CD REVIEW – BJORN RIIS – Everything to Everyone
Airbag co-founder, songwriter and lead guitarist Bjørn Riis has released fourth album of six tracks clocking in at 50 minutes. Finally someone understands that you don’t need to cram a CD with filler – quality over quantity everytime. Whilst Bjørn Riis is vocalist, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, a wide variety of instruments, he’s roped in some notable guests: Henrik Bergan Fossum (Airbag), Kristian Hultgren (Wobbler), Simen […]
CD REVIEW – Bob Marston & the Credible Sources – So Long
Bob who? Bob Marston’s musical journey as a child, singing songs written by his mother for his brother, sister, and himself, local sanitation workers, and whatever else they came across during their days. Bob’s older brother George began playing piano at age 4 and once he was old enough, Bob would sing the Bruce Springsteen, […]
CD Review – Datadyr – Woolgathering
You have to admire musicians who aren’t prepared to belong to one particular given musical style rather than another. Datadyr are one such group. There have been plenty of prog rock bands that have strong leanings towards jazz, King Crimson and Yes come to mind, but there aren’t too many jazz bands that have such […]
CD REVIEW – Roger Chapman – Moth to a Flame
With his marmite voice, I suspect many, me included, have not paid as much attention as we should have, to this chap’s musical output. Moth To A Flame – The Recordings 1979-1981 is the sum of Chapman’s first three solo albums, plus 25 bonus tracks drawn from studio out-takes and live recordings. What you hear is […]
CD Review – Asia – Asia In Asia – Live At The Budokan, Tokyo, 1983 Boxset
From a British perspective, it is sometimes forgotten just how big Asia was as a band in the early 1980’s. To say that the group was considered out of step in the UK with a music press that was still in thrall to swastika wearing punks and an indifferent rock buying public would be something […]
CD-Single Review – Edenbridge – Somewhere Else But Here
Austrian symphonic metal band Edenbridge has released the single Somewhere Else But Here, taken from the forthcoming album Shangri-La which will be released on 26th August 2022. Somewhere Else But Here itself is a buoyant slice of symphonic rock with crunching guitars and a theatrical, almost operatic, vocal melody. It has great raunch and is […]
CD-Single Review – Semantics – Sleep At Night
We all need and depend on something to get us through the day. It is a part of being human. A coping mechanism that we develop to protect and aid with our day. Brisbane punky alt-rockers Semantics explore that feeling with the new single Sleep At Night. Singer Callum Robinson explains; “Everybody has a crutch […]
CD Review – Dramatis – For Future Reference
Readers of a certain vintage may have heard the members of this band before and not realised it. Chris Payne (vocals, keyboards), Rrussell Bell [his spelling] (guitars, keyboards), Cedric Sharpley (drums), with Denis Haines (keyboards) had been a part of Gary Numan’s band Tubeway Army. When he seemed to announce his retirement in April 1981, […]
Thu 12th May 2022 – IT + Ghost of The Machine
LIVE “SPIRIT OF PROG” GIG Local Authority, Eldon Street, Sheffield, S1 4JU Doors 7pm Tickets £16 advance (click to buy) Beginning life as a psychedelic, multi-media group,IT is a band with a colossal sound that shakes the bones, with a barrage of images that feeds the mind. IT’s sound fuses the classic melodies of prog […]
Clive Mitten – Tales from a Misspent Youth Volume 1
English eccentric, founder member of Twelfth Night and renaissance man Clive Mitten has followed up his orchestral reimagining of Twelfth Night material (Suite Cryptique) with a double album where he goes back to his roots and reimagines some of the big beasts of progressive rock in orchestral form. This is not a covers album per […]
Roots in May
Stephen Doster – Over the Red Sea This will be his third solo release in sevenyears: “For me the record is kind of a travelogue starting with that boat on the cover by the Horn of Africa to London, from Dublin to Belfast, Virginia to Mississippi, and back home to the Texas Hill Country before […]
CD Review – Bill Bruford – Making A Song and Dance: A Complete-Career Collection Boxset
If ever you were lucky enough to see Bill Bruford live you will no doubt have struggled to tell others just how brilliant it was. His performances could be, and usually were, mesmerising. No matter the size of the venue, from the aircraft-hanger sized arenas to the most intimate of student unions, jazz clubs or […]
CD REVIEW – Jack Lancaster & Robin Lumley – Marscape
Jack Lancaster and Robin Lumley flitted between the jazz and the progressive rock worlds of the 1970s, with Lancaster alongside Mick Abraham in Blodwyn Pig and both Lancaster and Lumley in a band called The Soul Searchers (John Goodsall (guitar), Gary Moore (guitar), Percy Jones (bass) and Bill Bruford (drums)) A small yet impressive world. […]
CD REVIEW – D’Virgilio, Morse & Jennings – Troika
“troika” – a group of three working together toward a common goal Sometime during the lockdown and turmoil of 2020, Neal Morse wrote some songs that seemed to speak of other voices. “So I began thinking about who would be good to sing these songs with me. I was of course primarily thinking about the […]
CD REVIEW – Boo Hewardine – Understudy
His latest album finds me, an unashamed fan of this acclaimed songwriter Boo Hewerdine, enjoying his reflective yet buoyant mood. His songwriting has always been honest, and in this album it has a fatalistic side yet there’s a joyful narrative running throughout the lyrics. We get twelve new songs about these times written at home in […]
CD REVIEW – Iain Matthews – The Rockburgh Years
Iain Matthews left Fairport Convention during the recording of the ‘Unhalfbricking’ album back in 1969. And most of us will have some kind of recollection of Matthews Southern Comfort, either name only, their hit single (Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock) and three seminal albums, the eponymous ‘Matthews Southern Comfort’ (1969), ‘Second Coming’ (1970) and ‘Later That Same […]
CD REVIEW – Estanyo Nord – The Light Afternoon
The Light Afternoon is a duo from Bournemouth in Dorset featuring Steve Newland (guitars, keyboards, backing vocals, production) and Annette Appleton (vocals). They are studio-based musicians who release albums at regular intervals. Music and lyrics are written by Steve. Some of you old fogies out there may recall my review of the previous album in […]
CD REVIEW – Airbag – A Day in the Studio – Unplugged in Oslo
OK let’s get the factualities out of the way, shall we? This is a recording of the Airbag acoustic set streamed in early Autumn of 2020, released 3rd December 2021. Why? After the success of A Day At The Beach in the summer of 2020, Airbag was understandably keen to showcase the songs in a live setting. […]
Sat 5th November 2022 – Magenta + Tiger Moth Tales
Magenta Tiger Moth Tales at Local Authority, Eldon Street, Sheffield, S1 4JU £18 – Click to buy The Spirit of Progressive Rock are pleased to announce that on 5th of November we will play host to Magenta supported by Tiger Moth Tales. Magenta are a Welsh progressive rock band formed in 1999 by Robert Reed. […]
Roots in APRIL
Island Girls – Beach Daze Karen Tweed is a multi-faceted Piano Accordionist, Artist, Teacher, Musician and Creative and Composer who lives her inspiration through living in Orkney. Margaret Robertson is a multi-award winning Fiddle player and Pianist, Teacher, and recipient of the MBE who is inspired by her native Shetland and its people. Together they […]
CD Review – Michael Romeo – War of the Worlds, Pt. 2
Many of the prog fraternity will know Michael Romeo from his outstanding work with Symphony X, where he is the guitarist, chief-songwriter and all-around prime mover of the group. But he also has a side-interest in releasing solo albums. His first one was The Dark Chapter in the mid-1990s, then there was a long wait […]
CD REVIEW – Family – A Song for Me
This third album was first released in January 1970, and was the first to feature John Weider on bass and Poli Palmer (Eric Burdon & The Animals alumni) on keys, flute and vibraphone. To give context, Jim King had left due to addiction problems, their recent US tour hadn’t gone too well, and Rick Grech […]
CD Review – Kosmodome – Kosmodome
There seems to be a gloriously endless supply of Scandinavian groups plying their trade in the progressive rock world. Kosmodome are a Norwegian band built around the not inconsiderable skills of the Sandvik brothers Sturle on guitars and vocals, and Severin on drums. It has quite a heavy sound, though with lots of light and […]
CD Review – BB Blunder – Worker’s Playtime
Now here’s a band you are unlikely to have heard of, let alone their one and only album. BB Blunder was an off shoot of Blossom Toes (reviewed here: https://spiritdotrocks.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=6191&action=edit), indeed the album is sometimes credited to the latter following a mix up on a late 1980s re-release. BB Blunder remain probably even more obscure […]
CD Review – Dopapod – Dopapod
There aren’t that many palindromic bands in the progressive rock world. There’s Kayak, and few others (before the emails start flowing, there’s a band called Palindrome. There are bound to be others, but….). The band Dopapod have taken it once step further though. The group’s album titles are palindromic too – Radar, Drawn Onward, Redivider, […]
CD Review – Wobbler – I-III Box Set
Throughout its history Wobbler has always been a band that managed the fine musical balance between nostalgia and something more creative and innovational. This box set gathers together the band’s first three albums. They were well received by the progressive rock fraternity on original release and this compilation highlights how subtly the band progressed. The […]
CD Review – Hawkwind – Dreamworkers Of Time: The BBC Recordings (1985-1995) Box Set
Spacerockers Hawkwind were never really the trendy darlings of the rock press or for the world of broadcasting but they did occasionally get invited to recording sessions or live broadcasts for the BBC. This good-looking release covers the decade from the mid-1980’s to the mid-1990’s when the band already had a diverse and eventful history. […]
Joe Satriani Reschedules
World-renowned guitar legend, Joe Sartiani, has made the very tough decision to once again reschedule his European Tour. Originally scheduled to take place in 2020 it had been rescheduled to begin in April 2022. However, with the current Covid restrictions and quarantine mandates not yet standardized throughout the World, it has been decided that the […]
Asia To Release Live At Budokan With Guest Greg Lake
Multi-platinum selling English pop-prog supergroup Asia has announced the release of Asia In Asia – Live At The Budokan, Tokyo, 1983, as a Deluxe box set containing: 2LP, 2xCD, 40 page 12” book, Blu-ray video, printed memorabilia and Asia pin badge, through BMG Records on 10th June 2022. Also available as a 2LP Gatefold, 1CD […]
CD REVIEW – Grace & Fire – Elysium
Grace and Fire is a melodic progressive hard rock band from the East Midlands, formed in 2019 with the intention to fuse Progressive Rock with Melodic Hard Rock in an anthemic, song-based, accessible format. Have they succeeded? Let’s see….. This album was released November 2021, produced, mixed and mastered by the legendary Karl Groom (Threshold) […]
CD REVIEW – Michael Weston King – The Struggle
Michael Weston King hails from the English coastal town of Southport, 20 miles north of Liverpool, where he cut his teeth in bands on the fringes of the post punk, new wave and power pop scene of the early 80’s until he discovered a deep-rooted love of Country and American folk music along with the jangle […]
CD Review – SJS – The Unlikely Event
Is it possible for a sound to be really breakable? You occasionally come across music that suggests that it is. On Jon and Vangelis’ second album, The Friends Of Mr Cairo, Jon Anderson’s voice often sounds like crystal glass. On this album, the groups second, Aussie neo-proggers SJS deliberately create a frangible sound that suggests […]
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Spirit of Progressive Rock 