Reviewing this album honestly feels like cheating. Most albums we humble scribblers have to review require us to take a leap into the unknown to something between the latest sensation and an abysmal waste of time. Scheherazade and Other Stories,…
View More Renaissance – Scheherazade and Other Stories [Remastered & Expanded 3-disc Box Set]
Kingdom Two Crowns is in some ways quite a surprising sophomore album from Norwegian “pop” band Kalandra – and in others not surprising at all. I said of the opening track to their debut, The Line, that Borders was “an…
View More Kalandra – Kingdom Two Crowns: Norse Lands Soundtrack (Extended)
Poppodium Boerderij, Zoetermeer, the Netherlands Thursday, 28th April 2022 Yellowjackets guarantees top class fusion. The Americans, who have been active since the late-1970s, have built up an impressive oeuvre and track record when it comes to live performances. Unfortunately, the…
View More Yellowjackets / Wojtek Justyna TreeOh!
By the late ’60s and early ’70s, the blues influences that had inspired the likes of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page were maturing into new genres of rock music, each developing their own identities with progressive rock…
View More Wishbone Ash – Argus (with Martin Turner)
There is always a sense of anticipation when news arrives of a new album from Finland’s wonderful Von Hertzen Brothers. Since they began making inroads into the consciousness of music lovers outside their homeland, they have gone from strength to…
View More Von Hertzen Brothers – Red Alert in the Blue Forest
Just over a decade ago I discovered a band called From.uz who, perhaps unsurprisingly given their name, hail from Uzbekistan. They had just released an album called Quartus Artifactus, which I imagine is probably Latin for fourth artefact. Regardless, this…
View More Fromuz – The Asymmetric Rules
Drongo are a band that hail from Kristiansand, Norway. There is an air of mystery about them as not much information is readily available, except that they refer to themselves as providing ‘space disco’. Maybe that mystery is not a…
View More Drongo – Drongo 2
The Farewell Tour, Poppodium Boerderij, Zoetermeer, the Netherlands Saturday, 23rd April 2022 On Saturday 23rd April, Kayak visited De Boerderij in Zoetermeer, Holland, for the last time. The current tour means a farewell to European venues for the band: the…
View More Kayak / Lesoir
Abbotsbury Church, Newton Abbot Saturday, 23rd April 2022 A strange venue for a prog gig: strange for me on so many levels. As a church you would expect the acoustics to be good, and they weren’t bad at all. It…
View More Blank Manuskript / The Emerald Dawn
Keyboardist and composer Hans Lundin is the sole constant through the history of the legendary Swedish band Kaipa, which he co-founded in 1973. With the band having just released their fourteenth album, the mesmerising Urskog, TPA’s Jez Rowden talks to…
View More Hans Lundin – Kaipa