Tag: progressive rock

finch - beyond expression
Vinyl

Finch: Beyond Expression (1976)

Are you supposed to grow out of your prog phase? I’m not sure, and I’m sorry to say that my need for keyboard wankery and ever-shifting tempos, time signatures, and 20-minute long songs continues unabated. Finch was another band I discovered listening to episodes of Sea of Tranquility, but resorted to YouTubes clips to hear then since they’re not available on streaming platforms. A Dutch instrumental prog band that briefly existed from about 1974-1978, their second album Beyond Expression cater to everything that was popular in prog at the time: long, symphonic structured songs, a heavy emphasis on keyboards and changing tonal shifts within the songs. Your mileage may vary, there’s a lot here I found that really works, both as great background music and when you dig in deeper for that classic prog headphone experience.

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consuming 70s rock
Miscellany

Consuming the 70s: Heavy and (Not) Forgotten

Although it certainly didn’t start there, I have Pete Pardo and the Sea of Tranquility YouTube channel to thank for my latest musical excavation. Looking back over this site’s history it’s no secret I love the music of the 70s in all its facets. But hard rock, metal, and prog have always been my bread and butter, and my listening habits have recently been all but taken over by the sinister siren of Moog synthesizers and Fender Rhodes, of the primitive lock of bass and drums matched against Marshall amps stacked to the heavens, reverberating with the root of a thousand riffs chained within, that pentatonic box which birthed a thousand bands…a million songs. From the obscenely popular to the ominously obscured, I’ve been digging deep into the woodwork of 70s rock, and it’s all that damn Pardo’s fault.

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hawkwind - hall of the mountain grill
Vinyl

Hawkwind: Hall of the Mountain Grill: (1974)

It’s May 4th, which means today’s #mayvinylchallenge is space themed. And though my heart forever belongs to the Mothership Connection, I thought I’d turn to something a little more progressive for my album pick. And so we come to Hawkwind, and Hall of the Mountain Grill from 1974. What do you do after you release one of the greatest live albums of all time in Space Ritual? Well, you trim back a bit on the effects and weirdness (but really, not that much) since Robert Calvert is gone, but trimming still makes for a really tight set of tunes that run the gamut of spych, prog, and good old fashioned rock and roll.

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baroness - purple
CD

Baroness: Purple (2015)

Red mixed with blue give you purple, so it stands to reason there’s an element of mixing at play with Purple, the most recent release from Baroness.  Coming almost four years after Yellow & Green, and also after the traumatic accident that almost cost John Baizley his arm, there’s a sense of bruised urgency to the tightened song structures that make for a great return to form for the band, as well as a clarity of intent and identity.   Continue reading “Baroness: Purple (2015)”

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baroness - yellow and green
CD

Baroness: Yellow & Green (2012)

It’s something to see a band release a double album.  When I see it I have to wonder if the band really felt like they needed two albums to get their point across; are they that confident in the songs?  Maybe it’s a reflection of my own insecurity when it comes to making music.  Regardless, though we might never know the real reasons, Baroness went ahead and did that very thing, putting out the combined Yellow & Green in 2012.  And, well…it goes about like many other double albums: there’s a great single album in there somewhere, but I usually don’t stick around that long to find it. Continue reading “Baroness: Yellow & Green (2012)”

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