Oldfield, Crimson, Giant, Gryphon, Morricone... Proud Peasant. In December of 2014, some friends and I compiled our annual Top 10 Albums Of The Year lists, and there were very few surprises overall… but there was one. Way up near the top of my list was Flight, the charming out-of-the-blue debut from American band Proud Peasant,..
Dream Theater – A View From The Top Of The World (InsideOut)
Are Dream Theater still capable of balancing skill and technique with memorable melodies and direct lyrics? Unbelievably, it's now been more than a decade since the surprising, dramatic exit of Dream Theater drummer and founding member Mike Portnoy and the subsequent replacement in Mike Mangini (seriously, where is the time going?). Soon we will be..
Glass Hammer – Skallagrim – Into The Breach (Sound Resources)
The second installment of a trilogy is always the deepest part of the story... As a youngster, I quickly learned from movies such as The Empire Strikes Back and books like The Two Towers that the second instalment of a trilogy is always the deepest part of the story. With the latest musical offering from..
The Watch – The Art Of Bleeding
Sunset. After missing the last bus, she walks back tentatively to the house she has rented for the summer. A house with memories of holidays long ago. She shuts the door. In the half-light, something catches her eye. A chair has been moved, ever so slightly. And the darkness is deepening. This can’t be good...
Auri – II: Those We Don’t Speak Of (Nuclear Blast)
The honeyed voice of Johanna Kurkela glides over the lush empyrean chords of Kiss The Mountain, the remarkably beautiful halfway point of Auri's sophomore release Those We Don't Speak Of. It's an unusual placement in the running order; other bands might have chosen such a piece to close their album, drifting off like a lullaby...
Steve Hackett – Surrender Of Silence (InsideOut)
It takes mere seconds to recognize the architect of the mysterious guitar as it emerges from the stillness. The famed fingers of Steve Hackett tap and glide across the fretboard with familiar dramatic flair in The Obliterati, the dark overture to his 28th studio album Surrender Of Silence. Notes bend until they cry out, primal..
Tillison Reingold Tiranti (TRT) – Allium: Una Storia (Reingold Records)
'This album was 100 percent sonically possible in 1976.'andy tillison There is no comparison for the first live musical experience of one's wide-eyed youth; an aggressive guitar chord ringing out through the venue the moment it's strummed, the thud of drums pulsing through our bodies, a singer belting out a lyric that feels like it's..
Marillion – Fugazi deluxe edition (Parlophone)
'Fugazi is a good record, but could probably do with a remixing.'Nick Tauber, producer The weary jester lies alone, disrobed and sprawled across a hotel bed on a night that has too soon become morning. Evidence of meaningless trysts and the indulgences of his lifestyle lay strewn about him. Real and imagined objects pepper the..
The Neal Morse Band – Innocence & Danger (InsideOut)
A breath of fresh air after two double concept albums... There's a shift in approach detectable in the first spin of Innocence & Danger, the fourth and latest album from The Neal Morse Band (NMB). The compositions seem to arrive from a different angle - not wildly different, but enough to notice - and the..
Steve Howe – Homebrew 7 (HoweSound)
Delicate, quirky, melodic, dreamy, sentimental... and timeless. There's a warm comfort to delving into an entry in Steve Howe's now quarter century-running Homebrew series; a kind of low-key, casual examination of his personal tape archives and home recordings that acts as a companion to the more polished studio albums of his catalogue. Homebrew tracks don't..