Prog Britannia - Album Reviews

 Fall of Hyperion (1974) Review:- http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=2284819

In the Region of the Summer Stars (1976)

Aerie Faerie Nonsense (1977)

Touch Me (1979)

Six Pieces (1980)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

The Spell (1985)

Salome (1986)

Joined By The Heart (1987)

The Seed and the Sower (1988)

Tripping the Light Fantastic (1994)

Sundialer (1995)

White Goddess (1997)

Arise and Shine (2009)

Journey's End (2010)

Risen (2011)

Shining (2012)

Invicta (2012)

 First Light (2014)

The Bridge (2015)

Dust (2016)

 Resurgency (2017)

U (2019)

I'll have an album review coming up soon for String Driven Thing.

Alright Now, it's time to meet "The Man" for our opening song. It's a slow tempo heavy blues number with the gravelly-voiced soulful singer Mike Patto sounding like he regularly eats sandpaper for breakfast. The music is nicely laid-back, with a similar sound to some of the slower gutsy songs by Paul Rodgers and Free. The song also has the added bonus of a Jazzy instrumental interlude featuring the lustrous sound of the vibraphone, which glides softly over the listener like gossamer caresses. If you were to throw a coin in the Wishing Well and hope for a soulful and bluesy Free-like number to open a Jazz- Rock album, then "The Man" is exactly what you would get. The second song "Hold Me Back" is a storming Blues-Rock song with a punchy rhythm section but without any of the Jazzy elements heard in the opening song. There's no holding back the electric guitarist on this bluesy number, as he demonstrates some frenetic finger-licking prowess on the fretboard. Onto Song No. 3 now and "It's all behind, it's time to rest, it's time to die" ..... Those are the opening lyrics to "Time To Die", so this song isn't exactly bursting with joyous optimism and happiness. The long-haired singer Mike Patto looks and sounds not unlike soulful David Coverdale of Deep Purple in the YouTube video that accompanies the song. If you're in the mood for some mean and moody British blues, then the raw and earthy "Time To Die" might be just your cup of tea (taken without milk and sugar). Get ready for some red-hot duelling guitars in "Red Glow", a song which brings to mind the classic dual guitar leads of Wishbone Ash. The guitarist with Patto might not have an awesome "Flying V" guitar like Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash, but he can still make it perform virtual aerobatics with some stunning Stratocaster guitar licks.

Having found a YT video for "Time To Die" on Side One, we're doubly-blessed with a Live YouTube video for "San Antone", the opening song on Side Two. This song is an all-out raucous rocker with a pile-driving rhythm which barrels along relentlessly for three minutes with barely enough time for the band to come up for air. This group of London guys sound just like a bunch of good old boys from San Antonio, Texas in this pounding Southern Rock number. The only thing missing in the YT video are the long beards of ZZ Top, forever remembered as the hirsute Texas trio whose drummer Frank Beard is the only member without a beard! The 6th song "Government Man" is a fairly routine bluesy number with a laid-back mellow groove. The song is nothing to do with a G-Man from the F.B.I. though. No, it's a sad and sorry tale of a family about to lose their home to the government man of the title. The song might be back-to-basics British blues, but it still beats most of what passes for popular music on the radio these days. Forget Bieber Fever - this is what REAL music sounds like! The next song "Money Bag" is the longest piece of music on the album, running at around ten minutes long. It's also the Jazziest tune on the album, where the extended running time allows ample time for some wild improvisational experimentation. The first six minutes is one of those Love/Hate pieces of music, where you'll either love it for the technical wizardry to be heard from a group of accomplished musicians at the top of their game, or you'll hate it for what sounds to your ears like "a tuneless mess". Either way, the last four minutes is a return to some sense of normality for the standard double-four-time British blues formula to be heard on earlier songs. Are you sitting comfortably? We're "Sittin' Back Easy" (with no "g") now for the final song from Patto's debut. It's a two-part piece of music with a deceptively quiet opening to put one in a relaxed and mellow frame of mind. There's no time to rest on our laurels though, as the opening just serves as a prelude for some powerful Blues-Rock which slowly gathers in pace, exploding out into a storming crescendo of sound for the magnificent finale. It's a four-minute-long album highlight.

Patto have stormed onto the Jazz-Rock stage in impressive style with this powerful bluesy debut which packs a mighty punch!

The album opens in fine rollicking and rambunctious style with "It Came On Sunday", which comes loudly knocking at your back door. The postman doesn't bother to ring twice, he just comes crashing straight through your door with a special delivery of powerhouse heavy blues. It's not quite as heavy as the throbbing and thunderous raw proto-metal of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath though. No, this roaring song with its pounding beat and hypnotic rhythm is more akin to the powerful organ-driven sound of early Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and Rare Bird, with a healthy splash of mean and mighty blues thrown into the mix too. It's probably best to hunker down through the storming Hard Rock of "It Came On Sunday" and wait for Monday to come 'round. There's no peace for the wicked (or the good) though, because it's time now for a piece of "Mrs. Cooper's Pie", which turns out to be a tasty slice of thrumming organ-driven heavy rock, of which High and Mighty keyboard wizard Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep fame would be mighty proud. This Very 'eavy, Very 'umble song is a Demons and Wizards Wonderworld of sonic energy which has all of the raw undiluted power of a tank rolling across Salisbury Plain, so you better run, you better take cover, because this tank ain't stopping for anyone. We're celebrating the Sweet Freedom of a "Ladybird" next, as we dive Head First into this sonic blast from the blast. Again, the Writing is on the Wall for another pounding and pulsating explosion of audio dynamite, as this band of stormtroopers are on a take-no-prisoners Conquest, where you the listener may be the Innocent Victim. This is an album that should come with a noise abatement notice! The band really Ram the message home with the next storming rocker: "Aries". Batten down the hatches because this album is about to get VERY LOUD indeed! "Aries" is a supercharged high-energy cover version of a track from the classic American Psychedelic Rock album , "The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds", recorded in the Summer of Love year of 1967. This is where the manic intensity of earlier numbers is ramped up to 99 and taken to a whole new level of sonorous magnitude, instilling the music with all of the unstoppable power and energy of a battering Ram. Whether or not you believe in horoscopes, it's written in the stars that the Astounding Sounds of this song and album will Amaze and Delight fans of Heavy Prog.

Take cover! It could be a good time to hide under the bed now or the "Bogeyman" might get you. He sounds like a mean and moody bogeyman too, if this creepy blues number with a mean and moody attitude is anything to go by. The brief and very bizarre sailor's hornpipe sea shanty in the opening only adds to the Looney Tunes wackiness in this wild ride on the Crazy Train, with the manic vocalist sounding like he's on some kind of psychedelic acid trip from Hell. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible..... There's no hope of sanity returning any time soon though as it's a Return To Fantasy for "Shadow of Man". It's another dark and brooding return to insanity that doesn't just verge on madness - it goes right off the rails altogether and takes the listener on a nightmare ride of absolute bedlam where the lines between fantasy and reality are constantly blurred. The music is a lunatic asylum of crazy over-the-top vocals accompanied by an absolutely manic keyboard player and a drummer going hell for leather with the relentless pounding power of a pneumatic drill. "Shadow of Man" represents a non-stop bunker-busting artillery barrage of sound from beginning to end, so it's best to have the ear- defenders at the ready. This band might sound as crazy and demented as a box of frogs at times, but that only adds to their manic appeal. Some sense of normality returns now for the heavy blues rocker "Tasker's Successor", which still barrels along relentlessly on full-power, but without the craziness of the two earlier numbers. We're S-L-O-W-I-N-G things right down now for "Hill of Dreams", an epic and grandiose number with all of the pomp and magnificent splendour we've come to expect from the best in Prog-Rock. This truly IS Progressive Rock too because the song progresses from a fairly sedate beginning, and then lights up like a Firefly into a dynamic crescendo of sound for the magnificent finale. This is the kind of gloriously pompous prog that dreams are made of! The album is rounded off nicely now by "Virginia Waters", a heavy psych number charging full-steam ahead, featuring some strangely incomprehensible babbling vocals and a maniacal accordion player, but that's no less than what we've come to expect from this psycho band of warriors on the edge of time.

If you like your Heavy Prog all-fired up with some added manic intensity, then the Writing on the Wall is that you'll love the sound of "The Power of the Picts". This band are a whole Different World of Prog with a unique style all of their own, which verges on madness at times, but the album should appeal to fans of the keyboard-heavy sound of such bands as Black Widow, Deep Purple, Rare Bird, and especially Uriah Heep.

"Yaki Da Boyo!" Although Quicksand might be as Welsh as a bunch of Welsh miners emerging from the pithead with blackened faces, the first track "Hideaway My Song" sounds like it could have been recorded by a bunch of blonde-haired surfer dudes riding the breakers at Big Sur in sunny California. Quicksand have truly captured the west coast California sound of the seventies here. They sound as blueberry-pie American as Billy Bob Thornton and Billy Jo Spears wearing Stetson hats at a rodeo, with a McDonalds Quarterpounder and a bottle of Budweiser in each hand. "Yee-hah! Ride 'em cowboy!". We're still out in the sunshine for "Sunlight Brings Shadows", a storming artillery barrage of Heavy Prog which targets the listener with all of the deadly stealth and accuracy of a nuclear-powered hunter killer submarine. It's an unrelenting percussive wave of sound from beginning to end with some fast and furious Kentucky Fried guitar riffing that's finger-lickin' good. Telling these guys to turn the volume down would be like telling fighter pilots to be less aggressive. It's just not gonna happen! There's a complete change of pace now for "Empty Street, Empty Heart", a gentle Folk-Rock tune that's as pleasantly surprising as finding there's still a restaurant open during the coronavirus lockdown. Again, this warm and sunny song with its mellow guitar groove captures the spirit of California perfectly, despite the clear British accent of the singer. This exuberant and uplifting music has enough feel-good flower-power sunshine to brighten up the dullest of winter days. Closing out Side One now, we have the two-part song and highlight of the album so far, "Overcome The Pattern / Flying". This is incredible! You can almost smell the Incense and Peppermint in this tripped-out Californian west coast Psychedelic Rock extravaganza, that's actually coming to you from the mining valleys of South Wales. The first part "Overcome the Pattern" takes you to Prog-Rock heaven and back again with the manic guitarist going absolutely ape-crazy in a dazzling psychedelic display of frantic fretting. There's a crazy freak-out interlude around about the halfway point, sounding like some nightmarish psychedelic acid trip from Hell. Don't expect a return to sanity and normality any time soon though, because the second part "Flying" is flying as high as a kite in a smoking purple haze of spaced out Looney Tunes wackiness. Quicksand have completely thrown the prog "rulebook" away (not that there ever was a prog rulebook!) and taken off on a fantastic voyage in a free flight of fancy. This is wonderfully liberating music! It's like throwing the Monopoly rulebook away and then going around the board in whichever direction pleases you and then responding with a faraway stare into space if anyone challenges you.

This stunning album really makes you feel good to be alive and what better way to celebrate the joys of life than with Song No. 5: "Time to Live". Although Quicksand are billed as a Prog-Folk band on ProgArchives, this joyously optimistic song has much more of a groovy Jazz-Rock feel to it. Just lay back and bask in the warm glow of this song. The music is as warm and sunny as Bondi Beach in mid-summer, in a heatwave, which makes it even harder to believe that this sunny tune comes from the dull rain-drenched valleys of South Wales. This energetic sunburst of bright shining joy should come with a beach umbrella and a free bottle of suntan lotion. We arrive back home for the title track now: "Home is Where I Belong", another gloriously uplifting summer song that makes you want to throw caution to the wind and jump for joy with gay abandon (in the old-fashioned sense) and dance like a whirling dervish in a green sunlit meadow filled with daisies, dandelions and daffodils. It's time for the second of the long two-part epics on the album now with "Seasons / Alpha Omega". This is another classic magnum opus (presumably the opposite of magnum 'opeless) in a stunning display of prog wizardry and virtuosity, where you feel you can almost reach up into the stratosphere and touch the face of the Prog Gods in all of their infinite musical wisdom and greatness. There are swirling synths, pounding machine-gun percussion and glittering guitar glissandos galore here in abundance, which will amaze and delight even the most hardened of prog aficionados. This is triumphal and pompous prog that will blow you away and take you above and beyond Cloud 9 and lift you right up to prog heaven in all of its glorious majestic splendour. Sadly, it's time to come down to Earth with a bump now for the closing song: "Hiding It All", a suitably anthemic and uplifting piece of powerful prog to close out the album in magnificently fine style. This magnificent music is guaranteed to lift you up and carry you along on a pleasure-wave of heart-warming emotion, leaving one feeling full of the joys of life, love and happiness. If music be the food of love, then play this sensational album and celebrate the power of music to set the heart and soul on fire with love and passion.

Every self-respecting prog fan will feel right at home with Quicksand's stunning one-off album: "Home is Where I Belong". If prog was a religion, then this marvellous masterpiece would be deserving of a place on the highest altar in the most magnificent cathedral in the land. It's time to say "Hallelujah" and worship the Prog Gods for blessing us with this praiseworthy offering of manna from prog heaven.

Holy Moses! It's time now to have a listen to the first of the solid Prog-Rock tablets of stone handed down to Moses from the biblical Holy Mount of legend.  We're in suitably reverential mood for "Prelude / He Is My God", which opens to the sound of a hauntingly-atmospheric church organ at the grand altar of Progressive Rock. This tremendous cathedral-esque opening number steadily builds up into the most wonderful crypt-kicking crescendo of overblown and pompous prog in all of its grandiose majesty and holy splendour. The religiously-inspired music sounds holier than the stained glass windows in Canterbury Cathedral with a grandness that's as awe-inspiring as the gleaming white marble of the Acropolis of Athens, or an ancient Roman Amphitheatre. You really have to hear this album to believe it, because the music is so powerfully inspirational that it's enough to turn a lifelong atheist into the most devout of religious believers, but that's the power and the glory of almighty Prog-Rock. After such a grand auspicious opening, How on God's Holy Earth do you follow that!?? You follow it with "Images", a dynamic Stormbringer of thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening Heavy Prog that hits you straight between the eyes with the unrelenting pounding and percussive energy of a steamhammer. When you're sufficiently recovered from that sonic attack, you can relax and bask in the warm glow of "People", an altogether gentler refrain that's simply beautiful. It's the kind of gloriously uplifting tune that makes you want to run out into the street and sing "Oh Happy Day" at the top of your voice, despite the strange bemused looks from passers-by. In fact, the entire album has a delightful celebratory air to it that makes you feel glad to be alive and full of the joys of spring, even in the bleak midwinter, in a snowstorm at midnight. Feel free to join in too and sing along with "God's Day", a song that's as bright and radiant as a brilliant ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds, and sounding like a religious hybrid of early Blood, Sweat & Tears, on steroids. This fine upstanding album is like musical Viagra to the ears. It's positively bursting at the seams with joy and love and passion. Side One draws gently to a close now with "Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother", a sweet message of love and devotion that leaves you feeling all warm and cuddly inside. Altogether now, "Ahh!"

Opening Side Two in dramatic style, we arrive now at the Sixth Commandment/Song in the Decalogue: "(Thou Shalt Not) Kill", a tremendously rousing and anthemic display of pompous prog in all of its magnificent glory, featuring theatrical spoken word passages (with shades of the Moody Blues),  adding  a solemn and sombre air to the high drama of the occasion. After all, this is a song about a heinous murder, followed by the dastardly villain being sentenced to death by hanging, so it's literally a matter of life or death, or just a matter of death, as there's no leniency to be shown or expected for the accused here. After that dark depressing tale, it's time to lighten the mood now with the wistfully nostalgic sound of "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", a gorgeous Folk-Pop refrain, bringing back fond memories of The Seekers in their heyday. Salamander are Bringing on Back the Good Times again here, so it's time to put on those tie-dyed cheesecloth shirts, bright flared trousers and gold platform boots and celebrate the golden era of the early 1970's, when everything was fab and groovy. This uplifting song is positively awash with golden scintillating strings, bathing the listener in a warm radiance of brilliant Sunshine Pop. The music's so bright, you gotta wear shades, and break open a bottle of suntan lotion at the same time. Onto the Eighth Commandment/Song now with "(Thou Shalt Not) Steal", a sonorous non-stop artillery barrage of heavy Heavy Prog, with the dynamic fired-up organ player attacking his keyboards with all of the passionate fury and gusto of a whirling dervish in a sandstorm. No one's going to Steal his thunder here! And so dear friends, we come to Commandment/Song No. 9: "False Witness", a lively and energetic Jazz-Rock number with a bold and brassy attitude - very much in the style of Ginger Baker's Air Force - with the powerful singer imbuing the music with all of the emotional intensity his vocal chords can muster. He was probably in need of a throat lozenge, a stiff drink and a good lie down after that impressive performance. The Tenth Commandment decrees that thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's "Possessions", but you can certainly "covet" this sensational storming Rocker, which rounds off the album in furiously fine style.

Salamander have seared a blazing trail of God Almighty Symphonic Prog with the magnificent majesty of their marvellous ultra-rare one-off masterpiece. The Eleventh Commandment of Prog, ordained by the Prog Gods on high,  should be that every self-respecting prog fan owns a copy of  Salamander's "Ten Commandments". This superb album is as welcome an addition to your prog collection as being given the welcome news that you're to be employed as a stage hand by Fleetwood Mac for one night only, where your job will be to adjust Stevie Nicks' knicker gusset when she's on stage. If, on the other hand, you're lucky enough to already own a rare vinyl copy of this fine album, then that's as lucky as walking into an antiques shop to buy some trinkets and curios, and discovering the Ark of the Covenant for sale at a bargain price. Well, maybe not quite THAT lucky. 

The Ten Commandments of Prog:- 1. The Prog Gods are the Lords of Prog and Thou shalt have no other Prog Gods before thee; 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image of a classic Prog-Rock album cover; 3. Thou shalt not take the names of the Lords of Prog in vain; 4. Remember the Black Sabbath day, for the seventh day is for the Holy worship of Prog-Rock; 5. Honour thy father and thy mother's Prog-Rock collection; 6. Thou shalt not murder a classic Prog-Rock anthem; 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery with a fellow Prog-Rock fan's husband or wife; 8. Thou shalt not steal a Prog-Rock album; 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against a fellow Prog-Rock fan; 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's Prog-Rock collection.