Masterminded by Mustapha Khetty, the Morpheus Project involves a revolving cast of musicians helping to bring his songs to life. This seven track release follows 2021’s ‘Mosaick’ and brings another concept album into the world, and its songs happily shift between classic rock, AOR and melodic metal, showcasing the fact that Khetty’s compositional skills – although shamelessly retro – straddle a broad spectrum of rock styles. That freewheeling approach means that ‘On The Edge’ could be the kind of album that’ll strike a chord with lovers of the pompier elements of bands like Asia at times, but those fans are unlikely to enjoy the more metallic output, whilst those who like a big helping of proggy metal are unlikely to gravitate towards the more 80s aspects of the album. In trying to please both camps, Khetty risks pleasing no-one in the long term – and that’s a pity, as there’s some fine musicianship and a few strong melodies here.
Tag Archives: prog rock
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #20
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual mp3s that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. For this twentieth selection, we bring you some light electronica with a souful feel, some sprawling prog rock, a brilliant cover tune, and more besides. As always, we make no apologies for the broad range of styles featured, and we hope you find something to enjoy.
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THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #10
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual MP3s that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. There’s no shortage of good music in the world, and this week, we probably could’ve put together three selections of the decent singles that have been sent our way. However, here’s another batch of the usual amount, and these eight top flight digital tracks take in the usual array of rock, metal, singer-songwriter fare and even something with a shameless pop core. If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check out the artists’ works further, or perhaps even backtrack to previous Singles Bars you might have missed along the way – there’s even more good music to be discovered!
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STRAWBS – The Magic Of It All
The Strawbs’ 2021 release ‘Settlement’ featured some fine music from the veteran musicians. Decades into their journey, it was possible for fans to experience Dave Lambert channelling Ant Phillips via some fine acoustic work, and moments where floaty, prog-ish arrangements lent the best material a thoughtful quality that really suited the band. Unfortunately, most of the album was rendered borderline unlistenable due to terrible vocals from Strawbs main man Dave Cousins. At best, he sounded like a ravaged old folkie – his voice worn by the years of musical storytelling; at worst, an asthmatic goblin, gargling with intent to sabotage the work laid down by his musical cohorts. It was the kind of album that all but the most diehard of Strawbs fans would spin three times and move on.
CURVED AIR – The Albums 1970-1973
For most people, British progressive rock band Curved Air are known for two things: being the first band to ever issue a picture disc and for the having the legendary Stewart Copeland having occupy their drum stool in the mid 70s. Considering that vocalist Sonja Kristina had previously been an important part of the London theatre scene in the late sixties – appearing in Hair – and Curved Air actually scored a UK top five hit single in 1971, you’d expect them to be more widely celebrated. Perhaps the reason they aren’t is due to lots of their classically- and jazz-derived music being very hard going. Their earlier work often values complexity over obvious hooks – something that makes the funky ‘Back Street Luv’ single seem like something of an anomaly – and the way they switch between different moods from track to track can, at first, be disorienting. They are very much a band that requires a lot of time and patience before most of the listening rewards become obvious.