My first experience with the German acoustic duo of Melanie Mau and Martin Schnella was at New Jersey’s Progstock festival. Mau (vocals) and Schnella (acoustic guitar & vocals) are typically abetted onstage by percussionist Simon Schroder, performing on various hand…
View More Melanie Mau & Martin Schnella – The Rainbow TreeCategory: Album Reviews
The Aristocrats – DUCK
The Aristocrats… is there really anything left to be said about this obscenely talented band? Guthrie Govan, Marco Minnemann and Bryan Beller have spent more than a decade releasing albums of mind-bending – but always with a point – content…
View More The Aristocrats – DUCKMariusz Duda – AFR AI D
Riverside’s frontman Mariusz Duda is a man brimming with ideas and creativity. Since 2008 his main side-project has been the rather different sonic worlds of Lunatic Soul, characterised by widescreen soundscapes infused with either folk or more electronic inflections, and…
View More Mariusz Duda – AFR AI DSBB – Live Cuts Katowice 2012
At the end of the 1970s, progressive rock music, or symphonic rock as it was also known at the time, found itself in a difficult period. Partly due to their own fault (arrogance, delusions of grandeur) and partly due to…
View More SBB – Live Cuts Katowice 2012Midas Fall – Cold Waves Divide Us
Midas Fall have released their fifth album, the ethereal Cold Waves Divide Us, six years after their well-received Evaporate won the PROG magazine ‘Limelight’ award in 2018. Some may not be familiar with the atmospheric soundscapes of this post rock…
View More Midas Fall – Cold Waves Divide UsNektar – Recycled [5CD Remastered Boxset]
In the past, I’ve been critical of Nektar’s merits and made anything I actually liked by the group seem like some sort of a guilty pleasure. The snide remarks stop here. Loosely hanging my expectations on the albums’ ProgArchives ranking,…
View More Nektar – Recycled [5CD Remastered Boxset]PAKT – No Steps Left to Trace
The ‘P’ in PAKT is Mrs Jones’s lad Percy, the virtuoso fretless bass player on all the Brand X albums from Unorthodox Behaviour in 1976 to Manifest Destiny 21 years later. On one of those albums – I think 1982’s…
View More PAKT – No Steps Left to TraceLind – A 3rd Ear Conversation
Well, this is a fascinating little nugget I’ve been playing a lot since it arrived, and I’m still discovering parts I seem to be noticing for the first time. A 3rd Ear Conversation, sub-titled The Justification of Reality, Part II,…
View More Lind – A 3rd Ear ConversationThe Pineapple Thief – It Leads to This
The Pineapple Thief have been beguiling listeners since its roots as a Bruce Soord solo project in 1999. Bruce is clearly a busy man; aside from his burgeoning career in producing and remixing, he also released the diaphanously fragile solo…
View More The Pineapple Thief – It Leads to ThisEmerson, Lake & Powell – The Complete Collection [3CD Boxset]
Quoting myself from my review of Greg Lake’s Magical career retrospective box set: “I’ve never listened to the Emerson, Lake & Powell album for much the same reason I’ve never listened to any of Lake or Emerson’s solo stuff before,…
View More Emerson, Lake & Powell – The Complete Collection [3CD Boxset]