The Savior (1971)

Many English bands tried to blend folk music with progressive rock with various degrees of success. Most of these relied on old, traditional themes with elements of progressive rock being added to produce the desired effect. Fuchsia is quite different as there are almost no traditional influences at all. Take a whimsical, eerie, gentle folk theme, with acoustic guitar and soft voices, both male a female, throw in cello, harpsichord, and then run it through a fiery electric guitar along with a solid rhythm section and you have Fuchsia. The music is sublime, the melodies are gorgeous and the playing is top notch. There is something magical about the music; you could almost feel transported in medieval times, with knights in armors, and dragons and the inevitable beautiful princess dressed in a white gown and held captive, waiting for her savior. Their lyrics were inspired by the surrealist English artist Mervyn Peake, hence the whimsical, magical atmosphere the album exhales. Sheer beauty!

The Jethro Tull Christmas Album is the 21st studio album released by Jethro Tull, on September 30, 2003. In 2009, the live album Christmas at St Bride's 2008 was included with the original album on CD.
For a band that remained relatively consistent (with a few minor exceptions) in their approach to rock & roll since 1968, Jethro Tull also possessed a sound that was uniquely '70s-oriented during their most successful period between 1971-1978. Avid fans have been yearning for the group's return to the style which made them one of the most successful of the guitar-based, mainstream prog outfits - albums like Broadsword and the Beast and J-Tull.Com touched on their former glory, but they didn't fully satisfy. Christmas Album could be the recording that those fans have been waiting for…

Few bands could have conceived of, let alone pulled off, the exercise in excess that Dream Theater have with The Astonishing. In a vast catalog that includes several album-length conceptual statements - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - this is so extreme that it pushes at what their fans (a fanatical lot) may accept. Guitarist John Petrucci has written a double-disc sci-fi rock opera, set in a dystopian future in an invented country (the package contains maps). In it, music created and/or performed by humans has been outlawed by the state. Only government-sanctioned and programmed machines are entrusted with those functions. A small band of rebels cling to and fight for the vision (and redemption) of human music…

Paul Brett Sage's second full-length, Jubilation Foundry, was a rocking affair that danced delightfully from rock's roots in blues and R&B to its many contemporary nooks and crannies. With their follow-up, 1972's Schizophrenia, PBS dove into the harder side of rock, quite a feat for a group that featured a plethora of percussion but no drummer; although one was brought in for the driving "Slow Down Ma!." But as "Custom Angel Man" proved, Sage could rock like a Band of Gypsies even without one. However, it was Southern rockers and jam bands that were the group's strongest influences, and on "Charlene" they bring the two together. Imagine the Allmans fronting the Band to get the idea. The instrumental "Limp Willie," in contrast, features great dueling acoustic guitars, until the song flops over into Grateful Dead territory…