I Talk To The Wind: Prog Blog and Reviews

IICDIAOAIDIAOY. 3 Stars. Acronym clusterfubble. The mix is a bit daft and unfocused but the music is glorious.
ITLOGAP. 3 Stars. Acronym improving. A really sweet psychedelic record. Not doing much that's hyper-super-new but the execution is immaculate.
FGWGPITN. 4 Stars. Acronym deproving. John G. Perry's bass-work is wonderful and the addition of the strings makes a huge difference to the band. Probably my favourite from the band.

manually changing all the scores is just going to cause loads of confusion with the reviews and I probably don't have time to rewrite them all, so I'm doing a post to kind of state where I am with a lot of the stuff I reviewed five+ years ago for anyone interested. New standard

5 stars - something really special and usually something that's changed how I think about music. You should probably listen to it once even if you don't end up liking it. I really like some out-there stuff though.
4 stars - something exceptional. I think any attentive listener should get something out of it, even if it's not their cup of tea.
3 stars - this album will improve your collection. Usually for best-efforts by bands that weren't really doing something new or brave attempts by bands that were and it didn't really come off.
2 stars - this album might improve your collection

1 star - this album won't improve your collection. Varies between uninspired and terrible.

Let's start with the classics

Genesis

From Genesis To Revelation. 1 star. Pleasant enough; the best material is the bonus tracks. A curio for fans of the band.
Trespass. 3 stars. Curious English pastoral rock that laid the groundwork for where Genesis would go.
Nursery Cryme. 5 stars. A lot of the really innovative stuff is in the little tracks.
Foxtrot. 3 stars. Supper's Ready is glorious and there's a lot of good stuff but the studio version of Watcher Of The Skies and Time Table make for a really weak start to the album.
Selling England By The Pound. 5 stars. The definitive Genesis album where the whole band is working together on something of a classical caliber.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. 3 stars. A great double-album. The ambition occasionally led to fillery stuff for the stage show, which isn't inherently bad but lacks the tightness of its predecessor.
A Trick Of The Tail. 2 stars. I don't like the mix and don't return to this one much. Light on the song front.
Wind & Wuthering. 2 stars. Not bad per se and a lot of Hackett's finest moments. Your Own Special Way is a real comedown.
Genesis (s/t). 2 stars. Some really superb songs on this. Not worse or better than the post-Gabriel Hackett material.

Yes

The Yes Album. 2 stars. Wakeman really brought the band's whole atmosphere and without it you've got a lot of good material but no real stunning moments. Howe's instrumental is essential.
Fragile. 3 stars. Very patchy but the classics are real classics. South Side of the Sky probably the best thing Yes ever did.
Close To The Edge. 5 Stars. 
Tales From Topographic Oceans. 4 stars. Takes a bit of a different mindset to earlier Yes albums but very rewarding.
Relayer. 3 stars. My opinion of the album's gone up over time. Don't rate the lyrics or vocals that much but Moraz's contributions are stunning.
Going For The One. 2 stars. A good album but there's not much I really really love on it.
Tormato. 1 star. Execrable.
90125. 2 stars. Some gems on this one.

VDGG

The Aerosol Grey Machine. 1 star. Not actually a bad album but I can't see anyone other than a real fan of the band needing it.
The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other. 2 stars. Some spine-tingling moments, a bit of laboriousness. Refugees is one of VDGG's best soft songs.
H To He Who Am The Only One. 5 stars. The start of VDGG's roll. It's probably not as tight as the following few albums but emotional highs throughout.
Pawn Hearts. 5 stars. Together with the previous album it set the pace for a lot of RPI. Hammill's vocal on A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers is incredible.
Godbluff. 4 stars. One of the great rock albums of all time and Hammill's transition to the clavinet is really graceful. Arrow is one of my favourite VDGG tracks. I feel like Scorched Earth brings it down a tad.
Still Life. 5 stars. Far and away the most subtle VDGG album. Beautiful stuff and the quality of the musicianship, the recording and the writing is leagues ahead of what any of the big prog bands were even attempting at the time.
World Record. 3 Stars. Great little album, often underestimated. Hugh Banton's engineering skills pay off with a real church organ sound. It feels quite closely related to Hammill's solo work, though oddly he didn't seem to really pick up a lot of the songs for the live bootlegs I know from the next few years.
The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome. 4 stars. Hammill's radical change to his vocal approach and the different instrumentation make this album an oddity in the VDG(G) business. Nonetheless many of the songs are fantastic and it's a very bold piece of work.
Present. 3 stars. Really, really unfortunate circumstances have kind of hammered the recording but it's a very enjoyable and odd live album.
Godbluff Live. 5 stars. See one of the finest prog rock bands at their absolute best. The APOLK recording here is amazing.
Present. 2 stars. Hits the VDGG standard and Boleas Panic is a really wonderful Jackson showcase. I'm not sure it brings a load of 'classics' to the table other than Nutter Alert but it's a good album for a VDGG fan.
Trisector. 2 stars. Some great stuff but kind of reliant on a VDGG formula to hit its highlights.
A Grounding In Numbers. 3 stars. Great album. I've never really gotten into the maths concept but Medusa is gorgeous and the three-man lineup manages to hit emotional peaks without any reliance on the formulae left over from the Jackson era. The best work from Banton since Still Life imho.

Peter Hammill

Fool's Mate. 2 stars. Charming little album. Definitely a fan choice rather than a necessity but Fripp and Banton's contributions on guitar and piano and the basic quality of the songs elevates it.
Chameleon In The Shadow Of The Night. 4 stars. Despite the slightly patchy recording quality this is one of the great singer-songwriter albums.
In Camera. 4 stars. A lot of astonishing work, I probably don't return to it as much as Chameleon or Silent Corner with their consistent bite but it's just as good objectively.
The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage. 5 stars. Listen to Modern until you understand why it's *not* a VDGG song and all the secrets of Hammill's solo career will be revealed to you. The Lie is one of his best songs and I think the amazing Skeletons of Songs version is a bonus track here.
Nadir's Big Chance. 3 stars. Basically a pop rock album but the songs are all great and the approach was famously influential on British punk.
The Future Now. 3 stars. The experimental stuff is really out there and really astounding. Other bits are a little more lightweight.
pH7. 3 stars. Same as the above, really. Hammill still going off on his own thing and the results are fantastic.
A Black Box. 3 stars. Flight is probably the closest to a VDGG epic he's done on the solo side since In Camera. Really admirable and inspiring how he's just taken over every aspect of doing his own work.
Sitting Targets. 2 stars. It's a good album but I feel the songs are a lot stronger than the performances on here. Ophelia's probably my favourite of his three chord tricks.
Enter K. 3 stars. A lot of great songs, especially The Unconscious Life. The sound isn't quite as unified as Patience.
Loops And Reels. 5 stars. Best analog electronic album ever made in my view.
Patience. 4 stars. Best of the K Group albums by a mile.
The Margin +. 4 Stars. A live summary of a lot of the best pieces from the K Group era, and + contains some really surprising renditions of early solo pieces. Wonderful work.
Skin. 4 stars. A lot of it's maybe not going to hit the taste tonsils of the prog rock fan but I think the songy parts are wonderful and Now Lover and Four Pails are fantastic experimental pieces.
And Close As This. 3 stars. A real oddity. The midi triggering stuff works to mixed effect but the pure piano stuff is incredible. Sleep Now is a standout example of the sincere tenderness people who only know VDGG might not have seen in Hammill.
... I've not heard the next few...
The Fall Of The House Of Usher (re-release). 5 stars. Atmospheric, tense, genuine rock opera business and the vocals and the sound are just beyond belief. A real standout.
Fireships. 3 stars. Very strange one. The aesthetic might put a lot of people off the content, a lot of which is exceptional. I Will Find You is a bit of a chink in the album's armour.
The Noise. 2 stars. The 'loud' rock counterpart to Fireships hasn't fared nearly as well in my estimation. Primo On The Parapet is an *amazing* song but you can hear a better version with Stuart Gordon on Veracious.
Roaring Forties. 2 stars. A slightly precious quality to the lyrics of the rock material here brings it down a little. Better than its predecessor but still just one for the fans imo.
X My Heart. 3 stars. A return to form with Amnesiac as one of my all-time favourites of his. The two parts of A Better Time see Hammill still trying something new and unusual even if it's not the spiky time signature stuff people associate with innovation.
Everyone You Hold + This. I need to listen to these two more. Fine albums.
I don't know None Of The Above, Clutch and What, Now?
Incoherence. 4 Stars. Jackson's presence adds a huge amount to this and the general density and power of the concept make for a definite peak. Probably the most coherent whole album he's done since Usher.
Singularity. 2 stars. I really love the experimental stuff on this and the album's last two tracks are his best. Some of the ballads and rock bits are less strong.
Thin Air. 3 stars. The highs are a bit lower than Singularity's but it's a much more consistent piece and I really like the song bits.

I haven't heard the latest two yet and need to rectify that.