Just when you thought the workaholic Roine Stolt might be taking a break from activities, or concentrating on the next album with Jon Anderson, he suddenly announces work starting on the next Transatlantic album, and the imminent release of a…
View More The Flower Kings – Waiting for Miracles
The long-running U.K. exploratory-jazz-rock collective known as Led Bib awake to a new dawn with their latest album, It’s Morning, a fraught message struggling to leave the sender, transmitted into the hectic world in which we live. We find less…
View More Led Bib – It’s Morning
While most rock stars in their 70s are content to release a new album or go on another ‘Greatest Hits’ tour once in a blue moon, Van Morrison, who most likely was the inspiration for many of them, continues to…
View More Van Morrison – Three Chords & the Truth
Prog metal has come a long way over the last 30 years, and Norwegian band Leprous have been making an indelible mark on the genre since their debut album in 2009, not that they see themselves as tied to any…
View More Leprous – Pitfalls
I have often felt the Welsh poet William Davies, writing in 1911, perfectly foreshadows the sentiment which underpins one of the key crises of modern life. “What is this life if, full of care / We have no time to…
View More Chasing the Monsoon – No Ordinary World
Esoteric Antenna are about to release Nick Beggs’s new solo album, Words Fail Me. It is impossible to review without mentioning his other solo works and the instrument he uses to deliver them. It is for me, anyway. Much-loved and…
View More Nick Beggs – Words Fail Me
Ask any seasoned Genesis fan about their favourite Genesis era and they invariably speak of those golden years in the ’70s. Inevitably much of the focus, at that time, was on charismatic frontman Peter Gabriel and then Phil Collins, who…
View More Steve Hackett – Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live at the Royal Festival Hall
As a band that in certain quarters needs no introduction, a contexture of sorts seems only polite. A bunch of studious musicians playing quirky instrumental metallic avant garde jazzy type crunchy guitar stuff changed direction (slightly) when former American Idol…
View More District 97 – Screens
“Above the towers of prayer and hope Polishing their Poundshop halos by the score They’ve never seen the ground below Whispering their fallacies behind closed doors.” (A Million Heartbeats) Some lyrics instinctively catch your attention; they have a unique and…
View More ESP Project – The Rising
I’ll admit to having an interesting relationship with Haken, having absolutely loved their ’80s inspired album Affinity, whilst I felt Vector was a bit of a step backwards for them, so having heard Richard Henshall, a mainstay of the band,…
View More Richard Henshall – The Cocoon