Pendragon - Pure

As we discussed before, prog came back in the 80s...if not in a big way, then at least in a noticeable way.  After having its heyday in the 70's, most of its major players had either split up or moved into more commercial directions.  Bands like Marillion, IQ, and Pendragon kept the spirit alive in their complex compositions, theatrics, concept pieces, and the like. It never quite took off in the same way it had in the decade prior, aside from the few hits that Marillion managed to score. But it was never like the days when Yes, ELP, Genesis, and Jethro Tull were selling out arenas and stadiums.  Instead these bands managed to enjoy cult followings, which is the better end of the deal anyway.  Sure, you might have to work a day job to get by, but the fanbase that you do have is totally dedicated and eager to follow you down whatever rabbit hole you might chance upon. That has allowed all the major bands of the genre to enjoy careers that extend to this day, each band creating its best work in the modern day, with each successive release.

The Nick Barrett-led Pendragon is one such band.  Formed in 1978, they have been making records since 1985's The Jewel but are probably at their most relevant in the present day.  While many of their albums are hailed, at least in the prog community, as masterpieces, I always found their music to be a bit hokey, and it took me ages to come around. Their music was never as rich as Marillion's nor as deep as IQ, and it took them a long time to get away from sounding dated.  But something happened around the turn of the century, I'm not quite sure what, but their music suddenly got dark and, at times, quite heavy. The hooks got stronger, but were more deeply buried, surrounded by musical ideas that are both compelling and soothing.  For me, that's when Pendragon got good. After not listening to them for years, I heard 2009's Pure and was instantly sold. This is a record that has its complex proggy bits and its spaced out Floyd-type bits, but also can get downright metal when the section calls for it, and then turn around and lay a catchy, poppy chorus or guitar lead on ya, before launching into some other clever bit. While they never get as heavy or as technical as Dream Theater, they manage to thrash much harder than any of their peers, most of whom would never even try. Obviously that lends a certain level of energy to the record, particularly in the 17-minute "Comatose", which manages to move from Metallica to Zeppelin to Sgt. Pepper in the span of about two minutes, before driving into the "Space Cadet" section, which could have been a single on its own.

The opening track, the epic "Indigo" is a most perfect introduction to the band, featuring pretty much every example of the band's style shifts. One of my favorite pieces by them, this starts off dark and states its intent right off the bat.  After thirteen minutes, this wisely moves into "Eraserhead" which has a bit of a Porcupine Tree feel, and is another one that rages at the right times and spaces out just as well.  "The Freak Show" is a shorter number that I actually covered on my album, The Big Cover-Up.  Where my version stripped the song all the way to its barest core and rebuilt it in a very stripped-down form, the version here is dense and clever, featuring a majestic intro, full of dystopian metal riffs and soaring guitar melodies that resolves itself into a really great song. Obviously a quick favorite of mine. The lyric isn't perfect, and I honestly would have developed this song even further, but there is a lot of emotion behind these words and what's here is a hell of good idea.

That seems to be a recurring theme, as Barrett's weakness lies in his lyrics. It's not always the case, but sometimes there is a lyric that just doesn't quite nail it.  It's clear what he's saying but sometimes I think it could be said better. But for every clumsy lyric, there are a dozen brilliant musical ideas, and that really makes up for it. Barrett is a clever, and quite underrated, guitar player and a seemingly endless fount of contrasting ideas which he fits together perfectly.  His production skills are also astounding. I am pretty sure this album was recorded in home studios but it sounds phenomenal (a hell of a lot better than my own, home-recorded albums, that's for damn sure).  Lots of tricky bits in the mix, different layers and such. He probably spent longer on the mix than anything else here, but it pays off.

Since I first listened to this album, I've gone backwards and forwards in their discography, pinpointed exactly when they got cool (2005's Believe) and then found them just getting better from there on out. 2011 brought Passion which features "This Green And Pleasant Land", perhaps their best song ever, while 2014's Men Who Climb Mountains is a masterpiece.  One of these days I will give their early work another go.  It's just hard when you have albums like Pure that are damn near perfect.

Just sayin'...

IQ - Subterranea

Yeah, so prog had its first real heyday in the 70's.  We all know that.  Bands like Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd dominated the scene (whatever scene there was) along with lesser-known bands like Camel, Caravan, Soft Machine, Hawkwind, Gong, Gentle Giant, Eloy, PFM, Kaipa, etc.  Those bands reigned supreme, in one way or another, for the better part of that decade...that is, until they were all killed off by punk and, uhhh, Foreigner.  But just as punk and arena rock were reactions to prog (albeit in wickedly different directions), it wasn't long before a new age of prog would appear, which itself would be a reaction to punk and arena rock (it's all cyclical, y'know).

It was during this time that these "neo-prog" bands such as Marillion, Pendragon, Pallas, and IQ all came into being.They took the attitude of punk and the power of arena rock and combined it with a 70's prog mindset.  Peter Gabriel-era Genesis tended to be the prevailing influence in this crop of bands and while it's true that none of these guys reached the commercial heights of their forefathers, they forged careers that all continue to this day, maintaining legions of fans (especially in the case of Marillion, one of the most successful fully-independent bands in the world).  And all these bands, in turn, influenced a later crop of prog bands, who all did their part in the chain, paving the way for the current prog scene, which is bigger, more diverse, and more successful than ever.

Somewhere in the middle of all that is IQ, one of my favorite bands in all of prog.  They never quite captured the success of Marillion but they have spent the last 35 years making some of the most compelling music I've ever had the pleasure to hear.  From their 1983 debut, Tales From The Lush Attic all the way to 2014's magnificent Road Of Bones, these guys have never made a bad record (of what I've heard).  Acquired taste for some, for sure.  But always solid.

I came to know IQ with 2004's Dark Matter, which I had on a burned CD for years but had never listened to. Or, if so, it was maybe once, in the background. Anyway, so I finally pulled it out, probably in 2010 or so, and it almost blew my mind.  I knew something was there but it wasn't until I listened to it again the next day, or whenever, that I was hooked.  I listened to nothing but that disc for weeks, until I knew the whole thing by heart.  Then I moved on to their 2009 album, Frequency, which has gone on to become one of my favorite albums of all time....I swear I've listened to it 500 times.  One of these days they will issue it on vinyl and I will review it here.  So I've been slowly working my way through their catalog over the years and have listened to most of their albums (a few in the middle I haven't yet listened to) and they are all really, incredibly solid.

Probably the best of the bunch is 1997's magnum opus, Subterranea.  Every prog band has its opus.  That magnificent, often long-winded statement that, successful or not, found the band at its most ambitious.  Yes had Tales From Topographic Oceans, Genesis had The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Pink Floyd had The Wall, Jethro Tull had Thick As A Brick, Camel had The Snow Goose, Marillion had both Misplaced Childhood and Brave (a killer double-shot), Spock's Beard had Snow, the list goes on and on.  This album is IQ's opus and is a fantastic one at that.

1993 found original vocalist Peter Nicholls reuniting with the band on the album, Ever (one of the few i haven't yet heard....I said I was taking it slow...).  It was a successful reunion, one that's survived to this day.  For their next album, it was time to do something big.  They already had their opus, 1985's magnificent Wake, or so they thought.  The only thing they could do now was to try and top it.  And they did.

Subterranea follows the story of a man who was raised from birth in solitude, in an underground cell, as part of some twisted scientific experiment.  It's not until he is released as an adult into the real world that he comes to understanding...well, pretty much everything.  He soon comes to realize that what had happened to him was part of something far greater than imagined.

The rest, I shall not reveal.  You must listen to this album.  No spoilers here, bucko!

Musically, they are right at the top of their game.  The first two sides of the vinyl contain some of the greatest music IQ ever recorded, including the epic "Failsafe" and the title track, which I would love more than anything to see live.  "Speak My Name" is one of the band's best gentle-songs, while "Tunnel Vision" moves from a heavy verse into one of their best-ever choruses.  Given that these songs all correspond to a story, there is careful attention paid to the arrangements, even more so than usual.  The way the album, and the songs themselves, changes gears, turns corners, turns stones...this album flows perfectly. Sometimes melodic ideas that formed the basis for a song earlier on will show up in another form later ("Provider" and "The Sense In Sanity", for example).  It is especially effective on vinyl, where it is one continuous piece of music that segues from song to song...on vinyl, there is no time display, and no gaps placed between tracks. You drop the needle, close your eyes, and dig it.  There is so much here to dig.  From Mike Holmes' tastefully clever guitar work to the since-retired Martin Orford on keys - a visionary one, he was - this album is IQ at their most focused.

Like most double albums, this one does suffer in places, mostly on the second disc.  Like most double albums, this has a fair bit of musical padding, bits and pieces here and there that perhaps could have been ignored but are there in order to get the record to a suitable length and balance the discs.  Unlike most double albums, that padding doesn't detracts much. The only complaint is the fact that this album is so long.  And as if it couldn't get any longer, they close the album with a 20-minute epic, "The Narrow Margin".  Taken alone, this is one of their most impressive pieces.  Placed at the tail end of two-and-a-half hours of prog...it's a bit much.

That said, if that was not enough, this vinyl edition contains a bonus 12" single featuring two songs cut from Subterranea that are totally worth the extra ten minutes or so.  "The Universal Scam" is as good or even better than much of the album.  Could have been a single.  Rounding out the whole package is "Eyes Of The Blind" is an atmospheric piece with a plaintive Peter Nicholls vocal.  They were certainly wise to cut this from the album - it would have definitely slowed things down.  But here, in this context, it's a lovely way to end this whirlwind.

Anyway, a few years ago this story was made into a movie, starring William Katt (Greatest American Hero) and Nicholas Turturro.  Mike Holmes composed the score and IQ recorded a fair bit of new music, and Subterranea songs as well.  It has been touring the film festival circuit for a couple of years now.  No word on an official release yet but I will definitely be one of the first to buy a ticket or order the DVD,  Something tells me, given the band's blessing on it, this film is going to be great.  At the very least, it will probably make more sense ;)

Anyway, the bottom line is - Subterranea is a masterpiece and IQ should be far better known for it.

Keith Emerson (1944-2016)

It has been one hell of a year in the music world so far. And not in a good way, either.  Too many of music's most beloved characters are leaving this earth, and far too early.  It really goes back to last summer and the shocking death of Chris Squire.  And then we lost Lemmy, at the end of the year.  2016 kicked off and we lost David Bowie, Paul Kantner, Maurice White, Dan Hicks, and Glen Frey,  and we learned that it's all but certain that Rush is retiring. And it just doesn't end either, as two days ago we learned of the suicide of the great Keith Emerson.  Founder of The Nice as well as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Keith was one of the greatest keyboard players of all time.  Even the mighty Rick Wakeman would happily bow to King Emerson. His tragic and senseless demise will haunt the prog world for years to come.

I will admit.  I have never been a super huge ELP fan.  When I was first getting into prog, back in 8th & 9th grade, I bought all their albums on vinyl (at the Record Mart), because that's what you did.  And I listened to them quite a bit.  But to this day I have never been able to connect with their music in the same way that I did with King Crimson, Genesis, Pink Floyd, and especially Yes. I've never been able to put my finger on it either. I never hated ELP, never even disliked them, just kind of accepted them as a very casual fan.  I guess it always seemed to me that they were more concerned with showing off than with creating something of vast substance.  Perhaps it has to do with their sound, specifically the lack of a dedicated guitar player. The rest of the Big Five bands created dense music featuring bonafide guitar gods whereas ELP was driven by Keith Emerson's keyboard skills.  There were times when Greg Lake would play guitar, and it is awesome, but those times were few and far between, and his skills came more with his singing and bass playing anyway.  Then again, maybe my aversion came to the showmanship.  While the other big bands were outlandish in their own ways (Yes with their crazy stage sets, Genesis with Peter Gabriel's outrageous costumes, Pink Floyd with their lasers and flying pigs....King Crimson just stood there and were loud), ELP was the band that turned a show into a circus, with Emerson throwing his organ around, sticking knives into the keys, and playing piano while spinning through the air, high above the stage, and Carl Palmer's massive percussion rig with all the gongs and whatnot.  It was performance art, a textbook example of prog excess, I just could never buy it, so I never really paid attention to their music.  I take full responsibility for that.  They are one of the most important bands of the genre and were massively successful - obviously they have something going on there.  And its not like I disliked their music - it just always kinda went in one ear and out the other.  Oftentimes their music comes across as gibberish but I love gibberish so I should probably find a way to enjoy this gibberish too. It makes sense, yeah?  It's been ages since I've listened to them.  Tonight I will give it another go.  Not from scratch, oh no.  No time for that (it's currently an hour later than it is, if ya dig).  So I will go for the good ones.

I can't remember what the first ELP album I had was. Probably the first album, from a 99 cent bin or something.  But I remember being totally excited about Tarkus when I bought it ($3.95 at the Mart) because it had a side-long song.  I was obsessed with 2112 and Close To The Edge at the time, and both of those albums kicked off with a song that took up the whole first side. The difference here is that, well, this shit is weird. I mean, that other shit is pretty weird too, but ELP's music is truly, purely, 100% certified bonkers. There are no two ways around that.  Combine that with the fact that, instrumentally, this is really stripped down trio playing...the antithesis of the rest of the Big Five. I tip my hat to them for being able to compose, learn, and remember this material.

As I mentioned before, This album kicks off with the side-long title track, a perfect example of music going totally mental. Dark, funky verses intermingle with Zappa-esque interludes, overflowing with manic, spastic triplets that roll over you like an armadillo tank.  Greg Lake proves his is one of the coolest voices in prog, while even offering up some tasty, Gilmour-inspired guitar solos, amidst his cohorts' bombast.  There is a good deal of padding on this track, unnecessary reprises...it goes on and on.  It probably did not need to take up a whole side. But it's still cool.  I dig a lot of this track.

In contrast, side two is made up of six shorter songs.  "Jeremy Bender" kind of comes across like their "Harold The Barrel", an effortlessly cool little song that offers a breather between the sonic assault of side one and the hyper-intense "Bitches Crystal", which comes next.  Fusing all the energy from "Tarkus" with a proto-punk vigor, a dash of "Seven And Seven Is", a pinch of Zappa, and a sprig of Vince Guaraldi's classic "Skating" - and played super-fast - "Bitches Crystal" very well may be their best song ever.  It has always been the one song from this album that did grab a hold of me.  Next up, Greg Lake offers us  new sort of hymn with "The Only Way", accompanied by Emerson on pipe organ before the band kicks in and segues into "Infinite Space", laying down a sick Dave Brubeck kind of groove. Heavy organ rock comes next with "Time And A Place", a very "typical" ELP song, if there could ever be one.  If they had full-time guitar in the band, this track would surely be the heaviest of metal. After such a heavy and serious album, they cut loose on the silly closing track, "Are You Ready Eddy?", which is a old time, Jerry Lee Lewis type of rocker, sung to Eddy Offord, the engineer.  There is nothing at all prog about this track and that's why it was always a favorite, back in the day. You don't often get to hear these serious musicians cutting loose and having a laugh. I really dig that.

I always love to listen to old things with new ears. Whether it's something I know by heart or an album that went sorely neglected for decades, there is always something fresh with each listen. While I will not profess to being, all of a sudden, an ELP devotee, I will say that I enjoyed this immensely.  They are still as pompous as I always accuse them to be. However, at closer listen, it is clear that there is some serious shit going on there. I can't help but respect that.

This inspired me to pull 1973's Brain Salad Surgery from the shelf.  It actually hasn't been that long since I've listened to this, but it's been years since I've really paid really close attention to it. This is already proving to be interesting. Everything I said before about them being bonkers, well...shit, what the hell comes after bonkers?  Stark raving mad?  That's about right.

Kicking off with a tremendous arrangement of "Jerusalem" - you know, William Blake, "green and pleasant land" and all that - a very stately beginning to the madness that is to come, in their frantic arrangement of Ginostera's "Toccata" - seven minutes of moog synthesizers, staccato blasts, free jazz, fusion, and deep psychedelic swirls. This is music that will send you right to the brink.  I don't think even King Crimson ever got this nuts.  It raises my blood pressure but I sure do appreciate the hell out of it.  Clever music is clever music.  Even more clever is the way that it dissolves into Greg Lake's classic, the mostly-acoustic "Still...You Turn Me On".  I've always loved the detached, spaced-out quality of this recording. A rare ELP song to be credited solely to Lake, it makes me think I should explore his solo work.  Next up is "Benny The Bouncer", which is a really goofy, ragtime-inspired number that follows in the footsteps of "Are You Ready Eddy".  Kind of an end-of-session track, just to blow off steam and have fun.

Which they might as well do because the rest of side one and the entirety of side two is devoted to the 39-minute opus, "Karn Evil #9", which tells the story of a futuristic world that is run by computers, where all evil and decadence have been eradicated, preserved only as carnival attractions....the show that never ends....of course eventually there's a war with the computers and a number of different scenarios play out.  A couple of extracts from this piece were released as singles, the most famous of which ("First Impression: Part 2") kicks off side two with the familiar greeting - "welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends". Ironic, given the length of this track.  An edit from "First Impression: Part One" is also played on classic rock radio a fair bit.  Unlike much of their work, Greg Lake plays a great deal of guitar on this track, proving himself to be one hell of a player.  Keith Emerson totally takes charge here, running organ leads, synth effects, and bass pedals, all at the same time.  And then, with 'Second Impression", he shows that sometimes all you need is a piano.  And a percussionist that can totally hang with your oddball changes, which Carl Palmer does, ably. The final section, "Third Impression", finds the band going back into bonkers mode, Emerson throwing down mad Moog loops, Greg Lake carrying on a dialog with a computer, and the aural equivalent of a war.  Nonsense, I tell you!  But compelling nonetheless.

One last gasp before I wrap this up....I can't celebrate Keith Emerson without mentioning The Nice.  Before ELP, there was The Nice.  Assembled by Emerson, initially to serve as PP Arnold's backing band, it wasn't long before they realized they had something there and they split off to do their own thing.  As he did later in ELP, Emerson arranged classical pieces to fit the construct of a rock band, as well as appropriating bits and pieces from all over, to create their own, whimsical psychedelic sound.  To be honest, I've paid more attention to The Nice over the years than ELP.  Taken on their own, had there never been an ELP or anything like that, this band would still be remembered for their five groundbreaking albums. While Emerson's influence was the one that tended to dominate, this was still a band, and the contributions of bassist Lee Jackson, drummer Brian Davison, and (on this album only) guitarist David O'List cannot be understated.  Their first album,The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack came in 1967 and easily holds its own against the most ambitious albums from that year.  Their arrangement of Brubeck's "Blue Rondo A La Turk" is among the most wicked of psych tracks to come out that year, or any year.  I think I will do a thing on The Nice later, so I won't go into detail about this album other than it's awesome, it's Keith Emerson's introduction to the world, and I am listening to it right now.

That's the beauty of records....the player may be long gone but the song lives on.  Rest in peace, Keith Emerson.  I sure do hope you found your peace.

Rush: Test For Echo

This is the inaugural entry in what is a new blog version of the old "Current Vinyl" posts.  So we might as well start with something awesome. I finally came to own this album on vinyl about a month ago and, given Alex Lifeson's recent clarification that the mighty Rush is retired from touring and uncertain about their creative future as well, it seems like the right time to give this a spin.

I still remember the first time I heard any of the music on this album.  The week before the album came out, it was premiered on a syndicated radio show where the band came in and talked about the music and they premiered the songs, in some random order.  By 1996, listening to these broadcasts had become tradition.  That year, I was living in a townhouse and could not get any FM reception inside so I remember huddling up in Mike Loftus' car, in the parking lot outside, listening and soaking it in as much as I could.  Being that we were in the car and not able to record the broadcast, it would be a week before I would be able to hear any of these again.  I will say it was a mighty anxious week.

Rush has always had this habit of working in two-album cycles.  The first album would always find them moving into different musical directions while the second album would show them perfecting it. 1993's Counterparts album found Rush reacting to the dawn of the grunge era by leaving behind the slick pop of their previous two Rupert Hine-produced albums and cranking up the guitars and attitude, and getting back to the three-piece nature of the band.  And they did it very well.

1996's Test For Echo found the band taking their newfound sense of heaviness and delivering some of the finest songs of their career.  This album also boasts what I consider to be their finest album cover.  Hygh Syme really outdid himself with this arctic wonderland.  It was my introduction to the Inukshuk and was far more satisfying than the nut & bolt on the previous album's sleeve.

The album kicks off with the dark & complex title track, a commentary on the celebrity of Court TV.  Rush always has killer opening tracks and this does not disappoint.  It is immediately followed by "Driven", with its propelling bass groove and general sense of edginess that makes it one of the better live songs.  They show off their poppier side with "Half The World", which has always been a favorite of mine.  Next up is "The Color Of Right", which is one of those Rush songs that is excellent in its own right but still it seems a bit phoned-in.  Like it was one of the last songs written for the album...or the first.  Pleasant enough but a bit paint-by-numbers.  It happens.  We move on.

Fortunately next is "Time And Motion", which finds Rush at their darkest and weirdest since the late 70s and it really pays off.  Why they never played this song live after the Test For Echo tour is completely beyond me.  By far one of the best Rush songs to ever grace a record.  "Totem" is bright, shiny strum-number that gives a shout-out to all the religions of the world, and features a seriously cool chorus. This is one of those deep-album cuts that I always tend to forget about but, listening back to it now after quite some time, I can hear the influence this song has on some many facets of my own songwriting.  Fantastic track.

Which makes it one big fucking shame, what comes next.  The track is called "Dog Years" and is Rush's idea of being lighthearted but is one of the band's greatest fails.  Out of hundreds of songs, over 40 years, this one is routinely at the bottom of every favorite-Rush song list.  And for good reason.  This is the kind of track that should never be on an album.  That's not to say that the playing on the track is bad, or even of the backing track is bad at all.  It's just a stupid throwaway which should have been a b-side.

I never like to play favorites with Rush albums - I always claim to love each equally.  But that's not the case for a lot of Rush fans and this album is one of the more maligned entries in the band's catalogue.  "Dog Years" is largely to thank for that, along with the mildly pleasant "The Color Of Right".  Another song that grates a lot of folks is "Virtuality", a treatise on the internet and how society has come to rely on it for information and connection in lieu of actual experiences (being in 1996, at the start of it all, no one had any idea just how true this would actually become).  To be honest, this song is amazing.  The music is clever and very well-written, and the message is compelling enough. But the whole "net boy/net girl" thing kinda dates the album a bit...along the phrase "put your message in a modem and throw it the cyber sea". I'll admit that there was a period when I did not care for this song but,just as I felt when I first heard it, I have come around on it now.  That guitar is just so damn heavy, and that chorus is infectious.

Next up is "Resist", one of the most beautiful songs Rush ever recorded.  Playing on the phrase, "I can learn to resist anything but temptation", this is one of Neil Peart's more clever lyrics, and one of his most heartfelt.  This song was performed acoustically, by Geddy & Alex, on a couple of tours and that took the song to whole new level.  This should have been released as a single.

After a heavy song like that, it's time to blow off some steam, and that is taken care of via the instrumental, "Limbo".  A little more jammy than some of their instrumentals, it's clear they had fun working this one out.  Alex goes nuts on those big open chords that sound like Hemispheres, while Geddy and Neil lay down some really sick jazz-funk grooves.  Oh, and the ethereal "chorus" part still kills me every time.  Very, very cool track.

Rush often like to close an album on an uplifting note (Vital Signs, High Water, Available Light, Everyday Glory).  "Carve Away The Stone", a pretty little song about about putting your own stamp on the world, does not disappoint.  Destined to be one of those deep-album cuts, this is a song that very sadly never made it to the live show.

Much has been written about the forced hiatus the band took following this album, so I won't go into it here.  But there was a period when we all felt like this was it.  Fortunately it wasn't it.  They'd regroup five years later and spend another 14 years at it.  It is kind of funny to think that now, twenty years after this album was released, we as fans are looking at Clockwork Angels as the final Rush album.  While the idea of no more new Rush music is terrifying, that album is one hell of a parting shot, just the like the R40 show was the best possible finale any band could ever give.  And most fans of the band would agree.  I do wonder if we would have had the same attachment to Test For Echo as we do for Clockwork Angels, had that really been the last album.  Fortunately that never came up.

Bottom line: While it's not as perfect an album as Power Windows, Moving Pictures, or 2112, the strong moments more than offset the few weak bits,  Every Rush album is vital, so of course this is a must. You should own it.