What does it sound like?:

The reason this review is late is a simple one; Frost* albums take a while to absorb and take in, especially when it’s a double, like this one.

Their previous release, 2021’s Day and Age, was something of a departure because it contained songs with no solos. I absolutely loved it but I know that wasn’t the case for everyone. Life in the Wires is a return to the band’s roots; a proper concept album with an absolute plethora of fantastic melodies, virtuoso playing and terrific songs. Oh, and a solo or ten.

Jem Godfrey, Frosts*’s leader, keyboard player and co-singer, puts out hilarious ‘the making of’ videos which give fans the background and timeline to the gestation of each album and for this one, we can see that it is very much his baby, especially as he has taken all of the lead vocals. The whole ‘double concept-album’ is obviously his passion and that shines through in the music.

Ah, yes; the music.

The songs are almost universally glorious. There’s an intensity in many of them but without too much of the heavy, complicated time-signature stuff which I know turns some fans off. » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

It’s a dull weekend afternoon in early summer, 1972. I’m in the living room at my parent’s home in Plymouth, with the transistor radio on, likely listening to Rosko or Freeman. I’m not really paying any attention to the chat between tracks when on comes this dreamy little single driven by electric piano chords and a subtle bass part. Then there’s a breathy, slightly treated vocal from someone whose accent sounds as if maybe English is not their first language. It builds nicely and then the chords part and there is an utterly wonderful guitar solo break that unfolds magically and leads into another vocal verse. This verse then leads directly to the close, where the whole thing fades to a silence that just leaves me wanting to hear it again, immediately. 2 minutes 55 seconds of perfect. What. The. Heck. Was. That?

I fail to gather any information except the name of the track: ‘Break’ and that of the artist: a bunch called Aphrodite’s Child, apparently. Dimly I recall a couple of singles a few years past, poppy and fun, but not anything I’d longed to own at the time. I store » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

No-one thumps a drumkit as robustly as Chris Frantz. The highlight of this 3 CD + 1 Blu-Ray is a live recording at CBGBs on 10th October 1977. It sounds fantastic and features Frantz walloping away with gusto, the missing link between the weedy production of the debut album and the power unleashed on More Songs About Buildings And Food. His battering introduction to the opening song, Love -> Building On Fire, is both deafening and gasp-inducing. Martina Weymouth, as she is credited on Talking Heads 77, a keen student of Bootsy Collins’s basslines for James Brown, sounds equally beefy, providing the core strength of Take Me To The River, already fully constructed well before Brian Eno added his adjustments. Thank You For Sending Me Angel is present and fully formed, but Stay Hungry is yet to lose a few extra parts. The boys on guitars, +/- keyboards, are wonderful, too. David Byrne’s vocals are as quirky and dynamic as they ever were. It’s great to hear his introductions, always the same for every song; “This name of this song is…” Disc Three is a familiar experience for those of us lucky enough to » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Keith Jarrett was a singular talent. A child prodigy, he began piano lessons at the age of three. Early on, his first experiment with composing was to add a note to a Mozart piece. He played the original to his teacher and his own version to himself at home. From the very beginning, he combined the classicist’s ambidextrous ability to wring every emotion from little squiggles on a page with the jazz musician’s ear for improvisation and adventure. His talent was so huge, his taste so mercurial and his personality so prickly, he struggled to fit into groups with other musicians. It’s no coincidence that it was his solo pieces made him famous, my favourite being Bremen/Lausanne rather than the big seller, Köln. Charles Lloyd, a saxophonist leaning towards Coltrane experimentation, accommodated him early in his career by giving him plenty of space to extemporise. He served a stint in Miles Davis’s electric band of the early seventies, where he worked alongside Jack DeJohnette, a powerhouse of a drummer who found a way to provoke and cajole Jarrett on to greater heights. The pair combined with Gary Peacock, a patient and melodic bass player, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Rave music of the late eighties/early nineties was designed for immediate consumption. Its purpose to enhance the moment a sea of bodies moves as one as they glimpse heaven in a collective trance. It’s best experienced in a field or a warehouse with hundreds of others. There is a science behind it. A maximal beats per minute, combined with a certain harmonic amplitude and a rhythmic peak and drop, added to the social setting and various substances, creates delta waves in the brain normally associated with deep relaxation and a loss of sense of self. In other words, rave music blows the mind. The Hartnell brothers looked like boffins with matching bald heads. They named themselves after the M25. People used to drive round it waiting for the message with the venue of that night’s event. Social media was in its infancy and it was the era of the CD. The extra space, compared to vinyl, meant the recorded music could stretch out, building relentlessly, increasing the tension up to the dramatic drop and blissful release. John Major’s government was highly suspicious of an outsider culture that involved youngsters enjoying themselves, taking drugs and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

When an album has already had 30th and 40th anniversary reissues, as well as its own box set, The Road To Red, one wonders what’s left for the undoubted landmark of fifty years. Well quite a lot as it turns out, as this 2 cd plus 2 bluray set amply demonstrates. The main selling point for me is the new 2024 Atmos and 5.1 mixes once again produced by the estimable Steven Wilson, plus the elemental mixes created by David Singleton. The latter, featured on the second cd, have been prepared to create an alternative version of the album, with the emphasis on parts that were perhaps somewhat overlooked before, while also incorporating things that were ultimately never used in the final mix. In fact, all the surviving session material has been used, and these in depth examinations really shed new light on the music, providing a breath of fresh air to the familiar pieces. For good measure, the first cd, along with a new stereo mix, also has an instrumental version of the entire album. The Atmos mix, found on the second bluray with the other surround mixes, is breathtaking in its clarity, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

What is the point of a Best Of collection in the era of streaming? Modern day megastars don’t bother with them any more. Just selecting two at random; Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have never released one. Instead, they have playlists on streaming sites or video collections. T.Rex, however, are a band of the seventies, when vinyl, TV and radio were the only ways to hear records and Best Ofs were a great way of collecting all the singles relatively cheaply. It’s no surprise that they are wedded to the concept, releasing no less than 28 compilations, all but four after Marc Bolan’s death. The last one was Gold in 2018, consisting of 45 tracks, most of which overlap with the 36 presented on this brand new, “definitive” collection. You can still buy a 3CD physical copy for less than a tenner. You can also stream all but two of its tracks, neither of which feature on Bolan Boogie.

This physical product is two discs, CD or vinyl, in “deluxe” gatefold packaging. You really can’t fail when Bolan’s pretty face fills the front sleeve. The music covers the whole period of T.Rex’s career and includes » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

By 1986, many Costello fans were confused. Where was the spittle-flecked, forehead-beaded ball of fury of This Year’s Model and Armed Forces? On Kings Of America, he is gazing cautiously through new facial hair and wire spectacles, with a crown on his head. His name has changed to The Costello Show or The Little Hands of Concrete when he plays guitar. The songs are credited to Declan MacManus but Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus co-produced, the Aloysius appearing from nowhere. The Attractions, who had done so much to sharpen his music into a frenzy, are restricted to one song out of fifteen tracks on an album just shy of an hour long. A casual observer might think Costello was suffering an existential crisis. He was concluding a divorce, had fallen out with his band, was in a chaotic relationship with Cait O’Riordan, and had ‘retired’ after his previous album flopped. Musically, the enfant terrible of New Wave was unrecognisable, even so soon after a detour into Country Music, a shot at Pure Pop and an ill-judged effort at over production as art. Many of his post Punk fans may not have been able to name » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this – presumably a lot of backstage chatter and some music clips, basically a promo for the upcoming tour, but we actually get quite a moving rumination on what being on the road means to Springsteen and the rest of the band after doing this for 50 years (one of our number watching with us was in actually tears at one point). I’m hesitating to say too much here as it would spoil the narrative, but it starts with the band getting together to rehearse after 6 years away from the stage. In that period Bruce released Letter to You and the soul album Only the Strong Survive, and we see him putting the set list together incorporating songs from those which have actually never been played live. We do hear that Bruce really isn’t one for rehearsing too much, and a lot is made of retaining the spontaneity in live performance, and there is one song they try out where Max Weinberg and Gary Tallent realise it is being played far too slowly! We also see the E Street Band expanding to include backing singers » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Julian Copes output in the noughties onwards is very variable at best. I made the mistake of buying his 70 minute ambient mellotron album last year that is an exercise of torture

However I read a few things that suggested this was a “proper” album and indeed it is. There’s only “Me and the Jews” that sounds like he made it up as he goes along The rest are proper vintage Cope with proper melodies and everything. Bits of it remind me of Fried

It doesn’t appear to be on any streaming services or been reviewed anywhere. I only knew it was coming out as I’m on his Twitter account. Would be a crying shame for it to disappear into the ether and not be heard, but I’d get why people gave up on him years ago considering the volume of dirge he puts out at times

It’s very low fi ala Skellington of course but I’d say this is his best album in 20 years plus. If only he’d tour again…

What does it all *mean*?

The old bugger still has it in there somewhere

Goes well with…

Release Date:

18th October

» Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is a fabulous live album, smooth and slick, everything you could hope for from Tears For Fears. It was recorded during the Tipping Point tour, promoting their excellent studio album released in 2022, eloquently reviewed on the Afterword by Dave Ross. They sound as young as they did over forty years ago, the baritone textures and tones of their vocals completely unchanged. They have upgraded their synthesisers, they can afford a real Fender Rhodes these days, but, nevertheless, the musicianship is flawless. Props to the band: Doug Petty keyboards, Charlton Pettus guitar, Jamie Wollam drums, Lauren Evans, Janae Sims and Jasmine Mullen vocals, plus of course Roland Orzabal guitar and Curt Smith bass. The sound is magnificent. They were never particularly prolific. In the eighties they released just three albums, split up for the nineties and managed only two this century, but, gradually, they have acquired a substantial catalogue of song choices. Tipping Point is a late career album of high quality, the equal of their early fresh-faced peak, and it provides almost a third of the set. They are so confident in it, one of their biggest songs, Everybody Wants To Rule » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

CSNY were drawn together by the ethereal beauty of their harmonies. They were also born out of conflict. David Crosby had fallen out from The Byrds partly because he sat in for Neil Young, at the request of Stephen Stills, after Young had quit Buffalo Springfield. Graham Nash’s exit from The Hollies was less of a gordian knot of turmoil but the strands that held CSNY together were gossamer thin. Nevertheless, CSN was a successful debut album released in May 1969. Stills had carried most of the musical load but needed help in order to tour. Young was recruited as a full band member and was allowed to continue pursuing his solo career with Crazy Horse. Dallas Taylor and Greg Reeves were brought in as the touring rhythm section.

Their first gig was on 16th August, opened by Joni Mitchell, at The Auditorium Theatre, Chicago. Their second, on the 18th August 1969, was at Woodstock, catapulting the new lineup into the spotlight. Footage from two performances at the Big Sur Folk Festival on September 13–14, 1969 appears in the movie Celebration at Big Sur. Their first tour also included a performance at the notorious Altamont Free Concert on December » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Sometimes a new album sideswipes you; whips the rug from under your feet and sends you tumbling into a different time and space. Once such album is the new one from Danny & The Champions of the World, ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here.’

It is seven years since the band’s last studio album, seven years in which so much has happened to Danny George Wilson, the band’s principle songwriter, voice and frontman; from solo album to his other band, Bennett Wilson Poole, he’s been a busy Antipodian. He bought into a record shop – Union Music in Lewes which also has a satellite branch in the wonderful Sound Lounge in Sutton where, if it’s your lucky day, you can drink coffee and talk music with the man himself when he’s ‘behind the counter.’ This has exposed him to so much new music, broadened his horizons and, along with the pandemic, made him look differently at the world.

So, if you were expecting another Champs homage to The E Street Band for this, their seventh studio album, then this is where the rug gets pulled right from underneath you.

The ten tracks here, four » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is a reissue of the 2007 album in a sumptuous set incorporating a remaster of the original album (Steve Wilson mixed albums don’t need a Steven Wilson remix, obvs), the spinoff “Nil Recurring” EP, a disk of demos, a live performance of the songs, a number of BBC and other sessions which includes tracks from other albums and finally a 5.1 surround sound Blu-ray. Also included is a well written book with many photographs and a film about the recording of the album. All you could possibly want then!

The album at the centre of this followed “Deadwing”, the PT album which heralded some much deserved success after the band completed the hard yards of global touring and making in-store appearances to an enthusiastic but frustratingly small(ish) audience though SW himself will admit that progressive music is a tiny genre of passionate fans and that’s how he likes it. Richard Barbieri notes that they were not making any money, but at least weren’t losing any. It is a concept album (naturally) inspired by the Bret Easton Ellis book “Lunar Park” and takes the perspective of the son of the narrator who lives in » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This six cd box set comprises three albums, White Snake (1977), North Winds (1978) and Into The Light (2000), all of which originally appeared as David Coverdale solo records, but which he has now, in his wisdom, decided to rebrand as Whitesnake releases, the logic being that to all intents and purposes he is Whitesnake. The three albums have each been revisited, being given a new 2024 stereo remix alongside a remaster of the original version, and all are supplemented by a generous selection of demos and alternate takes. White Snake and North Winds are both pretty decent if quite low key blues rock albums, much in the vein of the later Deep Purple records. Although they were solo albums, they very much laid the groundwork for the Whitesnake band that was to follow and which built up such a solid fanbase in the following years, before their subsequent transformation into a mega successful but totally different US based band that became a staple of MTV in the late eighties. The Into The Light album from the turn of the century actually sees a return to a more back to basics sound as Coverdale » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Animals’ debut LP followed The Beatles by a year and a half, The Hollies and The Rolling Stones by six months, coincided within a week of The Kinks and preceded The Yardbirds by a couple of months and The Who by a full year. All seven bands were heavily influenced by American Rhythm & Blues and Tamla Motown. Without exception, these bands covered Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, at least in spirit, and their debut albums were full of covers. Eleven of the twelve tracks on the UK version of The Animals are covers and the remaining one, the opener, co-credits Bo Diddley, a song that acknowledges their debt to the Diddley beat and their third place in the UK pecking order by quoting A Hard Days Night and I Wanna Be Your Man.

The Animals, the LP, tends towards the gritty, bluesy end of the R&B spectrum, featuring three John Lee Hooker songs, two Fats Domino and two Chuck Berry, but any or all of them could have appeared on the first two Stones LPs. The Animals’ two main advantages were Eric Burden’s powerful rasp and Alan Price’s distinctive riffs on his » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

At my age, It is great to discover a new group, and suddenly become a little obessed. Even better if they have a back catalogue

The Courettes are the marriage between a Dane (Martin Thorsen) and Brazilian (Flavia Couri) over their shared love of 60s music. The obvious comparison is the White Stripes, but switched. She plays the guitar and sings while he drums and adds occasional support vocals.

I only discovered them as they played my home town, a relativly rare event. They seem to have forged their reputation through regular touring with energetic shows. Explosive is the description from their PR and it was a great night out

This fourth album, moves on from the Spector influenced “Back in Mono” There are more variety of instruments and wider 1960s styles However the old fans will be still happy with the grarage sound of the opener – You Woo Me

The last album saw a classic girl group tribute to Ringo. However now Flavia has moved on to Charlie Watts. Rolling Stones songs are name checked and there is a typical spoken part “sorry Richard. . “

SHAKE! and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

As the title suggests, this is a selection of Rory’s many BBC appearances spanning the early 70s to the mid-80s and as you’d expect, the sound quality is uniformly excellent. Many versions of the 1973/4 tracks also appear on “Irish Tour ‘74” which is considered by many to be the definitive Rory live album. Well, those tracks are equally excellent here in much better fidelity so are a pleasure to listen to, like an old friend appearing fresh faced and in great shape after the passage of the years. Other gems have also been pulled from the archives. A particular highlight is 1971’s “Used to be” from “Deuce” – certainly one of Rory’s best studio albums. He’s still with the first trio here who blow up a funky bluesy storm, Gerry McAvoy on especially great form. Another treat is “Banker’s Blues”, from 1973, with Rory on acoustic guitar and harmonica fingerpicking superbly with newly arrived Lou Martin on acoustic piano. Nice. Around half of the set is from a 1979 set at The Venue in London. This was a two-night show and, as it happens, I went to the other night. The band is » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Here’s a great idea for a re-release; take the best calendar year for a band and put out everything they recorded, both official releases, alternate mixes and unreleased tracks.

So, the first cab off the Universal rank is Thin Lizzy 1976, five CDs and a Blu-ray or limited edition coloured LP sets.

You get brand new stereo and atmos mixes of the Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox albums, demos, radio sessions, outtakes, remastered original versions of the albums plus a previously unreleased live show.

By the beginning of 1976 the classic lineup of the band had been together for 18 months;Phil Lynott, Brian Downey, Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson; and the band’s distinctive take on the classic ‘Wishbone Ash twin-lead guitar’ attack had begun to cut through, on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Jailbreak album was recorded at The Who’s Ramport Studios in Battersea, London, between December ’75 and February ’76, with John Alcock producing. The band had worked up the songs in a small studio in Buckinghamshire in late ’75 so that the arrangements were really tight by the time they got to Ramport, (too tight for Robertson who later complained that » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This latest instalment of Joni Mitchell’s beautifully curated Archives series covers her “jazz” period when she made Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mingus and the live album Shadows And Light. As usual, there is a beautifully illustrated book, an explanatory interview with Cameron Crowe and individual covers for each jewel case. None of the music appears on the released albums and is presented in chronological order.

Joni Mitchell, alone, in front of a microphone, spinning her eloquent yarns, her fingers spellbinding the guitar strings around her vocals, sounds so at ease, so natural. The words and melodies emerge fully formed, poetic, personal and profound, and the flow of the guitar lines are constantly questing, yearning, moving forward. It appears that all she had to do, in a studio or on a stage, was to stand up and open her mouth. Joni’s Archives box sets demonstrate time and time again, that thought, word and music were aligned from the very beginning. This Volume of six CDs is seven hours long. You may think you are being short changed by five of them being live, especially when you consider that she did not tour for three » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

After 1974’s Red album, there was a seven year hiatus in studio activity, before Robert Fripp eventually reconvened Crimson to produce the Discipline set in 1981 followed by Beat the following year. Only Fripp and Bruford remained of the Red line up, being supplemented by Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, and the music they produced had a very different sound, influenced in part by the energy of the new wave scene Fripp had witnessed whilst living in New York. The 1982 European dates were joint shows with Roxy Music (their set, taken from the same night as this recording, can be heard on their Heart Still Beating album). Crimson were already well honed and in top form after US shows, and the enthusiastic crowd lap up fierce renditions of pieces drawn mostly from the most recent two records, with just two older efforts, Red and Larks Tongues, being performed. Whether you like this album or not is very much determined by your feelings about this line up of the band, which certainly wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The music is angular and almost industrial in sound and certainly isn’t an easy listen, but the » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This limited edition vinyl release is a follow up to Wakeman’s Final One Man Solo Tour of North and South America from earlier this year. It is a piece he wrote for solo piano after performing The Yes Suite for orchestra and choir at his London Palladium concert in 2023.

This work contains more than 30 musical fragments of YES music that Rick was a part of, including the much maligned, (by him, let’s be fair,) Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Picking out your favourite elements is great fun but the piece soon becomes a whole entity, as you give it time and space. I found that putting it on in the background while I was writing was a lovely thing to do as it would suddenly catch me as the beginning of South Side of the Sky or Long Distance Runaround would emerge.

The aforementioned elements of TFTO work perfectly alongside parts of Close to the Edge and nothing grates or diverts.

The second piece is a piano adaptation of the main themes and melodies from Rick’s ‘The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table’. Again, this is » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Q: Why is the old fool reviewing an album which is already three weeks old?

A: Because my copy only arrived yesterday after I cancelled the presell-one ordered on the Tax Dodgers because they said they couldn’t guarantee delivery by Christmas and what the feck is that all about so I bought it from Burning Shed and got it in 24 hours so up yours Jeff Bezos.

This won’t be detailed review; if you’re a Yes fan you probably have it already; but it will be an unutterably enthusiastic review because this album makes me happier than almost anything else which I’ve heard this year.

Richie Castellano is a multi-instrumentalist who has been a member of Blue Oyster Cult for two decades. In his spare time he has a bunch of friends who play classic Yes music. In the summer of 2018 they posted a version of Close to the Edge on YouTube which got over half a million views and comments. In response to some of the comments, Richie wrote:

“This isn’t a bunch of music snobs showing off. This is genuine love for Yes and their music. We are hardcore Yes fans » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Anyone who likes Frank Zappa should know “Apostrophe”; it’s one of his most accessible albums, where he fully demonstrated his mid-70s satirical funk to the amusement or irritation of the TRUE FANS. The track listing, including the unforgettable “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow”, “Nanook Rubs It”, “Cozmik Debris”, and “Stink-Foot” are a statement of intent. This is comedy music, and complementary to the reciting of Monty Python skits to admiring girls in the 4th form, and hoping your hair is starting to get good at the back. These times are now past, and though doubtless there is some adolescent comedy surrealism to take it’s place, I’m not sure there is a modern equivalent of Frank Zappa. Maybe, given Moon Unit’s recent autobiography, that’s not such a bad thing.

The playing on “Apostrophe” is tight, the weirdness is reasonably constrained, and songs become ruder later in the 70s. The band shines; George Duke gives it swing, funk, and soul on keyboards, as does Napoleon Murphy-Brock; a pre-Genesis Chester Thompson beats the crap out of the drums, and on the title track, there is that perrential thing of wonder, a bass solo, here performed by » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Gilmour’s fifth studio album comes after a 9 year hiatus, and a proclamation from DG that this is the best music he’s made since “Dark Side Of The Moon”. Bold. And just in case any Floyd fans still might not be paying attention, the closing track (which rather confusingly has the same title as the second track) is an instrumental that Gilmour built from a jam he recorded with the late Rick Wright back in 2006 when the latter had toured with DG.

It’s essentially a Gilmour family project – Polly Samson once again provides lyrics, whilst children Romany, Gabriel and Charlie add vocal or lyrical support – augmented by a number of top drawer session musicians that include Steve Gadd, Guy Pratt and Roger Eno. Although the opening track “Black Cat” is only a touch over 90 seconds, it’s sets the scene for nearly everything follows. Swirling, synth soundscapes a bed for DG’s trademark, often melancholy tone.

The first version of “Luck and Strange” follows, a sparse bluesy shuffle. Just as it settles into a loping groove the entire vibe is knocked sideways by DG’s vocal that is clearly well out of » Continue Reading.