Tag: progressive rock

mainhorse
Vinyl

Mainhorse: Mainhorse (1971)

Day 16 of the #mayvinylchallenge celebrates the halfway point of the endeavor and asks for a random pick from your collection. I shuffled through my recent acquisitions and came upon Mainhorse, whose sole eponymous album from 1971 begs a certain question: there are so many lost or forgotten bands out there, are all of these band lost gems, or is there a reason they’re buried? Is this really as good as a lot of the more successful and popular prog rock bands out there, or is it that I’ve heard the popular stuff so much that something relatively obscure sounds like a diamond? I think with Mainhorse the answer is a little of both.

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voivod angel rat full
Vinyl

Voivod: Angel Rat (1991)

Day 14 of the #mayvinylchallenge asks for the album you’ve wither waited the longest to receive, or the longest to be released. I’ve got two albums that I ordered back in November that were supposed to be released and six months later I’m still waiting (though one is due to get here next week). And the longest I’ve waited for something that was already shipped I wrote about last year. So how about an album that took 31 years to get a North American release? I may have already featured it a few weeks ago during my Record Store Day excursion, but it’s always a good time to talk about Voivod, and their beguiling release Angel Rat.

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finch - glory of the inner force
Vinyl

Finch: Glory Of The Inner Force (1975)

Returning to the glory of obscure 70s instrumental prog! I mentioned when I wrote up Beyond Expression, the sophomore album from Dutch prog band Finch that the scuttlebutt was their debut was more jazz-influenced, and bore some comparison to bands like the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Thanks to the mighty Discogs I was able to track down a US pressing of Glory Of The Inner Force and I’m here to tell you that yes: it IS more jazz influenced, and their ARE some comparisons to be made to the fusion giants, mainly in some of the electrifying leads of Joop Van Nimwegen (though he’s a far cry from John McLaughlin). Whatever your take, on the whole this is a rocking debut that leans on the shoulders of the giants of the day to create an enjoyable record that isn’t afraid to go bold.

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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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