First class instrumental prog music that never falls into the trap of pointless noodlings and/or boring jams. Those guys really know how to write music that please the ears and use their obvious talents and skills to highlight melodies and arrangements.They do have a strong Camel influence (specially the guitar parts) and do use some eastern rhythms here and there, but clearly they have mastered their own sound by the time they recorded "Impression". Their sound is a excellent mix of old and new, using some keyboards timbres of the 70's and a guitarrist that knows how to make his guitar sings…
Formed in the late 1980s by keyboardist Erik Norlander and vocalist / guitarist Mark McCrite, the two released their first CD in 1993 joined by bassist Don Schiff who soon became a part of the band.
Rocket Scientists first efford is an interesting album, but it seems they still did no know exactly what they wanted to do or how to do. The basic elements are all here: excellent musicanship, fair use of analog keyboards, tasteful arrangements, great melodic sense. Compared to latter day RS records, the songs on Earthbound are shorter, more accessible and there are less solos. It looked like the band was still shy to experiment more and show off the excellency of their talents…
CGT is an amazing trio of innovative guitar players that come from or are inspired by the Robert Fripp school of guitarrist. These live interpretations stand as a great overview of both their work and the ability to transform different styles and other's work into the trio's musical style…
This Toninho Horta's tribute to Tom Jobim happens to make it clear how similar they are in their open mind and how different they are in their top quality wonderful results. Both are great composers and players with an orchestra's conception in their minds. This is a must-have CD. The Brazilian master guitarrist, arranger and composer Toninho Horta pays his tribute to Tom Jobim.
Down And Out In Paris And London is not only a very fine studio work, but also probably their most inspired since the terrific A Place In The Queue. There were some radical line up changes that made a bit aware of it too. After all Andy Tillson dropped all the swedish connections now, at least the phisical ones. Gone are the members or ex members of the Flower Kings replaced by an all english line up. Now with Paul Burguess (Camel, Jetrho Tull, 10cc) on drums and Jonathan Barrett (from Tillson´s other project Parallel Or 90 Degrees) on bass and without a lead guitarrist (a good thing, since their last guitar player did not fit well at all). But stylistic speaking, their sound remains as close to TFK as ever.
So, in the end Down And Out In Paris And London is different in many ways, and yet it sounds quite familiar…
Poços & Nuvens (wells & clouds in portuguese) is a prog band form Santa Maria, state of Rio Grande Do Sul, at the extreme south of Brazil. The people in there have their very own culture and history, with much influence of their spanish speaking neighbors of argentina, uruguay and paraguay. This group in particular does a great job unifying symphonic prog rock with popular music from their region…
The Boat Of Thoughts was Octopus debut album - a German band formed in Frankfurt around 1973 by guitarrist Pit Hensel and bassist Claus D. Kniemeyer - and nowadays it is often regarded as the best out of the four studio works produced by the band. Octopus was one of many bands which belonged to the second wave of progressive rock in general in Germany, lasting from mid to late 70s. It was a peculiar band not only for featuring Jennifer Hensel as vocalist but also for setting up a solid and unique identity already on their debut album, which by the way was one of the very first SKY Records products, responsable for sheltering many new progressive bands back then.