Toto is a band that divides music fans into two camps, pro or con, and there is no middle ground. You either condemn the group for its silky smooth productions, catchy tunes and (too) high hit content, or you embrace…
View More Toto – 40 Tours Around The Sun
Ah, the joys of writing about a band with no preconceptions. You may think it strange, but until I listened to this album I don’t think I’ve knowingly heard anything by Tool. This band are evidently HUGE on the prog…
View More Tool – Fear Inoculum
After the Last Stroke is the seventh album by German multi-instrumentalist Hans Jörg Schmitz, who releases solo albums under the curious soubriquet ‘King of Agogik’. This name came from a humourous exchange experienced by Schmitz when he was playing with…
View More King Of Agogik – After The Last Stroke
This Red Kite, from Norway, are not be confused with an alt-rock band of the same name from London, as an internet search can get a tad confusing! Deliciously scuzzy, like a good vibe in an otherwise sleazy nightclub, Red…
View More Red Kite – Red Kite
Norwegian progressive rockers, Magic Pie, return with their fifth album, appropriately called Fragments of the 5th Element. As those familiar with Luc Besson’s fine 1997 cult (and rather bizarre) Sci-Fi film ‘The Fifth Element’ will know the ‘Fifth Element’ turned…
View More Magic Pie – Fragments Of The 5th Element
Brighton band Diagonal reappear on my radar after a seven year gap with their third album Arc, and after a regrouping following the fracture of the band before during and after 2012’s Second Mechanism (read more HERE), and the subsequent…
View More Diagonal – Arc
Quantum Pig claim that they are, at the same time, ‘a prog band and not a prog band’ and mention influences as diverse as Carl Sagan, Queen, Maya Angelou, Frost*, Richard Buckminster Fuller and Hüsker Dü. Astronomy, science, classic and…
View More Quantum Pig – Songs Of Industry And Sunshine
There are some albums that just surprise you, coming right out of left-field and socking you right between the eyes – that’s what Black Bead Eye from How Far to Hitchin has done to me. To be honest, until recently…
View More How Far To Hitchin – Black Bead Eye
This is Charlie Cawood’s second solo album. Unlike The Divine Abstract, his first solo album, which took several years to write and record, this one came about more quickly. Not only is Charlie the bassist with Knifeworld and Lost Crowns,…
View More Charlie Cawood – Blurring Into Motion
Well known quotable curmudgeon, scatological juvenile humourist, and sometime genius musician Frank Zappa once said of music journalism: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”. Emmett Elvin, purveyor of keyboard goodness for Knifeworld and Guapo, is nothing if not…
View More Emmett Elvin – The End of Music