For those who’s tastes run towards progressive rock and metal, Sunday was always going to be the day to be looked forward to the most.

The weather turned nasty at the beginning of the day courtesty of Hurricane Bertha. Amidst some doubts over whether this would go ahead the main stage marquee didn’t open up until the first band were already standing on stage waiting for the audience to file in. They were Norway’s The Windmill, and they proceeded to play some epic symphonic prog. There were echoes of Renaissance and fellow Norwegians ÄnglagÃ¥rd, and their music went from pastoral atmospherics to heavier guitar-led passages. It featured heavy use of flute, and some great three-part vocal harmonies, their set climaxing with the swirling twenty-minute epic “The Gamer”.

Credo followed that with another entertaining set With ornate synth runs, fluid overdriven guitar solos and a singer with a touch of Fish’s vocal mannerisms they tick all the neo-prog boxes. But even through they’re not doing anything stunningly original, the strength of their songcraft and the passion of the performance meant they went down well with the crowd.

Apocalyptic weather swirled outside during Winter in Eden’s set, such that the wind speeds were getting the stewards worried. But inside the tent the most metal act on the main stage so far kicked up such a storm themselves that many people didn’t even notice. They rose above some rough sound early on with a powerful set, their British take on Euro symphonic metal eschewing choirs and kitchen sinks in favour of neo-classical keyboard flourishes and good old-fashioned lead guitar, with Vicky Johnson the first of several great female vocalists to grace the main stage on the day.

Heidi Widdop seems to make a habit of Cambridge Rock Festival debuts. Back in 2010 the main stage saw her first gig as the new lead singer of Breathing Space. The following year marked the very first gig for the short-lived Stolen Earth. 2014 saw her new project, Cloud Atlas, playing only their second gig. Despite having a stand-in rhythm section, they turned in another strong performance, with Martin Ledger’s evocative guitar tones dominating the band’s rich and atmospheric sound, and Heidi herself on great form.

Mr So and So just get better and better as a live band. Another regular act for the festival, they followed up their 2011 and 2012 appearances with one of their best shows yet. They’ve gone up a gear since the release of their fifth album “Truth and Half Lies”, far darker and heavier than what had gone before, and that album featured heavily in their set. The hugely melodic dual male/female lead vocals of Shaun McGowan and Charlotte Evans and shredding lead guitar of Dave Foster give them a distinctive identity. This gig marked the farewell appearance of drummer Stuart Browne with hints that the band may take a radically different direction without him. He certainly went out on a high.

Mostly Autumn have been on top live form this year, and their festival performance was no exception. Aside from the two standards “Evergreen” and “Heroes Never Die” from the band’s early years, the rest of the nine-song set all came from Olivia Sparnenn’s tenure as lead singer, drawing heavily from their latest, “Dressed in Voices”. They’ve evolved a long way from their celtic-folk origins towards a harder-edged rock sound, but there’s still a lot of emotional depth, as evidenced by Olivia’s signature number “Questioning Eyes”. Another highlight was “Skin on Skin” with Alex Cromarty’s spectacular drum pyrotechnics. Much like Chantel McGregor on Friday, this was a headline level performance.

Mostly Autumn’s set was going to be a hard act to follow, and the task fell to Norwegian metal act Jorn, fronted by Jorn Lande. Yes, the whole thing was as melodramatic as hell, and yes the songwriting did sound a bit too close to that of the late, great Ronnie Dio for comfort, but Jorn still put on a great show. At a time when a lot of metal bands are fronted by either cookie monsters or opera-trained sopranos, it was good to hear a top-class old-school hard rock vocalist. Though we could have done without the Tufnelesque solo spot from his guitarist; somebody needs to tell him it’s 2014, not 1982!

Headliners Wishbone Ash are one of those classic rock veterans down to one original member, guitarist Andy Powell. Weilding his signature Flying V he led the band through a mix of standards from their early heyday and newer blues-rock workouts. While it might have been nice to have heard more of their highly melodic 70s material, they kept, perhaps wisely, to the songs that Andy Powell could do justice to vocally, and the emphasis was more on the twin lead guitars, with highlights including “Engine Overheat” and the epic “Phoenix”. Even though they were nowhere near the best band of the day, that was more a reflection on the strength of the rest of the bill, and it was still an enjoyable performance.

And so ended the eleventh Cambridge Rock Festival. As is often the case the veteran acts topping the bill pulled in the punters while the newer acts lower down the bill ended up giving the best performances. One can’t help wondering if the festival might have worked better for those attending the whole weekend if the acts had been mixed up a little more rather than seperate blues, rock and prog days. But on the other hand that format may have sold more individual day tickets. Indeed, I was told that the Thursday night, which was very well attended, actually sold out with many people coming to hear the tribute acts, and that subsides the rest of the festival.

And finally, the beer! The festival began life as a beer festival, and was called the RockandBeerFest until a few years back. But real ale is still a major part of what the whole thing is about, and an awful lot of beer was drunk over the course of the weekend.

Winter in Eden’s “With Intent”, the lead track from the forthcoming album “Court of Conscience”, which you can still pre-order from their online shop.

2014 brings us Winter In Edens highly anticipated third studio album ‘Court of Conscience’. Recorded in the Netherlands it contains eleven songs which build and further refine the unique style that is Winter in Eden. Produced by Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation) and mixed by Stefan Helleblad (Within Temptation), it also features guest vocals by the multi award winning Damian Wilson (Threshold) and Jermain van der Bogt (For All We Know, Ayreon).

The result is powerful, modern and balanced. Each instrument can clearly be heard within the Metal and the Symphonic, and the live strings on ‘The Script’ are truly wonderous. ‘Court of Conscience’ retains the band’s signature of thought-provoking lyrics mixed with memorable melodies. Whilst no two songs are alike, fans will be delighted to hear that the band’s approach to this album is a familiar one. With hard and heavy anthems such as ‘Knife Edge’ and ‘Toxicate’, more chilled and progressive tracks such as ‘Burdened’ and ‘It’s Not Enough’ along with the blues rock of ‘Affliction’, this collection of songs has something for each taste and mood.

You can pre-order it today from the Winter in Eden online shop.

Panic Room had originally intended a more extensive tour in November and December 2013. But the band’s decision not to book any further live dates until they had a new lead guitarist in place meant that they ended up putting the tour back until the new year, leaving the two already booked dates as their last live appear appearances of 2013.

The first of these took place in Shildon, a replacement for an earlier show in Darlington cancelled due to the unfortunate closure of the rock club. The replacement venue, Shildon Civic Hall is a typical modern multi-purpose arts centre, and despite the remote location still managed to attract enough of the faithful to make a decent crowd.

Laying out the hall with tables and chairs was probably a mistake. In theory the high stage should have meant people could stand at the front without blocking the views of those seated further back, but in practice it meant that almost everybody remained seated, which did rob the gig of a bit of energy.

Panic Room invited Winter in Eden, a band with a strong local following, to open the show, and by the number of t-shirts in evidence Winter in Eden’s fanbase swelled the crowd quite a bit. For those not familiar with their music, they could be described as “Nightwish with a British accent”, with a very impressive vocalist in Vicky Johnson, and more emphasis on lead guitar than many of the Euro symphonic metal acts.

Though marred slightly by poor sound (I thought they were a tad too loud), they put in a an energetic performance drawn heavily from their second album “Echoes of Betrayal”. The band have been in the studio recording their third album, and played one new number from it, sounding like an interesting progression of their sound.

For Panic Room fans the two big questions were “How was new guitarist?” and “What were the new songs like?”.  After the departure of founding lead guitarist Paul Davies at the beginning of the year, the band played their spring tour with Morpheus Rising guitarist Pete Harwood standing in, who did a remarkably good job. This Shildon show marked the début of Adam O’Sullivan who joins as a permanent member of the band.

I think Adam made a good enough first impression. He’s still finding his feet to some extent, and probably needs a couple more gigs to grow into the role, but he’s clearly got the chops to do the guitar parts justice. He takes an interestingly different approach on some of the newer material, with volume-control atmospherics. One thing I noticed was he doesn’t play slide at all, which makes some older numbers, such as the cover of “Bitches Chrystal” sound a little different.

As for the new songs, they played no less than five numbers from the forthcoming album “Incarnate” due for release early in the new year. It’s difficult to judge new material on one listen, given Panic Room’s sophisticated and layered sound, but all five new songs sounded good, and they don’t sound like retreads of things the band have done before either. There are some classic Anne-Marie soaring melodies, some out-and-out rock, and some interestingly different arrangements that seem a step back from the wall-of-sound approach of SKIN.

Panic Room’s final gig of 2013 is their annual pre-Christmas show at The Robin 2 in Bilston on December 1st.

The usual disclaimers apply, of course. They’re selected from the albums of 2012 that I’ve actually had the chance to hear over the course of the year. It’s also a personal list of albums that have made an impression on me rather than any attempt to declare them the “best” of the year, whatever that might mean. Which is why there are very obscure independent releases alongside heavily-promoted major-label albums.

My self-imposed rules exclude both live albums and studio restatements of past material, although Steve Hackett’s “Genesis Revisited II” and Heather Findlay’s “Songs From The Old Kitchen” deserve mention.

It was going to be a top 20, but once I’d got my list finalised someone went and released a record in the middle of December that really deserved to be on the list. So now it’s a top 21. I’ve given up trying to rank all 21 album in any kind of order, and have gone for grouping them under Good, Great, Superb and Legendary, the last being my album of the year.

So here are the ten Good albums, which form numbers 21 to 12 in the list, ordered alphabetically.

Joe Bonamassa – Driving Towards The Daylight

Excellent album of guitar-shredding blues-rock from one of the most exciting guitar players of his generation, with electrifying takes on blues standards from the likes of Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon alongside a handful of original numbers. Yes, the ever-prolific Bonamassa can probably turn out albums like this in his sleep, but that’s just a measure of his talent.

Delain – We Are The Others

A seamless blend of in-your-face metal riffs and chart-friendly pop choruses, featuring the remarkable vocals of Charlotte Wessels, all of which makes it more of a mystery why a major label sat on this record for months before releasing it. If only daytime radio wasn’t afraid of big-sounding guitars.

Enslaved – Riitiir

Symphonically-dense wall-of-sound metal which mixes moments of brutal heaviness with a surprising amount of melody. There’s plenty of death-metal growling, but there are also passages that prove how well metal riffs and Gregorian chants go together.

It Bites – Map Of The Past

The 80s pop-prog veterans reformed a few years back, with the talented John Mitchell at the helm.  Although the latest album doesn’t quite top 2008′s “The Tall Ships”, it’s still an impressive work that combines emotionally-rich songwriting with all the widdly soloing you could possibly want.

Mermaid Kiss – Another Country

A move away from the symphonic prog-rock of their previous album “Etarlis”, with a beautiful semi-acoustic record with touches of Americana and gospel. Not many bands have Cor Anglais as a principle lead instrument.

Sankara – Guided By Degrees

An impressive melodic hard rock début from former members of The Bluehorses and The Reasoning. It’s a rich, multilayered record in which Gareth Jones’s excellent vocal performance proves he’s more than capable fronting his own band.

Shadow Of The Sun – Monument

Former Reasoning guitarist Dylan Thompson returns with some prog-tinged hard rock/metal with guitars that go up to Eleven. A record that’s only been out a few days and I’ve only given a handful of listens. But that’s enough convince me it belongs on this list.

Howard Sinclair – The Delicious Company of Freaks

Lyric-driven semi-acoustic balladry from the Bristol-based singer-songwriter who supported Panic Room on their November tour. Some memorable songs, with one high point being the spellbinding “These Dark Hills” sung as a duet with Panic Room’s Anne-Marie Helder.

Squackett – A Life Within A Day

Two of the most distinctive instrumentalists in the prog-rock world combine their talents for a polished and song-focussed album. At times this collaboration sounds like Steve Hackett with a different bassist, at times it’s Yes with different guitars and vocals. “The Tall Ships” with it’s bass groove and soaring vocal harmonies is a particular highlight.

Winter in Eden – Echoes of Betrayal

With a great vocalist in Vicky Johnson, the Durham-based band prove if the songwriting is good enough it’s possible to do female-fronted symphonic metal without needing the choirs, orchestras and kitchen sinks of the more extravagant European bands.

Winter in Eden, fronted by Vicky Johnson (above) made a very complementary support act,and helped boost the crowd by bringing along a lot of their own fans. A British take on the European symphonic metal genre, they were one of the highlights of the first day of the Cambridge Rock Festival back in August. This support set carried on where they left off then, and made a very strong impression.

Unlike some bands of their ilk they don’t rely on choirs and orchestras that can’t be produced live without backing tapes. Steve Johnson’s keys and Sam Cull superb fluid guitar give them all the instrumental depth the music needs.

The latest incarnation of Karnataka got off to a strong start when they toured in the spring, and their recent “New Light” DVD is a good document of that tour. Now down to a basic five-piece minus multi-instrumentalist Colin Mold, their sound has become rawer and rockier. Lead singer Hayley Griffiths has grown far more in to the role of frontwoman for a rock band, getting inside the songs far more than she did in the spring.

While most of the material naturally still dates to the Rachel Jones and Lisa Fury versions of the band, the set did include some brand new songs, at least one of which wouldn’t have sounded out of place in Winter in Eden’s set.

One of the big attractions of Karnataka’s music is still Enrico Pinna’s fantastic guitar playing, with the extended workout on the epic “Forsaken” a particular highlight.

Karnataka play one final show in 2012 at The Scala in London, again with Winter in Eden as the support. Tickets available online here.

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.

This was my third CRF, and my second spending the full weekend under canvas.

For the early part of Thursday evening we decided to avoid the tribute bands on the main stage and check out some of the young bands on the second stage, such as Rowse, JoanovArc, The Treatment and The Virginmarys, before heading for the main stage for the headliners, Danny Vaughn’s The 80s Rocked.  They were billed as “an all-star band playing classic 80s rock hits”, and more or less did what they said on the tin, as cheesy as a very cheesy thing, but thoughoughly entertaining nevertheless.  Name an 80s rock hit, and they probably played it.  Eye of the Tiger?  You Give Love a Bad Name?  The Final Countdown? Of course!

The Classic Rock Society sponsored the second stage on Friday, with a bill made up of prog and metal. So we decided to stay in the smaller tent for most of the day then move to the main stage for the last 2-3 acts. The CRS stage opened with the acoustic four-piece Flaming June, whose red-headed singer reminded me more than a bit of a female version of Chris Johnson both in style and lyrics.  Best bands on the CRS stage were Winter In Eden, a British take on the European female-fronted symphonic metal genre, and Crimson Sky, who play female-fronted prog but with a quite punky/new wave style singer that sets them apart from other bands in the genre.  Final Conflict and The Dreaming Tree also played some entertaining progressive rock.  I didn’t see much of the main stage in the early part of the day, although I did catch some of UXL and Newman during intervals on the CRS stage, the latter of whom I heard described worryingly accurately as sounding “like filler tracks on Journey albums”.  At the end of The Dreaming Tree’s set I headed over to the main stage and caught the bulk of Danny Bryant’s Redeye Band, the excellent blues power trio who’d played the exact same slot the previous year.

Deborah Bonham, the late John Bonham’s younger sister, took Friday’s special guest spot, and even though I knew none of the songs, she was probably the best artist of the day. She played a set of raw and rootsy blues-rock with more than a hint of Led Zeppelin about it. Certainly she can reach the high notes that Robert Plant can’t get to any more.  After her set came The Tygers of Pan Tang, who I thought were a bit out of their depth as headliners, and suffered from an appalling sound mix that rendered the vocals all but inaudible in the early part of the set. Still I enjoyed their set quite a bit, and I seemed to get shown on the big screen rather a lot.  This is what happens when you’re with mates who drag you to the front row!

I spent most of Saturday in the main tent, kicking off with some no-nonsense rock’n'roll from Wolf Law, which was just the sort of thing we needed to wake us up first thing in the morning. The real sensation of the day was second on the bill, the young blues guitarist Chantal McGregor, who simply blew us all away. How on earth does someone that young get to play guitar like that?

After that it was over to the smaller tent to catch Emerald Sky’s set. Perhaps because I’d mentally confused them with Crimson Sky.  I was expecting a prog band, but they turned out to be an all-female metal power trio.  After that I spent the rest of the day back in the main stage tent.  Stray were as entertaining as they were last year, but another high spot was blues guitarist Larry Miller. If you remember, he (along with Karnataka) got bounced from the main stage due to the PA snafu last year – and on the strength of his performance on Saturday I think I’d have preferred those two to Focus and Asia!  His solo on the slow number (don’t remember the title) was utterly brain-melting.

Saturday’s special guests were the Oliver Dawson Saxon, who turned out to be the only real disappointment of the whole festival. They’re basically trading as a Saxon tribute band in competition with Biff Byford’s official Saxon, yet they played a whole load of mediocre new songs instead of many of the hits.  And their singer was awful.  Every festival must have it’s dud (it’s a rule, it seems), and they were that dud.

Saturday’s headliners were the Monsters of British Rock, originally billed as The Moody Murray Whitesnake until the intervention of David Coverdale’s lawyers forced a change of name.  As well as Micky Moody and Neil Murray from the original British incarnation of Whitesnake the band also included Laurie Wisefield of Wishbone Ash fame as the second guitarist, and Harry James of Thunder and Magnum fame on drums. While they weren’t perfect, they could have done with a better singer, and a bit more keys in the mix, I still enjoyed their set a lot.  Part of that was down to the company I was with (what’s better than listening to whole load of Whitesnake songs in the company of three extremely beautiful women?), and part of it was because the pre-hair metal Whitesnake songbook is absolutely full of classic tunes.  My one quibble is that it’s “Hobo”, not “Drifter”. Band and audience sang the wrong version!

Opener IO Earth divided opinions; some loved genre-bending mix of female-fronted prog, jazz, dance and Joe Satriani-style guitar pyrotechnics, while they left others scratching their heads. While their guitarist was very good indeed, they came over to me as something of work in progress, just too many differing styles to sit comfortably in one band.  We’ll have to see how they develop.

Next up, Panic Room, who played an absolute blinder of a set. As readers of this blog will know, I’ve seen them a lot of times over the past couple of years, and that was at least as good a performance I’ve ever seen them do.  Apart from the surprise cover of ELP’s “Bitches Crystal” the whole set came from the most recent album “Satellite”, ending with a soaring rendition of the title track.  Just a pity they were on so early that many people missed them; on the strength of that set, if they come back they’ll be much higher up the bill.

I’d seen Kyrbgrinder last year on the smaller Radio Caroline stage, this year they returned on the main stage. Certainly the most in-your-face metal band of the whole festival. Like last year, frontman drummer Joannes James is still very much the visual focus of the band, but this we also had some amazing guitar shredding from their new guitarist Tom Caris.

In April in Gloucester I witnessed the rebirth of Mostly Autumn with Breathing Space’s former singer Olivia Sparnenn taking over lead vocals.  At Cambridge we witnessed a similar  rebirth as the new-look Breathing Space took the stage with new members Heidi Widdop on lead vocals and Adam Dawson on guitar. It’s never easy for a new singer to sing often quite personal material written by the previous singer, but Heidi took songs like “Searching For My Shadow” and made them hers. She has a rawer, bluesier vocal style compared with Livvy, which completely transforms the sound of the band.  You’d never have known that she’s suffered from throat problems that forced the cancellation of a warm-up gig a couple of days earlier. Adam Dawson also impressed, completely nailing the solos.  This is a band who have landed on their feet after some enforced changes, and the two news songs premiered promise some exciting times ahead.

Aireya 51 were by far the weakest band on Sunday’s bill; we’d seen a lot of people doing the singer-guitarist thing over the weekend and doing it far better. That was up to the point where Don Airey joined them on stage on Hammond organ and showed us the difference between an anonymous session muso and a Rock Star.  That last 20 minutes was great, and more than made up for the rest of the set.

Praying Mantis were another of the revelations of the festival. I’d seen them at one of the early 80s Reading Festivals, and they’d seemed one of the also-rans of the NWOBHM scene.  Fast-forward 30 years and what we have now is an absolutely superb melodic rock band, awesomely tight, great vocals and some wonderful twin-guitar harmonies.

Hazel O’Connor and the Subterraneans seemed a bit out of place on the bill; an 80s new-wave pop act in a sea of classic rock and prog. But the enthusiasm of her performance soon won over the crowd, aided by a tight band featuring some superb sax playing from Claire Hurst.  After a weekend of axe heroes seeing a band where the lead instrument isn’t a guitar made a welcome change. Apart from the big hit “Eighth Day” and a cover of The Stranglers’ “Hanging Around” I didn’t know any of the songs, but it didn’t matter. And I wasn’t the only person to note the Irish-themed song played as an encore bore more than a passing resemblance to Mostly Autumn’s “Out of the Inn”.

Prog veterans The Enid took the special guest spot. I know a few people I spoke to afterwards just didn’t get what they do, but down the front it was a different matter and their unique brand of largely-instrumental symphonic rock had the audience absolutely mesmerised, the festival crowd stunned into silence. While I didn’t recognise everything they played, the set included faves like “In the Region of the Summer Stars”, a big chunk of the new album, finished with a spellbinding “Dark Hydraulic”.

After that, only my favourite band could possibly end things, and they didn’t disappoint. Their 80-minute set might not quite have been up to the standard of their very best performances on the spring tour, but given the constraints of a festival it was still a very good performance, far, far better than the gremlin-plagued set from last year’s festival. No surprises in the setlist, but given the fact they band have been busy in studio writing and recording the new album we didn’t really expect any.  Highlights were a great version of “The Last Bright Light”, one that hasn’t always worked for me live, the former Breathing Space song “Questioning Eyes”, and a very powerful “Heroes Never Die”.