Glass Beach - Plastic Death Subgenre(s): Alternative/Indie prog (not a recognized genre, but it totally fits)
Score: 70
Year: 2024
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 4th (of 4 2024 albums ranked so far)
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My overriding response to hearing this album is that these guys aren't afraid to color outside the lines, and that makes for a mostly very interesting listen. The music, while lacking overt references to the commonly accepted elements of progressive rock, is still quite progressive. There are so many genres at work across the album, and they get blended and juxtaposed in unexpected and novel ways. While there aren't the switching around of odd time signatures that draws me to prog, the rhythmic things they do within a basic 4/4 construct makes the music often times sound like more. The compositions are highly ambitious and for the most part, well executed. So why is this not a great, glorious revelation to me? It's the vocals. They consistently have that sort of underwhelming, flat or depressed almost monotonal delivery that can be a significant turnoff for me. The music is still good enough for me to think this a much better than average overall, and I happily applaud the group's moxy in putting them out there. I wish them success even if this isn't going into my regular rotation.
Glass Beach - Plastic Death Subgenre(s): Alternative/Indie prog (not a recognized genre, but it totally fits)
Score: 70
Year: 2024
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 4th (of 4 2024 albums ranked so far)
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My overriding response to hearing this album is that these guys aren't afraid to color outside the lines, and that makes for a mostly very interesting listen. The music, while lacking overt references to the commonly accepted elements of progressive rock, is still quite progressive. There are so many genres at work across the album, and they get blended and juxtaposed in unexpected and novel ways. While there aren't the switching around of odd time signatures that draws me to prog, the rhythmic things they do within a basic 4/4 construct makes the music often times sound like more. The compositions are highly ambitious and for the most part, well executed. So why is this not a great, glorious revelation to me? It's the vocals. They consistently have that sort of underwhelming, flat or depressed almost monotonal delivery that can be a significant turnoff for me. The music is still good enough for me to think this a much better than average overall, and I happily applaud the group's moxy in putting them out there. I wish them success even if this isn't going into my regular rotation.
Kansas - Leftoverture Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 100
Year: 1976
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 1
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I so love new music discovery and all of my diaries reflect that. But sometimes, ya' just gotta' break out an old classic.
This is a perfect album. Brilliant from end to end.
Granada - Hablo de una Tierra Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog, Eclectic Prog
Score: 75
Year: 1975
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 45th
You know what I love about Spanish prog?
With mellotron, you get flamenco guitar!
To be honest, there's not much of that here, but it's most welcome when it appears. As is all the variety that appears on this album. In addition to that mellotron, there's all manner of other keyboards, including rock organ. Musically, things range from avant garde explorations to deep grooves. In fact one song has both within itself: Es el momento de oír buen rock (It's Time to Listen a Good Rock). Challenging at the start and super fun later. Overall, this is a very cool release and a fine addition to my 1975 library (already a stellar prog year).
Cathedral - Stained Glass Stories Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 85
Year: 1978
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 15th
I remember pulling up to a listening station in 1993 and checking out a new CD by a group called Cathedral. It was doom metal, generally not my favorite genre, but I really took to it. It was more than just standard doom, but rather a sort of psychedelic doom with a groove, which really sounds line an oxymoron, but that's what it was and it really worked. I bought the CD on the spot and have enjoyed it ever sense.
Decades later, as I'm using the wonders of the internet, social media, and progressive music online boards, to get caught up on all that I missed back in the day, I stumble upon another, completely unrelated group called Cathedral. So with my neverending search for new-to-me prog, and my positive association with the name Cathedral, unrelated or not, I had to check out this Cathedral which as it turns out, came out 15 years before the Cathedral I was already familiar with......
..... and I love it! This is a rather intense, borderline aggressive form of symphonic prog. The composition and musicianship are everything one could hope for in the genre. The vocals range from so-so to very good. Paul Seal often times sounds like he's trying to be the American Peter Gabriel, and when he pulls it off, it mixes with the music well and overall sounds like being well worth multiple spins.
I like this Cathedral a lot. It's like I now have access to both St. Paul's and St. Patrick's, but in a musical setting. Yes, life is good.
Divine Regale - Ocean Mind Subgenre(s): Progressive Metal
Score: 75
Year: 1997
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 18th (1997 is a weak year for me)
When I first played this 1997 release, I thought I might have stumbled upon a long lost Queensryche album. Vocalist Dwight Hill is a solid sonic doppelganger to Geoff Tate, and the music runs in a rather Queensryche vein. Most critics will also call out the music as derivative of prog metal standard bearers Fates Warning and Dream Theater, but I don't really get that; to me that Queensryche aping is blended more with underground thrash metal icons Flotsam and Jetsam, especially in the rhythmic thrust of the blended music and vocal lines. All in all, I think this makes for a very interesting hybrid.... for a while. Unfortunately, Hill lack's Tate's ability to modulate approach to song content, the band's monolithic approach to the genre tend to wear out their welcome sometime before the last groove spins. In his Allmusic review, Eduardo Rivadavia says "...nothing here will interest anyone but the most masochistic prog metal completist." Derivative though this may be, that's far too harsh a commentary. I don't think of myself as a prog metal completist and I'm certainly not masochistic in what I run through my headphones, and I did like this album... I just might skip a track or two before calling it a day. Not surprisingly, the group didn't gain much traction and this was their only release.
Yes - Yes Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 75
Year: 1969
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 23rd
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Yes - Time And a Word Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 75
Year: 1970
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 24th
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In preparation for a Yes discussion, I caught up with the group's first two albums. Much like the first album or two by Genesis and Jethro Tull, these albums catch a lot of heat as not being up to the group's eventual standard. In listening to them today, I gained a new appreciation for them. Even with the different personnel (another parallel to Genesis's debut), this album clearly demonstrates the seeds of what the group would become, much more so than their contemporaries. Bruford's jazz-influenced drumming is evident and Squire's bass has his patented Rickenbacker punch and virtuosic groove. There s some growth in progginess from the debut to the sophomore album, but ironically, that doesn't always make it better. The group would eventually meld the hookiness of the first album with the expanding progressive direction to become arguably the greatest prog band of all time. Were this not the band that gave us Fragile and Close to the Edge, these first two albums would be considered solid if not great forbears of the genre, and deservedly so. That they didn't come out of the chute firing as fully formed as King Crimson is no disgrace; these are actually very good albums and I'm happy to put them back into my rotation.
Yes - Tormato Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 75
Year: 1978
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 27th
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As I began listening to Yes's most maligned album this morning, I was struggling to see why it as so dismissed as I was really enjoying it. As the album progressed, I developed two theories.
First, there's a strong arena rock working it's way into Yes here, which should be an anathema to me and any self-respecting prog fan, right? The funny thing is that the least Yes-like songs were the ones I was enjoying the most. It can be a topsy-turvy musical world between my ears sometimes. But one must look beyond the surface sounds. There are some solid compositions here, Jon Anderson's vocals are as fine as they ever were, and most importantly, drummer Alan white is infusing a touch of jazz fusion into this music, making it anything but standard arena fare.
Second is that the album is rather inconsistent, especially relative to both what came before and what would come after. It lacks coherence and comes across as a group struggling to find their way in a new evolution. So as a whole, Tormato isn't as impressive as the rest of the group's output. However, I find the highs to be frequent and high enough to still make this a worthy piece of my Yes rotation.
Yes - 90215 Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 70
Year: 1983
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 54th
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Yes - Big Generator Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 60
Year: 1987
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 62nd
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I did another Yes twofer today, this time giving fresh years to the two Yes albums I have always put at the very bottom of their long and varied catalog.
Lo and behold, things weren't quite so bad as I recall.
These albums represent the peak of the group's commercial success, so they've obviously done well. But there is a large contingent, mostly of the prog faithful, that consider this the period when Yes totally jumped the shark, sold out, abandoned their roots, abandoned their fans, forsook what made them great.... pick a pejorative, it was used here. I was always firmly in that latter camp. Major backlash effect, just as I had with so many great 70 groups trying to adapt to or fit in with the 80s. That that attempt gained commercial success only seemed to make the offense even more egregious.
It's amazing what putting a few decades between your ears ant their initial response can do.
I actually found lots to appreciate in 90215 for the first time. The compositions are actually quite good, even if there are not massive prog epics. There is intricacy in the arrangements. There's actually a lot for my brain to sink its teeth into. It's not all roses though. I still don't cotton to the thin sound and tinny 80s production. It really is a bad match for a symphonic prog group, although calling Yes symphonic prog at this point is really just a legacy term; a holdover from their roots and quite a stretch for these albums. But as I'm making my Yes top 40 songs list, a couple of these became serious candidates (no, not Owner of a Lonely Heart thgough, that one still annoys me a bit).
Big Generator seems to have all the negatives of 90215, but without the strength of composition or even the same level of musicianship. It's easy to see why this one is considered by most to be the bottom of the Yes barrel. That said, I find it (90215 to some segree) much like approaching Asia in a similar time frame; these are fine albums if you think of them as unique pop albums and don't go in with prog-specific expectations. The difference for me is that I really like John Wetton's rich and full voice, and find it a particularly good fit for the symphonic prog genre, while I dont' always care for Jon Anderson's thinner and airier vocals, which just seem to exacerbate the tinny production on these albums.
Yes - Magnification Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 80
Year: 2001
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 5th
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Yes - Fly From Here Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 75
Year: 2011
My Rank in Year as of this listen: 15th
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Heaven and Earth Subgenre(s): Symphonic Prog
Score: 65
Year: 2011
My Rank in Year as of this listen:37th
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Continuing my Yes deep dive, I began my weekend with this 21st Century Yes threefer. It had been a long time since listening to Fly From Here, an album I recalled really enjoying. I realy coudn't recall how long it had been since listening to either the preceding Magnification or the following Heaven and Earth, my recollection being that the latter album was a throwaway and quite honestly not recalling anything in particular about the earlier album.
Like many, I lost interest in the group after the classic era. For me, the distaste for the big 80s approach of 90125 was a big turn off, and after Big Generator I forsook the group and ended up ignoring later releases almost entirely until 2011's Fly From Here. The only reason I gave it a spin was because I saw it sitting in the CD bin at my local public library, so with no investment, I could throw it on my headphones with zero investment. I was very pleasantly surprised! I expected this to be another commercially oriented disappointment, especially as in the revolving door of group members, this one lacked the proggier members of the group's history. But then this album, which did have a rather commercial sound, still kicked off with a side-long, 23 minute, prog epic that compositionally could stand along similar efforts from the group's golden period. Big surprise, and a most welcome one. The rest of the album is more pleasant than challenging, but it makes for a nice contrast with that big opener, and all in all, makes for a fine listen.
The problem with the success of Fly From Here is that it got me jazzed about the group again and I was quite excited with the release of its follow on, Heaven and Earth. That was a reminder of the dangers of expectations. I found Heaven and Earth to be a near total throwaway. There's really nothing wrong with the album. But it's comparatively unimaginative. Perfectly serviceable and pleasant pop music for the most part, but really no wow factor. Upon today's listen, I was fully reconfirming that initial impression.... until the last two songs, each of which has some real wow moments and also hang together well as complete songs. So while I still think mostly a throwaway, it was nice to have a couple light bulb moments to finish it off.
What I realized today most of all though, was that while I was once looking forward to moving forward with the band after Fly From Here, I should have been moving back! Magnification was a fantastic listen! I couldn't conceive of why I had overlooked it back in the day other than maybe I just wasn't giving Yes any real consideration post-Big Generator, so there was a sort of guilt by association that kept me from really hearing the album. My mistake again. This is super solid prog with excellent compositions, strong songwriting, and Yes on their game in the musicianship department. I don't think I've seen much, or even any chatter on this album. I'm now thinking of Magnification as the lost gem in the Yes catalog.
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