The Independent May 21, 2019

Riot’s story is one of what might have been, and to some degree, a band being (or not) in the right place at the right time. What this 6 CD live collection does offer is unique, and often raw, insights into the growth and development of an influential hard rock and heavy metal band, as they graduated from small clubs in 1976 through to huge festivals in 1980. Mastered from tapes in the collection of the estate of founder member and guitarist Mark Reale.

This is a music of a crushed, almost desperate, elemental lyricism, a music where an intense gravitational pull wrestles with an also elemental drive or need to survive and sing. One thinks of what life might be like on the surface of Jupiter, the so-called heavy planet — should there even be life there. Or, better yet perhaps, of the episode in the book of Genesis where Jacob wrestles all night with an angel who refuses to give Jacob his name and who, at daybreak, demands to be let go, whereupon Jacob says, “Not until you bless me,” which the angel does then do. One should add that at one point in Jacob’s night-long wrestling match with his antagonist, the mighty angel touches the socket of Jacob’s hip and throws it out of joint, whereupon, we are told, Jacob will forever walk with a limp.

Iiro Rantala is a jazz chameleon who loves to appear in many guises. The Finnish pianist invariably springs a surprise with the concepts for his albums, particularly those of his solo piano projects. For "My Finnish Calendar", he has turned a new page: this is improvised music but with an extra-musical narrative: from a very personal and Finnish point of view, he has set to music the passing of a complete year in his home country, and he has done it with his typical mixture of melodic inventiveness, melancholy and humour. His well-known technical finesse and mastery, acquired over the years, have been applied here with an unerring instinct for bringing the essential to the fore.

Collective Soul has weathered many industry shifts and challenges since its 1993 hit “Shine” catapulted to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Billboard Music Award for top rock song. From the start, the band — known for crafting beautiful songs with a hard-rock edge and contagious choruses reminiscent of Cheap Trick, The Cars and The Smithereens — was incorrectly associated with grunge, simply because “Shine” arrived during the genre’s mainstream peak. It was an affiliation that vocalist-guitarist E Roland did his best to dismantle.

This compilation presents two very different views into the performance life of King Crimson. The first disc gathers live material from the 1971/1972 quartet, a majority of which was culled from the Live at Summit Studios, Live at Plymouth, 1971, and Live in Detroit, MI 1971 archival recordings. The second disc, subtitled "Schizoid Men," contains a single 54-minute rendering of "21st Century Schizoid Man" that consists of ten separate sax and guitar solos seamlessly combined together. These were taken from various performances throughout the 1971/1972 era - although exact dates are conspicuously absent in the packaging. Although the track is indexed for easier access to the edits, there are no interruptions or fades from blow to blow…