2019 was a year in which a number of legendary bands celebrated their 50th anniversary. For example Yes, Jethro Tull and King Crimson were among the jubilees. The British symphonic rock group Renaissance also celebrated the occasion of five decades…
View More Renaissance – 50th Anniversary: Ashes Are Burning – An Anthology Live In Concert
In late 2020, I reviewed the debut album from Compassionizer. Anyone who read that review will know that the files I reviewed from were not fully titled, so I was perhaps coming to the music from a different angle than…
View More Compassionizer – An Ambassador in Bonds
I wasn’t previously familiar with Sky Cries Mary, a psychedelic outfit from Seattle, but they’ve been going for over 30 years (with a short hiatus in the early 2000s) and this is their thirteenth album, and fourth for Trail Records.…
View More Sky Cries Mary – Wandering in the Vastness
“Every melody I come up with automatically pops up while cycling/walking.” – Gert van Engelenburg Treehouse is the sixth studio album by Dutch symphonic rock band Leap Day, a band that seems to improve time and again with each new…
View More Gert van Engelenburg – Leap Day
The power of music is a curious thing. Sometimes it takes just one album to open up my mind and ears to something that then consumes me. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it hits hard. Though I’m…
View More Dead Space Chamber Music – The Black Hours
Portraits, as per its Bandcamp page, is the first in a new series from Unexplained Sounds Group, with each release creating a ‘portrait’ of three musicians by showcasing representative pieces of their recent musical journeys, and hopefully serving as an…
View More Gasparotti – Ciullini – Stancati – Portraits
Sonata Arctica are well established in the classic tradition of Finnish power metal bands, but have so much more to offer than out-and-out metal thrash, and their latest album should endear them to a much broader audience, particularly of a…
View More Sonata Arctica – Acoustic Adventures: Volume One
Featured artists: Band of Rain | Marco Mattei | The Kite Experiment | Sugar Horse | Moron Police | Oxygene8 ||: As we sail further and further into 2022, a chance to check the manifest, clear the decks and pick…
View More A Different Aspect #75
It’s a well known truth that the history of Yes is littered with strife and controversy. In fact, it’s probably the trauma that’s actually held the band together all this time, in some weird way, binding it all up like…
View More Stephen Lambe with David Watkinson – Yes in the 1980s
I was – and fervently remain – a huge admirer of Dec Burke’s third studio album, Book of Secrets (released in 2016). From the outset there is a wonderful, infectious energy which drives pulsating rhythms carrying songs bristling with power,…
View More Dec Burke – Life in Two Dimensions