Bring it on! One of my thoughts is we might want to do member picks occasionally. Not that I have any ideas for an album... But someone more learned in prog. Maybe you should open with an album that you think is not well known anteater?

Or maybe we could have open nominations and votes for albums and throw a random in every other one or something? Or after nominations are in, random is on the ballot and can still win the vote.

That would be a good idea too. Maybe we could alternate how we "pick" the album from week to week to keep things fresh? Before Troll started picking albums from those really bleh lists, the club was open forum and people took turns picking the weekly album to review.

So here's what I'll do: I'll randomly pick an album from my list tomorrow and present it here. Everyone can try reviewing it. Afterwards though, lets have an open forum and give everyone else an opportunity to decide what they want to review. :)

Sounds good to me, thanks for keeping things moving. Didn't realize Trollheart was going to be gone.

I am very down to get involved in this thread, will be checking regularly

After using a random number generator, I ended up with 113 from my list. And the album that occupies that spot is, interestingly enough-


Some people would argue this was Megadeth's last "really good" album, albeit the beginning of their attempts to commercialize their sound. Probably their most diverse set of good songs though, plus there's some progressive touches here and there throughout all these songs (I suppose Fates Warning and Iron Maiden had rubbed off a bit on them for this particular album) and enough "thought provoking" lyrical material to qualify it for this club, so lets jump on in! :drummer:

Sounds great Anteater and you're certainly the man to run this and I can hardly complain about using your own list, as I did vote you as having the best music taste on the forum;)

Are we still using the Sunday deadline here?

It would be a tie between me and Lee as far as diversity goes. Though honestly, you know your rock and metal so well that I'd say you qualify for best overall taste more than I do. ;)

But yeah, we'll stick with Sunday. :D

But your tastes are more eclectic than mine and certainly far more modern.

Megadeth is prog? Sweet! Im on it.

You've all got one day left...let's get crackin' peepz! :bonkhead:

I didn't like it.

3/10

Are we meant to be using Trollheart's formula thingy or just writing a few lines and a score?

We'll be using an abbreviated version of TH's formula, since I don't think its necessary to have as many fields as he uses. :yeah:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Countdown.jpg
Album Title: Countdown To Extinction
Artist: Megadeth
Nationality: American
Year: 1992
Subgenre: Somewhat proggy thrash metal
Familiarity: Very.

Favourite Track(s): Symphony Of Destruction, Foreclosure Of A Dream
Why? One of the best politically charged metal singles of all time coupled with an unconventional mid-tempo groover makes for a good sequence.

Least Favourite Track(s): None.
Why? N/A

End Impression: Excellent at its best, rock solid at its worst.
Comments: In the wake of albums like Metallica's Black Album from the previous year, Queensryche's Empire and bands like Pantera coming out of the woodwork, the double Daves (Mustaine and Ellefson) needed to put together music that remained true to the sound they had spent the last couple of classic albums pioneering whilst softening up jusssst enough to be palatable enough for the masses in arenas across the country. The results of that tricky compromise at their best, like in the swaggering 'Symphony Of Destruction', 'Architecture Of Aggression' or the proggy 'Ashes In Your Mouth', are what make this album click so well and also why it outsold everything that had come before in mere weeks. Sometimes being at the right place at the right time is all that matters, and progressive metal's viability as a mainstream genre was very, very brief: Megadeth would never click this well again or try to write commercial tunes this technical, but perhaps that was for the best when you consider how meh their output after this one would be.

Rating 4.0

Ok cool, mine up tomorrow morning European time.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Countdown.jpg
Album Title: Countdown To Extinction
Artist: Megadeth
Nationality: American
Year: 1992
Subgenre: thrash metal
Familiarity: Very.
Favourite Track(s): Symphony Of Destruction, This Was My Life, Ashes in Your Mouth
Why? SOD one of the signature tunes of the band and so Megadeth. The other two tracks are probably my picks from the rest of the album and flow well with the band's technical playing.
Least Favourite Track(s): Sweating Bullets
Why? Dave at his silliest.
End Impression: One of the band's best albums, but not their best.
Comments: The album that saw Megadeth switch to a commercial thrash band, which largely came in the wake of Metallica's Black Album and was Dave Mustaine's attempt to make the band more accessible than ever, with a range of poppier tunes. I always find it interesting how something as aggressive as thrash ended up going full circle in the end (as far as some bands were concerned) and were putting out something not much more aggressive than say British Steel from around 10 years earlier. As for the album though the tracks are tight and the playing technical as you'd expect and despite a couple of silly 'Dave' moments on the album it's a winner. Saying all this I'd hardly put it in a prog list but then again Anteater sees things or hears things in music the rest of us don't :)

Rating 4.0

^ Nah, it definitely belongs in a prog list, although its not prog in the 70's sense. Its the technicality of the riffs, the nuances on some of the individual songs and the overall theme of the record that qualifies it. :tramp:

Anyway, I'm looking forward to everyone else's thoughts on Countdown To Extinction, but seeing as its Sunday, I'll go ahead and announce next album in case people wanted a different album to jump into for the club. Using a random number generator I ended up landing on number 70, which is-

http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000003...op.jpg?30a2558
Advent - Cantus Firmus (2006)

This one is definitely more in the 70's prog-rock vein, and a long time favorite of mine. Think classic Gentle Giant mixed with a 90's neo-prog ambient aesthetic, sprinkled with some Trepass-era Genesis pastorality for kicks. This mixture results in a unique atmosphere, and it definitely sounds like the missing "epic" styled album that the Shulman brothers never did in their heyday.

After this album, we'll go back to the methodology where we take turns week-by-week in bringing several albums to the table that people have the option to review, and we'll stick to the abbreviated version of Trollheart's review matrix US and I used above for these future reviews as well.

On another note, I'd love people to think up new things we could be doing with this club to make it more engaging and bring in more contributing core members, so feel free to offer your suggestions between all the album reviewing. :thumb:

Besides YouTube, I'm pretty sure Cantus Firmus is streamable/downloadable in all kinds of places. You can also stream and/or buy the album from their official BandCamp page here: http://advent-prog.bandcamp.com/album/cantus-firmus

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Countdown.jpg
Album Title: Countdown To Extinction
Artist: Megadeth
Nationality: American
Year: 1992
Subgenre: Melodic thrash
Familiarity: I was part of the juvenile "megadeth > metallic" mentality in my larvae metal stage.
Favourite Track(s): Foreclosure of a Dream, Captive Honour
Why? simply because they stand out from other Megadeth songs (that all tend to sound the same)
Least Favourite Track(s): Skin O' My Teeth
Why? While I agree that Sweating Bullets is silly, it's still interesting in that way, and Skin O' My Teeth isn't bad, it just doesn't stand out in anyway.
End Impression: Overall, a good album, very consistent musical atmosphere and theme conceptually.
Comments: I can see how you might call Megadeth proggish. While the theme, attitude, and timbre of the vocals and the guitars is all very thrash, there is a lot of iconic melodic structure and evolving progressions in many Megadeth songs, which are the primary characteristics of prog. So the imagery, the wrapper... it's thrash. But the underlying music theory is all very proggish.

Anyway, this review exposed me to a couple songs that I haden't heard (or at least not recognized) as I've never really listened to Megadeth "by the album". I just kind of mass downloaded random Megadeth songs off of Kazaa at one point in my youth. So it's good to hear stuff that was outside of that P2P aggregate.
Rating: 4.0

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Countdown.jpg


Sorry I'm late!

Album Title: Countdown To Extinction
Artist: Megadeth
Nationality: American
Year: 1992
Subgenre: thrash metal
Familiarity: Pretty damn
Favourite Track(s): Symphony Of Destruction
Why? Was a big hit for a reason. Just a great riff and good lyrics. Plus I used to play this live in my old band.
Least Favourite Track(s): Sweating Bullets
Why? Kind of the other "hit" but his vocals are a bit annoying in this one.
End Impression: Great album worth repeated listens.
Comments: Not my fave album by them (that would be Rust in peace) but still quite good. It's really the classic line up of the band with Marty Friedman, shredder extraordinaire on guitar. Always thought he complimented Mustaine nicely and he just rips. I like the political nature of the album and some of the subject matter. For example, Countdown to extinction is a great comment on canned hunting. Although it seems like a bid for commercial acceptance, it still has some great in your face riffs and does not sound overly polished. I like the rather cheesy spoken word kind of stuff on it. Just an all around great group of songs and an album I would revisit more often than the Metallica Black album it sometimes gets compared against. I will continue the trend with a rating of:
Rating: 4.0

Album Title: Countdown To Extinction
Artist: Megadeth
Nationality: American
Year: 1992
Subgenre: thrash metal
Familiarity: Not well, despite often referring to them as a Metallica cover band
Favourite Track(s): Symphony Of Destruction, Sweating Bullets, Countdown to Extinction
Why? The first one I've always dug, heard it many a time and it sticks with you. Sweating Bullets had a sexy intro and really good swing back and forth with that falling low tone. Countdown to Extinction was just gorgeously melodic and separate from the rest of the album, deserved its place as the album's namesake.
Least Favourite Track(s): This Was My Life, Psychotron
Why? Just annoying vocal bits, boring instrumental bits aside from a few little fun parts. I don't need a rational reason, they were all just straight up unpleasant to my ears.
End Impression: Meh, I'd listen to the songs I listed as favorites again but I wouldn't bother getting the whole album.
Comments: Maybe it just aint my bag, baby.
Rating: 3.5/10

Album Title: Cantus Firmus
Artist: Advent
Nationality: American
Year: 2006
Subgenre: Prog
Familiarity: None
Favourite Track(s): Awaiting the Call, Ramblin Sailor
Why? Awaiting the Call: Beautiful, would make a fantastic soundtrack for ambient music on a game like Dawn of Mana. I especially enjoyed the last minute or so.
Ramblin Sailor: Pretty much a whole album in itself, so there's a little something for everyone.
Least Favourite Track(s): Parenting Parents
Why? Just a bit too mellow and dull for me.
End Impression: Good stuff! Some parts were fawkin great.
Comments: I think anyone could get down with this, it's fantastic background music for a warm day spent in nature.
Rating: 8/10

Album Title: Cantus Firmus
Artist: Advent
Nationality: American
Year: 2006
Subgenre: Prog
Familiarity: None
Favourite Track(s): "Ramblin Sailor"
Why? "Ramblin Sailor" A lengthy track which seems to encompass everything that the band has to offer and this includes a somewhat whimsical English slant to the whole thing, which can be said for most of the album.
Least Favourite Track(s): Nothing stood out to be in this category.
Why? N/A
End Impression: Wasn't sure what to expect here, but what I got was a band strong on melody and rhythm and I can definitely see the Gentle Giant and Procul Harum influences on the album. I also read that their sound was influenced on English and Italian renaissance music and again that is noted. This though is not always the type pf prog I'm into and usually have to be in the mood for it.
Comments: I think I need several more listens to really appreciate what the band has to offer
Rating: 3.5

Nice reviews so far! The rest of you...don't dawdle now. :laughing:

Damn. Have not given it a good enough listen for a fair review yet.

Me either. Been a busy weekend! Listened to about half of it so far.

I'll give you guys til Monday to spend a bit more time with Advent before we move on to the next subject of review. Fair deal? :)

Thanks for the extension!

Album Title: Cantus Firmus
Artist: Advent
Nationality: American
Year: 2006
Subgenre: Prog
Familiarity: None
Favourite Track(s): "Remembering when"
Why? Had some nice guitar work overall. Good acoustic guitar sound without any other instruments cluttering it up. Some pretty good electric lead work. No vocals which was nice.
Least Favourite Track(s): "Parenting parents"
Why? Ugh, just awful. So mellow but besides that the singing was just bad. Like a bad broadway show song or something.
End Impression: Just did not care for this at all.
Comments: This is not one I will ever listen to again. I really didn't like the vocals at all. Firmus Finale had that kind of cheesy sounding keyboard thing going on. The GK Contramundum (whatever) sounded like a YES 90125 era rip off. Ramblin Sailor had some sort of pan flute thing going on that did not work for me at all. I'm actually surprised at the positive reviews. I don't want to be overly negative so I will say there was some nice musicianship going on overall, they are not slouches by any means. But my lack of exposure to prog rock overall is due to the existance of albums like this one.
Rating: 2.5

http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000003...op.jpg?30a2558

Album Title: Cantus Firmus
Artist: Advent
Nationality: American
Year: 2006
Subgenre: Uber-Prog
Familiarity: None
Favourite Track(s): "Remembering when"
Why? Nice dissonant harmonies in the acoustic guitar with pleasant pentatonic structures in the electric lead guitar and good variety, yet continuity between progressions.
Least Favourite Track(s): "Alison Waits"
Why? Vocals ruin it
End Impression: A lot of it seemed kind of like generic prog, like every other prog album I've heard, especially the flutes and the staccato strings, like in Ramblin Sailor, but the vocals are very plain in timbre and the vocal style is annoying. I hear the style in a lot of prog and it's one of the things that limits my prog appreciation.
Comments: Remembering when was surprisingly good compared to the rest of the album. Not just because of the lack of vocals, but the use of harmony and melody was really quite unique, whereas the rest of the album had a lot of that folky stuff that I really only let Jethro Tull get away with I guess. Maybe that's unfair, but I heard Jethro first!
Rating: 3.5

Good reviews all around everyone! Now, let's try something fun: lets create an order of people who will choose each week's albums like the club worked originally. Based on the current club's participants, here's my suggested order for who can suggest each week's potential albums to review:

1. Unknown Soldier
2. Moss
3. Carpe Mortem
4. Xurtio
5. Anteater

Basically, when its your turn you need to pick 1-3 possible prog/prog-related albums you'd like to give the rest of the club (and guest reviewers) an opportunity to post reviews over for the following week.

As far as review format goes, we can stick to my abbreviated version of Trollheart's post format or you could just write a few paragraphs worth of impressions and slap a number rating at the end. :thumb:

...or we can stick with me randomly picking albums off my list if you guys would rather just review what pops up every week instead of bringing choices to the table yourselves. I'm fine with that too since my list is 200+ albums long, lol!

What do you guys think?

I'd prefer open formatting. Rather than pick favorites and least favorites, I'd just discuss each song of note a little bit in terms of the melody and harmony and give an overall impression (+ number at bottom).

When it comes to album selection, I don't know if I'm proficient enough to what prog encompasses. I know a lot of Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden. But either way, I'd like to to see some human suggested albums rather than random ones.

Well, I did compile my list by hand, so technically there is a human element in there. :P

I like to think the whole point of this club is to explore, review and maybe even discuss the various elements of albums that pop up and try to broaden everyone's knowledge of just how varied and interesting prog can be. Trollheart tried to accomplish this by picking albums from "authority" lists, but that was a tad too unfocused.

Whether its a guy like me or a complete newbie to progressive rock, I think its best that everyone gets a fair shot at suggesting what the rest of us should review each week. Plus it might encourage new people to join in. :)

I'm kind of in the same boat as xurtio so don't expect any revelatory prog choices from me, but I like the idea and I will still get exposed to new stuff. I like the idea of the human element instead of randomness.

I pretty much open to any method here and will go with the flow.

Also Rotasi speaks like a wise man as well:)

Okay, so we'll go with an open forum then. Here's the order of people:

1. Unknown Soldier
2. Moss
3. Rostasi
4. Carpe Mortem
5. Xurtio
6. Anteater

US, feel free to suggest one or even several possible albums you'd like to give us the option to review. Is everyone still okay with taking one week for reviews or would you rather it be a bi-monthly sort of thing?

Ok will put them up in the next few hours.

I'm all out of time tonight, will select tomorrow though.

I'm not sure if one album needs to be picked here or a choice, so anyway here are three pretty grassroots prog albums and these are three albums that usually appear on lists 'that helped to build prog rock'. They're great places for anybody to start getting into prog and all the artists at this time were early pioneers into what would become known as prog rock. They're also albums that often get overlooked in favour of the early Pink Floyd, Moody Blues and Mothers of Invention (Frank Zappa) releases etc, when it came to prog rock/art rock and experimental releases from this time.

The Nice The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack 1967
http://i.simplecd.me/UxoTdFLc.jpg

Procul Harum Procul Harum 1967
http://www.procolharum.com/p/ph_beardsley.jpg

Family Music in a Doll's House 1968
http://www.musicheaven.gr/html/image...1343376363.jpg

Im least familiar with family but they all look worthy..

I'll do The Nice.

I'll do Procul Harum.

I guess we are doing the nice first?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...IL._SY300_.jpg
Album Title: Thoughts of Emerlist DavJack
Year: 1967

Ok, to start off I have never been a big fan of the Nice. I certainly don't dislike them but they have never been a band I have eagerly sought out. Part of that is I have never really been an ELP fan either. But to be fair I have not dug that deeply in the catalog. I know there is a Nice box set out that is running about $300 that is comprehensive so maybe someday. I just think there were other bands that did it better although to be fair, the Nice may have got there first so deserve some kudos. But I much prefer Fever Tree, early floyd, small faces, etc... Never been a big fan of that big Emerson organ sound.

This is an album that is clearly of it's time, especially something like the title track with the bah, bah, bah poppy stuff. To me the best song on here could be Bonnie K because it rocks. But again, I think Steppenwolf did this stuff better so why spend much time on the Nice? I think Rondo just gets boring after awhile although the musicianship is there. I like War and Peace better and again I think that it's a bot rocker/bluesier sounding so I'm showing my bias. And Emerson really kills on that one.

I sound more negative about this record than I mean to. It's a good listen in the right mood. It gets kudos for taking some chances (something like Tantalising Maggie for instance), for have a good variety, great musicians. I just think Emerson tends to over dominate on everything he is on. I never seem to hear much subtlety from him. He never seems to step back and let others shine. But like I said, I have somewhat avoided his work so am not speaking with much knowledge here, just an impression that could be wrong.

I do like that their name comes from Steve Marriotts term for being high.

Rating: 7/10