"Shine On - 12 tracks of epic ambient symphonic metal and frankly mad new prog"

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Free CD glued to the cover of "Classic Rock" magazine. Subtitle reads "100% guaranteed goblin-free zone" which is pathetic bollocks - I have a whole bunch of progressive rock albums, none of which with the obv. exception of GONG, have lyrics about goblins or any of that shit, yet this CD includes a track by Circulus, who do.

With the exception of Guapo, I haven't heard anything new that could be called "prog" that I've liked for a good few years. It all seems a bit safe & boring, which is 180 degrees away from what progressive rock means to me. It's probably not dead, but it does seem to be in an unending dreamless sleep to me @ the moment. I might be wrong though. Maybe there'll be something good on this CD?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:32 (nineteen years ago)

1/Porcupine Tree. "Mother and Child Divided"
Live track from forthcoming DVD (it sez here) sounds like heavy rock era king crimson, played in a weird strung-out sounding manner. OK insomuch as it would probably sound good cranked up loud, but it's a bit all-one-level at this volume.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:34 (nineteen years ago)

Problem w/the track is it's instrumental, but lacks some kind of interesting topline, or anything to make it focus. It sounds like a 1/2 completed backing track.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:37 (nineteen years ago)

I love this thread already.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

2/spox0rz beard "the ballad of the impact" - fuck awful, predictable, drippy sub-beatles/elton blether w/mellotron breaks. If I didn't just have a customer in, I'd have skipped the rest of it, instead....

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:45 (nineteen years ago)

3/gps "window to the soul" covernotes say it's asia, less geoff downes, but with the kybrd player from spock's beard playing. I DIDN'T REALISE TRACK 2 HAD FINISHED AND TRACK 3 HAD STARTED. This is just toally anonymous and boring. Who in their right mind gives one (1) fuck about anything by Asia beyond the first 2 lps anyway?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:48 (nineteen years ago)

plus, that song title, yeesh.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:49 (nineteen years ago)

4/the flower kings "hit me with a hit" - I managed to skip this before roine stolt started singing, thank fuck.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:50 (nineteen years ago)

that's the way it goes.
in my store we sell tons of flower kings, spock's beard, transatlantic, magellan cd's. and porcupine tree are kind of gods here in italy (i should say i like some of their songs too).

― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:53 (nineteen years ago)

5/Fish "Incommunicado" (live) much to my amazement, this is actually pretty fucking good! The band actually plays in a forceful & driving manner - it actually stands out from the speakers, rather than nestling at the back of the box, like the last few tracks did - it sounds like they actually mean it.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:56 (nineteen years ago)

1st transatlantic album I think is great, Porcupine Tree have always been great live when I've seen them (4 times, I think) but on record they've always struck me as being a bit overcooked, productionwise.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 11:58 (nineteen years ago)

From here on in it all seems to be new acts.

6/lunatica "out!"
MOR metal w/vaugely gothic stylings. Why is this even on a progressive comp?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:00 (nineteen years ago)

vaguely, even.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:01 (nineteen years ago)

7/Circulus "Willow Tree". One of the more canterbury-ish tracks from their last album. Vaguely reminiscent of Gong and Caravan, w/added folk-rock. Could have been recorded in 1971, and probably would have been a sleeper classic like "land of grey and pink" if it had.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:05 (nineteen years ago)

i like the cover of that last circulus album. if i saw it on vinyl i would buy it in a second.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

i listen to lots of great new prog metal. i can't say that i ever hear much in the spock's beard camp. i should start a pandora station based on spock's beard.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:13 (nineteen years ago)

The vinyl of circulus is due out anytime. I think you can still get the 1st album on vinyl,(as long as you don't want colour).

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:22 (nineteen years ago)

All Thats Heavy might still have the 1st album actually and will definitely get in the new vinyl once its out. I pre-ordered mine from Rise Above and after previous experiences I would bet ATH will get their stock in from them before me!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

Circle make for very good NEW prog madness

― rizzx (rizzx), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:26 (nineteen years ago)

8/wolverine - "house of plague" - quiet bits are like that opeth album, "Damnation" and are thus pretty OK, the loud bits are archetypal prog metal, which has never done fuck all for me, like. More quiet bits plz, wolverine.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:42 (nineteen years ago)

i really liked the first wolverine album. i think it was the first album.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:44 (nineteen years ago)

Ha my brother's been playing Moog w/ Circulus recently for a few gigs, apparently there's no irony involved AT ALL. Why would there be? Can I just mention that they've actually done about 5 albums?

I can't honestly say I've ever heard most of these more recent prog acts (Flower Kings etc), I heard a bit of Porcupine Tree once but it sounded like 90's era Rush without the vocals. Backing tracks, as mentioned above.

― Matt #2 (Matt #2), Thursday, 7 September 2006 12:51 (nineteen years ago)

9/ riverside "volte-face" is good, almost great. I liked the slightly demented falling-over-itself playing and the calvert-era hawkwind-meets-eloy sound.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

riverside take a lot of inspiration / ideas from this Anathema album

http://rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s8374.jpg

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

10/frost "black light machine" -according to the blurb in the magazine (the blurbs in the magazine are unbelievably bad, btw. I'd quote some, but they're mostly just embarrasing) this band is the brainchild of some guy who has written hit singles for atomick kitten & h0lly valance. There is a nice instrumental break, and some nice keyboard sounds, which is good as most of the other stuff doesn't really seem to stray from hammond/mellotron/minimoog standards - so much for pregressive! The tune is pretty lame though, ironically enough. If this had a good tune it would be awesome.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:34 (nineteen years ago)

11/Nick May/Whimwise "innocence" this is weird shit, it sounds like some kind of frantic chase scene music from a kids tv programme? It sounds like someone took that koan generative computer music programme that brian eno used to fuck around with in the nineties and tried to get it to sound like stravinsky. I listened to it twice, I don't know if I like it or not, but it's kind of...singular. It might be the most "progressive" thing on this comp, maybe.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:47 (nineteen years ago)

I came up with this half-assed theory a while back that a hipster prog revival wouldn't work that well because prog isn't just a "style" that you can listen to a bunch of records and imitate. You have to actually have incredible technical facility on your instruments and elaborate compositional ideas.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:51 (nineteen years ago)

Course, I guess there must be some hipsters out there forming bands who actually have these things.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 7 September 2006 13:51 (nineteen years ago)

12, 13 & 14 mostly autumn "pass the clock pts 1,2 &3". I saw this band 10 years ago at Trillians in Newcastle. They were pretty fucked up, in that they were an excellent acoustic/folk-rock band, 90% of whose material is hard rock, and they're a really crap hard rock band. Nothing has changed, going on this. The (very short) acoustic interludes are great, the hard rock bits are wtf-were-they-thinking-of bad. Somebody could get into the bands weird "we are the new floyd" method of attempting to promote themselves over the years, but I can't be arsed.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

Excellent:
Fish
Circulus
Riverside

Sort-of-OK-ish I suppose:
Porcupine Tree
Wolverine
Frost

Crap:
Spock's Beard
GPS
Mostly Autumn

Why is it even on this album:
Lunatica

Uncategorisable:
Nick May/Whimwise.

Nick May wins, I think. I might buy his album if I see it, his track was odd enough to make me curious. Also the Riverside one. I already have the 2 Circulus albums on rise above & now I about any other ones they've recorded, which I'd never heard of before. The secons Circulus album is great, I think. The rest of the comp, bleh. I might get into some of the features in the magazine, depending on work.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 14:12 (nineteen years ago)

Amazing how few risks these bands are prepared to take isn't it? I heard the Nick May album, I think he was aiming for symphonic soundtrack prog metal but couldn't quite make it. At least the results are quite original, unlike the deadening competence of Mostly Autumn et al.

I quite like the idea of hipster prog. Although I think this happened about 10 years ago, and the result was Tortoise and Mogwai. Not so good.

― Matt #2 (Matt #2), Thursday, 7 September 2006 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

Amazing how few risks these bands are prepared to take isn't it?

Exactly. If you're too scared to take the kind of chances that might make yerself look like a complete idiot, or have yer record turn out as a complete nutcase disatser, then why bother?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 7 September 2006 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

you could say that about a lot of genres though. not just prog.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 7 September 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

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