Progressive Rock

Supernatural Fairy Tales: The Progressive Rock Era is a 5-CD compilation of progressive rock from around the world. It was curated by Archie Patterson of Eurock, and released by Rhino Records in 1996. The cover art is by Roger Dean, longtime cover artist for the genre. Reviews of the set generally note the difficulty of summarizing such a broad and far-reaching genre, as well as the obvious omission of several big-name bands whose music could not be licensed for inclusion. However, several lesser-known tracks from a broad variety of bands make the set an interesting listen.

After addressing its national audience with the Kalevala project, the Finnish magazine Colossus turns towards Sweden, a bordering country, with Rökstenen. The recipe is already well-known: take a bunch of talented present outfits, lend them the repertoire of the greatest Swedish artists of Progressive rock of the Seventies (Kaipa, Blakkula, Dice, Atlas, Made In Sweden, Bo Hansson, Trettioriga Kriget, Samla Mammas Manna, Ragnarok…), add thick layers of vintage sounds, a touch of inspiration, mix around… This triple-CD collects the performances of The Samurai of Prog, Simon Says, Beardfish, Anima Morte, Echoes, Soniq Circus, Vanilla Project, Daal, Jerry Johansson and other bands.

Rhino has a history of doing things up right, but this time it's outdone itself. More than five hours of prog, from The Nice to Golden Earring, presented thoroughly and largely chronologically. Depending on your outlook, it's either heaven or hell. There's plenty here to occupy the idle, drug-riddled mind; some well known (Focus's "Hocus Pocus," ELP's "Knife Edge," Genesis) and some wonderfully obscure…