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Showing posts from February, 2012

Legend - Cardinal Points

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Legend Cardinal Points (NoFish Productions NF CD3) Fifteen years after Tripal Aspect Legend finally released a new studio album called Cardinal Points. Legend excists since 1988 and between 1991 and 1996 three albums were released on the Pagan Media Ltd lable. With the loss of their recording contract in 1999 Legend disappeared into oblivion, at the very moment they were in the advantage stage of the inclusion of Cardinal Points. Ten years later Steve Paine, the founder member and keyboardist of Legend, picks up were they left and the collection Ritual Echo and the live album Playing With Fire, a registration of their 1992 tour, are released in Japan, a country Legend always has been better known then in England. And finally Cardinal Points is released. A conceptalbum of only four tracks dealing with the four wind directions and their relation to the elements (earth, air, fire and water) of the Western mysticism. They have a varied length of thirteen to seventeen minutes and ar

Tune - Lucid Moments

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Tune Lucid Moments (own release) Tune was founded in 2009 in the Polish city Lodz by Leszek Swoboda (bass, vocals) and Adam Hajzer (guitar). The music and songtexts breathe a melodramatic progressive atmosphere, in which the use of the accordion for the keyboardparts makes the music of this Polish pentad unique for the progressive rock scene. The result is a brilliant album, that seems to define progressive rock again. Okay, when you start analyze the music for sure you will find references, but concerning orginality Lucid Moments is an album, which I haven’t heart in our beloved style for quite awhile. Specially the use of the accordion gives their sound something elusive. Did past Polish bands look for their sound and references to bands of the seventies, remember Quidam, Collage and Satellite which find their inspiration in the music of Genesis, or Abraxas and Lizard which are influenced by UK, Tune seems to have developed themselves without the influence of big or small names in th

Alan Reed - Dancing With Ghosts

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Alan Reed Danicing With Ghosts (Red Dwarf Recordings RD0101 / The Merch Desk) After 26 years it is time for Alan reed to stand on his own feet. Dancing With Ghosts is his first solo release. The ep best can be seen as a warm up release to keep the listeners interested and get them ready for First In A Field Of One, Reed’s first solo album which is planned for early 2012. Both titles refer to the hectic period which followed on his (un)volentary departure of Pallas. On this ep Reed choose to approach the songs from an acoustic interpretation, not a progressive sound but pure vocals, guitar and bas with here and there some keyboard and drum support. The choice of work is from the past and the present, with Sanctuary being a surprised opener. A bombastic sounded somg of over nine minutes brought back to an acoustic interpretation of five, turns out to be wonderful. With Who’s To Blame, again that gut feeling, Reed plays the second Pallas song and with Kean On The Job he looks back on his