Music Blog

All the music-related posts gathered together in one place.

Interview with Panic Room

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Tim Hall

Trebuchet Magazine have just published the first part of my inteview with Anne-Marie Helder and Jon Edwards of Panic Room. The whole interview came out so long we decided to split it into three parts for publication – it was all too good to leave anything out! In the first part, Anne-Marie and Jon talk about the new album S K I N, telling how it was recorded and the inspiration behind some of the songs.

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One way to tell if your band is a prog-rock band. Does the bass player rock out far more than the lead guitarist?

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

Muse – 2nd Law

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Tim Hall

Muse 2nd LawI’m sometimes accused of only liking obscure prog-rock bands who sing about Hobbits in 9/8 time. One Guardian music journalist who shall remain nameless has called me the “Prog Taliban” and claimed that I don’t like pop music.

So why am I reviewing a Muse album? Because, despite the fact that they’ve headlined the indie-centric Glastonbury Festival and you can probably get their albums in Asda, Muse are a really prog-rock band.

Opener “Supremacy” begins with a dirty Jack White style guitar riff accompanied by marching Dream Theater keyboards before moving to a classically-inspired vocal melody, with a guitar solo repeating the same motif. There’s something very Prog about the whole thing.

And it goes on like that. Yes, there still are plenty of homages to Queen, starting with the pseudo-dubstep “I Want To Break Free” of “Madness”. Then there’s the disco-funk of “Panic Station”. There are nods to U2. But “Animals”, with it’s wonderful rippling guitar could easily have come from a recent Marillion album. The wide-screen atmospherics of “Save Me” recall recent Anathema, and some of the guitars remind me of mid-period Genesis. The cinematic two-part title track that closes the album is just monstrous with it’s huge choirs and Pink Floyd-style voiceovers.

This is an album that mixes pop, metal, electronica with grandiose classical sweeps and arpeggios. A lot of it is bombastic and completely over the top, but it wouldn’t really be a Muse album if it wasn’t. They’ve got a pop sensibility; three or four minute songs with big choruses. But they pack so many musical ideas into those three or four minutes.

The way the album mixes bits of many different genres to produce something more than the sum of parts reminds me of Panic Room’s SKIN. Yes, there are obvious homages to other bands which have drawn comparisons with Oasis’ pillaging of rock history. But Muse draw from a far, far broader sonic palette than simple meat-and-potatoes guitar rock. The result is an album that ought to appeal to any self-respecting prog-rock fan.

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Shadow of the Sun – Monument promo

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Tim Hall

A promo for the forthcoming album “Monument” by Shadow of the Sun, the new band formed by Dylan Thompson, former guitarist from The Reasoning, and singer Matthew Powell. Here, Dylan Thompson and Matthew Powell talk about how the band came into being and the final steps leading up to their imminent release.

The album is available for pre-order from The Merch Desk.

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Listening to UFO’s last-but-one album “The Visitor” reminds me of how great Phil Mogg can be as a lyricist. He’s one of Britain’s most underrated songwriters. If he worked in a more fashionable genre than hard rock people would be comparing him with Springsteen.

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

Three Decades of Marillion

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Tim Hall

Today is the 30th anniversary of Marillion’s first single, “Market Square Heroes”.

Who would have guessed back then that they’d still be going three decades later? Of course, they’ve changed and evolved a lot, soon shaking off the “Poor man’s early Genesis” tag to develop a sound of their own. And they’ve continued to reinvent themselves since their original frontman Fish and the rest of the band went their separate ways more than two decades ago. Most artists of their vintage have long since ceased adding to their legacies, content to turn into their own tribute bands playing greatest hits sets from their glory days. Both Marillion and Fish with his solo career are exceptions to this.

I bought the 12″ version of “Market Square Heroes”, which contained the infamous 17-minute “Grendel” on the b-side, loved by some, hated by others. I’ve actually been a fan for rather longer, since seeing them play halfway up the bill at the 1982 Reading festival.

I ended up spending my 25th anniversary of first seeing Marillion in the company of Fish’s ex. But that’s another story…

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A Genuine Freakshow announce new EP

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Tim Hall

"A Genuine Freakshow"
Reading band A Genuine Freakshow have announced the forthcoming release of a new EP titled “Where The River Bends“.

We have decided to release an EP called ‘Where The River Bends’. We will be announcing the release date for this very soon, but it will be before the end of the year. It will be a digital EP with 4 new tracks:

Low
Claw and Grasp
Where The River Bends
Albert Trophy

I’ve seen this band live a couple of times; they are the sort of band it’s more or less impossible to pidgeonhole them to any one genre. They’ve got a huge, shimmering sound with elements of pop, post-rock, indie and prog, with classically-trained string players as the lead instruments. Not only have played the Reading Festival, they were also one of the special guests at the 2009 Marillion convention in Holland.

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Been listening to 2012′s metal releases on random shuffle. With one notable exception (York’s Morpheus Rising), the lead vocals are either cookie monster growls or operatic sopranos. Where have the great male vocalists gone? Where are today’s Ronnie Dios and Rob Halfords?

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Tim Hall | 5 Comments

It’s getting to the time of year to start thinking of this blog’s end-of-year albums list. Still one or two albums to come, but Panic Room’s amazing “SKIN” is still ahead of the pack for album of the year.

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

Mermaid Kiss – Another Country

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Tim Hall

Way back in 2008, Mermaid Kiss made quite a few live appearances supporting bands such as Panic Room and Breathing Space. They performed as a semi-acoustic lineup, playing a mix of stripped-down arrangements of songs from their 2007 album “Etarlis” and brand new material from a project with a working title of “American Images”. Four years later, that project has reached completion as their new album “Another Country”

It’s not a long album; with a running time of an 38 minutes it’s closer to an old-fashioned vinyl LP, and this time it’s a digital-only release. The theme is an imaginary journey through the America of music and film; the nation as seen though the eyes of someone who’s never actually been there. The American Images page on the band’s website tells the stories behind the songs

There’s a strong emphasis on acoustic instruments, with a lot of flute, cor anglais and acoustic guitar. With touches of gospel and Americana the sound is closer to those 2008 gigs than to the symphonic prog-rock sweep of their previous album. It’s all very song-focussed, there are no lengthy instrumental passages, although there are some brief interludes of piano and cor anglais. But neither is it an unplugged record; there are electric solos courtesy of lead guitarist Pete West, and Colin Henney’s less-is-more keyboards add some effective atmospherics. Good as those two are, if anything the best instrumental performances come from woodwind player Wendy Marks with some evocative playing that’s a major component of their signature sound.

High points include the spine-tingling “Dust Bowl Bride”, with it’s haunting melody, evocative choral sounds and beautiful flute solo, and the simple but effective ballad “Comes And Goes”, with another melody that gets stuck in your head.

Evelyn Downing has progressed a long way in four years as a vocalist, giving an especially strong performance on “This Trail of Tears”. This recording marks the end of her work with Mermaid Kiss, as the band begin work on a follow-up to “Etarlis” with new singer Maria Milewska. It will be interesting to see what projects Evelyn involves herself with next.

I like this album a lot. It takes them in a slightly different musical direction while still keeping enough of a continuity with their earlier work. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s worth the wait.

It’s available for download from CDBaby.

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