 6
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album: Zero
Gold Rated track(s):
Silver Rated track(s): Karelia, Thoughts in Absence, Longing
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Is this the first Swedish band we've come across on the list so far? I think it may be. Got a pretty dour, melancholic opening, in other circumstances I might have considered this to be atmospheric black metal, but the doleful organ is fading out now to be replaced by harsh, strident guitars and they're really picking up the pace. I do feel however that this may be an instrumental; if not, that's one hell of a long introduction. No, definitely an instrumental. Not bad, though I'm not falling all over myself to praise them at this point. Pretty competent, I would say. The vocal on the second track I would call a little whiny maybe; would not be a fan of this kind of singing just at this point. I think if I had to compare him to anyone it might be Peter Hammill, but without the force of personality the VDGG man has. In fact, I read these guys are seen as a sort of Swedish King Crimson, and given my less than love for that band, maybe this is why I'm just not getting into this.

It's not terrible by any means, just not grabbing me or holding my interest really. Okay well "Thoughts in Absence" has a nice reflective feel about it, reminds me of Mostly Autumn in ways or early Rush, but I still feel this guy is not up to the job behind the mic. "The Flow" just, well, flows by without making much impression on me, though "Longing" has a lovely cello line leading it and would seem to be another ballad, with acoustic guitar, while the last track is "Wheel" and is driven on a nice Hammond line with what sounds like female backing vocals in an almost Kate Bush style. Gets a bit heavier then with the guitar and picks up the tempo, think there maybe some horns in there too. Maybe a little jazzy, which is not good for me.

Yeah I think heavy prog as they call it is generally not for me. This isn't awful, but it's not great either, and I doubt I'll remember any of the tracks once I've finished the album, which I often use as my metric as to whether or not I consider an album good.

Personal Rating: 5/10

(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/1846/cover_51113232019_r.jpg)
Album title: Visions Fugitives
Artist: Mekong Delta
Nationality: German
Sub-genre: Tech/Extreme Prog Metal
Year: 1993
Position on list for that year: 8
Chronology: 6 of 12
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album: Zero
Gold Rated track(s): Suite for Group and Orchestra
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Generally speaking, the words German and Metal - of any variety - usually result in loud, raucous bands - look at Kreator, Gravedigger, Scorpions, Accept. There may be some which fall into the less rowdy category, but overall I think you can expect loud and angry when you check out German metal. This is shown with an "extreme" tag, so that usually is not good for me, but let's see how it goes. Okay well it certainly does not come in easily, blasting the riffs in your face from the first note, a sense of expectation building as the first song opens up, and to be fair it's pretty decent, though either the production is bad or this guy can't sing loud enough to make himself heard over the guitars. Second track is okay I guess but I'm just not getting into it. I think technical metal, be it prog or otherwise, tends to, obviously, concentrate on the skill of the guitarist(s), and here they're very good certainly, but they seem to me to be more a sort of backdrop to nothing. I wonder if these guys rely too much on their technical playing and don't bother too much with the songs aspect?

Then again, there's a nineteen-minute suite coming up, so perhaps it's all about to change. Starts off with some really nice acoustic or Spanish guitar, a shade Hackettesque perhaps, and then a big slow marching almost orchestral piece (the whole thing is called "Suite for Group and Orchestra", though I don't see any evidence of an actual orchestra) then it's a big trumpeting arpeggio on the keys to take us into the third part, or movement I guess. So far it's all been instrumental since this suite began; will it remain so for the nineteen-minute run of the whole thing? I don't know, but there are no sign of vocals coming in yet. I think it's unlikely there will be any, which makes this pretty impressive as an instrumental, and as a piece of almost continuous music. It's odd, given the pretty banal nature of the first two tracks, that this could be so good: it's almost as if this were a different band.

Yeah, very impressed with that, so hopefully the last two tracks won't ruin it by returning things to the way the first two tracks went. I think I would say that the singer is very much the weak link here. It's no coincidence that I loved the suite primarily because he wasn't involved in it, at least not in a vocal way. Now he's back and while I wouldn't go so far as to say he's destroying the song, he's definitely not adding anything positive to it. The song isn't quite as bad as the first two, but it's certainly no continuation of the quality from the suite. And that leaves us with one track, and to fair it's not up to much either. So without that suite this would be getting a much lower mark, but the quality of that composition shows me these guys may well have something, so it gets a better rating than I would have originally expected to be giving it.

Personal Rating: 7/10

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Album title: Written in Waters
Artist: Ved buens ende
Nationality: Norwegian
Sub-genre: Experimental/Post-metal
Year: 1995
Position on list for that year: 7
Chronology: 1 of 1
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album: Zero
Gold Rated track(s):
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s): Every fucking one
Comments: The only album these guys produced because they were crap, or because they couldn't get a deal for more? Experimental is not great for me, post-metal not so bad, but I feel this may be a bit of a slog. The band name means "at the end of the rainbow", in case you were wondering, as I was. Well it's a powerful opening but a little chaotic I feel, perhaps justifying the "experimental" part of their genre description. Yeah, I thought it couldn't get any worse, and then they started singing. Well, after a fashion. Man, that was bad! The track was called "I Sing to the Swans". Well if so, I think they all would have taken wing and buggered off to be honest. Another guy who can't sing. He's basically talking the next track. I feared this would be a slog, and so it is proving to be. Not a lot I can say so far, really.

Jesus Christ, this guy cannot sing. I mean, either he's exaggerating his voice deliberately or he is just the worst singer I've heard in a long time. Okay I'll be honest: I've switched off now. Not literally - the album is still running - but mentally. I hear the music go into everything from death metal to doom metal, and the constant wail and drone of the vocalist is just setting my teeth on edge, so I'm just waiting it out. Don't expect a good result on this one. Yeah, I really hated that.

Personal Rating: 1/10

What the hell? I've never heard of them before and just briefly checking it out, it sounds a little stupid. It's not for me.

A bit of a curiosity, if anything? I assume a lot of people like this (?).

Btw, small correction, but Ved Buens Ende means At the bow's end. Seems likely it would be a rainbow, but that'd be Ved Regnbuens Ende, regn being rain. Not that different from English in this case 🙂

Thanks for that Tore. I remember grindy correcting me on something else, like freiheit means freedom or fantasy or something; always good to get it right. Still, "at bow's end"? What exactly would that mean? Unless it's bow as in take a bow? After the performance? Anyway, whatever bow, bow or rainbow these guys are at the end of, I sure don't want to be there. Yes, this is the problem with lists like these. If you look back at the last three albums I've done yesterday, I really didn't like any of them. But they're on the list so have to be done. Just proves that despite what some people think, prog is a pretty varied and eclectic genre, and there's a whole slew of stuff in there that I would never listen to, given a choice, and would challenge their inclusion on the list. But then, what do I know?

(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/2328/cover_31282292016_r.jpg)
Album title: Khaooohs and Kon-Fus-Ion
Artist: Pan.Thy.Monium
Nationality: Swedish
Sub-genre: Experimental/Post-Metal
Year: 1996
Position on list for that year: 6
Chronology: 3 of 3
Familiarity with artist: Zero
Familiarity with album: Zero
Gold Rated track(s): Behrial
Silver Rated track(s): The Battle of Geeheeb
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Jesus popping wheelies on a brand-new Harley heading down the Lincoln Tunnel at midnight munching a Big Mac! You have got to be fucking kidding me! I just endured almost an hour of this shit and here we are again with another one! What are the chances? God have mercy on my ears! I suppose at least there are only four tracks, but then one is twelve minutes long and one is almost fifteen, so it's hardly a let-off for me, is it? Then again, compared to the just-short-of-an-hour I struggled through on the last one, half an hour is certainly more doable, I would hope. I will say that any album that credits one of the band with "noises" sends something of a cold shiver down my spine. Oh hell, at least it opens with a big guitar riff not a million miles away from the start of Lizzy's "Whiskey in the Jar", but I'm pretty sure I can hear those lovely animalistic growls I so enjoy in vocals, so again, could be a bumpy ride.

Well there's no denying the skill on those guitars and we have synth too, so if you kind of ignore the guy growling the vocals - and they're very low and obviously completely impossible to make out any words in - it's not too bad. I could do without my other favourite thing, wild, frenetic horns, but hey, you can't have everything. Or indeed, sometimes, anything. There is, rather weirdly, a very Alan Parsons Project rhythm halfway into the first track, that twelve-minuter, and despite some crazy sounds and those squealing horns, I'd have to say I'm not yet compelled to claw my own ears off with a fork. I mean, it's hardly a ringing endorsement, I know, but it's the best I can do at this point.

No hell, let's be fair now: that is a fucking bitchin' guitar solo and it's followed by some truly exceptional ambient work on the keys as we head towards the end of the track. This won't be getting Gold status or anything but it's already better than all of the previous album put together. Hell, a bunch of magpies in a tree on fire would sound better than the previous album! Sorry, magpie/bird/animal/tree lovers. In fact, again, ignoring the - mostly ignorable - "vocals", this really is pretty damn good. Just as I said that, he's off again, but let him tire himself out: he'll sleep tonight. The music is really, really good, a lot better than I had expected. All right, the second track, the longest one, has its moments, and as Moe once said, it's not without its charm, but it's a little too, um, experimental for me. Superb guitar solo near the end, but it's nowhere near as good a track as the first one.

Oh right, I just got the title now: chaos and confusion. Cute. The third track has a lovely synthy opening that kind of sounds like eighties ambient or something, I think this stands a good chance of getting a Gold rating. It's really really nice. Just very relaxing, with a lot of like voice effects on the synth like a sampler, and a kind of industrial beat behind it. Gives me a sense of later Yes or something. The closer is just one minute, so I'm assuming it's either effects or a very short instrumental, or perhaps one hundred million people saying "wop". It's not one hundred million people saying "wop". It is in fact, oddly, one minute of pure silence, and given that it's titled "In Remembrance", maybe that's very significant. I wonder who or what it's in remembrance of? Can I find out? No; nobody seems to know, though given this was the band's last album, perhaps it was a "moment of silence" for the end of Pan.Thy.Monium. I reckon I'd have listened to more. Much better than expected.


Personal Rating: 7/10

(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/325/cover_15216392016_r.jpg)
Album title: The Divine Wings of Tragedy
Artist: Symphony X
Nationality: American
Sub-genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1997
Position on list for that year: 5
Chronology: 3 of 9
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): The Accolade, The Divine Wings of Tragedy, Candlelight Fantasia
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: No matter how poor this might end up being, I'm glad to get back to "normal" prog and away from those who experiment. Can do without that for another while, thanks. This one is over an hour long and has a proper prog suite on it, so we may be on safer ground. Or it may all be a cruel trick. I guess we'll see. Well it's a decent start, typically prog metal, but I would have to say nothing that memorable yet. Singer sounds quite a lot like RJD. Kind of really only start taking notice for "The Accolade" though, a slower, sort of medieval style acoustic ballad which is really nice. Okay it's not really a ballad but still the best track so far. It's not that the rest of it is bad, it just isn't making any real impression on me.

"The Eyes of the Pharaoh" is good enough, and "The Witching Hour" gives me a sense of Arena circa Pepper's Ghost, then the title track is that suite I spoke of, opening on a chanted choral sort of thing, reminiscent of Queen really, or some sort of mass, and it all seems to be based I think around the Fall of Lucifer? Maybe. Anyway it's already more interesting than almost all of what has gone before. Now we get a treatment of Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" and now it's rocking along nicely. Again, like the Mekong Delta album, this is almost completely different to the rest of the music on the album, and I'm really getting into this now. I think given a few more listens I might really like this, but it does take a while before I feel even compelled to do more than just listen vaguely. It ends well, on "Candlelight Fantasia", lovely little ballad. If only it wasn't for the first six tracks, leaving "The Accolade" aside.

Personal Rating: 7/10

(https://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/34/cover_3367392016_r.jpg)
Album title: Into the Electric Castle
Artist: Ayreon
Nationality: American
Sub-genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1998
Position on list for that year: 4
Chronology: 3 of 11
Familiarity with artist: 4
Familiarity with album: 3
Gold Rated track(s): On one listen I can't decide, as I really at the end point have pretty much forgotten what the tracks sounded like.
Silver Rated track(s):
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: Looking at this, it should be a shoo-in. Double album, three tracks in the ten-minute mark or more, no less than five suites, and people involved like Damian Wilson, Clive Nolan, Thijs van Leer, Sharon den Adel and Fish, though it is, as Ayreon always is, the brainchild and baby of Arjen Lucassen. If you don't believe that, here's what he does on the album: electric and acoustic guitars, MiniMoog, keyboards, bass, mandolin, Mellotron and vocals. Oh yeah, and he also produced and mixed the album, and wrote all the music. But here's the thing: I've never heard an Ayreon album all the way through, but my old problem persists, in that what I have heard has never remained in my mind or my memory to any great extent, meaning I could not hum or sing a single Ayreon song.

This appears to be (duh) a concept, in fact a space opera (subtitled as such) but these reviews have to be of necessity short, since I have so many more to listen to, so I won't be looking into the idea behind the lyrics - some sort of idea of mythology certainly, with Isis and Osiris namechecked - which may do the album a disservice, but I really just don't have the time. Besides, any album worth its salt - even a concept one - should stand on the music alone, rather than a need to know the story behind it. So that's how I'm going to approach it. After all, I have over an hour and a half of music to get through here, so I think that's enough to be going on with.

It opens on "Welcome to the New Dimension", which I think can be treated as a sort of introduction/prologue, with some speech over wibbly keyboard, and reminds me of Arena's "Moviedrome" to an extent. Nice wailing guitar, slow and dramatic, and into the first of the five suites, eleven minutes of "Isis and Osiris". I'm sure nobody thinks they're writing about the Islamic terrorist group here - Isis and Osiris were both major gods in the Egyptian pantheon. I like the way it segues directly and seamlessly in from the opener, and here we get the first chance to hear Fish, ex-Marillion frontman, on vocals in one of the roles in the space opera, rather appropriately playing "The Highlander". The entrance of Damian Wilson of course brings a Threshold sound to the song as I think it moves into its second stage, then female vocals join, but whether they are Sharon den Adel or Annette van Geisenberger, or both, I don't know, as both these ladies of symphonic metal take part in the album.

Some superb Mellotron from Lucassen as the piece picks up in tempo and we head towards its conclusion, and into the second ten-minute suite, "Amazing Flight", where the guitar takes charge a little more, and there's a certain sense of blues boogie about this. I won't try to identify vocalists I don't know; despite my attempts, none of the pages on the album differentiate between who does what. I mean, roles are assigned, but you're not told who is on what track, so other than Fish's strong Scottish accent marking him as the Highlander, and the fact I know Wilson's voice, the others could be any of the - let's see: eleven! - vocalists on this project. I will say that for ten-minute epics these go in pretty quickly, which is always good in my view. Nothing worse than something overstretched and padded out to fill up the time. Good powerful punchy ending.

I would almost have sworn that was one of the Alan Parsons Project singers on "Time Beyond Time", either Eric Woolfson or Colin Blunstone, but I don't see either credited on the album. This is the first ballad, and indeed the first, since the opener, that isn't a suite. Is that pushing too much? I'm not certain: it's definitely a lot to take in all at once, and we're only about two-thirds of the way through the first disc, so will it retain the interest? It's pretty good so far, but again, will I remember it later? Nice bit of flute there from Thijs van Leer and some really sweet acoustic guitar alternating with screeching electric, while "The Decision Tree (We're Alive)" comes in on pulsing keys and soaring, Steve Rotheryesque guitar, and sees the return of Fish as the Highlander as well as another vocalist who sounds like, but clearly is not, Lou Gramm. Great sense of anthemic power to this one, then "The  Tunnel of Light" starts off with a spoken piece and then Fish remains in his role in a guitar-led semi-ballad, joined by one or two of the female vocalists (sorry, I just don't know which and I'm not familiar enough with either to be able to recognise their voices) and the first disc comes to a close on the somewhat ethereal "Across the Rainbow Bridge", which gets rocky enough towards the end.

Another suite to open disc two, and indeed another ten-minute one, as "The Garden of Emotions" has another spoken intro with a choral backing and ambient music before big trumpeting keyboards take us in. A fine performance from the female singers, I guess both of them, and some pretty raucous guitar from Lucassen too and some excellent Mellotron giving it an almost seventies Van der Graaf Generator feel. "Valley of the Queens" is the second-shortest track, at just under two and a half  minutes and has the two ladies duet against a really soft gentle acoustic guitar with more pastoral flute from van Leer, then it sounds like we're falling into the maw of some great beast in "The Castle Hall" with another spoken word piece followed by sharp ragged guitar. It goes along in a kind of staggered melody, sense of a kind of tribal chant about it in ways, and I see we're singing about Merlin, so again as I say I have no idea what the concept is here, but it seems to range across various myths and stories.

"Tower of Hope" has a very synthy opening, then growling guitar takes over and the vocal is odd; kind of echoey and also more nearly spoken than sung. "Cosmic Fusion" is the fourth suite, although not quite the shortest of the five, it is much shorter than the other three running for just over seven and a half minutes. A really nice solo female vocal with elements I recognise from later Marillion songs leads it in slowly and gracefully till it kicks up and burst into, of all things, a death growl in the midsection (there's a sequence called "Death's Grunt", so I assume this is it), the guitar getting harder and choppy as it marches along now. A big scream then and into I assume the third part with some almost Shadows-esque guitar work and busy synth. Shortest of all the suites, then, "The Mirror Maze" runs for a mere six and a half minutes, and has another of those spoken intros against kind of wind and echoey sounds, then runs on a beautiful solo piano with a very Beatles-style vocal which then gives way to an almost CSNY duet, which is really nice. Good acoustic guitar too.

Again, I feel this goes quite Arena-like in the second part, a sort of marching rhythm taking the melody as it goes along; definitely reminds me of something off maybe Contagion. "Evil Devolution" sounds, to be fair, like the title of a Devin Townsend number, and opens on yet another narration with what sounds like bubbling and spacey sounds, then has a kind of industrial/darkwave mood to it, sort of like Depeche Mode if they did prog. Not crazy, I must admit, about this one, but given that it's the first one I've had to say that about, it's not much of a complaint really. Another spoken introduction to "The Two Gates", which has a nice bright synth running its main melody and strays a little more in the direction of AOR than prog really. There's a short little track, shortest on the album at two seconds over two minutes, and "Forever of the Stars" begins with a vocal intro and then goes into a fast-paced synth backed by vocoder, taking us into the closer, "Another Time and Space".

There's a real sense of drama about this, a slow building to something on the back of guitar and synth then it goes into an acoustic almost David Gates-style melody, back to the buildup on synth, really nice vocal harmonies as some or even most of the singers return for the finale, lovely piano and squealing guitar as the piece heads towards its climax and ending on some rather odd little vocal effects.

While there's a huge amount to take in here, I feel it's quite likely that given a few more listens and maybe a read of the lyrics/story behind the concept I might really get into this album. There's certainly been a lot of work put into it, and while it means nothing to me in terms of the story as it finishes now, I imagine there are some really clever and deep ideas in there. The music is all pretty much first-rate, and the usage of different vocalists keeps things fresh. Overall, I'd say I'm impressed.

Personal Rating: 8.8/10

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/11/Anathema-Judgement.jpg)
Album title: Judgement
Artist: Anathema
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Post-metal
Year: 1999
Position on list for that year: 3
Chronology: 5 of 13
Familiarity with artist: 3
Familiarity with album: 1
Gold Rated track(s): Deep, Forgotten Hopes, One Last Goodbye, Parisienne Moonlight, Judgement, Don't Look Too Far, Emotional Winter
Silver Rated track(s): Destiny is Dead; Anyone, Anywhere; 2000 & Gone
Wooden Rated track(s):
Comments: A deceptively acoustic gentle start which then kicks up as "Deep" opens the album, the vocal very low-key, great rhythm. Really like this already. A great start, some fine guitar work and, I must admit, I don't hear any keyboards yet. Bassy opening to "Pitiless" and it rocks along nicely too, relatively short and a rather abrupt segue into "Forgotten Hopes" which slows everything down nicely with a soft acoustic guitar and a sort of crooned vocal, very reminiscent of Floyd's "Hey You" (even uses a lot of the lyric - hey you, did you ever wonder, stone, wall - I wonder if that's deliberate?). Would I class this as a ballad? Well, there's some pretty frenetic guitar work in it, but overall maybe, or at least a semi-ballad. Shortest track on the album, just over a minute and a half, "Destiny is Dead" is of course an instrumental, again quite Floydesque, then "Make it Right (F.F.S.)" has a moody, almost Nick Cave feel as it struts along, riding on a new-waveish keyboard line.

The real ballad then comes in the shape of "One Last Goodbye", reminding me a lot of Mick Moss's Antimatter, very poignant, very atmospheric, with somehow the drum pattern of the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin." Yeah, don't ask. I think of weird stuff and make weird connections. Very passionate vocal on this one. Absolutely sumptuous piano passage opening "Parisienne Moonlight", just gorgeous and it sounds like that has to be a female vocal, surely? Okay, we have guest vocals from Lee Douglas, so I assume that's her. Really adds something to what appears to be another ballad. Very short again, just over two minutes and driven almost entirely on piano and some synth. Lovely. Segues directly into the title track, which also seems to be a low-key affair with ambient keyboards and a slow purring bass line, lovely duet between the two Cavanaghs here, building up slowly and now picking up speed till it explodes into a frenzy of guitar and screamed vocals.

Lee Douglas returns to duet with Vincent on the again very Floyd-like "Don't Look Too Far", seems to be another slow song. A ballad? Maybe not, but relatively low-key again, then "Emotional Winter" has a very ambient opening with guitar that definitely recalls the best of Gilmour, again a slow song, smouldering and brooding, "Wings of God" is kind of the first time this album has really kicked ass, which is something I have to admit I expected it to be doing more. It's quite a laid back, easy going affair mostly. Then it's back to acoustic guitar for "Anyone, Anywhere", another Antimatter style song, with some really effective piano too, kicks up nicely near the end, and speaking of the end, we reach it with "2000 & Gone", yet another track with echoes (sorry) of Floyd, feels like it might be an instrumental. And so it is.

Despite the over preponderance of callbacks to and influences from Roger, Dave and the boys, I'm still very impressed with this album. I would prefer it was a little more original, but even at that it's a damned good listen and would certainly encourage me to check out more of their stuff. Definitely deserves its high place here, at the cusp of the century.



Personal Rating: 9.5/10