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…
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Author: Basil Francis
Despite being TPA’s youngest member, Basil is ironically more fond of the old stuff and has a hankering for reissues and boxsets...
Magma – Zëss
Since the dawning of the new millennium, Christian Vander has been quite content to rest on his laurels, only re-entering the studio to re-record pieces that never made it to the studio back in the ’70s (and even some that…
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Edge of Reality – In Static
In a stunning coincidence, I just threw out some mouldy banana bread during the writing of this review… Joey Frevola himself assured me that the new Edge of Reality album would be far-removed from his orchestral if somewhat twee solo…
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Dream Theater – Distance Over Time
Let me start by quoting the last couple of sentences from my review of 2016’s The Astonishing: “While it’s definitely the band’s most solid and consistent work for a long time, one wonders if this album is indicative of future…
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Reale Accademia di Musica – Reale Accademia di Musica
Oh boy, I just did some band research to become a little more informed about this group before I put fingers to keyboard, but I seriously wish I hadn’t. It seems just about everything the musicians involved have done since…
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Joey Frevola – Gone
Choosing January 1st as your release date has always seemed a peculiar artistic choice to me (if it is indeed an artistic choice at all). Firstly, won’t too many people be suffering from hangovers from the night before to get…
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Island – Pictures (1977)
Hello readers and welcome to a new feature where we reviewers scour our vaults for some unearthed gems that you may have missed the first time around. These are antiquities, shrouded in obscurity, that nevertheless have all the lustre of…
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Bill Wurtz
Do you want to know about the history of Japan? How about the history of the entire world? In two highly informative yet idiosyncratic videos totalling less than half an hour, video creator and multi-instrumentalist Bill Wurtz has managed to…
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Haken – Vector
You probably wouldn’t have been expecting me to review Vector after my disparaging comments about 2016’s Affinity, and yet here I am. Just as I punish myself by watching the latest series of The Simpsons and The Walking Dead to…
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The National Orchestra of the United Kingdom of Goats – Huntress
It’s been five years since the Italian symphonic grind pop quartet (their words, not mine) The National Orchestra of the United Kingdom of Goats (UKoG for short) dazzled me with their stunning debut LP Vaaya and the Sea. In the…
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