What does it sound like?:

The British blues rock guitarist returns with a follow up to 2014’s The Dirty Truth. Having the album produced by Kevin Shirley, perhaps best known for his work over the years with Iron Maiden, might seem an odd choice, but he has added a zest to Shaw Taylor’s music, giving it a more rich and earthy feel. Her overall sound has also been filled out by the inclusion of several members of Joe Bonamassa’s band in the studio line up. Additionally, much work has been done on the lyrical side of her work, which has perhaps been a slight weak point on earlier albums. Certainly these songs overall are much stronger and more polished than some have been in the past.

All in all, the album works well as a whole, and the closing cover of Gershwin’s Summertime is a pleasant and unexpected treat.

If you like your blues rock with a bit of a twist, this is well worth your time.

What does it all *mean*?

Currently Shaw Taylor seems to enjoy a far higher profile in the USA, but this album should certainly gain her more well deserved attention in her » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The eagle eyed among you may recall that this album was reissued about a year or so back as a 2cd plus dvd set, including some surround sound mixes.

This is a slimmed down version, the dvd having been dispensed with. So you have the original album in remastered form, plus an alternate version of the album with a 2015 stereo mix prepared by Jakko Jakszyk of King Crimson fame, augmented by a couple of extra tracks.

Depending on your point of view, this is either the last great ELP album or the first one. Certainly the album is very impressive in terms of musical performance by the band, see Abaddon’s Bolero for example. It also has a live staple in Hoedown, and a nice ballad showing off Greg Lake’s vocal and compositional skills in From The Beginning.

The alternate album on the second cd has two interesting extras – a live take of Hoedown and an alternate version of From The Beginning.

I’m pleased to say there is a new booklet featuring interviews from this year with the band and eliminating the numerous typos from last year’s edition.

What does it all » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This album is effectively the soundtrack to Springsteen’s imminent autobiography Born To Run, an audio companion to the various sections of the book.

The main interest for fans is the inclusion of five previously unreleased songs – two by The Castilles, featuring a teenage Boss, one by Steel Mill and two solo pieces. The first three are interesting as historical curios, but are probably not something you would listen to more than a handful of times. The two early solo songs from 1972 are significantly better, showing the young Bruce beginning to discover the voice and style that would soon become familiar. The lyric heavy Henry Boy is the better of the two, and indeed the pick of the bunch of these unreleased songs.

The album then moves into more recognisable territory, beginning with the demo version of Growin Up (recorded around the same time as Henry Boy) that appeared on the Tracks boxset, before continuing with the big hitters from his subsequent albums. It’s hard to imagine anyone unfamiliar with songs such as Born To Run, Badlands, The River and Born In The USA, so the more interesting music is to be found » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is actually, despite the title, a 5 cd box set and is, unsurprisingly, the sequel to last year’s Private Parts and Pieces vols I –IV.

It is basically a round up of material produced outside the realm of his ‘conventional’ album work – compositional pieces for numerous projects now gathered together in one place.

The first disc is a collection of pieces for solo twelve string guitar, the second piano pieces, some going back as far as 1971, while the third features synth soundscapes and acoustic guitar. Disc four features two longer multi part tracks, New England and Pieces Of Eight among the shorter compositions. The fifth and final disc collects nineteen previously unheard performances.

This is a beautifully presented set, restoring the original artwork of each of the individual original albums, and has a very interesting essay in the booklet.

What does it all *mean*?

The music captures a wide variety of styles and moods, and is impeccably played, but is perhaps best dipped into as background music rather than being the centre of listening attention.

Goes well with…

This is one for the committed Phillips’ fan rather than the casual listener.

» Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

A two cd collection, this set has not only been compiled and extensively annotated by Wobble, he has even contributed some of his paintings for the artwork.

It dips in and out of his very extensive back catalogue of solo work and collaborations, going back as far as the eighties and coming right up to date with a couple of tracks from his recently released Youth produced album Everything Is Nothing. It also features a couple of completely new tracks recorded with The Invaders Of the Heart.

There are a myriad of influences and styles – dub, oriental, latin, each using different collaborators to achieve the feel he is looking for in a specific composition. Many of the songs are accompanied by their dub doppelgangers, giving a new slant to the original pieces. Wobble’s trademark bass dominates throughout, a constant thread through the whole album – although the music is from many disparate albums it all seems to gel and work almost as one continuous piece.

There’s a super booklet too, with very extensive notes by Wobble himself.

What does it all *mean*?

This is music that is impossible to pigeonhole, such is the » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

When you see an album has a mere five tracks, and three of those clock in at between fifteen and twenty minutes in length, you know you are in serious prog territory. Welcome to Marillion’s new opus, the follow up to 2012’s Sounds That Can’t Be Made.

The epic opener El Dorado sets the tone – great lyrics and vocals from Steve Hogarth, while Steve Rothery’s guitar work has never sounded better, as the band muse with a sense of foreboding on the coming of impending storms, some natural, some man-made. Great stuff.

Living in FEAR, one of the two relatively shorter tracks along with White Paper (a rumination on the advancing of the years), has something of an earworm of a chorus, which should go down well when performed live later this year.

The Leavers is another long piece, dealing with the transient lifestyle of a band and their crew on the road. Great guitar accompanied by superb keyboards as the song progresses through its various sections.

The album closer, apart from a brief coda to The Leavers, is New Kings, which rails against capitalism, greed and the seemingly ever widening gap between » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

A suitably prog title ushers in the first new Kansas album in sixteen years. I listened to this with some initial trepidation as the band is now without both key songwriter Kerry Livgren and original vocalist Steve Walsh. However, I’m pleased to report my misgivings were totally unfounded, as this is a very fine album that sits comfortably with the best of their seventies work such as Leftoverture and Point Of Know Return.

What does it sound like – well, it’s a mixture of AOR and prog really. The more AOR sounding material, such as opener With This Heart, is reminiscent of Toto in their prime. The best pieces for me though are when the band indulge their prog side on songs like Visibility Zero and the album’s centrepiece The Voyage Of Eight Eighteen.

This album far exceeded my expectations – it’s way better than it has any right to be after all the line up changes and the passage of time.

What does it all *mean*?

The sleeve artwork depicts a phoenix rising and flying from the past into the future – they couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate image!

Goes well » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Is it just me who finds the thought of a 77 year old still writing, recording and performing rock music slightly mind boggling? Not just recording mind you, but in the process turning out his best set of songs for some years. This is the follow up to 2012’s When I’m President, and to put it simply it is very good indeed. His voice has mellowed with age like a vintage malt whiskey, and the song writing is back on top form. The album opens with the two most Mott like songs, That’s When The Trouble Starts and his Bowie tribute Dandy. From then on, we get a variety of styles, some a bit reminiscent of Dylan or Petty, some not really classifiable. The subject matter of the lyrics cover topics as diverse as a history of the Bow Street Runners to a sea faring tale set in the 1700’s! As ever, he is ably supported by the Rant Band throughout proceedings.

What does it all *mean*?

This is a super album that’s been well worth the long wait. If it should turn out to be Hunter’s swan song, then he’s certainly gone out » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Heep’s brand of hard rock mixed with prog is well illustrated by this new two cd compilation, which cherry picks from their albums between 1970 and 1990.

The seventies was of course the period for prime Heep – the albums from that era are predictably well represented – Very ‘Eavy, Demons and Wizards, The Magician’s Birthday, Look At Yourself (remember that mirrored sleeve!) to name but a few of the prime contenders. This was Heep at their most creative and experimental.

In later years, after Dave Byron and Ken Hensley had departed, the band went for a more commercial AOR sound, and although they continued to have great success in Europe, their appeal in the UK waned somewhat.

There’s already been a lot of compilations over the years, but this lives up to its claim of being the definitive anthology, covering all the bands albums and their different musical styles. Bit of a gripe that the epic July Morning only appears as a single edit rather than its full version, but maybe that’s just me.

Another great booklet accompanies this set, which has been very well put together with the help of Mick Box » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Uriah Heep – now there’s a name from the past! Their 1970 debut album is reissued in the usual two cd expanded format.

The first disc comprises the original album in all its glory, now remastered for added heaviness! This is an album that set the tone for future releases by the band – a mixture of rock, metal and prog with the odd whimsical ballad thrown in for good measure. It’s actually aged better than I expected – it’s a long time since I last heard this, but songs like Gypsy and Come Away Melinda have stood the test of time.

The second cd has an alternative and expanded version of the album. All these pieces are previously unreleased, As well as alternate takes of all the songs from the album , there are also three songs from the band’s pre-Heep incarnation ‘Spice’, as well as what is probably the stand out track on this disc, Bird Of Prey, originally a US only track on the original LP.

This is well put together package, curated by Mick Box, and he and Ken Hensley have put together some interesting recollections in the impressive booklet » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

To quote Robert Fripp, ‘ What I like about this band is that what it is actually doing is not what it appears to be doing.’

Thus here we have an album that effectively uses the live arena as a recording studio. Not in itself a new idea – indeed Crimson used this method as far back as 1974 for Starless and Bible Black, but an interesting concept nonetheless – a live album that is, simultaneously, effectively a ‘virtual’ studio album.

Here we have the ‘tour edition’ of this package in all its glory – 3 cds, 2 DVDs and a single bluray disc. Each performance is as it was recorded on the night, but with all audience noise removed. The performances have been sequenced to flow over the three themed cds – ‘Mainly Metal’, ‘Easy Money Shots’ and ‘Crimson Classics’.

They include representative performances of every piece played by the band during the 2015 shows, and as such cover all eras of the band’s existence from 1969 to the present. Needless to say, the musical dexterity is peerless, and the performances, sourced from a variety of shows, are simply stunning in their » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Next in line in the Barclay James Harvest reissues is this, probably their best-known work.

Released back in the autumn of 1977, this album had reasonable success in the UK, despite being issued at the height of punk, but was absolutely massive in Germany, where it stayed on the charts for 197 weeks.

Now this million seller is reissued in the customary deluxe 2 cd plus dvd format.

As is usual, the first cd has a remastered version of the original album, with the addition of two extra songs and two single edits. It includes two of the band’s most enduring songs, Hymn and Poor Man’s Moody Blues.

The second cd has a new stereo mix of the album, plus a further bonus track, while the dvd has the usual 5.1 and 96 khz mixes of the album.

A lavish booklet replicating the album’s original artwork accompanies the set.

What does it all *mean*?

Good to hear this again – it’s aged surprisingly well.

Probably won’t win over any new converts, but BJH fans will love this well put together set.

Goes well with…

Other 70’s prog that’s not too challenging on the ear.

» Continue Reading.