Reviews

A short-term muscle-flexing as a direct way to a heavy league - even in the Bay Area where the grit is thrown in spades.

Nowadays riding a funk wave means getting either to a punk or art shore but this quartet surf a paradox by marrying their progressive touch to a spiky brevity. On their first full-length album the band cross a 4-minute mark only once, and such eloquently concise approach has won them many fans: in took them no more than 45 days after posting a fundraising appeal on KickStarter to gather 114% of what was needed to record "Cinematic". It's easy to buy attention with a catchy folky groove of "Righteous Path" or raga-inflected "The Fall Of Golden Gate", but the three-part "Mavericks" that runs through the CD bears no sign of levity and immediacy. While its first heavy, then danceable riff packs a hook to measure all the depth of the foursome's bittersweet melody wrapped in Ben Everett's bass throb, and there's palpable indie dynamics in muscular "The Night" and reflexive, full of pop pull, "The Day".

With a lot of space to make singer Jonathan Posadas' guitar solos breathe, the silence theme flowing into "National Ave." from "Run Like Hell" is so prominent that one gets the group's desire to explore and conquer it. They do it in fine style - the greatness is beckoning.

****2/3

Teenage laments and adult innuendos from masters of glamorous trade with superficial glitz.

The Chicago four sculpt a multidimensional overload - nebulous but expressive, enveloping but cold.

Their name tell many things about this band whose music is extremely clever yet emotionally dry if lacking the density that name suggests. Rooted equally in prog rock and jazz, the quartet don't restrict such drift in terms of complexity and time span of a single track but reserve a space for sense of humor by placing "This Is Beginning" - the icy, minimalist, almost abstract groove over white noise and wild guitar to shatter a witch's brew - at the second part of their second album, stressing a philosophical, rather than sequential, element of it all. But "Almost Morning" is a perfect opener, Leslie Beukelman's crystal voice lulling in Rob Clearfield's acoustic chords like an early bird in a puddle's glacial water before playing hide-and-seek with drums until the momentum is gained and initial intimacy's lost to the fusion sophistication and heavy riffs. Another epic, "The Real Things", looms ethereal as vocals creep in on a thin slice of dewy electronics which turn into silvery piano reverie stricken with piquant bass and brushed cymbals, but then, the metal wall gets restored for the fragility to bounce off. Delicate folksiness reign in "Soft And Not Knowing", all the more beautiful for its organ background, and "Your Voice - Part II" tries to build as a conventional, or even traditional, ballad and it's there that the real nerve and soul of the band comes to the surface. Perhaps, there's more to their intellectualism than the ear meets.

***

There's a hope where the tears are, and looking for forgotten spectres is the best way to connect to here and now.

Having a fans' convention is not your regular artist's lot, so the existence of "Emilyfest" in North Carolina speaks volumes about this Chicagoan's ability to delve into one's psyche. Having created a heartbreaker image on her previous seven albums, this time Ms Hurd displays a broken heart of her own - but not before going for a reckless ride which makes the songs' sequence unbalanced yet quite logical. Or, perhaps, it's plain chronology kicks in as, due to an injury, Emily was forced to back away from piano in favor of ukulele. The stately keys may lead an acoustic strum of the title track but, as the voice crystallizes for a flight, the barnyard jive crops up on the fiddle strain, yet with country straws all over the place, the singer digs deeper, so the likes of "Skipping Stones" feel irresistible.

From "A Lot Like" that evokes the rural blues and communal spirit, and further on, here's no escaping from the dance she engages us in, both on lyrical and melodic levels: where else you can hear a word "finale" in a song like "My Favorite Part" that pitches a pop hope into a vaudevillian uplift? But the record's finale, the grandiosely bare-bone "Easy Call", sees such optimism back only after a string of sad pieces welcomed in by the silky glide of "Silent Conversations", even though the pain is shaped as a joke in "I Won't Tell A Soul", and it's in "Irreparably Yours" that Emily, running her vocals from theatrical to husky and intimate, spreads her songwriter wings for a full span to "declare a disaster" and open emotional pores in the most thick-skinned of listeners. It's a warmly shimmering record which neatly defines a term "bittersweet" and rewards any new spin by revealing new nuances - the one anybody who's ever loved can relate to.

****

The first part of a new year trilogy - the premiere reedsman of Swedish prog blows a storm.

A six-string virtuoso gives a master class of one-take approach leaving no space for casual spontaneity and the whole world for emotions.

With all his versatility, Si Hayden could have been a national treasure in the U.K. if only he had the rage of Rory Gallagher or the flash of Richard Thompson, but he prefers to keep it down and serious be it on his own or as foil for violinist Joe O'Donnell, or as multi-instrumentalist in jazzers MORLEY HAYDEN HAINES. And here's an example: Si's many musical faces are reflected, and refracted, in a dozen of acoustic guitar pieces that are being played as straight as a lace goes, with no overdubs to paint an additional, needless vignette. Still, the cover car is an amalgamation of the title track which marries Delta blues to flamenco to demonstrate Hayden's filigree finger-work, while the devilish slide that rides through "A Slight Tale" makes its ominous entrance in the sparse opener "Dusk" to set the agenda. Yet it doesn't prepare the listener for such deliciously lazy groove as the one under "I Roll" or the shadow of Indian chant of "Walnut Bridge". Whatever wide the maestro stylistic palette is, there's a wholeness to the album, a sign of Si's immaculate taste matching his delivery and making the result sharply focused and sensually riveting. Calm but cool.

****

A coolness by another name where carpet crawlers know no Dude.

Jeff Bridges' most cultish character was of Polish origin, but none of these Polish musicians has that same name, so the quartet play up the Hollywood connection too well, their debut's title telling all about their music - save for the fact that it lacks the suggested humor, yet that's the name of the game as far as instrumental prog is concerned. The foursome's take on it is gloriously panoramic: the opener, "Trip To Doha", explores stereophonic vista in the scope of Marcin Grzegorczyk's ethereal six-string soar and swoops, new age way, when Marcin Luczaj swirls his classically-informed piano solo into an Arabic-tinctured synth tune which finds a wordless vocal continuation in the meandering "137 Sec." to wrap all seven minutes of it in transparent riffs. The keyboards impressively flash across "Old British Spy Movie" with its urgent ticking and a nostalgic violin, yet - unlike in the accordion-shot "Encore" - there's no retro color to emotional wave the melody invokes, while the monologue snippets designed to stress the music's screen quality ruin its fragile mood once in a while. But overall tone is rich, guitar harmonies filling the spaces to make it breathe with enigma, and when the curtains fall in the organ-oiled and sax-smoothed "Human Error", you feel the journey's been good enough to embark on the adventure one more time.

****

A sultry chanteuse cools down her act to let her multicolor voice stay one-to-one with black and white keys.

Live at NEARfest, the Seattle's finest pull all the progressive breaks to unfold in their tapestry-rich entirety.

Progressive rock in its purest: it can't get more refined in the dark woods.

The FLOWER KINGS or TRANSATLANTIC fans will confirm that, when it comes to himself, Roine Stolt knows no quarter. But he'd be the first to say that keeping an experimental edge always sharpened is tiresome, so the master founded another band, AGENTS OF MERCY, to be as classic as it gets for neo prog. One may bemoan the genre's refusal to dig for roots of the original music form, and outsiders can be averted by "The Black Forest", yet for the aficionados it's a balm. Echoes of progenitors abound, epics like "Citadel" marry straightforward attack to adventurousness for the the group's third album to balance the "art" and "rock" particles.

The agenda is laid out in the sprawling title track once Lalle Larsson's crystal keys give way to Stolt's heavy riffs, and Nad Sylvan's voice weaves a predatory narrative and lets the instruments ebb up and down to drown the mastery in the sea of emotions. It's a rare feat in modern prog as is such a heartfelt ballad as "Elegy". The long solos are there, of course, but they - especially when executed on organ - embellish the picture rather than distract, and once "A Quiet Little Town" pours funky jive and gospel choir onto the artsy mill, this deviance makes the whole rather spicy and captivating. "Kingdom Of Heaven" returns the progressive flow to its basic values, and here the Black Forest really feels like home sweet home.

****

The ex-YES romantics reach for the state where emotions take over virtuosity.

When the British steel meets Christian flesh and blood: the NWOBHM vibe is back for good. Or for worse.

The mettle rages on: the Neapolitan seven take their fun one gear down and forward.

Southern rock from the Northern Italy: fire and fun, sludge and sweetness.

There's Lodi in California and Lodi in Lombardy, and you could safely bet on the former to embrace the purely American kind of heavy rock which the Allmans and the Van Zants outlined, but this quartet from the latter turn such notion on its head. Metallers at their heart, SMOKEY FINGERS pour swing from their soul - and Fabrizio Costa's bass - and the lava oozes from Diego Dragoni's rock 'n' roll riffs throughout, and if "Old Jack" or the female-backed "The Good Countryside" throws it all in back the '70s' mist, its smell of beer 'n' sweat is timeless. So are the tears of "Born To Run" where Luke Paterniti loosens his vocal grip to pin down the sentimentality in the lull of acoustic strum and lap steel that give way to a tasty Fender Rhodes boogie, whereas "Devil's Song" pitches the fever even higher. The band groove wildly, the slow "Over The Line" and angry "Chains Of Mind" oiling the tuneful racket with a slider, while the sharp modern edge of "Country Road" can defy an Alabama trucker for a scuffle. Yet it's the dobro-sprinkled jive in "Crazy Woman" that delivers this album's most transcendental moments and makes one wish the FINGERS to burn long as there's no smoke without fire.

****1/2

Crepuscular jazz with a Transatlantic shimmer to its ebb and no place for doubt.

The twin-guitar warriors go back to their roots to return triumphantly and rejuvenated.

The veteran Krautrockers catch up with their erstwhile futurism and have a blast in Japan.

For the most part, reunions are dewy-eyed affairs with a palpable patina on an aural picture that a resurrected band deliver. AGITATION FREE break this notion to bits. Flying over to Japan to induct a second member of their classic line-up into a wax museum in 2007, the old Krauters and their fans celebrated the occasion with three shows which were preserved for posterity and form a glorious new chapter in the ensemble's history. Here, the quintet conjure up most of their first two albums with an addition of a cut from their previous get-together of 1999 and a fresh concoction that shows there can possibly still be a future for these veterans.

"Future" might be a keyword for this live document that springs from the familiar recorded dialogue snippets into sonics rather modern to make old material sound as if it was composed on a travel far ahead of its, or ours, time. If "In The Silence of the Morning Sunrise" bears a hint of retro-serenity in its ticking heart where Lutz Ulbrich's guitar pitches in a transparent fusion, as he does in the flamenco light of "Das Kleine Uhrwerk", the riff-shaking "You Play For Us Today" create a perfect build-up for an intense experience, as "Ala Tul" riding on Michael Hoenig's organ brings "Great Gig In The Sky" down to the Hacienda floor. Then, "Laila" threads a hot, speeding up blues spiral on its acoustic string, and "Malesch" swells up on Michael Gunther's bass tectonics, while the oriental flow of "Shibuya Nights" complements an Arabian dance of "Sahara City" in the "Far East meets Middle East" cosmic collision of a deep rhythm section dig. With a new, lava-lamp-like composition "Drifting" to soothe the sores, it's a retina-searing experience, so when "Rucksturz" shakes off the last dandruff from one's sideburns, the listener's left flattened and grateful.

*****

The most romantic progger reaches for the Big One and does it at large.

A songwrtiter par exellence goes it alone and wins hands down.

Always a singer in his own right, Phillip Goodhand-Tait is more famous for writing songs that other artists, such as Gene Pitney and Roger Daltrey, brought to mass attention. Both recorded "Oceans Away", a beautiful song that its author chose to open this unique performance, recorded for Radio Bremen in 1977 completely solo with only a Steinway to roll the voice on. The result is intimate and uplifting, the atmosphere working miracles with covers: it spurns "Doris Day's into an elegant rock-a-drama and transforms two Buddy Holly covers, "Everyday" and "Oh Boy", from effervescing rockers to candlelit blues. "One More Rodeo", though, doesn't lose an iota of its galloping grace, while the cinematic "Parade" and "Leon" can give Elton a melancholy run for his millions. There's no mistaking where the mood comes from as "The Lady Lives in England" kicks the ache of its melody into the bitter-sweet gears, and "Angeltown", then a brand-new paean to London, soars in its imaginary fog.

Times might change since then but in 2010 the veteran is still able to turn back the clock: this collection is augmented with Phillip Goodhand-Tait's praying before Ricky Nelson altar - now with a full band - and reminiscing about the past in "Radio, Play That Song Again" that is a fitting bottom-line to this moving concert.

*****

Older and wiser, an unlikely British hero returns to tell it like it is and squeeze all of his life into the grooves.

There are many faces to John Fiddler, the most radical ones being a sardonic hippy of John Peel’s darlings MEDICINE HEAD and the metal belter at the front of BRITISH LIONS, and it’s the former that the veteran’s been sticking to during the last decade. But that was a stage-only option, while the prospect of a new album seemed unlikely, yet here it is, 35 years on since the previous record, and with a modern edge as Fiddler put all his experience into it now.

Why not if our reality is such a sore, and how else to sing of it all if not in the bluesy vein? So “Free” launches the agenda in the HEAD traditional ring of acoustic guitar and harmonica where the strident approach reveals a lyrical hope that turns urgent in the upbeat swampiness of “Narcisister”. But if “First I Lost My Mind” slows things down for the playful to turn into the painful, “Cadillacs And Diamonds” flows on a laid-back West Coast vibe which denies consumerism in the name of love. Yet “I’ll Turn You On” is the best power ballad this side of hard rock and it’ll take ages to forget Laurence Archer’s slide figure that carries “The Haunting”. And there’s peace in the end, as “Angela And Misfits” flattens all the questions marks hanging over Fiddler’s songs into a straight and smooth pop route. That’s the philosophy to live by.

****1/4

No gloom at all, the Italian hard rockers fire off their second tuneful missive with riffs to savor.

It's hard to play heavy metal today without careening either to depressive delivery or sleazy glam, yet musicians from behind the Apennine ridge have always ride the balanced wave not striving to reinvent the wheel. And that's how it goes for this album which blissfully ignores a last couple of hard rocking decades, save for the cold keyboards under the guitar rage, and is all the better for it. The title track and "Silence's Broken" may boast a bit of alternative edge in its heart but serve as a nice showcase for Matteo Albarelli's cutting vocals, yet the band's real force is their melodic verve that makes the chorus of "No More" simply irresistible, its acoustic version tagged to the end to bare the sextet's sensual nerve even more impressive.

The sway of "Ephemeral Light", hung on the dual guitar fulcrum of Andrea Ringoli and Valerio Castiglioni, possesses a stadium appeal and can run the iron charts, while ballad "As We Did Before" gets too close to sentimental morass until "Princess Of Time" pitches a real pain in its piano-driven emotion. But then there's a fervent rock 'n' roll of "Lipstick" to cure it all with the air allowed to breathe between the riffs, and the funky "Intoxication Of Love" propelled by Paolo Luoni's bass. Nothing new, of course, yet who needs new when the old rules work so efficiently? HOMERUN's black world is a comfortable place.

****

The everlasting talent delivers a new album in many years to show his affair with music is still hot.

It almost didn't happen, as Steve Ellis seemed to not have planned to record anything fresh at all, but when an invitation came to try out a new studio the veteran and his band rose to the occasion without relying on his road-tested evergreens. And if half of this CD rolls on covers, the soul slant the singer imposes on such classics as the Fabs' "Please Please Me" (with a video making it onto the same disc) or BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD's sprightly "On The Way Home" brings on a delight of non-immediate recognition. More so, Ellis connects his past with a present day with the smoothly funkified, in the '70s way, "Healing Touch" from the same team who composed his perennial "Everlasting Love", even though its boisterous successors here are two new songs: the bubbly, brass-washed opener "Don't Let Me Be The Only One" and "Perfect Sunday" with its memorable chorus.

A master guitarist reaching out for his address book and for the listeners’ hearts – in the memory of "the good and the gifted we lost too soon" and for the tragedy not to strike again.

Melodic onslaught from the masters of the trade whose names speaks for themselves but not for their music.

With surnames not so rare, in such combination it's easy to tell who these people are and that what the trio came up with isn't so easy. While Alan White is most famous for drumming with YES where experimental edge is well hidden but always present, his pairing with Tony Levin, a progressive bass supremo, makes for a fantastic rhythm section bent on a tune - the fact that both played with John Lennon can't be ignored. But here, the leading melodic force and most recent common denominator is David Torn, a guitarist whose idiosyncratic style renders their inherent adventurousness even more intriguing.

To be transported - and transfixed - savor the talents' tangle of "The Hood Fell", rocking to the tilt but sweet to the core, an airy transparence of "Convergence" or the iron-fist-in-a-glove of "Cheese It, The Corpse" which makes a rewarding sense only with repeated spins. As for immediate eureka, there's Torn's mighty chord to open the proceedings with "No Warning Light", its initial soundscape indeed not predicting the intensity of what's to follow: a dark, heavy, almost industrial groove. In "Ultra Mullett" it takes the CRIMSO-like jive to a freaky dancefloor with Levin's bottom-end antics peppered with his Chapman stick chops and Torn's wild flurries, whereas in "White Noise" the stringers ride a spacious percussive powerhouse of the titular band member. At the same time, "Pillowful Of Dark" sees its ghostly gloom shot through with acoustic guitar's flamenco vignettes against the hazy talk, and "Sleeping Horse", serenity wrapping around anxiety, is as progressively deep and pleasant as it gets, but "Crunch Time" packs some funky rage in its many layers.

It's a complex work, just as one expects, but there's no bare professionalism. The players' smiles are hidden in many a corner of this musical labyrinth and it's emotionally rich. So take risk as these veterans always do, and ripe the discovery.

****3/4

A new artists with a great promise debuts on a brand new label from Leeds. The lad's got soul!

His is a telling name for Naked's music builds on vulnerability and self-assuredness in equal measure. Which is not surprising given the artist's CV includes work with the likes of John Holt and Finlay Quaye, and this, his first EP sees an instrumental input from Matt Steele of BRAND NEW HEAVIES. But it's James' rootsiness and emotions that impress most on "Crazy Girl" that mixes acoustic guitar strum with a smooth organ purr to make a bed for a silky voice and then welcome a psychedelic crunch to rock the bottom, yet its riffs turn nebulous in the song's unplugged re-imagination which hangs onto romantic thread.

In between lie a lysergic swirl of "No Apples" with its acid jazz breaks amid purple haze of sound effects, the lyrical, soulful recital of "Talk To Me", and the predatory "Don't You Get Me", high on desperation, a trumpet cool and infectious unpredictability. Yet it's impossible not to get Naked - and not to wait for his full-blown record.

****1/2

An Italian maestro makes a strong statement for the international community to take his country seriously.

Straight rock-wise, the Apennine Peninsula didn't have much to offer for a long time, what with progressive and metal bands making the world consider their music almost as bombastic as opera, which means good but for aficionados only. Now, there's a chance to break the trend, as Vittorio Tolomeo delivers his debut that's as traditional as modern to suck any alternative joker and melody lover in its boiling cauldron. The opener, "Migrant Soul", lays its drive on the line, vocals reveling in the slithery guitar web that gets adventurous with "Rain Way", yet it takes repeated spins to discover all the layers the Messina man piles here with a smile. There's an optimistic jaunt of "Crawling Art" and an anxious folk march in the bluesy drones of "Love Insane" that could have swung Fillmore four decades earlier, while "Passenger" gets into one's soul and tugs on the heartstrings with its punchy beat and almost orchestral sway.

It's as big an album as it gets to make you take it home, and when "You Don't Stop" waves good-bye, you really don't stop wanting more.

****

A sonic autobiography of the organ grinder who takes stock of his life in music with no intention to stop.

A starry-eyed bassist marries vulnerability to exuberance to turn the life-affirming dream into reality.