Prog Britannia - Album Reviews

PALLAS      Scottish wonder boys Pallas were one of the first Neo Prog bands to Arrive Alive on the music scene in 1981 with the release of their debut live album. Three years later came their stunning magnum opus - The Sentinel - a science fiction concept album about a technologically advanced civilisation that brings itself to the brink of destruction, despite The Dreams of Men hoping for a better world. Sound familiar? The third Pallas album would drive The Wedge between those fans who wanted to hear another classic prog album and others who wanted a more modern sound. After all, this was the 1980's, so there's no accounting for taste. I know how we like to constantly Beat the Drum about the merits of prog here at PA and some of us even Live Our Lives from Moment to Moment every day in the progosphere. Like me for instance. We all have The Cross & the Crucible to bear in trying to convince prog non-believers they don't know what they're missing out on in life, but We Are Who We Are, and sadly, some non-believers may be destined to remain in The Blinding Darkness and be forever ignorant of the joyous wonders of prog until The Edge of Time itself..... Pallas prove that it's not all bagpipes, haggis and sporrans in bonnie Scotland, although certain members of the band have been known to wear a kilt on stage. Och-aye, they do. 

PRIMITIVE INSTINCT     Some say Primitive Instinct are just apeing Marillion (especially the Hogarth era), but in the nebulous world of Neo Prog, that's a positive recommendation. 

  2019: Quantum Pig - Songs of Industry and Sunshine - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nCyR9VQBZiALQVwUF4Ug7XH9Pg_OASJ4o

  1993: The Quest - Do You Believe? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwLV0gVnESw

  1996: The Quest - Change - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kbcUeZUTNA7dks3TInds2FG0tGfes67F0

                   

QUASAR     Gone but not forgotten are Quasar, a Neo Prog band who shone briefly but brightly like a Fire in the Sky during the 1980's with a debut  album that wouldn't be discovered (at least by me) until forty years later in Memories of Times Yet to Be, but is that really the same band in 2009 or is it another case of the "Trigger's Broom" paradox? Don't call Trigger stoopid, but he thought the Gettysburg address was where Lincoln lived. 

Don't Call Me Stoopid!

  2004: Rain - Cerulean Blue - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_llh-RNbQFwAatOKHs0CizWhACM0F6WqA8

  2016: Regent - Illusions - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLyVTqTxrSY

  2022: Retreat from Moscow - The World as We Knew It - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kNMbXq9q9MPAvsZNZ9wOGkH6Bf-NTXKRM

  2012: Riversea - Out of an Ancient World - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5_4m5T2AzoWUD8Cj2Kpju-PU-c5Jz1W-

  2018: Riversea - The Tide - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5_4m5T2AzoWUD8Cj2Kpju-PU-c5Jz1W-

  2009: Roads to Damascus - One - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_noULH6MaSoPvrjU6kGjyimZf_vyv3DvpU

  2012: Roads to Damascus - R2D2 - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kgHWetS5aqpEx5D07kVDXCTDPq1zbmTaU

  2015: Roads to Damascus - Precious Empires - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m4M33GrdmKC5hS5TtT-Nks_lp6X--4r7E

  2014: Steve Rothery - The Ghosts of Pripyat - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lBvVb-swT3iku2OaUdcfQ0ysNaaD8bwJA

                  

REGENT    An album for somnambulists everywhere... Why not book into the regency suite for some high-class proggy entertainment. Just make sure that any adult entertainment is listed on your hotel bill under "Miscellaneous Services", or you could end up having an embarrassing encounter with the nice ladies on reception when it comes time to settle the bill - just like Radio Norwich DJ Alan Partridge below, who denied any knowledge of having watched "Bangkok Chick Boys".  

RIVERSEA    A nautical Neo Prog duo for your delectation and delight. Local radio personality Alan Partridge seems to be in a spot of hot water again too when he's all at sea with a group of angry local farmers whilst filming a promotional video for Hamilton's Water Breaks, in the episode "Watership Alan". Alan Partridge now hosts Mid-Morning Matters on BBC Radio Norwich, because mid-morning matters! 

STEVE ROTHERY     This town, is coming like a ghost town..... This is the long-awaited debut album from Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery. The Ghosts of Pripyat was inspired by the abandoned ghost town of Pripyat in the Ukraine, which is a stone's throw from the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. It's rumoured  there's still enough deadly radiation around to make you glow in the dark like a Ready Brek kid if you spend any length of time there. You may not have heard of the long-abandoned Clune Park Estate though, which has been described as Scotland's Chernobyl, and where just eight residents remain. You can still buy a flat there for a paltry £7,000, but as Lloyd Grossman would say, who would want to live in a place like that!?? 

Let's take a look now as we go Through the Keyhole. 

SANGUINE HUM     And now for something completely different.... Sanguine Hum might be a strange name for band, but not nearly as strange as their previous incarnation as Antique Seeking Nuns. Their bizarre band name is merely a reflection of their offbeat music though, as Sanguine Hum are unlike any Neo Prog band you've heard before, or will ever hear again. Just in case you were wondering, Sanguine Hum is a cryptic reference to the four humours (or temperaments) of proto-psychological theory, first hypothesized by the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates (the Greek scholar who gave us the Hippocratic Oath in medicine). He postulated that there are four fundamental personality types. Namely, sanguine (optimistic), choleric (grumpy), melancholic (sad), and phlegmatic (calm). But how does this apply to music, you may well ask? Well, if you're sanguine - as I am - then you may listen to an entire discography, hoping against hope that an artist's  albums will get better as they go along, which they often do, especially in the case of Opeth and Therion. Alternatively, if you're choleric, then you're most likely a grumpy prog fan who's notoriously hard to please, but at the same time,  someone who has endlessly diverse tastes in music, liking anything from Allan Holdsworth to Steely Dan to Dream Theater. Thirdly, if someone is melancholic in their musical tastes, then I'm guessing they'd be a fan of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, maybe the Cocteau Twins, or even Current 93. Lastly, we come to a phlegmatic personality, where some calming and reflective Post Rock may be in order, or even better, the deep and meaningful music of Sanguine Hum!  

I had you in mind whilst listening to Sanguine Hum this morning. I remember you mentioning previously that you're a fan of theirs.