Unknown Soldier

Album Title: Heavy horses
Artist: Jethro Tull
Nationality: British
Year: 1978
Subgenre: Folk/Prog
Player(s): Ian Anderson (Vocals, flute etc), Martin Barre (Guitar) Barriemore Barlow (Drums), John Evan (Organ, Piano), David Palmer (Keyboards) John Glascock (Bass)
Familiarity: As it's my best period from the band very good, even though I hadn't heard this album in years.
Favourite track(s): "Weathercock" and “Moths”
Why? Just a couple of wonderful tracks
Least favourite track(s): None
Why? N/A
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Was actually quite looking forward to listening to the album again, even though I wished it had been Songs from the Wood.
Factoids you'd like to share? A period where the band probably had their most stable line-up, from a band that were always chopping and changing band members.
End impression: An upbeat folk rock recording that is one of their more robust folky recordings.
Comments: This period is my favourite when it comes to Jethro Tull (as there are periods from this band that I really don't much like) I always felt their folk inspired rock was what they did best and should've embraced it even more, instead of the mind-numbing prog of Thick as a Brick and the nonsense that is known as A Passion Play. Overall Heavy Horses though is a good album but not the classic that the previous Songs from the Wood is, but it's still an album that I enjoy quite a bit. On Heavy Horses the band celebrate their folk with their rural agricultural themes and if Songs from the Wood along with Aqualung are my two favourite Jethro Tull albums, then Heavy Horses is in the small batch that I like just below this. Heavy Horses had a great production and an album that really stands up to repeated listens and always sounds fresh, as it has done for me today.

Rating: 4.0

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Moss

Album Title: Heavy horses
Artist: Jethro Tull
Nationality: British
Year: 1978
Subgenre: Folk/Prog
Player(s): Ian Anderson (Vocals, flute etc), Martin Barre (Guitar) Barriemore Barlow (Drums), John Evan (Organ, Piano), David Palmer (Keyboards) John Glascock (Bass)
Familiarity: With Jethro? Tons. With this album? Nothing.
Favourite track(s): And the mouse police never sleep
Why? Because it has a great driving feel and it's about cats! I have 2 cats and they are the best. Although I played them this song and they seemed unimpressed. Great lyrics though.
Least favourite track(s): Acres wild
Why? A little too much of that Jethro Celtic jig thing going on. Plus it seems to be about all the places this guy banged his woman which I don't need to know about.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Not really. I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Tull. His voice can weary me but there are flashes of brilliance. This was back in the good years so I expected it to be good and it was. Just not great.
Factoids you'd like to share? Amazed Ian picked up flute just prior to starting Tull because he knew he would never be able to play guitar like Clapton. That always amazes me. Like Phil Lesh with the dead or Paul Simonon with the Clash. People that pick up instruments so late in the game but still do an amazing job.
End impression: Really liked it but not my favorite Tull by any stretch.
Comments: Some beautiful acoustic guitar all over this album. Both the playing and just the pure tone. I think this album is good but not something I would revisit often. Many of the songs sound very similar although I listened several times and the songs really started to distinguish themselves. 4 years later they would put out one of my favorites by them, Broadsword and the beast. I saw them open for the who in 1982 with the stage looking like a big viking ship and all that and I thought it was great. If you have not heard the broadsword album I would highly recommend it. If nothing else Ian writes some really amazing lyrics and this album is no exception:
Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill
Up into the cold wind facing
In stiff battle harness, chained to the world
Against the low sun racing
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.
Also, it takes guts to write a song called "weathercock".
Rating: I will go 3.8 although with continued listening that could go up.

Unknown Soldier

I think Heavy Horses is an album that can get better on multiple listens, as it's that kind of album.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Xurtio

Album Title: Heavy horses
Artist: Jethro Tull
Nationality: British
Year: 1978
Subgenre: Folk Prog
Player(s): Ian Anderson (Vocals, flute etc), Martin Barre (Guitar) Barriemore Barlow (Drums), John Evan (Organ, Piano), David Palmer (Keyboards) John Glascock (Bass)
Familiarity: I know and enjoy Jethro Tull's popular tunes
Favourite track(s): Heavy Horses
Why? It's epic. It starts with several progressive changes that set a mood and have their own climax before the transition to the vocals, which are excellent. Then the reprise at the end with the instrumental intro.
Least favourite track(s): Most the the tracks were kind of typical Jethro Tull feel, with the exception of the opening track, Moths, and title track, which were great.
Why? There was nothing really bad, but nothing really stood out; they were just a bit more folk on the folk/prog spectrum they exist on.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? As always, it's on this list, so it should be prog, and the title track really seemed to satisfy that feeling. Also, because I know and accept Jethro Tull, the vocals had already passed the test. Familiarity doesn't hurt scores.
Factoids you'd like to share? We use 100% of our brain, not just 10%, that's a myth spread by people claiming to use 14% of their brain.
End impression: I like the album overall, Jethro Tull is very much part of the identity of progressive music, you kind of feel like you're going on an adventure with them. So far, it's the best album of the three I've seen here.
Rating: 4.0

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H̓̇̅̉yͤ͏mͬ͂ͧn͑̽̽̌ͪ̑͐͟o̴͊̈́͑̇m͛͌̓ͦ̑aͫ̽ͤ̇n̅̎͐̒ͫ͐c̆ͯͫ̋ ̔̃́eͯ͒rͬͬ̄҉

Anteater

Album Title: Heavy Horses
Artist: Jethro Tull
Nationality: British
Year: 1978
Subgenre: Prog-Folk
Player(s): Ian Anderson (Vocals, Flute, Dancing), Martin Barre (Guitar) Barriemore Barlow (Drums), John Evan (Organ, Piano), David Palmer (Keyboards) John Glascock (Bass)
Familiarity: Is it possible to be a proghead and not know Tull?
Favourite track(s): Journeyman, No Lullaby
Why? I picked these two because the former is groovy in an almost AOR fashion whilst the latter has some excellent orchestrations and plenty of fun posturing from Ian.
Least favourite track(s): None.
Why? 'Heavy Horses' is such a consistent record from start to finish that even when something doesn't stand out, it adds depth to the album experience.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Of course not. Doesn't really apply to me on this band.
Factoids you'd like to share? A lot of metalheads were pretty mad at Jethro Tull in 1988. Wonder why?
End impression: Surprisingly strong album from a band that were already considered "dinosaurs" by critics.
Comments: The funny thing about Jethro Tull is that a big chunk of their 70's output had at least one meh cut per record or song segments that didn't quite work on their more epic excursions. Heavy Horses, however, is one of the few exceptions to that rule by being a pretty groovy ride from '...And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps' all the way to the end. This gives it a slight edge over Songs From The Wood for me, tying it with TAAB and Aqualung as their best album of the 70's...though of course that's only my opinion. That being said, I don't think Ian was ever quite this good again going forward into the 80's and beyond.
Rating: 4.5

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Trollheart

Nice reviews guys. Seems everyone was impressed with that album other than me. Sort of.

Anyway, wave a fond farewell to our original list, as we plunge boldly into a listing of one thousand prog albums stretching all the way back to the sixties.
This is the first selection from it, it came up on number
636
and that gives us

The Flower King --- Roine Stolt

I know very little about the Flower Kings, although this is a solo album but apparently seen as also the first album from the Flower Kings, so should be interesting.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Album Title: The Flower King
Artist: Roine Stolt
Nationality: Swedish
Year: 1994
Subgenre: Not sure... it's got elements of classic and neo-prog: Neoclassical Prog?
Player(s): Roine Stolt (Lead Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, Percussion), Hasse Froberg (Vocals only on tracks 1 & 8), Hasse Brunisson/Jaime Salazar (Drums), Dexter Frank Jr (Keyboards, “electronics”), Don Azarro (Bass, Moog Taurus), Ulf Wallander (Sax)
Familiarity: None really. I once heard a Flower Kings track but don't recall liking it.
Favourite track(s): “The Flower King”, “Humanizzimo”
Why? The title and opener just blew me away with its melody, its upbeat message and it was not what I was expecting at all. The epic I think is constructed very well and every time I listened to it it got better.
Least favourite track(s): None
Why? I like everything on this album.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? As I said above I had only heard The Flower Kings and don't remember liking them so was expecting more of the same. Also, from the album cover and the title I thought of expected a kind of hippy space/prog vibe, which was not what we got at all.
Factoids you'd like to share? Although a solo album this was apparently regarded as the first album of the band The Flower Kings, from which obviously the name was taken.
End impression: Much better than I had expected and it's made me decide to give the whole band another shot.
Comments: When this came up I thought “Oh no! I remember the bloody Flower Kings!” But like us all I have to listen to it so I hit play, expecting a sort of hippy, peace-and-love message with a more or less psychedelic feel. From the beginning I was taken aback at the clear, crisp melody and the way the opener made me feel. I really liked this. To be fair, this album never once flags or dips in quality: it's totally solid all the way through. Stolt certainly takes control here --- check all the instruments he plays above and he also sings lead vocals.

I'm kind of reminded in odd ways of the debut Supertramp album, released 1970, particularly on the second track and the way it ends. But that's not to say Stolt (or, one would assume, later the Flower Kings) were trying to rip off that band, just that there are the odd similarities between the two, for me. The keyboard work on this album is quite amazing, seen most clearly on “The magic circus of Zeb”, when Stolt sort of melds early Genesis and Yes into something that is much more than the sum of its parts, and yet totally his own sound. The instrumentals, of which there are three, are superb and never bore or seem to drag, despite one of them being seven minutes long.

The highlight though is definitely “Humanizzimo”, which runs for 21 minutes and change, a fantastic epic that has everything: time signature changes, tempo changes, sections and movements, and several genres running through it, with at the end of it all a real message of peace and love which somehow does not come across as twee or insincere. I also like the way the closer bookends with the opener and gives a sort of reprise while fooling you into thinking it's a new track with its odd title. Pretty cool all round really.

Rating: I have to go with a high one here, given that I didn't expect to be bothered and am very impressed at the end of it all, so given also its pedigree and what spawned from this album I'm going for 4.5

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Moss

Album Title: The Flower King
Artist: Roine Stolt
Nationality: Swedish
Year: 1994
Subgenre: Bats me. prog rock lite?
Player(s): Roine Stolt (Lead Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, Percussion), Hasse Froberg (Vocals only on tracks 1 & 8), Hasse Brunisson/Jaime Salazar (Drums), Dexter Frank Jr (Keyboards, “electronics”), Don Azarro (Bass, Moog Taurus), Ulf Wallander (Sax)
Familiarity: Zilch. Never heard of them.
Favourite track(s): “Magic circus of Zeb”
Why? Well, I liked the camel or whatever that was at the end. And there was some pretty ripping guitar although it sounded like a rip off of Steve Vai only not as melodic. Kind of a wah wah hell.
Least favourite track(s): Close your eyes.
Why? The Nylon string guitar, the whispery vocals, the bad David Gilmour imitations. I don't know. Just painful to get through.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Well, considering I have been so pleasantly surprised with other albums here I did have high hopes. And hearing he was a great guitar player got me a bit excited.
Factoids you'd like to share? Nothing comes to mind
End impression: This is the kind of prog I was afraid would be dominating the list. Everything that made me think I did not like the genre. If I had heard the Watch followed by this I may have given up. Thank god for Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf, Spocks beard...
Comments: Ok, clearly I did not care for it. I was not a big fan of the vocals. The guitar sounded so way over processed. I think what I disliked mostly was the complete AOR soft rock sound of it. The bad flute in Humanizzimo that went on way too long. Sounded like Kenny G jumped in on sax at one point. "The sound of violence" didn't sound anything like the sound of violence. Then there was the "we believe in light and love, every precious thing" stuff which I wouldn't mind if it was not surrounded by such wussy music. Guitar was a little too much like Steve Vai tone wise but without the "Flair" and phrasing. I don't want to be overly mean. Roin is clearly a very good guitar player and musician. I liked some of the attempted artistic touches. Like the weird opening day baseball announcing at the beginning of Pilgrims Inn. There was a nice build up in that song. But overall I never want to hear this again and I will be gun shy for future flower kings although will keep an open mind.

Rating: 2.5

Trollheart

For any who care, barring any actual input from anyone on this, this is how I see members here. If you're not happy with this let me know what level you would like to be at/think you should be at.

Trollheart --- Core Member (and Founder)! Yay!
Anteater ---- Core Member
Unknown Soldier --- Core Member
Rostasi --- Associate Member
Neapolitan --- Associate Member
Urban --- Associate Member
Moss --- Standard Member
Xurtio --- Standard Member
Ninetales --- Associate Member

This is based on how people have approached the task of reviewing. As I said before, membership can go up or down, so if you want to remain at the level you're at (unless that's AM) then you need to make sure you keep up the reviews. If you want to move up, or down, a level let me know.
Assuming anyone cares about this. But it's more for the ranking/rating thing on the albums, so that I know whose score to include when working out each final rating.

Oh, if I've forgotten anyone shout: someone did say "I'm in!" but hasn't been heard from since, so if you want to be part of the club you know what to do...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Xurtio

Album Title: The Flower King
Artist: Roine Stolt
Nationality: Swedish
Year: 1994
Subgenre: Symphonic Prog
Player(s): Roine Stolt (Lead Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, Percussion), Hasse Froberg (Vocals only on tracks 1 & 8), Hasse Brunisson/Jaime Salazar (Drums), Dexter Frank Jr (Keyboards, “electronics”), Don Azarro (Bass, Moog Taurus), Ulf Wallander (Sax)
Familiarity: None.
Favourite track(s): “Pilgrim's Inn”
Why? I liked most of the instrumental tracks because they have that iconic prog feel with the slow lead guitar with bends and vibratos.
Least favourite track(s): The Flower King
Why? While I liked the set ups and some of the emphasis in the vocals, I didn't like the the timbre of the vocals. And the "We believe" chorus. My god, I was suddenly transported to a church get together.
Factoids you'd like to share?
End impression: Good instrumentally overall, in terms of phrasing, emphases, and subtle characteristics. However, he keys get annoying and the vocals definitely get annoying.
Comments: I did like a lot of the guitar lead, even in The Flower King. The tone could have been a little warmer, and some of the get-up-and-go breaks seemed a little out of place, and the lead guitar in those parts wasn't as good. I mean, in terms of talent it was fine, but in terms of interesting expressions, it was forgettable. I'd also note that I couldn't find a studio version of Humanizzo, so I listened to a liver version from '97 when the band was technically "The Flower Kings". I liked the vocals a lot better for that song. Not sure if it was because the singer was older (or different singer?) or if he just always used a different style on that song.
Rating: 3

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