Prog Britannia - Album Reviews

ALSO EDEN    It's About Time I got around to listening to all of Great Britain's unsung heroes of Neo Prog, and Also Eden are no exception. Who are Also Eden? Well, It's Kind of You to Ask. They're a band from Cheltenham (famous for its racecourse and the home of GCHQ) in southwest England, led by Hugh Lloyd-Jones and with influences cited as Genesis and YES. (Aren't all Neo Prog bands influenced by Genesis & YES!??). Anyway, this is classic Neo Prog at its best, and Think of the Children of future generations who'll one day come to regard these albums as highly revered classics of their time. Some hope!  

ARENA     In the vast arena of Neo Prog, can there be any band that's more unsung than Arena!?? They've built up a strong following amongst prog fans despite not getting any radio airplay. With members drawn from the world of Neo Prog - including Marillion, Pendragon, Shadowland & Frost* - the five band members of Arena, led by keyboard player Clive Nolan, are all instantly unrecognisable. Clive (pictured below) may give you a case of Double Vision as he strongly resembles Gandalf the Wizard from the works of J.R. Tolkien, which surely gives him good credentials as a prog legend. In his spare time, Clive has composed a rock opera and also established his own theatre company. Well, everyone needs a Hobbit. 

                         What does the much loving Paul think of this concert? 

 

You just reminded me of US band 1994: - who sound similar to Heart - and if you don't remember 1994: (Who does!??), here they are Once Again. 

 Neo Prog Britannia

STEWART BELL     The keyboard player with Neo Prog band Citizen Cain who's very Abel as a solo artist too. That's Stewart Bell on the left in the band photo below - and not the chap in the middle who looks like Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series. 

TIM BURNESS    An accomplished multi-instrumentalist whose albums are only let down by weak wishy-washy vocals. According to Prog Archives, Tim has taken singing lessons to improve this aspect of his "reportoaire" by Finding New Ways to Sing, but you can't change what nature has given you. 

 Neo Prog Britannia

CAAMORA    An epic rock opera that Ayreon would be proud of... Caamora consists of Clive Nolan (the Grand Wizard of Neo Prog and member of Arena and Pendragon) and Polish songstress Agnieszka Swita. The musical project is based on the classic novel "She" - a mysterious white African queen (Ayesha) who must be obeyed - penned by Victorian adventurer H. Rider Haggard. For a late-19th century novel, "She" was way ahead of its time, exploring themes of female dominance and authority a whole century before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. 

  2008: Caamora - She - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3vJ0AyC8Ob5aQ72D4XKYjq2b2YxosM_8

CASTANARC    Described as a "fairly decent Neo Prog band" on Prog Archives, Doncaster band Castanarc have cast their net wide to appeal to fans of Pallas, Pendragon and especially Saga. In fact, Castanarc are the most exciting thing to happen in Doncaster since the arrival of the Romans and the building of The Great North Road (the modern-day A1) from London to Edinburgh - which fortunately bypasses Doncaster, as luck would have it. 

COALITION    A Neo Prog band closely associated with Symphonic Prog band, The Inner Road. One only hopes that this Coalition turns out to be more successful than the ill-fated SDP-Liberal Alliance in the early 1980's, where Liberal leader David Steel famously announced in a moment of misplaced confidence and pure hubris:- "Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government" - and look how that turned out.  

COMEDY OF ERRORS    Is there anything more unfunny than a Shakespearean comedy? Scottish Neo Prog band Comedy of Errors didn't have much to laugh about in the mid-1980's either. Their 1986 mini-album of demo versions turned out to be about as popular as a vegan in a meat-packing plant, and they could only look on with envy as their fellow Scottish proggers Abel Ganz and Pallas soared up to palatial heights of fame. In their dreams! Anyway, Comedy of Errors' chief songwriter and vocalist Jim Cairney was ordered to go to his room and not to emerge again until he'd written some good songs, and not wanting to Disobey or disappoint his fans and bandmates, he re-emerged 25 years later with a great album, telling tall tales of supernatural Fanfare & Fantasy, and keeping the Spirit of Neo Prog going well into the 21st century. And now, if we travel in the Time Machine to the present day, we find that Comedy of Errors are now more popular than Shakespeare! At least at ProgArchives they are anyway.