Reviewing this album honestly feels like cheating. Most albums we humble scribblers have to review require us to take a leap into the unknown to something between the latest sensation and an abysmal waste of time. Scheherazade and Other Stories,…
View More Renaissance – Scheherazade and Other Stories [Remastered & Expanded 3-disc Box Set]Author: Basil Francis
Jonesy – Waltz For Yesterday: The Recordings 1972-1974
My first brush with Jonesy was in 2011 when I reviewed the bizarre Dark Matter (Inner Space), apparently a mish-mash of old recordings and new sound effects. Looking back, I cannot fathom why I gave it 7 out of 10,…
View More Jonesy – Waltz For Yesterday: The Recordings 1972-1974Meshuggah – Immutable
During my initial, cursory listen to Meshuggah’s latest album, I sighed inwardly. What had I let myself in for? Every song (bar three instrumental tracks) sounded exactly the same as each other, all featuring that ominous, ugly djent sound that…
View More Meshuggah – ImmutableDream Theater / Arch Echo
Warner Theater, Washington DC, USA Sunday, 6th March 2022 Prologue It was pretty surreal to be at the Warner Theater at 7:30pm on a Sunday; it was my first concert since the pandemic began two years ago, and for the…
View More Dream Theater / Arch EchoDream Theater – A View from the Top of the World
This year has been a bit of a roller coaster for Dream Theater fans, bringing us a new Transatlantic album, Liquid Tension Experiment 3, and now Dream Theater themselves with their fifteenth studio album, A View from the Top of…
View More Dream Theater – A View from the Top of the WorldState of Flux – State of Flux
As popular as progressive metal is amongst fans, it seems even more popular amongst aspiring, talented new artists, all raring at the chance to show off their chops and dazzle with their musicianship. Unfortunately, this has led to a highly…
View More State of Flux – State of FluxThe Decade in Review – Basil Francis
Arabs in Aspic Strange Frame of Mind – 2010 Continuing the theme of prog bands who don’t take themselves too seriously, Arabs in Aspic were firing on all cylinders when they produced their good-natured second album at the beginning of…
View More The Decade in Review – Basil FrancisFruupp – Wise As Wisdom: The Dawn Albums 1973-1975
Sometime in 2011, just before each of Fruupp’s albums reached their respective 40th birthdays, I happened upon two interesting looking CDs in an independent music shop in Leeds. They were the middle two albums from Fruupp’s sadly short-lived career, Seven…
View More Fruupp – Wise As Wisdom: The Dawn Albums 1973-1975IQ – Resistance
IQ, a band both loved and reviled by the prog community: loved for their part in relaunching the progressive rock movement in the early 1980s and arguably bringing some epic tunes with them; reviled for sounding like a pastiche of…
View More IQ – ResistanceU.K. – Danger Money
At E.G. Records offices in 1979… Record Executive: So, I hear you have a new prog-rock album for me? Band Manager: Yes sir I do. It’s a follow up to U.K.’s debut album U.K. RE: I don’t understand, isn’t the…
View More U.K. – Danger Money