This German Neo Prog act from Bremen begun life in 1993 with its mastermind Dirk Berger on bass and the original crew featuring Willie C. Kimbrough on vocals, Thorsten Klein on guitars, Lars Ebsen on drums and Andreas Meyer on keyboards. Thorsten Klein would quit two years later, he was replaced by Stephan Dinter, and prior to the recordings of their debut Ebsen was replaced by new drummer Erik Pilger and Kimbrough left his place to Malte Twarloh. With this line-up Seasons of Time recorded their debut ''Behind the mirror'' in 1997, a dramatic concept work dealing with a mad woman who killed her children for the sake of her new lover, containing evident hints from the music of GENESIS, PINK FLOYD, MARILLION and PENDRAGON.
This is an ambitious two-disk set comprising interesting performances of GENESIS material by mostly unknown groups and individual artists (except perhaps for GALAHAD and a couple of other professional musicians). While not every track works perfectly, most are interesting because rare are the ones so faithful to the originals that nothing new is added to them…
The Samurai of Prog return with a new album of originals inspired by Miyazaki’s films. From pastorale to epic, this is symphonic progressive rock of a cinematic scope. 75 minutes of lush orchestration (including violin, flute, saxophone, horns, trumpets and a multitude of keyboard and guitar tones), with ringing Rickenbacker bass and wide dynamic range drums providing backbone throughout. Featuring compositions and guest performances by Oliviero Lacagnina (Latte e Miele), Octavio Stampalía (Jinetes Negros), Elisa Montaldo (Il Tempio delle Clessidre), Luca Scherani (La Coscienza di Zeno), Michele Mutti (La Torre dell’Alchimista), Yuko Tomiyama, plus many more. Mixed by the Samurai’s own Kimmo Pörsti, with a lush package designed by Ed Unitsky. Quite possibly the band’s best album to date.
Riverside are one of the most universally acclaimed bands on this site, with all four of their album releases to date comfortably achieving in excess of 4 stars. It is perhaps surprising then that this is the band's first DVD release, and thus the first chance most of us have had to witness them live…