UP

In thirty years of solo career, Peter Gabriel has published only seven albums (collateral projects aside): the four first eponymous albums, So, Us and Up. Released un 2002, Up is and outstanding piece of musicianship, perhaps underrated by critics and public alike.

Some of the songs of the album echo prior works of PG: Growing Up comes from Schledgehammer, we remember Steam when we listen to The Barry Williams Show, and Sky Blue is a child of Washing of the Water. But even in these songs we can see an evolution: the African inspiration is not so evident as in So, and there are also airs from the Far East, such as the voice sample of Nusrat Fathe Ali Khan in Signal to Noise. But I am wrong: PG has created a new sound and style, quite different from his other albums. The music sounds mainly in the lower octaves of the scale, and benefits from the modern techniques of musical engineering. The sophisticated engineering provides Up with a rich variety of sound textures, which is evident in the work of Tony Levin in the bass and of the crowded rythm section. That work on textures, loops and programming is specially interesting in No Way Out and My Head Sounds Like That (I've never heard a song like this before).

Perhaps the explanation of the underrating of Up is that it's a work stuck in the middle of the way: too comercial to be considered experimental music (like, for instance, the works of Tortoise or the ex-members of Japan), and too experimental to get a huge commercial success (like PG's So). But it is indeed an excellent record. eMule users will miss the wonderful black and white photographs of the booklet, which fit the mood of each of the songs.

Flowermouth

Flowermouth is the second album of No-Man, a joint effort by Tim Bowness (voice) and Steven Wilson (instruments). But they are not alone: we can hear also Robert Fripp's guitar and soundscapes, Mel Collins in soprano sax and flute, Ben Coleman's violin (the third member of No-Man) and former Japan members Richard Barbieri and Steve Jansen, among others. The result is a quite ecclectic album: angel gets caught in the beauty trap is a 10-minute crossover of classical music and the quieter moods of King Crimson, animal ghost and watching over me are perfect lyrical songs, and there are even some techno beats here and there (mostly in teardrop fall). So in Flowermouth some 'old' gifted musicians (Fripp, Mel Collins) welcome the new generation of true progressive rock. In the following years, Wilson proved (especially with Porcupine Tree) that it's better to let your own voice be heard, than making carbon copies of the masters of the past.

Octoberon

Some of our readers may be curious about the name of this blog. It is a "blogging" variation of Polk Street Rag, the title of one of the songs in the album Octoberon, by Barclay James Harvest (BJH), released in 1976.

BJH is an excelent, although unfortunate, British progressive rock band. They did their first record in 1968 (it is said that they gave its tame to the EMI Harvest label). In the middle of the 70's left EMI and went to Polydor, being their first years in Polydor perhaps the more creative and successful. But, unlike other bands such as Genesis, Yes or ELP, they didn't make it in the USA. Perhaps that's the reason why they are relatively unknown by prog rock fans today. In spite of the passing of the drummer Mel Pritchard in 2004, the band's members are still active today, although they went separate ways (more information about this here).

But let's go back to Octoberon. It's a wonderful album, where all the members of the band show their best in playing and songwriting. We can find here the poignant (Suicide?) and ironical (Polk Street Rag) sides by John Lees (guitars and vocals), Les Holroyd (bass and vocals) instructing us about the dark side of stardom (Rock and Roll Star) and the magnificent, Mahlerian Wooly Wolstenholme (Ra) on keyboards and vocals. All of this seasoned by Mel Pritchard, one of the few people able to play melodic lines with his drumkit. All the genuine BJH is here: the vocal harmonies, the mellotrons in the background, the guitar solos, Mel's drumming, and even orchestra and choirs (in May Day).

And, believe me, they are much better than the Moody Blues!

Live at Budokan

Probably thousands of Dream Teather fans are waiting anxiously for our promised review of Live at Budokan. It would be cruel to keep them waiting, so here it goes.

We all agree that the touchstone of a progressive rock band is their definitive live album. And Live at the Budokan is the definitive live album of Dream Teather. More of 180 minutes of great hard, progressive rock. Luckily, it has been filmed in a DVD so we can appreciate the technical abilities of Jordan Rudess (the best keyboard player of Dream Teather ever), John Myung (bass!), John Petrucci (guitar!!) and Mike Portnoy (drums!!!), and the astounding vocals of James LaBrie. Every minute of the DVD is worth watching, but perhaps the peak features are the exercices of self-indulgence (here we love self-indulgence, sorry!) of the 21 minute version of Beyond This Life, and Hollow Years, that includes a great guitar solo at the end.

So if you are considering buying a Dream Teather DVD, this is your choice! When you have enough of it, perhaps you should move to the Scenes from New York DVD, which has a poignant version of The Spirit Carries On, probably different from the one you saw at the live show.

live at the budokan

Live at the budokan is the masterpiece Dream Theater's DVD. At the moment we all are too drunk to post something that the DVD itself deserves, but later we'll try. Just stay tuned!