Long Island finger-style guitarist Mark Vickness’ first solo offering, Places, emerged in 2017. Featuring eight, self-penned, instrumental tunes, and inspired by the places he had visited over the years, turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable album and a perfect…
View More Mark Vickness – Interconnected
In 2019 I had the unexpected pleasure of reviewing The Rising by Tony Lowe’s ESP Project: unexpected because at the time, I knew nothing of the band or its history, but a delightful pleasure because I quickly fell in love…
View More ESP Project – Phenomena
What a conundrum Peter Jones is, seemingly capable of turning his hand to a variety of musical styles with intuitive ease and aplomb, whether as a solo artist or with Red Bazar, or the legendary Camel, amongst other collaborations. The…
View More Tiger Moth Tales – The Whispering Of The World
A few points of order: Firstly, Phil Lively is a lovely bloke. I know this as we have shared beers and advanced in-the-flesh swearing sessions, and come out the other side as good chums. We have also slept in close…
View More VOI-D – Songs From The VOI-D
Daily Thumbprint 3, The Wandering is a curious and at the same time, unassuming title for a mammoth musical project that turned into a labour of love for American drummer, composer, and musical traveller Caleb Dolister, who plays drums, produces…
View More Caleb Dolister – Daily Thumbprint 3, The Wandering
Some stories are important to be told; some hideaway, some never see the light of day and history is written by the victors. We miss albums that both delight and provide interesting revelations. Black Swallow is one, telling the tale…
View More Telergy – Black Swallow
Coming from New Zealand to the UK, one thing I quickly became used to was being asked by the person who’d just discovered I was a Kiwi that they had heard New Zealand was like this country was fifty years…
View More Grumblewood – Stories Of Strangers
Marillion band members have a well-documented history of extensive solo and side projects, all except Mark Kelly… until now. He has been thinking of releasing his own solo project for quite some time and with some unexpected downtime in 2020…
View More Marathon – Mark Kelly’s Marathon
I came to this album with some reservations. Pharaoh Overlord have a larger discography than the title of their latest release might suggest, and that discography is quite varied. The band is one of Jussi Lehtisalo’s many offshoots of Finnish…
View More Pharaoh Overlord – 6
The music industry is fickle, the charts like production-line models, endlessly similar until the next relaunch, Mark II, Mark III etc. Then there is Jump! This is the fourteenth studio album in a career of over 25 years; I’ve had…
View More Jump – Breaking Point