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.