Biography
Progressive Ears is
a website dedicated to the discussion of progressive rock and
related music through the message boards on the site in a friendly
community atmosphere. Among some of the frequent posters of
the site's large membership are actual artsits. To help gain
exposure for these resident musicians, Progressive Ears has
sponsored two sampler CDs with work from said artists to raise
money for the site and give the artists more exposure.
Earsongs
(2001)
This is a nice
little sampler put together by the people over at the Progressive
Ears website (www.progressiveears.com) which showcases some
of the unsigned bands and artists that frequent the discussion
boards there. I guess the only way to treat a release
like this properly is to go track by track. Bear with
me.
The album kicks off with a track by a band that's been making
waves on the avant-progressive end of things of late, The Red
Masque. The track is taken from their Death of the
Red Masque EP, reviewed elsewhere on this site, and reaffirms
my belief that this is a band with a lot of talent and the right
approach. If they're not quite there, with their
blend of avant-rock, heavy atmospherics and haunting vocals,
it's because they're just on the cusp of something greater.
That said, "Tidal" is most certainly among the highlights of
this disc. Scott Mosher follows things up with "Re-Define",
a track seems to fall within the "neo-prog" genre, yet also
reminds me heavily of late 80s Rush circa Hold Your Fire.
This is compounded by the contemplative lyrical themes, which
to me recall a Peart-ian air of heavy-handedness (not
really a bad thing). My only problem here is the rather
simplistic rhythmic drive, exacerbated by a certain drum machine-induced
sterility, though I doubt most neo-progressive fans would have
a problem there. A pleasant melodic drive and overall
a nice track. Menayeri's contribution, "Tiempo de Volver"
was pretty cool too. Again, this would perhaps fall towards
the neo-progressive end of things, with a melodic, hard-edged
feel. The vocalist is great, delivering his lines in Spanish,
and the melodies are catchy. For me the problem is again
with the rhythm section. Although this sounds like a live
drummer, his playing seems belabored and simplistic. What
should be a driving, exciting piece seems to drag.
Excellent melodies, but the band's that work do so from the
rhythm section up, and this one needs to fine tune their lineup.
For Mindworm's "Trolley" the band was good, particularly the
keyboard player, but the voice is masked with an unnecessary
effect at times, and I personally found the vocal parts less
than compelling. The instrumental parts were nice though.
Again, this seems to fall into the same general vein as the
prior two tracks, sort of a hard-edged/pop-prog type of thing.
"Get Thee Behind Me Santa" by John Curtis is a short, fun, instrumental
keyboard workout. Not much else needs to be said there.
Lyle Holdahl
is another artist that has been reviewed on these pages before.
On his recent Prog and Prog 2 opuses, I can't
in all honesty say I was particularly impressed. However,
this little snippet, "Labyrinth Suite", sounded pretty cool
in isolation, showcasing Holdahl's fine melodic sensibilities.
However, one could probably see how the sort of same-y sounding
rhythms and grandiose digital keys could get somewhat tiresome
over two discs. "A Gift Unopened" by Phil McKenna is a
departure from the more vocal-oriented fare I'd heard so far,
being entirely instrumental, and particularly King Crimon-inspired.
Pretty cool, featuring some dark, tasty bass and guitar work.
The drum machine unfortunately seems to drag things significantly,
as the main theme features a convoluted rhythm that doesn't
entirely work, as well as a rather redundant keyboard theme.
Good playing, but needs to go somewhere compositionally.
"Castaway" by Random was a downtrodden and morose cut, this
sounded essentially like some kind of pop music (solo John Wetton
perhaps?). Eric Kampman's "The Desert" seems to be among
the more ambitious tracks here, clocking in at 12 minutes.
Once again this is in the neo-progressive vein, with digital
keys galore, along with a lonely, emotional sort of atmosphere.
This definitely had that sort of cheesy, melodramatic neo vibe,
which doesn't really appeal to me personally. The album
closes with "Kirchenrahmen", another sort of jokey, short piece
from John Curtis and notallwhowonder.
In closing,
the cut from The Red Masque was probably the one that had the
most impact. Of the artists here, this band is probably
the one with the more inventive, not to mention "professional",
sort of approach. The rest are generally fun pieces, but
often come off a little half-baked, be it drum machines, stylistic
clichés or what have you. On the whole, this is
not something I would pull out to listen to very often, if ever.
But hell, this sampler is for a good cause, and its always good
to support independent progressive acts. Swing by www.progressiveears.com
for more information. -
Greg Northrup [January 2002]
Click
Here for Tracklist and Lineup Info
Togetherness
(2002)
This is the second
sampler put together by the folks over at Progressive
Ears, which showcases some of the unsigned bands and artists
that frequent the discussion boards of the website. The first
thing that strikes me about this sampler compared to the first
is that the majority of the songs are full band efforts and
have a more professionally recorded and produced sound. Some
of these bands have already seen reviews of their albums on
these pages, and in the interest of keeping this review less
on the long winded side, here are links to the individual reviews
for more info: Land
of Chocolate, Dreadnaught,
Ron
Imhoff.
The festivities
start out with the rollicking "Upping the Ante" from Land of
Chocolate's Unikorn on the Cob, filled with bouncy keyboards
and aggressive instrumental play. A great upbeat song to open
the disc. Alias Eye shift gears with the mellow "Just Another
Tragic Song" from Field of Names. As can be inferred
from the title, this is a melancholy piece. Unfortunately, they
can't avoid the pitfalls of the cliché 'over dramatic
neo' typical of this style and fail to do anything really interesting
or original, although they play the style very well. It would
be interesting to hear a track that wasn't so obviously skewed
to its title. Gary Jibilian's "Galaxy Rodeo" is a fun and bouncy
(although a bit repetitive) piece revolving around stick and
drums and captures the spirit of the title well. "The Role of
the Bagel" is a short novelty piece with a lounge inspired casio-like
backing to a Zappa meets Seinfeld rant about bagels. A bit of
nonsense, but I'm sure that's all it was meant to be. Dreadnaught's
"Ballbuster" kicks things into high gear again with their fast
paced and complex mixture of americana and prog, showing off
their diverse and original style. One of the standout songs
on the disc. Up next is "Moving In Moving Out" from Mindworm
- a solid and aggressive take on the classic prog style, yet
with a strong American flavour. Lots of nice breaks and changes
and great solos. While having some rather pedestrian vocal melodies
and lyrics, the great instrumental interplay is what makes the
song.
Thieves' Kitchen's
representation on the album is in the form of an edit of "Call
to Whoever" from their latest album Argot. An interesting
and original take on the Neo-prog genre, the band concentrates
on one of the classic elements of prog: complex and extended
songs, which is usually missing from the modern scene in the
UK. The one weak link of the band is the singer, who lacks much
range, but after the recording of this album was replaced. Amy
Darby made her debut at ProgDay this year and the band put on
a great set. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the
band can do now, writing specifically for her voice. Another
stand out track on the disc is Karda Estra's "Andraiad" from
the album Eve. While in essence a solo project, Richard
Wileman's guitars and keyboards are accompanied by vocals, strings
and woodwinds to create a hauntingly beautiful classical atmosphere.
This is one band I'd like to hear more of. The brooding intro
of the Red Masque's "Birdbrain" segues nicely from the previous
piece, building on a dark string sound and adding the powerful
vocals of Lynette Shelly. The piece continues with some dark
and aggressive instrumental play from the rest of the group
and shows a definite maturity from their previous work. Ron
Imhoff's "Midnight Rain" showcases the more laid back ambient
influences on his playing, opening and closing with a wash of
string-like synth, leading into a slow, yet at times heavy guitar
flow, creating a nice dirge like feel. The final two pieces,
"Ka-os" by Fire Monkey and "Perfect Picture in Reverse" from
The Owl Watches suffer from the one-man-band syndrome, sounding
flat and one dimensional, but would easily benefit from a fleshed
out full band sound.
All in all, a
large step up from the first sampler, and a great showcase from
some of the more obscure acts working in progressive rock today.
My one beef with the package is that it is a CD-R with computer
printed out liners at full price. But I guess I can't complain
too much on that end because it goes to support a rather noble
cause.
- Mike Prete [September 2002]
