Their previous work “The City Sleeps” was a bit of a “difficult third album”. While it had its moments, with an immaculate production and some spectacular instrumental pyrotechnics, it didn’t quite reach the heights of their breakthrough record “Wintercoast”. So there’s a lot riding on their fourth studio album, “Oceans of Time”, produced again by John Mitchell, and their first with the new record label Hear No Evil records.
Opener “Flux”, with it’s metal riffing starts out as quintessential Touchstone, although the middle section where the guitars drop out to be replaced by gospel-like vocal harmonies hints at what’s to come. “Contact” and “Tabula Rasa” reveal a much lighter and dare I say more pop-orientated sound, stepping away from the wall of sound that characterised the previous album. “Fragments” takes it even further, with a percussive new-wave feel quite unlike anything Touchstone have attempted before.
Later songs such as “Spirit of the Age” have more of a traditional Touchstone epic approach, combining atmospheric moments with much heavier passages. The title track in particular is a monster to compare with the title track of “Wintercoast”.
There’s less emphasis on extended guitar wig-outs and much more on solid composition, with the vocal melodies in particular far stronger. There are still plenty of heavier passages where they show their metal side. But there is far more light and shade, with stripped-back sections that give Kim Seviour’s sometimes delicate vocals a lot more space, including a magical moment in the middle “Through The Night” which is one of Kim’s best ever vocals.
But it’s Adam Hodgson’s guitar that dominates the album, despite very little traditional-style prog-metal soloing. His inventive riffs, rhythm parts and effects-laden atmospherics make up the core of the songs themselves. Rob Cottingham on keys take on more a supporting role, adding additional colour, again with relatively little soloing.
Perhaps the only flaw is the inclusion of the rather unnecessary re-working of “Solace”, which first appeared on “Wintercoast”. Yes, it’s a great song, and the new version is interestingly different, but it feels like a bonus track rather than a proper part of the album.
“Oceans of Time” ought to cement their growing reputation as one of the most exciting bands in the scene. It’s their most mature album to date, building on their undoubted strengths, but with none of the previous self-indulgent excess. Anyone who’s enjoyed their earlier work should still find plenty to love about this record. With a sound that’s on one hand more varied but on the other tighter and more focussed, they deserve to win themselves a much larger audience with this release.
Some of the records I’ve been listening to over the past couple of days. 2013 has been a great year for new music, but here I’ve revisited some old and sometimes overlooked classics.
Marillion – This Strange Engine
Their live sets in recent years have often drawn heavily from this album, but it’s the first time I’ve given the whole album a listen for a long time. One thing that struck me was how much it resembles their more recent work, despite being a decade and a half old. When it came out it was a bit a departure for them, with more emphasis on atmospherics and textures, and drew mixed reactions. But in retrospect, a lot of their current sound has its roots in this album.
Touchstone – Discordant Dreams
Touchstone’s first full-length album shows just how far they’ve progressed since they started out. I’d forgotten that Rob Cottingham sang most of the lead vocals back in the early days with Kim singing harmonies – It was only from “Wintercoast” onwards that Kim took over as the band’s main lead singer.
Yes – Drama
The announcement that Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes from pop duo The Buggles were to replace Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman made heads explode when announced all those years ago. But thirty years on this is an album that stands the test of time far better than its unfocussed and directionless precessor “Tormato”. I think it’s fair to say that without “Drama” there would have been no Yes three decades later.
Black Sabbath – Seventh Star
Tony Iommi and former Deep Purple singer Glenn Hughes made this collaboration with a bunch of session players after the ill-fated Ian Gillan-fronted Sabbath fell apart. It was never really intended as a Black Sabbath record, and lacks the doom-laden melodrama associated with the Sabbath name. But taken on its own merits it’s an excellent blues-metal hybrid, with both Iommi and Hughes on top form.
Rush – Roll the Bones
I was never that big a fan of Rush’s “Synthesiser period” and found their late 80s output a little bloodless and sterile. Their first release of the 1990s represented a back-to-basics power trio approach with Alex Lifeson’s guitar in the centre of the mix where it belonged. All very welcome for me, even if the rather heavier following album “Counterparts” remains my favourite Rush disc of the past two decades.
UK five-piece rock band TOUCHSTONE are excited to reveal they have signed an exclusive deal with Hear No Evil Recordings/Cherry Red Records for their much-anticipated 4th studio album ‘Oceans Of Time’, which is due to be released on 7th October 2013.
The release of the new album will be supported by a 6-date UK tour in October, where they will be joined by co-headliners Von Hertzen Brothers from Finland.
The band comment: “TOUCHSTONE are delighted to have signed to Hear No Evil Recordings for the release of our new album, Oceans Of Time. We are very much looking forward to working alongside Hugh Gilmour, the label manager, and to being a part of the bigger Cherry Red Records stable.â€
‘Oceans Of Time’ features 11 tracks recorded and produced at Outhouse Studios by renowned producer John Mitchell (You Me At Six, Lower Than Atlantis, Funeral For A Friend), and is the successor to Touchstone’s previous  albums: The City Sleeps (2011), Wintercoast (2009) and Discordant Dreams (2007).
On this eagerly awaited new album, the band continue their “Wintercoast†story with the dynamic, moving epic title track ‘Oceans Of Time’; the sequel to the title tracks of Wintercoast and The City Sleeps. Another familiar theme comes from ‘Shadow’s End’, the final part of the Shadow trilogy, which started with the track ‘Shadow’, from Discordant Dreams.  Fans will enjoy a more guitar-orientated sound from Oceans Of Time than previous albums due to the nature of the writing process.
All the music is written by Touchstone, with lyrics by lead vocalist Kim “Elkieâ€Â Seviour, and keys man Robert Cottingham, whilst guitarist Adam Hodgson again designed the cover artwork.
Label manager Hugh Gilmour comments on the signing: “Touchstone are very much a fresh and exciting addition to the Hear No Evil roster, with a modern album that strikes a perfect balance between classic, melodic prog and more streamlined, contemporary hard rock.â€
Oceans Of Time is released October 7 through Hear No Evil/Cherry Red Records.
Oct 18 King Tut’s, Glasgow
Oct 19 The Duchess, York
Oct 20 The Globe, Cardiff
Oct 25 The Garage, London
Oct 26 Eric’s Live, Liverpool
Oct 27 The Robin , Bilston
Marillion are a band who have always had an especially strong long-term relationship with their fans, and the way they’ve made full use of this goes a long way towards explaining how they’ve prospered over such a long career. Weekend-long fan conventions have been a regular feature of the Marillion calendar since the first one at an out-of-season Pontins back in 2002. Such has been the demand that this year they held three separate events, the first in Port Zelande in Holland, the second in Montreal, and the third at The Civic in Wolverhampton.
While each one featured different support acts and other activities, the concerts at each convention took the same format. On each of the three days, the band would play one album in its entirety, with the other half of the show made up from complimentary material. Friday’s album was 1998′s Radiation. It would be fair to say it’s a much-discussed album which has divided fan opinion over the years. It dates from a time when each Marillion album was a reaction against the one before as the band tried to reinvent themselves in a very different musical climate from when they started out. It was a time when “prog” was at it’s lowest ebb, and some of Radiation adopted a more contemporary alternative rock sound with as much in common with the music bands such as Radiohead and Suede were making at the time than it did with the Marillion of old. Certainly the raw, lo-fi production was a bit of a shock to the system.
In completely contract, Saturday’s album would be Brave, the 1994 concept album inspired by a news story of a girl found wandering on the Severn Bridge. Recorded as a return to their progressive roots after the relative failure of its more commercially-orientated predecessor, the album was one of the most musically ambitious things they’ve ever done. Dark, intense, and utterly lacking in radio-friendly singles, it’s always been a firm fan favourite. Finally on the Sunday, they would play their current album, “Sounds That Can’t Be Made”, released at the tail end of last year, and never before played live in its entirety. On their November tour they only played selected highlights of the album at a time when a lot of fans hadn’t had the opportunity to hear the record.
There was a different support act on each of the three nights. Friday’s was virtuoso guitarist Aziz Ibrahim, accompanied by tabla player Dalbir Singh Rattan, who served as a complete rhythm section on his own; some of the tabla fills came over more as bass riffs than percussion. They began with a fifteen minute instrumental (very prog) with some amazing fluid guitar work and good use of effects, the two of them making as rich a sound as a whole band. The rest of the set was a little more song-based, and there were moments when it felt as if the singer-songwriter part of his act needed more work, as if things were marking time until he took off on another solo. But by the end of the set it was Aziz’ phenomenal guitar work that remained etched the mind.
There was a huge buzz of anticipation by the time Marillion themselves hit the stage. From the opening hard rocker “Under the Sun” to the beautifully melodic ballad “Three Minute Boy”, whatever Radiation’s merits on record, the material came over strongly live, and might even have prompted a few doubters to reassess the album. The closing two numbers were especially powerful, with intense takes on “Cathedral Wall”, and “A Few Words From The Dead”, retrospectively made relevant by the terrible events in America two days later.
They filled the second half with crowd-pleasers, drawing surprising heavily from pre-1988 material. “Slainte Mhath” has featured in setlists a few times in recent years, and Steve Hogarth’s raising a glass to Fish was a nice touch. But I doubt many expected the band to reach further back, with the hits “Lavender” and “Heart of Lothian”, and jaws dropped even further with “Script for a Jesters” Tear, the title track of their debut album as the first encore. They signed off with “Happiness is the Road”, the crowd singing the refrain over and over long after the band had left the stage. The whole thing was recorded as a DVD, and in a successful attempt to break the record for the time to produce a DVD had the finished product “Clocks Already Ticking” on sale the next evening.
On Saturday afternoon tribute band Stillmarillion played a charity gig at Bilston Robin 2. I don’t normally do tribute bands, but since I was staying two minutes from the venue, it would have been rude not to. Stillmarillion are a tribute to the 1982-87 era of Marillion, so this one was a trip down memory lane. The obvious highlight was when Marillion’s own Steve Rothery joined them for two numbers, “Chelsea Monday” and “Incubus”, but even without him they pull off the music very effectively. When the final notes of “Market Square Heroes” died away I looked at my watch and was amazed to realise they’d been on stage for two and a half hours, with a set including all of “Script for a Jesters Tear”, most of “Misplaced Childhood”, the highlights of “Fugazi”, selections from “Clutching at Straws” and quite a few non-album b-sides. No “Grendel”, but that did get played on the jukebox in The Old White Rose after the gig, which was fill of people dressed as jesters.
Then it was back to Wolverhampton for the second night of the convention proper. This time were two supports. First up was an acoustic solo spot from Marillion’s bassist Pete Trewevas, accompanied on some songs by Eric Blackwood of Edison’s Children playing some electric lead lines. Appearance-wise, if not musically, they gave me flashbacks to The Two Ronnie’s Big Jim Jehosaphat and Fat Belly Jones. Next up were Relish, a trio playing an energetic mix of rock, funk and soul. After a rather weak opening number, they got progressively better as the set went on, with some strong grooves and some impressive lead guitar.
Then came what many fans were eagerly waiting for, Marillion’s performance of “Brave” in full. They did not disappoint, and proceeded to play one of the most incredible live performances I’ve ever seen them do in 30 years of attending their gigs. Through the emotional maelstroms of “Living with the Big Lie” and “Mad”, the atmospherics of “The Hollow Man” and the title track, and the climax of “The Great Escape” the whole thing built in intensity, and the five minute standing ovation at the end of “The Great Escape”, really said it all. Many of the songs have featured individually in live sets over the years, but played as a whole it turns into something much greater than the sum of the parts. By the time the applause died down and the band played the coda to the album, “Made Again”, minds has been blown.
Following that wasn’t going to be easy, and for the second set they again they dipped back into the earlier days of the extensive back catalogue. We had fantastic versions of “Out Of This World” and “Seasons End”, encoring with “Warm Wet Circles/This Time of the Night” from “Clutching at Straws”, with that incredible solo from Steve Rothery.
Sunday’s support was Touchstone, a band best described as being at the rock end of prog-rock. Despite a poor sound mix that rather took the edge off things, they played a spirited set which still managed to make a strong impression on the crowd. Kicking off with the epic “Wintercoast” their short but sweet set took in all of their three albums, and it was nice to hear the Discordant Dreams/Beggars Song medley back in the set, something they’ve not played for a while. Kim Seviour, as ever, makes an engaging frontwoman and visual focus, and the three-part vocal harmonies with Rob Cottingham and Moo Bass were particularly effective when the sound mix did them justice.
Marillion took a slightly different approach for the third night, playing just a single set without an interval. “Sounds That Can’t Me Made” is more a collection of songs than a concept album like “Brave”. So beginning with the 17-minute “Gaza”, one of their most overtly political songs, they interspersed the new material with older songs. Even if it couldn’t quite top Saturday’s incredible performance it was still another great show. The crowd was more enthusiastic than ever, at one point singing the prominent guitar line at the end of the title track as a refrain, much in the same way as we’d sung “Happiness is the Road” on Friday. The band even went into a holding pattern on “This Strange Engine” waiting for the extended applause for Steve Rothery’s final solo to die down before carrying on with the song.
The main set ended with what may have been the best version of the epic “Neverland” I’ve ever heard them play. And for the final encore they took us back down memory lane with “Garden Party”, in which Steve Hogarth paid no heed to Heath and Safety and climbed via the PA stack to the balcony.
And so ended another Marillion convention. If you only know “Kayleigh” and their other 80s hits, and still ask if Fish is still with them (I got asked that more than once over the course of the weekend!), then you don’t know Marillion at all.
The Marillion of the 21st century is one of British music’s best-kept secrets. They’ve weathered a great many changes in musical trends. They’ve lived through a music business that’s changed out of all recognition and pioneered the art of staying afloat without the aid of a record company. How many other bands can rehearse and play more than seven hours worth of music over the course of a weekend? What band can omit their biggest hit, yet nobody cares? Who else can continue to make relevant and challenging music more than thirty years into their career? And who else combines that level of emotional intensity with such an incredible level of musicianship?
But above all, what makes an event like this is the fans. At it’s best, live music can be as much about the audience as it is about the people on stage, when the band feed off the energy they get from the crowd. So it was here; it went from being able to hear a pin drop in the quiet moments to mid-song standing ovations, and occasions where the crowd became a 2000-strong choir. Marillion plan return to the UK towards the end of the year. But as good as the tours can be, nothing can quite match the atmosphere of these fan weekends.
Rob is delighted to announce that Heather Findlay will be sharing vocal duties with him on his solo album, Captain Blue.
For thirteen years, Heather fronted Mostly Autumn, taking them from fledgling local hopefuls to international Classic Rock giants. During this time Heather cemented a reputation as a celebrated songwriter, mesmerising performer and awesome vocalist, possessed of a keen ability to communicate heart, power and emotion in her singing.
Heather left Mostly Autumn in 2010, and formed an elite band from the upper echelons of the rock world and is presently carving out a highly successful solo career, with a tour planned in November.
In a statement, Rob advised “I am extremely honoured to have Heather on board. I obviously knew of Heather and her great vocal talents, but it was when she and Chris Johnson were sound checking their acoustic set in Newcastle in October last year that her voice really drew me in. I was originally going to ask Heather to duet with me on one song, but then the more I wrote, the more I realised I wanted Heather across the piece, and sure enough her contribution lifts the vocals up to the headiest of heights.”
When Rob Cottingham announced a ‘mystery female vocalist’ for his solo album a few weeks ago, I had a feeling it might well be Heather Findlay, and that feeling turned out to be correct. It sounds like her contributions to the album will be quite significant, which given her talents as a vocalist makes the album an exciting prospect.
It seems as though collaborations with other artists in a variety of genres are becoming a significant part of Heather’s post-Mostly Autumn career. Her contributions to “Captain Blue” follow her guest appearances of Liam Davison’s excellent “A Treasure of Well-Set Jewels“, and her very interesting electronica collaboration with Maidu. These varied projects have often shown a different side of her creativity to her own solo material, and demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of her musical talent.
My review of the weekend is now up on Trebuchet Magazine, here are a few of my photos from the weekend.
Virgil and the Accellerators were an early highlight, playing some guitar-shredding electric blues.
Heather Findlay played her first full band gig on a big stage since November last year, and went down a storm.
Sankara, fronted by Gareth Jones, formerly of The Reasoning played the CRS stage, and made a strong impression with their mix of hard rock, metal and AOR.
Winter in Eden, fronted by Vicky Johnson, played an absolute blinder as special guests on the CRS stage.
Silverjet. Because first thing in the morning, some back to basics rock and roll is what a festival needs.
Stolen Earth were another band who rose to the big occasion to play one of the best sets they’ve ever done.
Panic Room did what Panic Room do, which was to blow everybody away. They really should have been far higher up the bill.
Chantel McGregor delivered another incendiary set, great songwriting and some spectacular guitar pyrotechnics.
Flanborough Head played some delightful old-school prog. There is nothing quite like a flute solo backed by Mellotron.
Mr So and So impressed me a lot, they came over a lot better than last year.
The mighty Touchstone stormed the stage to deliver an impressive high-energy set.
Mostly Autumn, special guests on the Sunday night and playing their first gig since the end of last year did not disappoint.
2011 has been an incredible year for new music. In fact, I can’t remember another year when I bought so many new release, which makes the traditional end-of-year list especially hard this time round.
So, after much deliberation and consideration, here’s my completely personal and subjective list of ten best albums released in 2011.
10: Uriah Heep – Into the Wild
70s veterans Uriah Heep have undergone something of a renaissance in recent years. Even if this album doesn’t really break any radically new ground for them, with their trademark combination of searing guitar and Hammond organ they rock far harder than any band in their fifth decade of existence has any right to.
9: Steve Hackett – Beyond the Shrouded Horizon
Much like Uriah Heep, the former Genesis guitarist has hit something of a purple patch recently, with his third album in two years. It’s a rich, ambitious album that combines some heartfelt songwriting with his distinctive symphonic liquid guitar style that has rightfully made him the godfather of prog guitar.
8: Anathema – Falling Deeper
A largely instrumental set by Liverpool’s Doom-metallers-turned-proggers, containing radical orchestral reworkings of material from their earlier metal years. It’s an album for which you should sit back and let the huge atmospheric soundscapes wash over you.
7: Touchstone – The City Sleeps
The rising stars of the British female-fronted progressive rock scene deliver a strong third album, with a highly melodic mix of prog, hard rock and metal than builds on the success of their previous album “Wintercoast”.
6: Within Temptation – The Unforgiving
In which the Dutch band opt out of the symphonic metal arms race in favour of a far more rock-orientated album that emphasises Sharon den Adel’s incredibly powerful vocals over overblown arrangements. More varied than previous albums, there’s an emphasis on big anthemic choruses that ought to have a lot of crossover potential.
5: Chantel McGregor – Like No Other
Chantel’s debut album proves she’s far more than just a virtuoso guitarist, and far more than just a blues artist. It’s a hugely varied album demonstrating her talents as a singer-songwriter who can do hard rock, folk and pure pop as well as she can do blues-rock guitar wig-outs.
4: Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn of Events
The band which more or less invented prog-metal deliver their best album for years, proving that Mike Portnoy’s departure, far from finishing the band, has given them the kick up the backside they needed, with more emphasis on composition than instrumental showboating.
3: Liam Davison – A Treasure of Well-Set Jewels
The solo album from Mostly Autumn’s second guitarist was an unexpected surprise, with some great songwriting and big atmospheric arrangements reminiscent of the early years of Mostly Autumn. Great guest performances from supporting cast including Iain Jennings, Gavin Griffiths, Anne-Marie Helder and Heather Findlay, but none steal the spotlight from Liam’s own contributions.
2: Steven Wilson – Grace for Drowning
With his second solo release, Steve Wilson has taken a step away from the metal stylings of recent Porcupine Tree albums in favour of swirling Mellotrons and spiralling saxophones. The resulting jazz-tinged album sounds like a cross between 70s King Crimson, Canterbury-scene prog, and the ghost of Porcupine Tree past.
1: Opeth – Heritage
Sweden’s finest drop the death metal growls and go all-out prog with perhaps the most musically ambitious album they’ve done to date. Far more varied than their earlier non-metal “Damnation”, it manages to sound both gloriously retro and absolutely contemporary at the same time.
With such a strong year, there are many more great albums that would have appeared in many years’ top tens, so honourable mentions for Also Eden’s progtastic “Think of the Children” Magenta’s excellent “Chameleon”, Matt Stevens unclassifiable instrumental “Relic”, very solid releases from veterans Yes, Journey and Megadeth, and Mastodon’s “The Hunter”.
And there are a few albums I’ve yet to hear, and since it’s too close to Christmas to be buying albums for myself. So the reason for the absence of Nightwish’s “Imaginaerum”, Kate Bush’s “50 Words for Snow” and Morpheus Rising’s “Let The Sleeper Awake” is not that I don’t think they’re good enough, only that I haven’t heard them yet. Perhaps, for the purposes of end-of-year lists, the year should run December to November, so that late-year releases count as next year?
The last couple of months, as is usual for this time of year, has got completely silly gig-wise. I’ve reviewed as many as I’ve had time for, either here or on Trebuchet Magazine – These are some of my photos.
We start at Bilston, back in October. Here’s Heather Findlay and Chris Johnson playing as an acoustic support for Touchstone, at The Robin 2. Great to see Heather back on stage again after far too long an absence.
Touchstone just rock. Kim Elkie Seviour is a great frontwoman and visual focus.
Moo Bass and Henry Rogers make a powerful rhythm section, and put the “rock” into “prog-rock”!
Heather Findlay followed that successful support tour with a headline tour of her own, with a full band. This is from the opening date of the tour, at The Brook.
The unplugged segment was a highlight of the set.
Two days later, Heather’s old band Mostly Autumn played an absolute blinder at The Grand Opera House in York.
Olivia Sparnenn is far more confident fronting the band after eighteen months in the role. The huge smile said it all.
Anne-Marie Helder plays a big part in making Mostly Autumn a great live act in her role as multi-instrumentalist and backing singer. And playing completely different instruments (flute and keys) to what she plays in Panic Room.
In December, it was back to The Robin, with Morpheus Rising supporting Panic Room. This picture ought to sum up what they sound like.
Anne-Marie Helder and Paul Davies of Panic Room blowing the roof off The Robin at the start of the set. The pyro (yes, they used pyro) turned out to be unnecessary – There was more than enough fire in the music itself.
I love Bilston Robin 2 as a venue. With great sound, and some seriously professional promotion that means just about everyone who plays there draws a bigger crowd than anywhere else they play, it doesn’t have a reputation as one of Britain’s best rock clubs for nothing. The length of the queue just before the doors opened showed that yet again they’d pulled in the crowds even on a Sunday night.
Though Heather Findlay & Chris Johnson were “only” the support, with an hour-long slot the gig had feel of a something approaching a double headliner. There was certainly a buzz of anticipation before she came on stage, with an awful lot of familiar faces in the front row. Just as at The Borderline two days earlier, Heather had the audience’s rapt attention from the very beginning, and you could have heard a pin drop throughout the performance.
Apart from a few numbers from The Phoenix Suite, much of the set came from the Mostly Autumn and Odin Dragonfly back catalogue, including several Chris Johnson-penned songs. “Gaze” was lovely, and “Magpie” worked well too, with Chris somehow managing to play both the guitar and flute lines on his acoustic. The songs from The Phoenix Suite came over well in acoustic form, so much so that I’ve wondered if that was how they were originally meant to be performed. “The Dogs” from Halo Blind’s album “The Fabric” was an interesting choice; with a reworked ending incorporating a few bars of Heather’s “Red Dust”. But perhaps the highlight was a sublime Silver Glass, transposed from piano to guitar, with Heather singing lead, a performance which left me wondering why she didn’t sing lead on the original studio version.
Even without the power of a full band behind her, Heather came over as a class act; a superb vocalist and charismatic performer, and there’s more than a little of the vibe of her earlier acoustic side-project Odin Dragonfly about these shows. Chris Johnson, while never a flashy lead guitarist, deserves a lot of credit for the richness of sound he gets out of that battered acoustic guitar.
Having Heather touring with Touchstone seems to work well for both bands. Heather’s own fans certainly helped swell the crowds, and she went down well with Touchstone’s audience, such that the merch stand ran out of copies of both “The Phoenix Suite” and Odin Dragonfly’s “Offerings”. Indeed, the latter is now completely sold out and is to be remastered and reprinted. I think this success of this tour shows that she was wise not to follow the advice of those who claimed that supporting a band labelled as “prog” would damage her career because of the alleged stigma associated with the genre.
Touchstone themselves proceeded to awe the crowd with 90 minutes of full-on prog-rock. They’ve come an awful long way since I first saw them support The Reasoning way back in 2007 at the now-defunct Crewe Limelight. I’ve previously described them as prog-rock with the emphasis very much on rock, and rock they did. Their set was tight and full of energy, driven by the sort of enthusiasm of a band who are clearly enjoying every minute on stage.
On this tour they took the brave move of playing a set drawing very heavily from their latest album “The City Sleeps”, released just days earlier, which meant that something like two thirds of the show was brand new material. Much of the new music is epic and symphonic, huge wall-of-sound stuff with soaring melodies, although there are still plenty of places where they rock out. Moo Bass and Henry Rogers have always been one of the best rhythm sections in the scene, Adam Hodgson was on particularly fine form with some spectacular shredding guitar, and Rob Cottingham added swathes of colour on keys. As always, Kim Seviour makes an enthusiastic frontwoman with a tremendous stage presence. But it’s the undoubted chemistry of the five of them together on stage which makes them such a great live band.
On the strength of performances like that, with a record deal in their pocket, and an album that’s made the UK Rock chart to their name, Touchstone seem poised for a major breakthrough. And I’m sure that will be a good thing for all other bands in the “scene”.
I have ordered tickets for three forthcoming shows at The Borderline. This is a small, cozy venue right in the centre of London, just round the corner from where the late lamented Astoria used to be.
First is Panic Room, on Sunday September 18th. As readers of this blog will know, I’ve seen this lot many, many times this year, and they’ve never been less than awesome. On their extensive September tour, for which I hope to be able to get to more than one date, they’re promising to air a lot of brand-new material for their third album, due to be recorded at the end of the year.
Second is Touchstone on Friday, October 14. This is billed as the launch gig for their third album, “The City Sleeps”. It’s a while since I’ve seen them live, and like Panic Room, and with their high-energy prog-rock with the emphasis very much on rock, I feel they’re poised for a major breakthrough. It may not be long before you won’t be able to see them in small, intimate venues like this. Not only that, they’re supported by Heather Findlay and Chris Johnson playing as an acoustic duo, who are well worth seeing; Heather has more than enough talent as a vocalist and songwriter for an acoustic set to work.
And finally, on Saturday, November 26, Heather Findlay returns to play a headline show, with a full band including Dave Kilminster on guitar, and Steve Vantsis on bass. Anyone who saw them at the Cambridge Rock Festival will know just how great they were.
Definitely three gigs to look forward to. Since The Reasoning managed to sell out their show at this venue back in July, it’s probably not worth taking any risks by leaving it too late to get tickets.
Over the past few years Touchstone have built up a very strong reputation as a live act. They rock hard enough to appeal to metal audiences, but their music has more than enough atmospherics and dynamics to appeal to progressive rock fans. They’re a band with feet in both camps without falling into the obvious clichés of prog-metal.
Marillion – This Strange Engine
Yes – Drama
UK five-piece rock band TOUCHSTONE are excited to reveal they have signed an exclusive deal with Hear No Evil Recordings/Cherry Red Records for their much-anticipated 4th studio album ‘Oceans Of Time’, which is due to be released on 7th October 2013.
10: Uriah Heep – Into the Wild
9: Steve Hackett – Beyond the Shrouded Horizon
8: Anathema – Falling Deeper
7: Touchstone – The City Sleeps
6: Within Temptation – The Unforgiving
5: Chantel McGregor – Like No Other
4: Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn of Events
2: Steven Wilson – Grace for Drowning
1: Opeth – Heritage
