Alan’s second solo album picks up where the celtic sweep of his debut left off.  But this time there’s a harder -edged incisiveness more reminiscent of his work with Pallas.  The acoustic under-pinning of the last album takes a back seat behind driving guitars and exuberant keyboards.

Lyrically it’s angry and direct, covering everything from the frustrations of struggling and moribund relationships to the rise of the post-truth narcissist.

As well as vocals Alan provides guitars, basses, drum programming and bass pedals, with Mike Stobbie and Scott Higham returning on keys and drums respectively.

There are also contributions from Jeff Green (lead guitar), Lazuli’s Claude Leonetti (Leode) and Steve Hackett (HarmonicA)  Additional vocals come courtesy of Magenta’s Christina Booth, Harvest’s Monique Van Der Kolk and Weendo’s Laetitia Chaudemanche.

The album is released on March 14th

Trinity Live was originally intended to have been a triple-headlining tour by The Reasoning, Touchstone and Magenta. But the tour had to be cancelled when Magenta’s vocalist Christina Booth was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.

The bands decided to keep one date from the proposed tour, at The Assembly in Leamington Spa, and repurpose it as a charity show in aid of three cancer charities. The Reasoning and Touchstone would still appear, along with Rob Reed of Magenta performing as “Rob Reed and Friends”. The show expanded to a day-long event with a number of prominent additional names from the prog world added to the bill, including the mighty Arena as headliners. Then, only a few days before the show came the announcement that Christina Booth’s cancer treatment was going sufficiently well that she would be well enough to perform a short set, so Rob Reed and Friends became Magenta.

The day started with two acoustic acts. First came an entertaining set from former Pallas frontman Alan Reed accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Mark Spencer, playing stripped-down versions of songs from his most recent solo album along with the odd Pallas oldie. Touchstone’s Kim Seviour joined them for a moving cover of the Twelfth Night classic “Love Song”. Then came acoustic guitar virtuoso Matt Stevens weaving his trademark tapestries of sound with the aid of looping pedals and layers of effects. There is nobody else on the live scene quite like him.

A lengthy pause before Magenta came on built up anticipation for their set. They opened with an intense cover of the instrumental “Cinema” from Yes’ 90125 before Christina joined them to deliver a truly inspired performance. Despite undergoing chemotherapy her voice, energy and stage presence were not diminished in the slightest, with powerful performances of “Gluttony” and “The Lizard King”. But the high point of the set was the cover of the Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush duet “Don’t Give Up” with Alan Reed, which simply bought the house down; there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. The finished up with “Pride” to close a remarkable set; it’s always amazing how tight Magenta can be on stage given how infrequently they perform live.

Heather Findlay

After that it was a short and sweet acoustic set from Heather Findlay and Chris Johnson, running through a selection of Mostly Autumn, Odin Dragonfly and Halo Blind favourites. Heather has been absent from the UK live scene for a long time, so her appearance on the same stage as her emotional farewell from Mostly Autumn four years ago was good to see. The reception for songs like “Silver Glass” and “Evergreen” show that there plenty of people in the prog world who still love her.

Most of the prog fans in the venue knew little or nothing about Lost in Vegas, making them the wild card of the bill. In the event, their foot-on-monitor hard rock seemed out of place on the bill. They were competently and tight, and had all the right stage moves, but came over as rather generic without quite enough in the way of memorable songs.

The Reasoning have also been away for a long while. They’re back with another new lineup, now expanded to a six-piece with Robert Gerrard on keys and Sebastien Flynn-Goze on vocals and acoustic guitar handling the male vocal parts. Opening with “Dark Angel”, the set drew very heavily from their first two albums, with songs like “Awakening”, “Fallen Angels” and “Aching Hunger” well-received by the crowd, with Robert Gerrard’s washes of Hammond giving some songs a Deep Purple feel. While it was still an enthusiastic performance especially from frontwoman Rachel Cohen it didn’t quite reach the levels of their shows two or three years ago when they seemed poised to break through to the next level. Still, it’s early days for a new incarnation of the band, and it will be interesting to see where they go next.

Kim Seviour of Touchstone

Touchstone suffered from a muddy sound at the very beginning, but it didn’t really diminish what soon turned into a very entertaining set. The choice of songs emphasised their most recent album “Oceans of Time”, though they also reached back into their very early days with “Misguided Fool” from the Mad Hatters EP. They were the first band of the day to come back for an encore, at least for those members of the band who got as far as leaving the stage in the first place. The encores included a monstrous “Wintercoast” with its machine gun bass riff, and ended with their rousing rocked-up version of Tears For Fears’ “Mad World” with John Mitchell joining them on guitar.

After the charity auction came headliners Arena, making their sole live appearance of 2014. As a supergroup formed by Pendragon’s keyboard player Clive Nolan and former Marillion drummer Mick Pointer, Arena’s brand of heavy neo-prog is as cheesy as hell. But they do the whole thing so well it just doesn’t matter. At times they come over as a cross between Fish-era Marillion and Queen. Paul Manzi makes a splendidly melodramatic frontman, and there was plenty of John Mitchell’s shredding guitar heroics. They delivered a barnstorming performance that was an ideal way of closing the event.

John Mitchell

The whole day, as well as raising a great deal of money for charity was a gathering of the prog clans, with many, many familiar faces in the crowd. There were great performances all round, and Arena were more than worthy headliners. But good as Arena were, it was still Magenta who ultimately stole the show, and I can’t imagine any other artist begrudging them for it.

A reminder of the Trinity Live cancer charity show at The Assembly in Leamington Spa on May 18th.

The show was originally part of a triple-headline tour featuring The Reasoning, Touchstone and Magenta, postponed because of Magenta’s Christina Booth’s treatment for breast cancer.

Touchstone and The Reasoning decided to go ahead with a charity show on the original date, and have since added acoustic sets from Alan Reed, Heather Findlay and Matt Stevens to the bill.

The Robin 2 in Bilston is one of Britain’s premier classic rock, progressive rock and blues venues outside the capital. Tucked away in the heart of the Black Country they always put a lot of work into promoting their gigs, so even for a Sunday night there was a good-sized crowd.

Support came from former Pallas vocalist Alan Reed, fronting a semi-acoustic four-piece band. They managed to sound very proggy at times for a band without electric guitars, although their bassist doubled up on electric cello on a couple of songs. Their set mixed songs from Alan’s recent EP “Dancing with Ghosts” with a couple of Pallas oldies, and he warned us they might have to eat one of the band if they didn’t sell enough CDs. His spirited and impassioned performance made me wonder quite what Pallas were thinking when they sacked him. Especially when compared with their own somewhat lacklustre set without him at High Voltage in August.

Magenta are now officially a trio, consisting of composer and multi-instrumentalist Rob Reed, vocalist Christina Booth, and lead guitarist Chris Fry. For live work, Rob plays keys, and they’ve borrowed Godsticks’ excellent rhythm section to expand to a five-piece.

They were incredibly tight for a band who perform live so infrequently, such that it was hard to believe they’d played together live so few times this year. This was full-blown symphonic prog, with swirling keyboards, complex multi-part song structures and dense arrangements. But it was also all-out rock at the same time, a huge level of energy and intensity throughout their lengthy set.

The set spanned their entire career, going from the dark and intense 20 minute epic title track of “Metamorphosis” to selections from their more streamlined and accessible new album “Chameleon”, to older material such as the lengthy medley from their first album “Revolutions”. Magenta may be one of those bands who wear their influences on their sleeves, but unlike some lesser bands they put enough ideas of their own to become far more than a derivative pastiche. Occasionally they will throw in a few bars of something recognisable from 70s Yes or Genesis, but all of these are, as the band once stated, quite deliberate.

The diminutive Christina Booth showed just why she frequently wins awards for best female vocalist, singing with a lot of power and precision and making full use of her impressive vocal range. Chris Fry reeled off some amazing solos. At times his sound is reminiscent of Yes’ Steve Howe, but much of the time his sound is all his own; avoiding the sometimes clichéd Steve Hackett-meets-Dave Gilmour of too many neo-prog guitarists. And you’d never know that the rhythm section were just hired hands given the rhythmic complexity of the music.

Despite the infrequency of their live appearances, they’re every bit as great a live band as any of their peers in the female-fronted progressive rock scene. Quite when they’ll hit the road again is anyone’s guess, but on the strength of this show, they’re definitely not a band to miss.