Two years on from their devastating ‘The Head Which Becomes The Skull’ Californian doomsters Daxma (pronounced Dahk-ma) unleash a career best with the ‘Ruins Upon Ruins’ EP. Their first release for Blues Funeral Records, it might look like a stop-gap since it features just two songs but the reality is somewhat different. Each of the featured pieces stretches beyond ten minutes (one even fills a full quarter of an hour), meaning that, combined, the two riff laden offerings actually have a running time that’s almost as long as various rock LPs from the late 60s.
Tag Archives: prog
BILLY SHERWOOD – Citizen: In The Next Life
Billy Sherwood’s 2015 album ‘Citizen’ looked at the world through the eyes of various historical characters, both real and fictional. He drafted in a few friends to make his vision a reality: Yes men Jon Davison and Geoff Downes lent their vocal and keyboard skills; other keyboards were added by sometime Yes members Rick Wakeman and Patrick Moraz, John Wesley, Steves Hackett and Morse each brought their distinctly different guitar chops to the recording sessions but, perhaps best of all, Colin Moulding (one time of XTC) came out of retirement for a guest vocal appearance. In many ways, ‘Citizen’ felt like an all star epic.
NEAL MORSE – Jesus Christ: The Exorcist
Back in the 90s, Neal Morse was one of the most talented people to emerge on the prog rock scene. With elements of Gentle Giant and Yes mixed with the Morse Brothers’ distinctive own style, Spock’s Beard gave prog a real kick up the arse with their first three albums. Their third album ‘The Kindness of Strangers’, especially, marked the band as one of the new breed of greats since it blended some great proggy ideas with the pop charms of Jellyfish and Crowded House to create a record that mixed excess with a truckload of melody. It was a disc they would never better. In the early 2000s, Neal found religion and left the band for a solo career. His albums from then on featured some reasonable music but divided fans due to some very heavy handed and preachy lyrical concerns.
PROCOL HARUM – Broken Barricades
Having gained mass popularity from their 1967 debut single ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, Procol Harum’s career started with such force, it seemed they’d have nowhere to go but down. In the late 60s and early 70s, of course, bands weren’t always expected to follow their success – or even achieve success – instantly and that kind of open minded thinking really worked to Procol’s advantage. Across a series of varied but enjoyable albums released between 1967-1970, Gary Brooker, Robin Trower and company were given plenty of room to experiment. With the quirky pop of ‘She Wandered Through The Garden Fence’ (1967), they showed they could hold their own in the psychedelic world; with huge suites (‘In Held ‘Twas In I’, 1969) and an assortment of themed tracks on ‘Home’ (1970) they more than entertained the hardened prog fans; occasional Vaudevillian tendencies showed they also had a sense of fun and with various classically infused tracks they showed themselves as a cut above most musicians of the era. Prog, rock, pomp and even straight blues – for Procol Harum, nothing seemed off limits and yet their early works all still had a genuine coherency that some of their peers lacked.
An Extraordinary Life: Lavish John Wetton box set to be released this year
Following last year’s exhaustive box set of UK recordings, John Wetton fans will soon have another reason to celebrate. Before the end of 2019, the Wetton estate will release a deluxe box set of various solo materials, accompanied by a hard-backed book.
Although the final tracklistings and some of the small details are currently under wraps, it is believed that a couple of the albums will be expanded to two disc sets and various rarities will join the much loved albums.
More details can be found in the below press release.
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