Well I like what ive heard from Japan and i really liked Secrets of the Beehive so imma take on Gone to Earth. Robert Fripp being there just makes this choice all the easier.

Given that Toto are one of my all-time favourite bands, I'm inclined to pick them, but I'll wait and see if anybody else picks them first.

I'm all over this one The Custodian - Necessary Wasted Time

Spacey vibe and Porcupine Tree similarities has sold me.

Something for thise rarity seekers amongst you.
For a serious psych-prog wah-wah guitar album, you must check out "Theme For A Dream" by Agnes Strange (1972). Amazing underrated band:)

OK then this seems to be how it's panning out at the moment...
DJChameleon

Trollheart



Blomljud | Moon Safari

Ninetales

Unknown Soldier (with a possibility of Trollheart sticking his big nose in here too) ;)

As two weeks takes us close to Christmas time let's say we'll give this to Jan 1, as surely nobody will be in the mood to review albums over Xmas. Which means theoretically we have almost a month to get our reviews done, then we start off fresh in January. Sound ok to everyone?

My Toto review should be up soon, just said this to remind everybody else to wrap theirs up in the next week as well.:pimp:

Yeah you're right, need to get mine organised. Spending so much time getting the Year in Review for Sunday's update and stacking up those awards. But I'll get it done, as they say.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-_Blomljud.jpg

Blomljud --- Moon Safari --- 2008

I have to be honest: when I looked at this and saw that there were two ten minute tracks, a fifteen minute one and a THIRTY-TWO minute one I paled. However I've really liked what I've heard from Moon Safari so far, so I'm happy to give it a ago. The album title, apparently, means "Flowersound", and as it unfolds I can see why: there's a definite sense of nature and a real pastoral feeling about this, the Swedish prog band's second effort. It starts off well with a Beach Boys-style acapella opener that's very pleasant, and on into a nice piano-driven second track, with a very early Genesis sound about it, very soothing vocals from Simon Åkesson and Petter Sandström and some lovely harmonies, reminds me a bit of Blunstone or Woolfson. Certain sense of Spock's Beard about the piano parts too. Really nice. Have to say I'm really impressed.

Nice Country feel to the appropriately-named “In the countryside”, some really sweet percussion courtesy of Tobias Lundgren, puts me in mind of “Hedgerow” off the Big Big Train “English Electric Part I” album. Sort of. “Moonwalk” is a great instrumental with a lot of guitar in it --- Sandström plays guitar on this album as well as singing (and a lot of other instruments too!) but I think the bulk of the fretwork comes from Pontus Åkesson, especially the beautiful twelve-string and some lush mandolin --- very uptempo. Two ten-minuters follow each other but really this is so consistently good I don't even notice: I'm just kind of letting the music wash over me. Lovely. These guys remind me in a way of an old German pop band called Freiheit, which nobody will know. Nobody. But I have yet to hear anything resembling a bad track, and we're more than halfway through.

“Yasgur's farm” has more country/bluegrass style guitar with a lovely booming synth, rippling piano ... ah hell I could go on but this is supposed to be short. Short, Trollheart! Look it up! Okay, I'm shutting up and just enjoying the music until ...hey! They just robbed a Springsteen lyric there! “Rosalita”, I think. Nice little reel or jig or something celtic anyway in “Lady of the woodlands”, one of the few short tracks, which is followed by the other, “A tale of three and tree”, which melds the seventies art-prog of Gabriel's Genesis with the soft rock crooning of David Gates and throws some eighties Alan Parsons in for good measure. Just perfect.

Yes, I'm aware I'm going on to my fourth paragraph and the massive epic has yet to hit me, but this album is too good to just write a few lines, sorry: it needs to be properly treated, and I'm already lining it up for a full review in my journal next year. The vocal harmonies come totally into their own on this track, then we're into that epic, the penultimate track, almost long enough to be an album in its own right and split into four sections. “Other half of the sky” runs to a total of almost thirty-two minutes, its first part, “Written in the stars” a soft, lush, gentle lullaby that really showcases the vocal talent of, well, both lead vocalists, as it's hard to know who takes lead here.

Some beautiful piano work and gentle guitar just frame the melody perfectly, and there's a feel of early Floyd around the “Meddle” era here as well as of course classic Genesis. It kicks up then on bouncy Hammond for “The meaning of success”, taking a turn somewhat into seventies Yes territory but without ditching all the already-mentioned influences, and with more of a role for the guitar in a harder sense. Returning to its softer acoustic tone then for part three, “The child inside the man” as it slows down again, getting nice and pastoral with some flute and piano, ah, but then it ramps up with a superb keyboard solo and much faster percussion, superb Hammond coming in evoking the best of the likes of “Cinema show” and “One for the vine”, then some beautiful Gilmouresque guitar leads in an instrumental to open part four, “After all”, with some recorded broadcast stuff going on in the background a la Porcupine Tree. A definite sense of a big closing section as the vocal comes back in against powerful evocative Hammond. It's amazing, but over half an hour has just gone by and it doesn't even feel like it.

Long as it is though, and epic closer though it would have made, there's one more track to go. With a real feel of “The carpet crawlers”, final track “To sail beyond the sunset” finishes off this album perfectly, with a pastoral, gentle, lush tune that just plays out the album in a perfect almost coda after the gargantuan “Other half of the sky”. What an album!

TRACKLISTING

1. Constant bloom
2. Methuselah's children
3. In the countryside
4. Moonwalk
5. Bluebells
6. The ghost of flowers past
7. Yasgur's farm
8. Lady of the woodlands
9. A tale of three and tree
10. Other half of the sky
(i) Written in the stars
(ii) The meaning of success
(iii) The child inside the man
(iv) After all
11. To sail beyond the sunset

Rating: 10/10 (I know; it's really just that good!) I have GOT to get the rest of their discography! Ant, my man...? ;)

Moon Safari have been nice enough to put their entire discography up on BandCamp for streaming/buying/lyric reference purposes, so here's a link to each album if you plan on buying their stuff later on. I don't mind PMing you the albums though, mate! :D

Debut album: A Doorway To Summer (2005) - A Doorway to Summer | Moon Safari

Third album - Lover's End (2010) - Lover's End | Moon Safari

Newest album - Himlabacken Vol. 1 (2013)
- Himlabacken vol. 1 (24 bit version) | Moon Safari

Toto for me were always something of a passionate love affair and they were the band in the early to mid 1980s that probably resonated with me better than any other band out there. Their music and songs always were in my opinion the ultimate that AOR could offer. They were outstanding songwriters and musicians and always had the cream when it came to vocalists, quite simply I was in love with them. But by the early 1990s I had slowly fallen out of love with them and realised that love is not eternal. Ever since then I still pick up any Toto release or Toto related projected with great vigour, usually in the hope that my love will be rekindled but sadly it never is. Falling in Between is probably one of the more ambitious Toto projects of the last ten years, as they try to blend their classic sound with the sound of some of their progressive rock influences from years gone (just listen to the Jethro Tull influences on Hooked) It has some strong songs thanks to Bobby Kimball's vocals on the opening title track and especially on "No End in Sight" probably the best song on the album. Then there is typical Steve Lukather fare with songs like "Bottom of Your Soul" but some tracks also really drag like "Dying on My Feet" and there are others which are mostly there to just bulk out the album. But by and large none of the songs approach the quality and everlasting appeal of the band's classic era and sadly at the end of the album, I hadn't fallen back in love with them again, but the album did provide me with a certain amount of melancholy. 6/10