Nowadays, the best expressions and attitudes of progressive rock are able to form eclectic mixtures, yet they mostly embrace independent striking values, being either classy, new-waved, drenched, alternative, powerful or sensible, underground or mainstreamed, artistically rooted or experimentally diluted. Up this kind of a scale, Zip Tang, a four-piece band from Chicago, prefers to play something from the classic influences, the nice modern art and the bit of indispensable jam and "new music" - in a manner that, currently, gets optimistic praises, plus in a musical attractive empathy that can score, further on, more and more important progressive qualities…
The reduced to a trio band still plays a melodic, American, modern prog, but rocking heaviness is more in the foreground, even if the music is already pretty playful proggig. Right on the opening track "Cigarette Burns", the Americans make one on "Punk Floyd." The closeness to the rock dinosaurs is not only evident in this piece, but also in the electric guitar solo, while the alternative rock scene lulls it The Prog of Zip Tang sometimes comes closer to the late King Crimson, while the harmony vocals can evoke associations with CSN ("Knowing"). Here and there are some beautiful crimsoid bumpy riffs and some psychedelic palpable ("Maniacal Calliope" Sometimes it rocks more straightforward ("Phantasmagoric Haze"), sometimes alternative-proggiger ("Plastique Hey-Zeus"), but these are just influences that enrich the bands already quite unique sound-cosmos…
Having reinvented himself as a bionic soulboy across the course of 1974's Zinc Alloy, Bolan's Zip Gun was less a reiteration of Marc Bolan's new direction than a confirmation of it. Much of the album returns to the understated romp he had always excelled at – the delightful knockabout "Precious Star," the unrepentant boogie of "Till Dawn" and the pounding title track all echo with the effortless lightheartedness which was Bolan at his most carelessly buoyant, while "Token of My Love" is equally incandescent, a playful blues which swiftly became a major in-concert favorite. But the essence of Zip Gun remains firmly in the funky pastures which characterized Zinc Alloy, with the only significant difference lying in the presentation.
Roll of the Dice is a 1995 studio album by Texas-based blues rock band The Fabulous Thunderbirds. The Fabulous T-Birds' second album without Jimmie Vaughan is an improvement over Walk That Walk, Talk That Talk, featuring a tighter, more focused band and hotter playing.
German compilation features all the T. Rex A-sides released between 1972 & 1978 on disc one & 28 B-sides on disc two, 16 page colour booklet. First, full disclosure is necessary as to what's missing. Ready? On this glorious double-CD collection, there isn't one track from T. Rex's Electric Warrior. That's right, "Bang a Gong," "Mambo Sun," and "Jeepster" are all absent. Why? Simple: it appears Warner is recalcitrant to license that wondrous album to anyone in any form. It turns out that this is simply a small complaint because none of the tracks from Electric Warrior should be separated from its full corpus anyway – it is an album in the purest and more literal sense of the world. Getting to what is here, listeners do get tracks from that beautiful slab The Slider as well as Tanx, Light of Love , Bolan's Zip Gun, Dandy in the Underworld, Futuristic Dragon, and a slew of 45s never issued on LP.
Since Marc Bolan's own label issued its first greatest-hits package back in 1973, there has been no shortage of collections rounding up the peerless sequence of 18 singles (some with multiple B-sides) released between January 1972 and Bolan's death in September 1977. Indeed, this set was itself just a few months old when its contents were redistributed across two box sets' worth of CD singles, each one replicating the original U.K. 45. As a simple one-stop chronological gathering of the Bolan jukebox at its born-to-boogie best, however, this two-disc package is hard to beat. In common with the two single-disc collections that it supersedes, the discs are divided neatly between A-sides (disc one) and B-sides…
Behind the 8 Ball (1965). Behind the 8-Ball was Baby Face Willette's second album for Argo and - unfortunately - the last one he would record as a leader, for reasons that aren't well-documented. Compared to his past releases, Behind the 8-Ball is short on original compositions (only two of eight tracks), but the emphasis here is more on Willette's deep roots in gospel and R&B, two circuits he worked extensively during his pre-Blute Note dues-paying days. This perhaps accounts for the brevity of the album - only two cuts top the five-minute mark - but it also provides a chance to hear Willette at his most soulful, playing the music he grew up with…