Anteater

I actually sent you a link to WoA's latest album In Progress quite some time ago. Did you ever download it?

The Magnificent are an AOR supergroup led by Michael Eriksen (lead singer for progressive metal band Circus Maximus). They received bucketloads of accolades last year, and I personally thought their self-titled was..well, magnificent! I can link you if you'd like.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Trollheart

I knew someone sent me that link! Thought it was Jackhammer! Yes as it happens I've listened to it, loved it and have the "Bitesize" review ready to go. It'll be up in the next day or so. The other one I realise I have in a big download of AOR albums I got a little while back, so will give that a listen post-haste.

Thanks again!
TH

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Trollheart

The Boss is back and the title says it all


Artiste: Bruce Springsteen
Nationality: American
Album: Magic
Year: 2007
Label: Columbia
Genre: Rock
Tracks:
Radio Nowhere
You'll be comin' down
Livin' in the future
Your own worst enemy
Gypsy biker
Girls in their summer clothes
I'll work for your love
Magic
Last to die
Long walk home
Devil's arcade
Terry's song (hidden track)
Chronological position: Fifteenth album
Familiarity: Um, just about everything! “Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ”, “The wild, the innocent and the E Street shuffle”, “Born to run”, “Darkness on the edge of town”, “The river”, “Nebraska”, “Born in the USA”, “Tunnel of love”, “Human touch”, “Lucky town”, “The Rising”,”The ghost of Tom Joad”, “Devils and dust”, “Wrecking ball”...
Interesting factoid: Bruce's first album with the E Street Band since 2002's “The Rising”.
Initial impression: Love love love it!
Best track(s): Hard to pick but Gypsy biker, Girls in their summer clothes, Last to die, You'll be comin' down, Long walk home
Worst track(s): Non sequitur.
Comments: I'm ashamed to admit it as a Springsteen fan, but there's a small gap in his later catalogue that I have yet to fill. As you can read from the “Familiarity” field above, I've heard everything from his debut right up to “The Rising”, and indeed his latest too, but there are two albums I haven't heard even once, and this is one of them. Somehow, I just never got around to it. I suppose that's the problem with the internet, you can find, download and forget, whereas when we used to buy CDs (or LPs) we almost invariably listened to them if not right away, at least within the first week after purchase. The physical presence of a disc or record was hard to ignore or forget about, but a file squirreled away on your hard drive with thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of others? Much easier to overlook.

And so I did, with the result that I'm trying to address that lapse now. And as disappointed as I was with the two albums either side of “The Rising”, I'm expecting big things from this. I'm not let down, I have to say. From the off it's power proto-blue-collar rock, the sort of Americana we've not only come to expect from the Boss, but which he helped to create on albums like “Born to run” and “The river”. Laden with the usual political statements and raging against injustice, this album has many messages, but there's room for fun too, like Girls in their summer clothes, which nestles quite comfortably along big heavy topical fare like ”Livin' in the future and Your own worst enemy. One thing I found missing off the two acoustic albums was the familiar sound of Clarence's wonderful sax breaks, God rest his soul, but they're here in all their glory, evoking memories of “Born in the USA” and “Born to run”, while the album itself for me most closely resembles “Lucky town” or “Human touch”.

Bruce has always sung about real people and real situations, and peppered that with sometimes veiled or sometimes pointed political commentary. The last to die is one of the latter, referencing the Vietnam war, with a lovely strings backing, while the title track is the only acoustic one on the album, dark and heavy with a brooding sense of menace that wouldn't be out of place on “Nebraska”. Although an upbeat, breezy song at heart, Gypsy biker mourns the death of an Iraq veteran as his coffin comes back to his homeland, while in something the same vein musically, Long walk home reeks of paranioa and fear.

It's great to see the E Street Band back together, for the last time, as the following year Danny Federici would leave us, followed by Clarence two years after that. Though the “Big Man” would play on Springsteen's next outing, 2009's “Working on a dream”, Federici would be dead by then, so this really marks the last time the guys all played together on a Springsteen album. Poignant and bittersweet really. There's also some beautiful violin from Soozie Tyrell, and even Nils Lofgren is back to play guitar, for the first time since “The Rising”.

Hey, what did you expect? It's Bruce, it's close to perfect and it's about damn time I listened to it!
Overall impression: Why did I wait so long?
Intention: Need to listen to “Working on a dream” now, then maybe give “Devils and dust” another chance. Maybe...

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Trollheart

Wetton is not half as good as he thinks he is these days


Artiste: John Wetton
Nationality: British (English)
Album: Raised in captivity
Year: 2011
Label: Frontiers
Genre: AOR
Tracks:
Lost for words
Raised in captivity
Goodbye Elsinore
The last night of my life
We stay together
The human condition
Steffi's ring
The Devil and the opera house
New star rising
Don't misunderstand me
Mighty rivers
Chronological position: Ninth solo album
Familiarity: Apart from his work with Asia, just “King's Road” and also his collaboration with Geoff Downes on the “Icon” series of albums. That's all!
Interesting factoid: For this album Wetton assembled a whos-who guest list of people he had previously played with in his other bands: Robert Fripp from his King Crimson days, Eddie Jobson who worked with him in UK, Mick Box from his time with Uriah Heep and of course Geoff Downes. He has also worked on ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett's solo albums.
Initial impression: Half-decent start, bit so-so, doesn't fire me up
Best track(s): We stay together, Goodbye Elsinore, The Devil and the opera house, Don't misunderstand me, Mighty rivers
Worst track(s): New star rising, The human condition
Comments: Well, I tore apart his work with Asia on their latest album, “XXX” recently, so I have to wonder if Wetton really is that bad these days, or if he perhaps pumped all his heart and soul and creativity into this album? It's certainly personal to him; did it matter to him more than the Asia outing? It was recorded before that album, but even so, we should get a clue as to how his head was from the quality --- or lack of --- in the singing and the songwriting. He also plays acoustic and bass guitar on the album, and keyboards, so he's not just singing. He also co-writes all but one of the songs on the album, and there are some star names pulled in too to help him out. We're talking the likes of Yes's Tony Kaye, ex-Genesis man Steve Hackett, Uriah Heep's Mick Box, Anneke van Giersbergen from Within Temptation and of course his old mucker Geoff Downes, though each seems to appear on only one track each.

Session man Billy Sherwood, whose biggest claim to fame is probably that he “nearly became the new Jon Anderson” before Yes merged with ABWH for the “Union” album, plays just about every other instrument on this album, so in many ways it's back to the Wetton/Downes dynamic of the Icon days. The album itself gets off to a rocking start and Wetton's voice is instantly recognisable, though the start-stop nature of the guitar on the opener, “Lost for words” doesn't make him any friends here. Good chorus though, very solid. The title track opens on a very dreamy keyboard intro, then bashes you over the head as it punches into life. Another stylish rocker with a guest appearance from Wetton's ex-King Crimson bandmate, the illustrious Robert Fripp, then a curiously Yes-styled song in “The last night of my life”, very Trevor Horn era (circa “90125”/”Big generator”) with an odd ending that seems to meander a bit, possibly thanks to jazz fusion giant Alex Machacek guesting on it, but things get back under control thanks to the expertise of Steve Hackett on “Goodbye Elsinore”, with quite a prog rock feel about it, anthemic really, with balladic elements too. Things stay this way then for “We stay together”, a big meaty power ballad very similar to Wetton's best work with Asia.

There's funk/blues in “The human condition”, a curiously medieval sounding piece with flute and sitar in “Steffi's ring” (I assume he's not talking about Ms. Graf!) which sways along nicely, almost like something out of Jethro Tull's playbook, then “The Devil and the opera house” has a lot of Asia in it again, another semi-ballad and the longest track on the album, nearly seven minutes. It's good yes, but a little dreary and definitely too long, but it has a nice semi-celtic feel to it, with electric violin and maybe accordion in there too. New star rising is pretty formulaic and has little to say for itself, though there's a lovely if somewhat Asia-sounding ballad in Don't misunderstand me: meh, it's passable.

Rather ironically, the standout comes at the end, in the shape of the only song not written by Wetton and the only one on which he duets, though in fact duet is too kind a term, as the song is quickly taken over in a star turn by Within Temptation's Anneke van Giersbergen. Mighty rivers is her song: she writes it, she puts her stamp all over its production with a big, dramatic overture and what sounds like a full choir, and her own powerful voice easily pushing the star of the show to one side, and to be fair, that's not something that happens to John Wetton very easily. But quite quickly you start to forget this is a song on his album, and can be forgiven for thinking you're listening to a WT track on which he's guesting. Yeah, she's that much all over it. And the song is the better for it, which is probably a sad indictment really.
Overall impression: Standard Wetton fare, good but not great. Some decent tracks, not too many bad ones.
Intention: After “XXX” I'm going to find it hard to trust Wetton again. This album (though released before the Asia one) doesn't make it any the easier.

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Unknown Soldier

Some great reviews on here, now that I've had the time to look at them properly. Really liked the review of the Fergie Frederiksen album and really surprised that it got a five star review from you. Didn't realize that John Wetton had put out solo material whilst being with Asia again. I saw the review was average, but I'd imagine anything recent by Wetton would be old hat anyway.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

You didn't like the Fergie album? It totally blew me away, especially as I wasn't expecting much. Yeah, Wetton's (woops, nearly said Wettin!) solo stuff doesn't seem to be that great. Wonder if John Payne did anything on his own?

There was an interesting article about JW in one of the issues of "CRpP" (such an unfortunate acronym!) which I was quite surprised to see: would really never have considered him, or Asia (or Icon) prog really...

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Unknown Soldier

I haven't yet heard that album by Fergie, but just saying I'm surprised that it would be that good, so will check it out.

Well John Wetton was a prog icon quite simply from his time with King Crimson, in probably their best ever line-up and kept his prog connections going with Uriah Heep and UK. By the time he was in Asia though, just he and the others had prog credentials and that was about as far as prog they went along with the album covers. They were basically prog musicians doing AOR, AOR was in and prog was out at that time. Asia were a band completely motivated by money, so AOR was the way they went.

I agree now, that Asia became far more interesting when John Payne was on vocals.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Right, of course, I see. Even so though, that shouldn't really be the case should it? I mean, if three black metal guys form an AOR band (can't you just imagine it? ) should this new band be regarded black metal? Seems a little silly. I agree Wetton has the prog connections, but I think he left those mostly well behind when he hooked up with Howe, Downes and Palmer.

You should deffo check out that Fergie album: I thought it was amazing, and having low expectations which were so kicked in the face by the album I really felt it deserved the seldom-awarded five Cookies. Ant also introduced me to Work of Art, who may be getting a similar rating, review due soon.

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Trollheart

If you have one (a jaded heart, that is) revitalise it with these guys!


Artiste: Jaded Heart
Nationality: German
Album: Perfect insanity
Year: 2009
Label: Frontiers
Genre: Power metal
Tracks:
Intro
Love is a killer
Fly away
Bloodstained lies
Tonight
Freedom call
One life one death
Rising
Hell just arrived
Psycho kiss
Come to the feast
Exterminated
Chronological position: Tenth album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Very powerful, I would have said more power metal initially than AOR.
Best track(s): Fly away, Tonight, One life one death, Hell just arrived, Come to the feast
Worst track(s): None really.
Comments: Ok, well after the frankly ridiculous intro which sounds like someone's cassette got caught in their player (yeah, old reference, I know) --- but then, it's probably meant to sound like that; jarring though --- the album kicks off in high gear with Love is a killer, and the guitars courtesy of Pete Ostros certainly are that! Powerful, upfront, snarling while vocalist Johan Fahlberg does his best to scream above them, and has a good go, but Ostros's guitar is just not giving up centre stage! Good fills on the keys too from Henning Wanner, but this is definitely a guitar-centric track, if not album, and although I originally had Jaded Heart pegged as an AOR band, I think it's fair to say they're really more power metal, at least here. The guitars scale back a little for “Fly away” to allow Fahlberg to come more to the fore and yes, he is a decent singer. Jaded Heart purists seem determined to compare him to the original singer, Michael Bormann, but I'm not at all familiar with this band so can't comment. For me, he's a good singer, maybe not a great one but certainly acceptable.

Jaded Heart certainly won't leave you jaded, but to use an Irish expression, they may leave you “jacked” (ie tired, exhausted)! They slow it down slightly with Tonight, a big heavy cruncher on which Fahlberg really gets to exercise his powerful pipes, then they're back rocking and fret-burning again, though they pull right back on the throttle for, of all things, a ballad, in One life one death, quite nice little acoustic number with a sort of feel of Poison about it. Good vocal harmonies, and Fahlberg gets a chance to show us how sensitive his voice can be. Of course, Ostros can't resist slipping in a few hard riffs, but the rest of the song tries to ignore this and carries on. Guitarists, I ask you!

In fairness, though, it's nice to see our man Pete can be very expressive on the guitar too, as he does with a semi-classical melody in the closing sections of Hell just arrived; he is, however, back to shredding in Psycho kiss, and joined by fellow shredder, UFO's Vinnie Moore for the closer. Powerful stuff: melodic but with a real kick.
Overall impression: Power metal meets AOR and gives it a good kicking!
Intention: I'm interested enough to check some of their other albums.

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Trollheart

As the evenings begin to get longer and the kids grumpily trudge back to school (having suffered “Back to school!” ads since early August!), and people begin to toy with the idea of the “c” word --- no, I mean Christmas, you dirty --- now look what you've made me do! It's out there: everyone will be talking about a countdown any day now. You just watch the TV ads! Right, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah: it becomes apparent that with only four months left in the year, and new albums mounting up on my hard drive, with more being released every week, the chances of my getting through all or even most of the ones I want to review are becoming slimmer than a stick insect. Problem.

Then I thought about “Bitesize”. Sure why not? I can just as easily review new albums there, the same way I've been reviewing older ones, and hopefully get through more than if I just doled out the one a week or less through my normal journal.
... or maybe just a void (geddit? A-void? Avoid?) Oh I give up!


Artiste: Mercurial Void
Nationality: American
Album: Mercurial Void
Year: 2012
Label: Self-released
Genre: Progressive Metal
Tracks:
One way
Slumber collections Volume I
Disembodied
Hollow as my heart
What's coming to you (Ego meets reality)
Fever dream
Anxiety addict
Deflated and isolated

Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Well it started off really heavy then, um, changed, so not sure.
Best track(s): Hollow as my heart
Worst track(s): Kind of everything else really...
Comments: As I say above, this album seems to change from style to style. A big heavy, almost doom metal opening swiftly changes to a melodic, almost progressive style, and the opening track's almost halfway through before there's any vocals at all. Kind of almost the best of both worlds really: heavy and fast coupled with real instrumental expertise. The song titles certainly denote more a doom/death influence, although the second track is pure progressive rock. Whoa! My head is spinning. This was actually one of the very first (possibly the very first) 2012 albums I got, and yet it's taken me this long to get around to reviewing it. Starting to regret that delay now.

There are only eight tracks on the album, and I must say at times the production lets it down, sounding very demo-tape-ish, but these guys certainly know how to play, and the singer ain't bad either. As it happens, Jesse Blankenship plays guitar and keyboards as well as doing the vocals. I must admit, I haven't yet heard too much of the keys; this seems to be pretty guitar-oriented so far. Some of it's very intricate, indeed, and a very prominent bass presence too. The only real problem I see --- and it's a big one --- is that nothing, so far anyway, seems to stand out. The tracks come and go. They're mostly good, but nothing that make me sit up and take notice. It started well, but I'm beginning to wonder has this album got what it takes to go the distance? Do I?

The amateurish production values raise their head again in Disembodied, which is exactly how Blankenship's vocal sounds, isolated and tinny. Of course, they are self-releasing this album so maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on them, but really, if you can't get decent production right, why not wait until you can get a professional to sort it for you? Get what ya pays for. That's not to say the vocals are bad, or weak, cause they're not. But they just seem a little, I don't know, removed from the rest of the band, who come across as very together. Maybe Jesse should concentrate on his singing and leave the instrumentation to others, farm it out?

Of course, if that's him on the guitar solo in this track, then maybe it's a case of not playing while at the same time singing, as he seems to be a very decent guitarist. There's no shame in it: the great BB King himself has to stop playing guitar to sing. Nothing wrong with that; it's hard to do both at once I'm sure, and I have nothing but respect for those who manage it, and do it well, but sometimes it's asking too much of yourself, and that then translates across to the listener.

Okay, I can hear his keyboards now on Hollow as my heart, and they're certainly very nice; ethereal, progressive, sumptuous. Nice bit of piano too, and the vocals are certainly up to par here. This would have to be the closest Mercurial Void have come to a ballad, and it's a nice change, even if the harder guitars cut in from time to time. Probably the standout at this point. Certainly grabbed my attention. Ah yeah, but then a little more than halfway through it turns left, and becomes a hard-edged rocker, which I really don't feel sits well with what has gone previously. Doesn't ruin the song, but doesn't really help it either.

I think Mercurial Void's problem is that they're not sure at this point what they want to be: a speed metal band? A power metal band? A progressive metal band? It's like those soccer friendlies, where the manager tries out various formations and gives hitherto untested players a run out. That's what it seems like the band are doing here; trying out ideas to see what works. But they don't yet seem to have found the answer, and as the album goes on it jumps from style to style, with What's coming to you (Ego meets reality) more in the vein of Iron Maiden, with elements of Nirvana thrown in, while Fever dream seems to rely on a Sabbath style of playing. Almost rips them off, if I'm honest. And Maiden. Totally. Guys, the way to write a long song is NOT to stitch together a Sabbath melody and a Maiden one and pretend it's your own original composition. Oh crap! It's eleven minutes long! That's it: I'm outta here.

Don't worry: I listened to the rest of the album, but more or less passively. I didn't hear anything though that changed my opinion, more reinforced it really. Possibly released too soon, guys: come back to me when you decide what sort of band you want to be, and have your own sound, not just copying the greats.
Overall impression: Confusing. Sometimes good, but pretty amateurish and hard to get into. Not original enough.
Intention: IF they release another album I MAY give it a listen, but I'd be in no hurry...
(It may speak volumes that I could only find one video for these guys on the web, and that it's recorded by a guy whose camera cut out halfway through the song. Kind of a blessing really. I could have created my own, but I've been so disappointed by this album that I just could not be bothered. This gives you an idea of what they're about, anyway)

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018