PHOTOGRAPHS: SHEFFIELD: Chris Walkden, LONDON: Graeme Stroud The eighth installment of the ongoing HRH Prog festival came in an intriguing format: the same identical weekend line-up simultaneously in two cities, London and Sheffield, but with the days reversed, so that the Saturday line-up in London played on Sunday in Sheffield, and vice versa. That's a..
ALAN PRICE – BETWEEN TODAY AND YESTERDAY (Esoteric)
Many people still cite this album as the high point of Price's solo career, and who can argue with them? Concept albums can be a funny sort of beast. Logically, the idea of putting out a set of songs as an album linked together thematically should be an obvious one whatever the genre, and indeed..
ATOM WORKS – THE LIFE OF SPICE (Mauste Records)
This is 'concept' writ large, deep, wide and imposing. Straight away when looking at this album we had better get one word introduced into the mix : 'concept'. You'll be hearing that a lot over the course of this review. The album is not only a concept album in and of itself, but it also..
DOCTORS OF MADNESS – DARK TIMES (Cherry Bomb Records)
(The album) is quite magnificent in its cowl of self-enforced bleakness. Okay, first thing to start off with here is a little history lesson I think, as not everyone will be aware of the strange wonder which is/was the Doctors Of Madness. Formed in 1974 by vocalist/guitarist Richard 'Kid' Strange, and featuring the distinctive violin..
YES – BOX SET OF UNRELEASED RECORDINGS
Legendary Prog Rock band YES reveals four previously unreleased 2010 recordings, on the new ‘From A Page’ five piece mini-box set, personally overseen by ex-member Oliver Wakeman. YES has returned to the recordings made in late 2010 to mix the four completed tracks as new content for a miniature five piece box set of recordings..
THE BLACKHEART ORCHESTRA
Photo: Lee Bolton I must say the progressive world has totally embraced us, which is wonderful (Chrissy Mostyn) A word of explanation is probably in order if you aren’t familiar with The Blackheart Orchestra. First and most important would be that they aren’t an orchestra. In actual fact, they are scarcely a band by the..
WALLY – MARTYRS AND COWBOYS 1974-75 (Esoteric)
A fine collection of a band who might well have slipped under your radar There are a lot of natural combinations of musical genres through the years which have endured and proven ever-popular. There’s jazz and rock, of course. There’s prog and metal. There’s jazz and funk, folk and rock and certainly rock and blues...
DOWNES BRAIDE ASSOCIATION Return with Box Set and UK Concert Date
Downes Braide Association (DBA) have announced the release of Live In England a 2CD/DVD Box set on 29th November 2019 via Cherry Red Records. A double-vinyl edition will be released on 14th February. The album features stunning artwork by the legendary Roger Dean. Live In England, the fourth album release by the duo Geoff Downes..
ANNIE HASLAM – ANNIE IN WONDERLAND (Esoteric)
... the old classic Nature Boy, a song whose other-worldly, slightly surreal melody has always made it sound like a song simply waiting for Annie's voice to join it ... In 1977, while Renaissance were taking a short hiatus in order for John Tout to recover from illness, Annie Haslam decide to take advantage of..
MAINHORSE – MAINHORSE (Esoteric)
What's this? It's the sound of a massively distorted guitar, fuzzed up to the psychedelic eyeballs and dying to run amok over the record ... Sometimes you just look at an album and you know exactly what it's going to sound like. Such as this one. The band's name is Mainhorse, the cover features a..