The Later Years 1987-2019 is an explicit sequel to The Early Years 1965-1972, the 2016 box set that rounded up nearly all the loose ends and detours from the first era of Pink Floyd, the fearless period when they were figuring out what the band could do. The Later Years covers a different time, when their most pressing challenge was demonstrating that they could thrive artistically and commercially without the presence of Roger Waters, the bassist/songwriter who charted Floyd's direction between 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and 1983's The Final Cut. In the parlance of these deluxe box sets, that decade amounts to "The Middle Years," a period far more prolific than 1987-2019, when the group released just two studio albums along with two live albums and a posthumous project that didn't arrive until 2014, by which time the group had largely been inactive for 20 years…
The Later Years 1987-2019 is an explicit sequel to The Early Years 1965-1972, the 2016 box set that rounded up nearly all the loose ends and detours from the first era of Pink Floyd, the fearless period when they were figuring out what the band could do. The Later Years covers a different time, when their most pressing challenge was demonstrating that they could thrive artistically and commercially without the presence of Roger Waters, the bassist/songwriter who charted Floyd's direction between 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and 1983's The Final Cut…
Over the course of the 1990s, Sweden's Tiamat evolved from a typical death metal outfit into one of the leading lights in "symphonic" black metal. A variation that aimed to keep all of death metal's darkness intact, symphonic black metal portrayed that darkness it in a moodier, atmospheric manner, often making synthesizer arrangements just as important as guitar riffs and utilizing a deliberate, Gothic feel…
Once Upon A Time is the definitive last word on Family. A long-awaited 14 disc box set that collects the band's entire back catalogue for the first time…
This is a very special boxed set by the short-lived but excellent Japanese band Shingetsu, compiling just about everything the band ever did in the studio along with material by the various solo and offshoot projects that came into being after the band dissolved. The result is something I would consider essential to all fans of the golden age of '70s progressive rock. Influenced by classic King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd, and particularly Genesis, Shingetsu did not appear on the scene until the late '70s but brought with them that pure, symphonic, cinematic sound shared by those other bands earlier in the decade, completely untainted by punk and the other commercial music which had now started to plague progressive music here in the west…