My Road to Prog Enlightenment

rushfan4 wrote: Currently listening to Turkish band Nemrud's second album Ritual.  It is a really enjoyable psychedelic prog album.  To a certain extent it brings to mind the sound of Pink Floyd, and more recently, Astra.  It is a short album at just over half an hour and consists of 4 tracks; the highlight being the 18 minute long title track, which ends the album.  I think that if you found Astra's The Weirding and The Black Chord to your liking, you should give Ritual a listen.

Queensryche had a revolution calling or maybe it was a civil war, but at any rate on the other side emerged two Queensryches.  For the most part, I am one of the few around these parts that has enjoyed all of their albums.  The period through Hear In The Now Frontier obviously being their best period, but I also enjoyed their latter period albums as well.  Now we have two albums, with the first being the now well-documented rushed Geoff Tate led F.U. to the other band members and the second being the other band members with a new singer who sounds quite a lot like Geoff Tate.  I have read a number of reviews and comments regarding these releases and the general comments have been negative regarding Geoff Tate's release and pretty positive about the other guys' release.  For me, it is kind of a toss up.  Neither album really jumps out at me as an Operation Mindcrime/Empire type masterpiece.  End result for me is that we have two decent releases with the Queensryche name on them but neither of them have a strong wow factor.

I know that it is a PA cliche to list Steven Wilson projects at the top of annual lists and for this year there is a good chance that I might follow this lead.  I really enjoy Porcupine Tree, but have to admit that I was not that big on Steven Wilson solo projects...until now.  The Raven is an album that wowed me upon first listen and it has just grown better with repeated listens.  The pacing, sound and production are all excellent on this album.  One of the highlights of this album that seems to stand out for me though is Theo Travis' flute and saxophone playing, which seem to add that extra oomph to put this album at or near the top of my albums of the year list for 2013.  

News from earlier this year that Andy Tillison had disbanded The Tangent came as quite sad news.  News that the now re-formed more economically sound version of the band was releasing the album Le Sacre Du Travail was much better news.  This album is/was musically formed around Stravinsky's Rites of Spring and tells the story of a day in the life of a working stiff aka today's Tom Sawyer.  Multiple references to Rush automatically adds a star to this album for me.    I have been a big fan of The Tangent's albums from the beginning.  I find this one to be not quite as good as their earlier albums but still quite enjoyable..and I find that it is still growing on me, which is generally a good sign.

The last couple of days I have been listening to albums on the Prog Archives 2013 playlist on Spotify created by Andy Webb and I have been finding some wonderful albums.  Not A Good Sign's self-titled debut; Airbag's The Greatest Show On Earth; Amplifier's Echo Street; some RPI with Ingranaggi Della Valle's In Hoc Signo; and Sky Architect's A Billion Years of Solitude.  I am currently listening to Argentina's Jinetes Negros album Tawa Sarira.  They are listed here as Prog Metal, but this album is not really metal and is highly eclectic.  So far it is an excellent listen that is trying really hard to muscle its way into my top 10 for the year.  I have enjoyed so many albums this year.  It really is going to be difficult to narrow them down to a top 10 for the year. 

For anyone who may happen to wonder, here is my top 10 list as submitted for the Collaborator list:

1	Steven Wilson	The Raven
2	Moon Safari	Himlabacken Vol. 1
3	Exivious	Liminal
4	The Flower Kings	Desolation Rose
5	Jinetes Negros	Tawa Sarira
6	Fromuz	Sodom and Gomorrah
7	Manning	The Root, The Leaf & The Bone
8	Nemo	Le Ver Dans Le Fruit
9	Spock's Beard	Brief Nocturnes And Dreamless Sleep
10	The Tangent	Le Sacre Du Travail

Only numbers 1 and 9 made the Collab list but a number on the Collab list made my next 10.  Overall I found 2013 to be an excellent year for music.  I listened to nearly 100 new prog releases for 2013 and aside from the ones that were overtaken by the Satanic Cookie Monster I really enjoyed most of them and even then those releases had many redeeming qualities.  Here's to 2014 and hopefully another year of great music releases. 


Edited by rushfan4 - February 01 2014 at 08:35

The updated listing of recommendations:

Monarch Trail - Skye http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=99553&PID=5043594#5043594
Algabas - Angels and Demons http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=100124&PID=5068682
Seven Impale - City of the Sun http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=100527&PID=5088921&#5088921

Edited by rushfan4 - March 09 2016 at 05:11