Tag Archives: prog

Sequences: New release from Twelfth Night will celebrate signature piece

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The 1980s neo-progressive rock scene spawned many bands that are still loved by prog fans decades on.  Twelfth Night were arguably among the most inventive and the most overlooked.  One of the band’s signature pieces, ‘Sequences’, is an excellent example of the band’s gifts for experimentation and re-invention, having changed shape over the course of the band’s lifetime.

In November, a new release ‘Sequences’ will celebrate the evolution of the twenty minute epic, and mark the centenary of the end of WWI.  The new recording will the first time the vocal version of the song will have been captured in the studio environment.

Full details can be found in the below press release.

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GREENSLADE – Spyglass Guest

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Of all the second division prog bands of the 70s – those who never quite made it to household name status with Yes and Camel – Greenslade are, perhaps, the band who’ve most been relegated to history. Despite a few high profile BBC appearances and four albums released between 1973 and 1975, they’ve never quite been given their full dues. If Greenslade get mentioned at all, it’s for their second album ‘Bedside Manners Are Extra’, released at the tail end of 1973. ‘Spyglass Guest’ – released the following year – is arguably a much better album.

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JET BLACK SEA – The Overview Effect

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The work of producer/multi-instrumentalist Michel Simons and multi-instrumentalist Adrian Jones, Jet Black Sea was originally conceived as a side project to Jones’s prog rock band Nine Stones Close. A vehicle for experimentation, their debut release ‘The Path of Least Existence’ mixed elements of prog rock, ambient music, electronica and post rock with fantastic results. A follow-up ‘Absorption Lines’ was almost five years in the making. Absorbing more mellow prog rock sounds than before – presumably since Nine Stones Close had, by that time, veered towards a more prog metal sound on their 2016 LP ‘Leaves’ – the album was well received among online prog fans.

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Jethro Tull ‘This Was’ 50th Anniversary box set coming in November

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Over the past few years, Jethro Tull fans have been utterly spoilt.  The lion’s share of their classic albums have been reissued as multi disc sets at very affordable prices.  Typically, each reissue has contained the main album of the chosen title, alongside all available associated recordings, plus a 5.1 remix by Steven Wilson.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a little grumbling amongst fans regarding the lack of Wilson remix for the debut album, 1968’s ‘This Was’.

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3.2 – The Rules Have Changed

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Shortly after the demise of the short-lived Emerson Lake & Powell, keyboard maestro Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer teamed up with ex-Hush multi-instrumentalist Robert Berry to form the melodic rock outfit 3. Their sole album, 1988’s ‘To The Power of Three’ presented a great selection of melodic tunes with occasional progressive flourishes, but despite yielding a US hit single, the album itself wasn’t a commercial success on either side of the Atlantic.

By the early nineties, Keith and Carl had reunited with their old bandmate Greg Lake, whilst Berry embarked on what was to be a very prolific decade of recording. He recorded albums with AOR band Alliance, contributed to several progressive rock tribute albums and even re-booted his solo career. His 1992 release ‘Pilgrimage To A Point’ is a melodic rock/accessible prog classic and in ‘Last Ride Into The Sun’ (an unreleased leftover from the 3 days) even gave prog rock fans something infinitely more proggy than the commercially driven 3 album had allowed.

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