Saga

This 98-minute documentary, written, produced, and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder of the Washington, D.C. area's Zeitgeist Media, begins and ends at the 2011 Rock in Opposition festival in Carmaux, France, and between those two bookends tells the story of this idiosyncratic movement – or style, or whatever you want to call it – that was birthed in the late '70s and has against all odds persisted on and off to the present day…

Full Circle. Indeed. You don't need to understand the significance of the title or artwork to appreciate this album, but the background history is important. Saga emerged in the late seventies with a style of music that fused the coming synthesizer-driven pop sound with hard rock guitars and a flair for progressive instrumental sections. Add to that songs of science fiction and intrigue and you have what made the first four albums Saga classics…

The last great album with that Saga sound(and 1993's _Security Of Illusion_). Considering this followed the stinker _Wildest Dreams_, this album is a return to form and stands alongside other Saga greats like Heads Or Tales, Behaviour and Worlds Apart. What's most impressive on this is an aggressive Ian Crichton guitar sound…

Saga have had their share of lineup changes along the way; one of the most talked about came in late 2007, when longtime frontman Michael Sadler left the band (Rob Moratti was hired as a replacement the following year). Sadler had been Saga's lead singer from the beginning; he was around back when the Canadian prog rockers were still calling themselves Pockets (which was also the name of an Earth, Wind & Fire-ish soul-funk band that recorded three LPs for Columbia in the late '70s), and his departure came after no less than 30 years with the band. Documenting a 2007 show in Munich, Germany, Contact: Live in Munich was recorded/filmed during Sadler's final tour with Saga…

Adele Schmidt and Jose Zegarra Holder have released a 95 minutes documentary that features several prog rock bands and label/studio owners. This is not so much a story of current progressive rock, as it a small survey of several bands and the USA North East coast fests…

Progdocs third documentary film on the progressive music scene hits the motherload focussing on the very start of it all. The so-called Canterbury Scene started with The Wilde Flowers, a nascent version of Soft Machine and to some extent precursor of Caravan too…

A superb debut album from Saga; Prog-rockers with a melodic vein of songwriting already fully formed, and a vocalist possessing a velvety yet urgent and powerful voice…

1987's Wildest Dreams finds this Canadian semi-progressive band leaning toward a more radio friendly sound. With songs ranging from ballads to perky pop tempos, Wildest Dreams is a far cry from their keyboard-induced music of the early '80s…