Stuff of Thoughts

Scottish proggers Comedy Of Errors have been on something of a productive roll of late, since the thankful retreat of the Covid curtain of doom. This new 2023 release comes hot on the heels of the previous album Time Machine, only a year or so later, and shows a band absolutely bursting with ideas, as any thoughts of the two albums being almost like a double album released in two halves proves way off the mark. Time Machine was an absolute highlight in the band’s catalogue, it must be said, and certainly up their with their finest releases, but what it did not try to do was to redefine the parameters of the band’s sound and musical identity in any way. Threnody For A Dead Queen, on the other hand, does exactly that…

Having enjoyed such fruitful collaboration with the Spanish musician Rafael Pacha (both in The Guildmaster project and albums under Kimmo's own PA artist page, plus within The Samurai Of Prog), Kimmo Pörsti insisted they should make a CD consisting of revisited material from Pacha's solo output. As Rafael says in his liner notes, there have been two major paths he has followed and combined as a musician, those of Folk (e.g. the Celtic tradition) and of progressive rock. The source albums are mentioned - without their release years though - but the liner notes concern his thoughts of the individual tracks and their recordings then and now, with a fondness for various occasional collaborations. You really can feel the labour of love attitude of this gifted multi- instrumental musician and composer.