“Eclectic” is a word beloved of music writers, but sometimes, like the superlative adjectives, it manages to escape the prison of overuse and actually apply to something in a totally appropriate and valid way. The Vermont collective Jack O’the Clock,…
View More Jack O’the Clock – The Warm, Dark Circus
When I get my classic prog fix, I don’t tend to venture as far back as the ’60s, simply because it was a nebulous time for the genre and progressive music hadn’t evolved into all of its trappings that I…
View More High Tide – The Complete Liberty Recordings
My first introduction to Jethro Tull was listening to my older brother playing his copy of Aqualung when I was about 10 years old. And in my mid teens I got to see 50 minutes worth of the band’s Madison…
View More Jethro Tull – War Child II (Vinyl Edition)
With a career covering four decades, this highly listenable outfit, formed in Michigan but now Washington based, is currently a duo featuring returning founder member Steve Kretzmer and James Strain, who joined in 2019. Over the years they have given…
View More Rascal Reporters – The Strainge Case of Steve
I’m relatively new to Fish On Friday, but I’m also happy to admit that as soon as I first heard some of their music it immediately struck a chord, as I drew a comparison with The Alan Parsons Project, in…
View More Fish On Friday – 8mm
V Ä L V Ē are one of those bands that arrive out of left field to provide a fascinating glimpse into a self-contained universe, removed from the humdrum everyday. A uniquely charming and somehow very English creation, V Ä…
View More V Ä L V Ē – Tiny Pilots
Maze of My Mind, which was released earlier this year by German guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Martin Miller, may have passed some of us by at the time, but this is an album worth investigating – better late than never! His…
View More Martin Miller – Maze of My Mind
I guess I first came upon Eloy around 40 years ago, and was immediately drawn to the progressive leaning German band. At the time, the progressive rock scene was not really the crowded, vibrant place it has become in recent…
View More Eloy – Echoes from the Past
The release of a new Steve Thorne album always gives me ambivalent feelings: on the one hand, there is this great music and on the other hand those gloomy, depressing lyrics. This contradiction actually characterises the entire oeuvre of the…
View More Steve Thorne – Malice in Plunderland
Galatea’s Holiday is a warm and whimsical affirmation of the power of natural beauty – and music – to bring solace and healing in troubled times. Listening to each track feels like leafing through an album of fondly remembered holiday…
View More Brendan Perkins – Galatea’s Holiday