The origins of SUPERSISTER go all the way back to The Hague, Netherlands in 1967 when Robert-Jan Stips (vocals and keyboard), Sacha van Geest (flute), Marco Vrolijk (drums) and Ron van Eck (bass) started the band under the moniker Sweet O.K. Supersister (the name they would release their final album "Spiral Staircase" under). In the few short years between their formation and the release of their debut release PRESENT FROM NANCY, a collection of absurdist musical tales of a fictitious girl having tea with the giant staircase gnome, the band honed their chops to become one of the biggest surprises of the nascent progressive rock scene in 1970 by taking the Canterbury traits of Soft Machine, Egg and Caravan and marrying them to the whimsy on steroids approach of The Mothers Of Invention all the while throwing in some Miles Davis and John Coltrane jazz effects mangled up in a classically infused compositional approach. All in the spirit of the wild experimental odometer years of the 60s turn 70s era.

While mere teenagers, this quartet dished out some of the most adventurous music of the early prog scene that literally took their influences to the next few levels and unleashed a truly bizarre mishmash of Vrolijk's military styled percussive drive (offering a somewhat cartoonish effect), blitzkrieg keyboard virtuosity delivered by the frenetic fingers of Robert Jan Stips (who simultaneously nailed the Robert Wyatt vocal style), the Caravan inspired fuzz bass of Ron van Eck and Van Geest's sensual flute performances that somehow provide a grounding to the electric performances that make up PRESENT FROM NANCY, one of the ultimate gifts of 1970 indeed and one of the Netherlands' finest hours. In the world of progressive rock PRESENT FROM NANCY simultaneously offers some of the most complex musical deliveries with outlandish humorous touches that even finds the band members cracking up!

The album starts off with a robotic percussive drive with a classic Canterbury jazzed up piano run, a juxtaposition of styles that carries on throughout the album's entire run, never lets up and offers only the unexpected after a sense of comfort dares creep in. The album could be thought of as taking up the continuation of Soft Machine's first two albums. While the Softs were hell bent for leather to jettison their Canterbury pop rock origins in favor of stodgy and whimsy-free jazz fusion, SUPERSISTER gleefully picked up where "Soft Machine II" left off and then found myriad avenues of creative liberties to breath new life into it by taking the most extreme elements of the musical landscape and finding a way to incorporate them into the greater scheme of things.

SUPERSISTER managed to deliver the whole package with pleasant, even addictive melodies teased out into elaborate compositions that simultaneously exhibited a caffeinated youthful energetic drive together with mature and thoughtfully laid out musical motifs that took all the best aspects of the English Canterbury sound along with jazz-rock, classical and even managed to throw in some ridiculously cool psychedelia via electronic freak outs over exquisitely complex time signatures. The sheer audacity on display in "Memories Are New" for example, a construct of three segments that make a greater whole runs the gamut of sweet Canterbury laced jazzy melodies, relentless fuzz bass stabs, electronic feedback run amok and even sizzling guitar leads on par with any heavy rock of the day. The "11/8" part takes the best aspects of Egg and Mike Ratelege only to more extreme levels.

"Corporation Combo Boys," right out of the Frank Zappa playbook finds jazz-rock and tango romping together but only a brief appetite whetter for "Metamorphosis," another three part suite that sounds like a pronto-punk band experimenting with jazzy lounge lizard exotica that slowly ratchets up the intensity until it implodes with the closing segment "Eight Miles High." "Dona Nobis Pacem" goes even further and finds the band displaying some of the most interesting electronic techniques made more famous by Tangerine Dream as ethereal organ runs taking a ride into space in a slow unwinding prancing session between the stars, a track that belies the frenetic and whimsical nature of the album as a whole. Some sort of calming effect perhaps for the unsuspecting audience of the day? Who knows but a perfect way to end the prog expresss that unapologetically wends and winds through both the known and unknown prog universe of the day.

With so many elements freewheeling around the racetrack at a million miles an hour, PRESENT FROM NANCY shows a keen sense of stylistic balance which allows the album to hum along in perfection. The frenetic aspects are tamped down by the sensual moments of introspection. SUPERSISTER became quite the sensation in their native country even spawning hit singles but once English DJ John Peel started promoting them on his BBC Radio One Show, the band found a wider audience following in all of Europe and successfully captured hearts in their live performances. While stylistically straddling the line between Canterbury, jazz, classical and psychedelia, SUPERSISTER's debut delivered one of the most diverse sounding albums of the early progressive rock years in the vein of King Crimson's mighty debut "In The Court" which boldly straddles the musical soundscape into hitherto unvisited nooks and crannies of sound. This was very much a grower for yours truly. What started out as a WTF type of album has slowly sunk in to become an all time favorite. Patience, my friends. All good things come in their due time. A PRESENT FROM NANCY is the gift that keeps on giving.

Promising start from a band that describe their music as ''falafel djent'' - not entirely an accurate description but hints to the some of the main musical avenues they explore: near-eastern music and heavy progressive metal. The other main component, and perhaps most prominent, is that of jazz-fusion, which they execute brilliantly. Two members, Yoel Genin and Yogev Gabay, are also in the Israel progressive metal band Distorted Harmony, therefore the bonding is already there for a mature result.

Trioscapes, Seven Impale and Panzerballet are some of the bands that come to mind listening to this debut album; if you add the near-eastern influences to their music, this pretty much sums up what you are expecting to get out of this experience. The focus is more on the development of the composition on jazz-fusion substrates instead of the building on progressive metal and later adding the jazz sprinkle. Saxophone is prominent, hence the resemblance to the aforementioned bands, but the tilt towards the Israeli music moves them away from being directly compared to them, apart from perhaps 2-3 tracks where the influences are stronger.

For a near-purely instrumental album, structure and cohesion marks are high, with interest fading slightly in tracks where the Panzerballet madness virus strikes (Antikythera, Tralfamadore). Varied compositions such as ''Shdemati'', ''Aurora'', ''Ancient Secrets'' contain most of what a demanding progressive metal fan would ask for in a new venture. As it stands, ''HAGO'' is an intelligent, skilled set of musical tracks demonstrating prowess and creativity. Taking this to the next level with a more structured approach and musical concept might produce an album even more memorable. 3.5 stars.

EARTH FLIGHT are in operation since more than ten years in the meanwhile, though have slipped beneath my radar beforehand. Now their new third studio album 'Riverdragons & Elephant Dreams' attracted my attention really, seemingly evolves to a 2018 highlight, the more I'm listening. This is sophisticated prog, yeah! Well, considering they are a German band, it appears to be somewhat surprising as for the overall style. While delivering a heavy rock fundament plus proper psychedelic sentiment, this superficially sounds more like a typical nordic band is on the run here somehow, akin to Moonwagon or Causa Sui. Okay, categories are not more than ... categories, let the music speak for itself.

They have Tobias Brunner aboard. From charming to shouting, provided with a great singing voice - that's half the battle, isn't it? Now when considering a good and proper amount of vocal activity one can expect a very melodic affair too in general. And then, no doubts concerning the prog essence, as there are sophisticated arrangements given. Mirai marks an exceptional exemplar, tricky and enchanting. And I'd like to emphasize Bedlam especially. The song begins a bit innocent, but soon evolves into a big highlight. This due to an impressive blend of atmospheric space parts but also heavy expressive head banging moments. Wow! Take your time, an album which definitely needs some rounds to fully unfold.

So, three years later and Odin's Court are back with their eighth album, which is a sequel to the previous one. Something I noticed immediately is that there is now a full-time drummer, Gary Raub, in the band and right from the very first note his impact is apparent. Although there has been three years between the two releases, the original idea was to record and release a double disc the first time around, but it never transpired. So, the songs and ideas on this album came about at the same time as the initial, which is why they sound like they fit together so well. Of course, having a human with a very deft touch on double bass drum pedals, has made an immediate impact.

To me it also feels as if the two albums dovetail in that the first one ends with a long song, while this one kicks off with a twenty-minute epic, by far the longest piece on the album. I am always impressed with any band that starts with a lengthy piece, as they are opening themselves up for potential major criticism, so they have to nail it. I'm not 100% convinced that it shines quite as much as it should, especially with a passage at about 14 minutes that doesn't always gel, but they pull it back with some great playing and yet more superb vocals. Contrast the bombast of the opener with multi-layered harmonies of 'Will I See You Again', and it is quite astonishing. This moves from heavy riffs into a beautiful duet, which contains a threat of changing into something else at any moment. Of the two I do prefer this one, and part of that is due to the addition of a digital bonus EP, 'Not At All Greatest Hits', which includes six songs from their past. The version here of 'Paradise Lost Chapter 1' is wonderful: I love the interplay between the piano and electric guitar.

Let's hope that there isn't such a long gap between this album and the next.

I came across American prog band Odin's Court some years ago, reviewing both their third and fourth albums. Fast forward to 2015 and I was contacted by multi-instrumentalist Matt Brookins who asked if I would like to review their new album, which was their seventh. I explained that I was currently working on a book and that it would take some time for it to be reviewed as I was going to finish that before I started reviewing again. He said that he was absolutely fine with it, but neither of us expected it to take three years! The rest of the band are Rick Pierpont (guitar and backing vocals and Dimetrius LaFavors (vocals), while Matt provides guitars, keyboards, vocals, bass, drums, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, mountain dulcimer (plus there are a few guests).

This is the first of their albums that I have heard with LaFavors on vocals (although he was on the two albums previous to this, which I haven't come across), and he is a stellar singer. At times he reminds me of Brad Delp, and has plenty of power to back it up. Behind him there is a band that moves easily between melodic hard rock, prog rock and prog metal, with some wonderful guitars and riffs. This is a concept album dealing with ideas and questions relating to the universe, and the album is divided into three sections. The first twelve songs are in many ways leading us up to the final "Box of Dice (Does God Play?) which is an epic of more than seventeen minutes long.

This is complex music, that often has relatively simplistic lead guitar, and the combination of these two musical elements with those soaring vocals makes compelling listening. There are times when the drums aren't all that they could be, and others where they are far more powerful, and I think a full-time human driving the band through would have had a definite positive impact. I can see fans of Dream Theater getting a great deal from this, and I love the complex staccato riffs that are used to great dynamic effect. If you haven't' come across them before this, then you really should.

#23 Review

I might listen to an album many times and there are songs that i always skip from time to time you can realize what songs i do like a lot and i listen a lot when reading my reviews, the songs that i skip a lot its because they are repetitive (most of the time thats my problem with the songs) and there are different ways a song feels repetitive, one is when the structure never goes anywhere else than what they do all the time, and the other way is when the rythm or the chords are repeated too much in some interval, like it happened to me with "Watcher of the Skies" (i know that it sounds controversial, even then i still like that song a lot).

1.- From the Undertow 10/10 The introduction that Tony prepared for the song "Undertow" from "... And then there where three..." after the song was already made... this inctroduction serves as the introduction to Tony's solo career, and with this one i would've expected an incredibly long crafted concept 2LP album with lots of feelings and textures... well, his solo albums are mostly not that, but we still get a glimpse of that, i would say like 40%, while the rest are pop/love songs, 50% of those are good, that leave us with 70% of good solo material. I don't think that this song should've been an intro to Undertow, instead it could've been worked on and made a complete instrumental with it.

2.- Lucky Me 5/10 Really simple pop song that makes me go into the 70s really easily, even tho i was never there. A love ballad, another one (even tho it should've been the first i would hear when making reviews for this artist) thats too repetitive, i have already stablished that i'm not a fan of something like this.

3.- The Lie 7/10 Going into more Tony Banks territory here, with more changes and insteresting chord progression, as well as having a good feel to it and it doesn't get boring. This song could very well be a B-Side to a Genesis album from that time.

4.- After the Lie 8/10 It continues from the previous song, i don't get why it was separated from the previous song, it continues with all the goodness, but it takes the Banks factor over by a little with a really nice solo at the end and more details in between the song.

5.- A Curious Feeling 4/10 What an obnoxious start, i already dislike it and its the title track, even tho Tony said that he was going to name the album "The Waters of Lethe", that might have driven more sales but worse reviews, since people would've expected something different from this album. Well, this is another love pop song, while i can hear the "more meat" that Tony says pop songs need, i still find it too repetitive tho (imagine how horrible are todays pop songs for me if i'm disliking this song, and you can imagine, i suffer an incredibly amount of pain when the local radio is on).

6.- Forever Morning 10/10 The second instrumental on this album, this time more worked up than the first. While it starts a little unimpressive, it gets progressively better and more classic. The morning is characterized by a really nice myst and little rays of light, this song somehow manages to show me exactly that, is really magical and well done.

7.- You 10/10 It starts as your typical good love song and then it becomes one of the best instrumentals in this album, i really love its, i get transported to a river, a night sky and everything moves at the speed of the song.

8.- Somebody Else's Dream 5/10 How would be to live the lives of other people? Not as boring as this song i would say, again, i find it repetitive and it hardly moves me because of how monotonous everything feels placed, as if a machine made this song, with some times Tony doing an intervention.

9.- The Waters of Lethe 8/10 The third and last only instrumental in this album. I really love the start to this song, its incredibly sad, then it becomes somewhat of innocent and then it goes incredibly loud for the rest of the music piece, i would rather keep the sadness, and thats what i am doing, i'm learning the first part on piano and i'll take inspiration from that to make a piece. I like this instrumental but i'd rather those loud parts to be out of it.

10.- For a While 6/10 I finally found a song from an artist that i like that my grandparents could listen to. While in simple nature and repetitive as well, at least this song is much more pretty than the last one and the Tony Banks factor is present, this could've been another "Follow You Follow Me". Nice getaway to 70s love.

11.- In the Dark 10/10 I don't know what Tony Banks has with darkness, but i also feel something about it, and this song makes me go to a snowy place in the dark morning, near there i see a dog in my final hours and i try to do my latest good deed by giving him a place to rest with my coat. Such a beautyful and sad piece to end this album.

This album gets an 80/100, wich is exactly 4 stars.

I never expected to do a double upload, but i finished The Fugitive review last week, and this one was finished just recently, i expect to do soon my next Tony Banks review as well.

#22 Review

I was looking through some "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" reviews and i came to a realization... prog reviewers could be as complex as prog is, and i like that, but because of that i should clarify what kind of prog reviewer i am, there are some that go for the lyrics... i'm not that, some that go for how much rock there is on a certain song... i really don't care, there are others who go for techniques, and i do care about that, i like it, but if you have seen my other reviews you will realize that i almost never talk about it... because i'm more about the feeling the music gives, i started with soundtracks, and what some people called "filler" to some of the little instrumental music pieces on "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", if your read my review you already know, i think that those music pieces really added to the album to feel more like a movie... and the band thinks that so, they've tried to make a movie about that album 2 times already... so you know.

We have seen Tony sing in a Genesis song called Shepherd and his voice is really well used there, and here... we will see.

1.- This is Love 7/10 A song with a reggae sound, a weirdo that spies on to a lady and an interesting music video. I don't get why Tony felt like this was his song style, but somehow this song manages to sound good, specially when he is not singing. While this song doesn't need his voice, it still adds character. I don't get why i enjoy this song, maybe i feel somewhat identified with the weird persona.

2.- Man of Spells 3/10 I like how this album has felt alien so far. This song also seems like it doesn't need the voice, the piano/synth guitar is playing that part anyways. This song is very repetitive at the point where i asked myself "is really that all?".

3.- And the Wheels Keep Turning 5/10 While the voice does a little more here, i expected more on this song, in the parts where it goes "big", but it never does, instead this song has a little solo to compensate for that near the end (and repeated again at the end with a fade out). I was left expecting more from this song.

4.- Say You'll Never Leave Me 3/10 A love ballad that has little interesting moments and that its repetitive, not a good combination, it tries to do more but everything still falls flat. The lyrics get repeated too much.

5.- Thirty Three's 10/10 If i get to live 10 years more, alone and in a obscure solitary apartment... this is the song that will play on that place forever. I really like this instrumental, is dramatic and weird. I have no complaints.

6.- By You 4/10 This song is weird, alien and repetitive. It truly feels experimental and as such is interesting but not very good.

7.- At the Edge of the Night 7/10 I expected it to get more soundtrack like, but is just another pop song, albeit with more changes and much more interesting than some others that are here in this album. It could've been a hit if the keyboards were made louder, with synth drums and with somebody else's voice.

8.- Charm 10/10 I always wanted to hear Tony Banks do soundtracks for videogames, i think that some Genesis stuff and some songs from Tony solo career, Steve Hackett and Anthony Philips could make for an excelent videogame soundtrack. This "8-bit" instrumental has many classic influences and feels like a trip to a computer generated world that goes evolving graphically by any layer of music that passes, i really like this music piece.

9.- Moving Under 7/10 I almost understimated this song because of the last one, but it has some complex moments, the bass is really sweet and it has a little part in 5/6. This song has many changes in it and the final part sounds interesting.

10.- K2 5/10 An average repetitive pop-ballad but with a little of Tony Banks recipe in it.

11.- Sometime Never 5/10 Really similar to K2, harmless pop-ballad that i won't mind hearing while i lunch.

I recommend to every prog and soundtrack listener to take a moment and apreciate the songs 5 and 8, and if you're curious about some early pop done by Tony, i recommend hearing 1, 7 and 9

This album gets overall a 60/100 and that means that this album barely gets 3 stars.

This is the latest release from Kenny Mitchell, who has been playing music for well over forty years, but only started recording his own material in 2001. This is his eighth album since then, and while he provides all music, he is joined by Nathan Jon Tillett on vocals from Napier's Bones. They met by chance a few years ago when Mitchell was going through Soundcloud and came across Tillett's page. This album contains two lengthy (more than twenty minutes long each) instrumentals, plus two shorter songs with vocals. It was one of these that led to this being a connected album, as when Nathan provided the lyrics for "Where Do I Go" he based them loosely on the story of the Charlotte Dymond murder which occurred on Bodmin Moor in 1844, and for which her spurned lover Matthew Weeks was convicted and hanged in August of that year. There was some controversy and speculation surrounding the conviction which is still discussed and debated today, more than 170 years later. Mitchell says: "Nathan's lyrics were so powerful and effective for the song that I decided to likewise loosely arrange this entire album around Charlotte and her story, and especially to try to give her a happy ending of some sort, if only an imaginary one. "Charlotte's Journey" describes her re-awakening after death and her travels through the void towards the shining light in the distance, "Where Do I Go" tells the story of her murder while "Reflections" and "The Waterfall" are given over to her killer who after the trial and conviction is given a short time to reflect on his deeds and his fate.

Given that Mitchell is first and foremost a guitarist, with keyboards being very much a secondary instrument, I was rather surprised to hear them so much to the fore, as there are times during the instrumentals when he comes across as Jean Michel Jarre, which is not what I expected at all. But, it does make sense given that this is a very atmospheric album, and the spoken words that feature in the opening epic works incredibly well with that backing. In some ways the album feels almost like three separate pieces of work, with the areas where synths are to the fore being one, when the guitars are off and running (as they do in "Reflections") is another, while the vocal area is a third. In some ways this means that as a whole the album can feel a little disjointed, and I would personally rather that Mitchell keeps these albums as pure instrumentals, which would allow the flow to be better throughout, and for him and Tillett to set up a separate project for where they record albums together. Overall this is an interesting release, and as with all his other albums they have all been released on Bandcamp so I suggest that progheads should give them a try.

Every once in a while an album pops up that seems like it had the perfect band name and album cover for an entire different musical genre that wouldn't appear for decades after its release. I mean doesn't a band name like MCCHURCH SOUNDROOM cry out the perfect doom metal band? Add to that a black mass inspired skull with candle wax melted all over it as the album cover and an album titled DELUSION and it just sounds so right, for a Candlemass album maybe! But lo and behold, despite emerging in 1971 with one album in the days of metal's birth pangs in the wake of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, MCCHURCH SOUNDROOM were an eclectic jammy blues rock type of heavy psych. Although lumped into Germany's greater Krautrock tag, this Swiss band from Basel was more on the accessible side of the Kraut movement light years away from fellow Swiss trippers Brainticket.

Despite the Swiss nationality, MCCHURCH SOUNDROOM sound more English than continental as they copy and paste aspects of Jethro Tull flute oriented folk with hard blues rock that sounded like any old band of the era only with an ethnic percussive bombast. Lead singer Sandy McChurch (a guy) not only nails the Ian Anderson vocal style (at times but not always sounds like JT) but also worships his flautist abilities as well. While the album begins sounding like a long lost JT album, the album is more diverse and jams quite a bit with lengthy drum soloing (as on "Dream Of A Drummer") and psychedelic organ trippiness straight out of the 60s. In fact the album sounds like a long lost 60s archival release with a nonchalant approach to musical composition with lysergic mind trips popping in with studio effects and extended mind bending weirdness.

Weird indeed but not weird enough despite appearing on the German Pilz (Mushroom) label which hosted some of Kraut's most out there bands of the day including Anima, Wallenstein, Bröselmaschine, Flute & Voice and many others. MCCHURCH SOUNDROOM on the other hand sounds very much like an ordinary blues oriented rock band of the day that happened to pay extended tributes to the trippier parts of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." The music is very much based in a bluesy boogie rock with psychedelic organ frosting lacing it with Haight-Ashbury period psychedelia. While drummer Norbert Jud steals the show with his energetic and eclectic percussive styles, unfortunately the rest of the band is pretty standard for the latter end of the 60s. I think MCCHURCH SOUNDROOM didn't get the memo that prog rock was well underway at this point and DELUSION sounds a good two years behind the pack with only occasional detours into more creative progressive outings such as on "What Are You Doin'"

Despite the rather dated feel to the album, the extended jamming sessions that make up "Dream Of A Drummer" and "What Are You Doin'" do flesh out various moods that justify their lengthy meandering into the trip-o-sphere. Krautrock is a devilish beast with some of the most adventurous music in progressive rock having emerged within its confines, however MCCHURCH SOUNDROOM is one of those that played it a little to safe for my tastes. The compositions aren't melodic enough to inspire a killer hard rock based blues album and it's not nearly creative or adventurous enough to enter the true psychedelic bizarr-o-sphere either. DELUSION sits somewhere in between. Decent and non-offensive to the ears with nothing to really help it stand out from the burgeoning crowds of the era. It's apparent that the band had kernels of nascent creativity gestating as DELUSION rolls on but a sophomore album was never meant to be. Unfortunately, i love the album cover and preconception of what the album should've sounded like more than the album itself. Despite it all, it's not a bad listen either.

What an excellent album - MYSTERY appear to have encapsulated all that has gone before and upped their game with this re release, with a superb production that enhances the overall effect. Having read some of the reviews elsewhere I was really looking forward to this release, and it has not let me down. What struck me more was the inclusion of the bass pedals that appear to add a new dimension as well as the lush keyboards that one has come to expect, the 'jangling' picked guitar, the driving, the complex drumming and the familiar vocals. At times vaguely reminiscent of RENAISSANCE or STYX amongst others. This album certainly gets my vote for being the best release of the year (so far). A definite 5 star rating.