The Prog Rock Album Club

Trollheart · 10-15-2012, 04:55 PM

Yeah, good point tore. So how should we do that? Can the TN review posts be moved and then linked, and the same for Spock's Beard? I don't think we can do that, O mod!

Anyway, as to the most logical beard in the galaxy, yes I concur. I had a bad time with SB for a while, but eventually got into some of their stuff, though it's all been through playlists so I couldn't say I've listened to an album all the way through. I'll dig this one out and start composing my reply.

Oh, also as US says, best to leave any reaction/reviews till at least a week after the suggestion of the album, to give everyone enough time to form their own opinion and ideas...

Thanks guys!

Anteater · 10-15-2012, 08:40 PM

As one of the progenitor records of neo-prog movement and an alleged crowning achievement of the band Twelfth Night in question, I went into 1982's Fact And Fiction with an open mind and a sense of adventure. After all, I was familiar with Marillion, Pallas and Pendragon to some degree or another, and am a huge fan of most of the 80's biggest proggy crossover acts too (It Bites, Tears For Fears, Saga, etc.). Thus, I dove in...and enjoyed things despite a few rough spots.

My biggest problems with Fact And Fiction have, in fact, little to do with the music itself. Rather, its the tinny production and inconsistent vocal delivery of Geoff Mann which bar this LP from going into my top echelon of prog picks. Mistah Mann is certainly a man of considerable range and talent (and obviously a prominent influence on guys like Fish), but he has trouble with the higher notes and occasionally comes across as straining.....almost to the point where I wonder if he's in any pain up there under the studio lights, lol!

Still, as an aficionado of all things prog and 80's, I find quite a bit to like here nevertheless: 'Creepshow' is a helluva epic with an atmosphere that rivals the best of the genre's golden years half a decade prior, and even the punkier numbers here are steeped in tasty sounding synthpads and reverberation that contrast well when a Gilmourian guitar solo comes ripping into the mix!

Interesting lyrical content abounds throughout, a trait generally spot on amidst most of the "classic" albums of neo prog canon. The human condition is such a staple of art-oriented songwriting that I feel like I would need some linear notes or something to fully appreciate what Mann is elucidating, but I think most of its understandable enough for your average listener to follow even without reference. Politics has never been my bag though. xD

My overall impression? Definitely a couple years ahead of its time, and its heir apparent that Twelfth Night set the beat for the rest of the decade as far as neo-prog is concerned (without the post-punk diversions). The longer songs are really good whilst the shorter cuts do the band something of a disservice: they were definitely more "suited' as it were, to suites. xD

VERDICT: A solid 7.5/10 from me, rounded up to an 8 for the particularly neo-prog prone amongst ye.

Unknown Soldier · 10-19-2012, 10:14 AM

So is the Spock's Beard album definitely the album that is going to be reviewed?

Trollheart · 10-19-2012, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

So is the Spock's Beard album definitely the album that is going to be reviewed?

I've no objections to it if no-one else has. In fact, I plan to listen to it tonight and write my review over the weekend, now that I've finally put my thoughts on "Fact and fiction" down.

Anyone any problem with "The light"?

Trollheart · 10-19-2012, 10:22 AM

Okay guys here finally is my review. It's been a little difficult for me, as I did review this already in my journal, and while I could just copy-and-paste that into here, I didn't want to do that: felt this deserved a little more time thought and originality. So although there are some elements here, obviously, from that review, I've tried to keep it as separate from that as possible. This has not been easy, but I think I've managed to get my thoughts down here without even referring back to the original review, though I did of course have to play the album again; no ordeal, as I love this record!

Fact and fiction --- Twelfth Night --- 1982 (Twelfth Night Records)
Unlike others here who have become annoyed at Geoff Mann's soprano voice, it was something that gripped me from the beginning when I heard this album. Some backstory: I believe this was purchased in the UK (I live in Ireland) when I travelled there and walked for the very first time into the HMV Superstore, as it was, and was absolutely flattened by how BIG it was! Of course, these days with the proliferation of digital media and the decline of vinyl, even CD, it's probably gone, or at least a lot smaller, but back then it was effing HUGE! I mean, over here our record shops were more or less divided into sections for rock, pop, trad, soundtracks, classical and a few others, with maybe some tapes on the walls if there was room. But HMV had BINS and BINS dedicated to each GENRE! I mean, their Genesis section alone was massive! I could have spent hundreds, thousands had I possessed such money, and happily died there going through all the albums.

But back in the real world, I had probably two or three hundred sterling and was only there for a weekend, or a week, I don't recall which. But I remember buying albums I KNEW I could never even find in Ireland, and happily stuffing them in my bag for the trip home. This was, I believe, one of those albums you couldn't get in the emerald isle, and having read about it in (where else?) Kerrang!, which was my bible at the time, I knew it sounded good and I wanted it. I was also just entering my prog rock phase, on the back of Marillion's “Market square heroes” single and Genesis's “Duke” as well as some Rush stuff, so this was right up my street.

Backstory over: back to the album. I love the way the rising keyboard chords sound almost like a church service, then the, well, altar-boy singing of Geoff Mann comes in. I also really like the way he then switches down to, what, alto is it? The slightly lower register. Some here have postulated he did that because he couldn't maintain the high-pitched voice all through the song, and that may indeed be true, but I think it was done for dramatic effect. At any rate, I think his voice gets quite menacing as it drops, while Clive Mitten's keys maintain their celestial sound.

Then it all gets dark and dramatic, as Mann's voice goes even lower, speaking this time then the keys get into more of a melody rather than a background supporting noise and suddenly, after a few quotes of “Would you file this please Harry” and the academic treatise being read out, a voice shouts “HARRY!” and the drums, which have slid in almost unnoticed, kick the tempo up as the guitars also blast in and the song really takes over, the band revealing the tight-knit combo they are. Without going too much into the first track (see my journal for a deeper analysis) I like the way it goes into a sort of child's nursery-rhyme melody with some attendant screams and wails, almost giving the lie to the title, as it's no doubt meant to. I also love the third movement, as it were, with the robotic part running over heavy organ then the big powerful runaway solos and chanting to end with the final chilling thought ”All eyes faced upon the conductor, baton taps inside the brain”.

“Human being” reminds me of the opening of Floyd's, much later, “Signs of life”, with the splashing water, and then its frankly gorgeous keyboard intro, with a superb guitar piece from Andy Revell, and one of Twelfth Night's best lyrics in my opinion, when Mann sneers ”If every time we tell a lie, a little fairy dies, they must be building death-camps in the garden”, while “This city” is a stark, bleak song which, while it lists the horrors of urban decay, seeks not to apportion blame for these, thereby by default accepting some of the responsibility, reflected indeed in the lyric ”It is all this city”; we are all to blame. Followed as it is by one of the two excellent instrumentals on the album, the almost hopelessness of “This city” is somewhat lessened by the quite celestial “World without end” which, while short, is certainly impressive, and closes the first side (yeah, my copy is on vinyl: I also have a cassette player and a rotary phone, what of it?) extremely well.

Again, I will disagree with many here who think the title track is not up to scratch. I personally love every track on this album, and I think “Fact and fiction”, with its deceptively bouncy tempo framing a very dark and chilling message, as parties on all sides try to convince us they are right, works really well. On the live album “Live and let live”, this track is preceded by a monologue by Mann, which ends with a chorus “The truth is what we tell you! We are the fact, they are the fiction!” The way the other instrumental, “The poet sniffs a flower”, turns from slow ballad to sudden uptempo bopper originally took me by surprise, now I love the way it changes. It leads, of course, to my all-time favourite, the total standout.

I don't know Karn Evil 9, but when I heard this it was the first time I had ever heard anything so, well, so scary! I hadn't at that point heard “The Lamb”, so the most unsettling song I had experienced close to this was (don't laugh) “Hotel California” --- look, I thought it was scary, ok? When they stab the beast but can't kill it? --- so this was something new. I was terrified, but fascinated. I think Mann's voice works perfectly all through this, at times low, calm and authoritative, even detached as the guide, cracked and completely insane in the persona of Amanda, and finally a warder on the gates of sanity as he warns us “If you come again, you'd better bring your ball and chain: unguided, embittered attraction of the Creep show!” My favourite part is when he stands before the mirror. The explanation, the echoey, booming, ethereal music that swirls around him like trapped souls, trying to escape but unable to, just freezes my blood. I also love Revell's solo outro on the guitar.

And that just leaves “Love song”. After such an epic prog masterpiece, I think this is the perfect way to end the album. A simple, reassuring, acoustic-mostly ballad that begins almost inaudibly before you can hear Mann's voice, then builds quietly but strongly and almost, but not quite, ends on another superb and beautiful solo from Andy Revell, but the final word is left to Geoff Mann, with the simplest of advice: “If it seems that your hoping heart has led you into pain, take a tip from the carpenter: forgive and love again.” What more can you say to that?

The whole theme, I feel, of “Fact and fiction” is that of free will and whether or not we're prepared to use it. Tracks like “This city” and “Human being” show this, where it's made painfully clear that we can make things better if we only try, if we open our eyes and just look out and see what a damn mess we've made and begin to try to clean it up. The title track of course shows us how easily we often allow ourselves to be led, as indeed does “We are sane”, where the “controllers” rejoice in how simple it is to implant certain suggestions in a human brain and turn them into mindless, unquestioning drones. This anger that we follow like sheep is brought into sharpest relief in “Creep show”, when Mann yells “Go on! Wake up! Who's running this show anyway?” Indeed. A question that is not asked enough.

As mentioned, I heard this originally on vinyl, so the extra tracks discussed in other reviews here are songs I've not heard, and to me they don't form part of the experience of the album, at least for me, so I won't be talking about them here. Apart from that, the general policy when reviewing in my journal is that I usually don't take account of extra, bonus, additional or special tracks. It's just what I do.

One of the seminal prog or neo-prog if you prefer albums of the early eighties, I find it sad that, great as they are, Marillion more or less took all the attention from bands like Twelfth Night and Quasar, and they were left kind of in the “not only but also” bin, where they definitely never deserved to be. A great album, a stunning ensemble piece and for me, one of the most important albums of the “new progressive rock movement”.

9.5/10

Big Ears · 10-19-2012, 01:45 PM

I got distracted after reading US's and Anteater's reviews, because they made me want to read their journals. I've read them and stored comments at the back of my head, but I am still reading and commenting on Trollheart's a bit at a time. I should say that I like early heavy rock, like Deep Purple Mk I and Trapeze, as well as melodic rock. I can now see properly what US meant by a 'theme', but I come from a place where in-depth musical journals did not exist. The current version of Firefox is not handling YouTube clips very well, even if you don't play them, and is slowing me down - that's my excuse anyway. What I liked about the reviews, and it's true of any good ones, is the way they have been related to what the reader already knows.

When I first visited HMV in Oxford Street, it had separate rooms or floors for different formats, so there was a floor for cassettes at one end and eight-track cartridges at the other. This was mindblowingly amazing to me at the time. It was on Thursday 18th April 1974. How do I know? Answer = because I bought Moontan by Golden Earring on cassette for £2.75 and kept the receipt! It (the receipt) was a vivid purple colour. I bought the album on CD twenty years later and it's great.

I took Geoff Mann's changes in singing style at the start of We Are Sane to be representing different characters in a story. With the radio voices in the background, it is a bit like a play. The Who use a similar device on Tommy and Queensryche do the same with Operation: Mindcrime. I thought of saying this in my review, but, I wasn't sure, as I don't fully understand the lyrics.

This is a YT clip of Karn Evil 9 with lyrics:

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - Karn Evil 9 with lyrics - YouTube

I have mixed feelings about bonuses, but they are quite revealing on this album.

Unknown Soldier · 10-19-2012, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Ears

When I first visited HMV in Oxford Street, it had separate rooms or floors for different formats, so there was a floor for cassettes at one end and eight-track cartridges at the other. This was mindblowingly amazing to me at the time. It was on Thursday 18th April 1974. How do I know? Answer = because I bought Moontan by Golden Earring on cassette for £2.75 and kept the receipt! It (the receipt) was a vivid purple colour. I bought the album on CD twenty years later and it's great.

I'll comment on Trollheart' s review later and also listen to The Light but I just had to answer the above when I saw it. I know that HMV so well, I used to go there in the 1980s and it was still two floors then as well. It was about 50 mins by train and tube from where I lived and the first ever album I got from there was the Doors Greatest Hits. I always had great memories going to that store, it was an adventure just to see so many albums all in one place, Virgin down the other end of Oxford Street just never had the same appeal.

Trollheart · 10-19-2012, 04:49 PM

Just a point for Big Ears: I'm having that same trouble sporadically with Firefux when using YT clips, but they play ok in Internet Exploiter. The key is that if you use the spoiler tags the page will load a lot faster for you, if that's what's slowing you down. I started doing this once there were more than about 4 or 5 videos, as people had been getting upset about them slowing down their PCs. It works quite well.

Pretty sure it was Oxford St where I went too: I know the place was bloody huge. Wonder if it's still as big? Doubt it, sadly. It would have been probably 1982/3 when I went there.

I don't fully understand the lyric either, but it's fairly clearly a dig at the way the media tries to control us, and how in various and different ways we just line up and take it, nodding our heads. Look at all the sheep who hang on every word the X Factor judges utter. Or those who believe everything they read, or support one political party/ideology and think the other is crazy and/or evil. That's how I interpret it anyway. It's a case of hoping if you shout "We are sane!" loudly and often enough, you'll convince people it's the truth. Hell, you might even start believing it yourself!

I also feel that "Creep show" is to be seen generally as the end result of this programming, where all those whose minds have collapsed under the strain of decades of programming have been sent, a sort of polticial/ideological asylum.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. Would not be the first time...

Well done to everyone on the reviews so far; looking forward to framing my thoughts on the bearded ones' album soon.

Unknown Soldier · 10-22-2012, 01:24 PM

Wow Trollheart gave Twelfth Night 9.5 out of 10!

Anyway, re-listening to The Light and mini review coming shortly.

Unknown Soldier · 10-25-2012, 02:01 PM

Spocks’ Beard The Light 1994

The Light is a prog album that I greatly enjoy and think its four multi-part suites are what modern prog should be about. The album has a real freshness and vibrancy about it and always lends up well to repeated listenings. I’ve always found that the work of Spock’s Beard to be littered with references to past prog giants of the 1970s, which I suppose it’s not surprising! The band though, have referenced these influences in such a way, that they’re done in their own style. Not only are Spock’s Beard about the past, where their sound incorporates material like King Crimson “21st Schizoid Man” era, classic Yes and Gabriel era Genesis. The band have put in a lot of original musical styles, that could be seen risky for a prog band. Stuff like theatrical broadway elements and flamenco which are both featured on the opening track, the 15 minute “The Light” This is a great track which encompasses everything I’ve written above and totally shows that the band were willing to push the barriers and is a glorious 15 minutes of listening. Track 2 “Go the Way You Go” There are parts of this song that I think are great, but it’s a song that lends itself to repeated listens to fully appreciate what’s on offer here. The previous song has more of the bands influences mixed in with original ideas, track 2 seems to be even more syncopated still and the rhythm changes even more unexpected! “The Water” The most overblown effort on the album and I think the band really wanted to show what they could do on a 23 minute song, which is made even more impressive by the middle more aggressive section, this really is a song of multi-suites. Out on the Edge- The most straightforward song on the album, but that’s not to say it’s a bad song in anyway and constantly throughout the song, I keep on expecting Neal Morse to burst out in true Peter Gabriel style, but he just manages to keep a lid on it.

I always think of Spock’s Beard as a band I really like, but when looking at their discography, it’s surprising just how little I know of their discography. But this is an excellent debut and a must listen to, for anybody interested in 1990s prog.

8/10

10-15-2012, 04:55 PM	#1 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Yeah, good point tore. So how should we do that? Can the TN review posts be moved and then linked, and the same for Spock's Beard? I don't think we can do that, O mod! Anyway, as to the most logical beard in the galaxy, yes I concur. I had a bad time with SB for a while, but eventually got into some of their stuff, though it's all been through playlists so I couldn't say I've listened to an album all the way through. I'll dig this one out and start composing my reply. Oh, also as US says, best to leave any reaction/reviews till at least a week after the suggestion of the album, to give everyone enough time to form their own opinion and ideas... Thanks guys! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-19-2012, 10:22 AM	#5 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Okay guys here finally is my review. It's been a little difficult for me, as I did review this already in my journal, and while I could just copy-and-paste that into here, I didn't want to do that: felt this deserved a little more time thought and originality. So although there are some elements here, obviously, from that review, I've tried to keep it as separate from that as possible. This has not been easy, but I think I've managed to get my thoughts down here without even referring back to the original review, though I did of course have to play the album again; no ordeal, as I love this record! Fact and fiction --- Twelfth Night --- 1982 (Twelfth Night Records) Unlike others here who have become annoyed at Geoff Mann's soprano voice, it was something that gripped me from the beginning when I heard this album. Some backstory: I believe this was purchased in the UK (I live in Ireland) when I travelled there and walked for the very first time into the HMV Superstore, as it was, and was absolutely flattened by how BIG it was! Of course, these days with the proliferation of digital media and the decline of vinyl, even CD, it's probably gone, or at least a lot smaller, but back then it was effing HUGE! I mean, over here our record shops were more or less divided into sections for rock, pop, trad, soundtracks, classical and a few others, with maybe some tapes on the walls if there was room. But HMV had BINS and BINS dedicated to each GENRE! I mean, their Genesis section alone was massive! I could have spent hundreds, thousands had I possessed such money, and happily died there going through all the albums. But back in the real world, I had probably two or three hundred sterling and was only there for a weekend, or a week, I don't recall which. But I remember buying albums I KNEW I could never even find in Ireland, and happily stuffing them in my bag for the trip home. This was, I believe, one of those albums you couldn't get in the emerald isle, and having read about it in (where else?) Kerrang!, which was my bible at the time, I knew it sounded good and I wanted it. I was also just entering my prog rock phase, on the back of Marillion's “Market square heroes” single and Genesis's “Duke” as well as some Rush stuff, so this was right up my street. Backstory over: back to the album. I love the way the rising keyboard chords sound almost like a church service, then the, well, altar-boy singing of Geoff Mann comes in. I also really like the way he then switches down to, what, alto is it? The slightly lower register. Some here have postulated he did that because he couldn't maintain the high-pitched voice all through the song, and that may indeed be true, but I think it was done for dramatic effect. At any rate, I think his voice gets quite menacing as it drops, while Clive Mitten's keys maintain their celestial sound. Then it all gets dark and dramatic, as Mann's voice goes even lower, speaking this time then the keys get into more of a melody rather than a background supporting noise and suddenly, after a few quotes of “Would you file this please Harry” and the academic treatise being read out, a voice shouts “HARRY!” and the drums, which have slid in almost unnoticed, kick the tempo up as the guitars also blast in and the song really takes over, the band revealing the tight-knit combo they are. Without going too much into the first track (see my journal for a deeper analysis) I like the way it goes into a sort of child's nursery-rhyme melody with some attendant screams and wails, almost giving the lie to the title, as it's no doubt meant to. I also love the third movement, as it were, with the robotic part running over heavy organ then the big powerful runaway solos and chanting to end with the final chilling thought ”All eyes faced upon the conductor, baton taps inside the brain”. “Human being” reminds me of the opening of Floyd's, much later, “Signs of life”, with the splashing water, and then its frankly gorgeous keyboard intro, with a superb guitar piece from Andy Revell, and one of Twelfth Night's best lyrics in my opinion, when Mann sneers ”If every time we tell a lie, a little fairy dies, they must be building death-camps in the garden”, while “This city” is a stark, bleak song which, while it lists the horrors of urban decay, seeks not to apportion blame for these, thereby by default accepting some of the responsibility, reflected indeed in the lyric ”It is all this city”; we are all to blame. Followed as it is by one of the two excellent instrumentals on the album, the almost hopelessness of “This city” is somewhat lessened by the quite celestial “World without end” which, while short, is certainly impressive, and closes the first side (yeah, my copy is on vinyl: I also have a cassette player and a rotary phone, what of it?) extremely well. Again, I will disagree with many here who think the title track is not up to scratch. I personally love every track on this album, and I think “Fact and fiction”, with its deceptively bouncy tempo framing a very dark and chilling message, as parties on all sides try to convince us they are right, works really well. On the live album “Live and let live”, this track is preceded by a monologue by Mann, which ends with a chorus “The truth is what we tell you! We are the fact, they are the fiction!” The way the other instrumental, “The poet sniffs a flower”, turns from slow ballad to sudden uptempo bopper originally took me by surprise, now I love the way it changes. It leads, of course, to my all-time favourite, the total standout. I don't know Karn Evil 9, but when I heard this it was the first time I had ever heard anything so, well, so scary! I hadn't at that point heard “The Lamb”, so the most unsettling song I had experienced close to this was (don't laugh) “Hotel California” --- look, I thought it was scary, ok? When they stab the beast but can't kill it? --- so this was something new. I was terrified, but fascinated. I think Mann's voice works perfectly all through this, at times low, calm and authoritative, even detached as the guide, cracked and completely insane in the persona of Amanda, and finally a warder on the gates of sanity as he warns us “If you come again, you'd better bring your ball and chain: unguided, embittered attraction of the Creep show!” My favourite part is when he stands before the mirror. The explanation, the echoey, booming, ethereal music that swirls around him like trapped souls, trying to escape but unable to, just freezes my blood. I also love Revell's solo outro on the guitar. And that just leaves “Love song”. After such an epic prog masterpiece, I think this is the perfect way to end the album. A simple, reassuring, acoustic-mostly ballad that begins almost inaudibly before you can hear Mann's voice, then builds quietly but strongly and almost, but not quite, ends on another superb and beautiful solo from Andy Revell, but the final word is left to Geoff Mann, with the simplest of advice: “If it seems that your hoping heart has led you into pain, take a tip from the carpenter: forgive and love again.” What more can you say to that? The whole theme, I feel, of “Fact and fiction” is that of free will and whether or not we're prepared to use it. Tracks like “This city” and “Human being” show this, where it's made painfully clear that we can make things better if we only try, if we open our eyes and just look out and see what a damn mess we've made and begin to try to clean it up. The title track of course shows us how easily we often allow ourselves to be led, as indeed does “We are sane”, where the “controllers” rejoice in how simple it is to implant certain suggestions in a human brain and turn them into mindless, unquestioning drones. This anger that we follow like sheep is brought into sharpest relief in “Creep show”, when Mann yells “Go on! Wake up! Who's running this show anyway?” Indeed. A question that is not asked enough. As mentioned, I heard this originally on vinyl, so the extra tracks discussed in other reviews here are songs I've not heard, and to me they don't form part of the experience of the album, at least for me, so I won't be talking about them here. Apart from that, the general policy when reviewing in my journal is that I usually don't take account of extra, bonus, additional or special tracks. It's just what I do. One of the seminal prog or neo-prog if you prefer albums of the early eighties, I find it sad that, great as they are, Marillion more or less took all the attention from bands like Twelfth Night and Quasar, and they were left kind of in the “not only but also” bin, where they definitely never deserved to be. A great album, a stunning ensemble piece and for me, one of the most important albums of the “new progressive rock movement”. 9.5/10 __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-19-2012, 04:49 PM	#8 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Just a point for Big Ears: I'm having that same trouble sporadically with Firefux when using YT clips, but they play ok in Internet Exploiter. The key is that if you use the spoiler tags the page will load a lot faster for you, if that's what's slowing you down. I started doing this once there were more than about 4 or 5 videos, as people had been getting upset about them slowing down their PCs. It works quite well. Pretty sure it was Oxford St where I went too: I know the place was bloody huge. Wonder if it's still as big? Doubt it, sadly. It would have been probably 1982/3 when I went there. I don't fully understand the lyric either, but it's fairly clearly a dig at the way the media tries to control us, and how in various and different ways we just line up and take it, nodding our heads. Look at all the sheep who hang on every word the X Factor judges utter. Or those who believe everything they read, or support one political party/ideology and think the other is crazy and/or evil. That's how I interpret it anyway. It's a case of hoping if you shout "We are sane!" loudly and often enough, you'll convince people it's the truth. Hell, you might even start believing it yourself! I also feel that "Creep show" is to be seen generally as the end result of this programming, where all those whose minds have collapsed under the strain of decades of programming have been sent, a sort of polticial/ideological asylum. Of course, I could be totally wrong. Would not be the first time... Well done to everyone on the reviews so far; looking forward to framing my thoughts on the bearded ones' album soon. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-19-2012, 01:45 PM	#6 (permalink)
Big Ears Music Addict Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Hampshire, England Posts: 434	I got distracted after reading US's and Anteater's reviews, because they made me want to read their journals. I've read them and stored comments at the back of my head, but I am still reading and commenting on Trollheart's a bit at a time. I should say that I like early heavy rock, like Deep Purple Mk I and Trapeze, as well as melodic rock. I can now see properly what US meant by a 'theme', but I come from a place where in-depth musical journals did not exist. The current version of Firefox is not handling YouTube clips very well, even if you don't play them, and is slowing me down - that's my excuse anyway. What I liked about the reviews, and it's true of any good ones, is the way they have been related to what the reader already knows. When I first visited HMV in Oxford Street, it had separate rooms or floors for different formats, so there was a floor for cassettes at one end and eight-track cartridges at the other. This was mindblowingly amazing to me at the time. It was on Thursday 18th April 1974. How do I know? Answer = because I bought Moontan by Golden Earring on cassette for £2.75 and kept the receipt! It (the receipt) was a vivid purple colour. I bought the album on CD twenty years later and it's great. I took Geoff Mann's changes in singing style at the start of We Are Sane to be representing different characters in a story. With the radio voices in the background, it is a bit like a play. The Who use a similar device on Tommy and Queensryche do the same with Operation: Mindcrime. I thought of saying this in my review, but, I wasn't sure, as I don't fully understand the lyrics. This is a YT clip of Karn Evil 9 with lyrics: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - Karn Evil 9 with lyrics - YouTube I have mixed feelings about bonuses, but they are quite revealing on this album.