Month: January 2021

John Wenlock-Smith Interviews Chris Braide of Downes Braide Association

Geff Downes, Chris Braide

Chris Braide of Downes Braide Association talks about the new album ‘Halcyon Hymns’.

John Wenlock-Smith:  Good day Chris, are you well?

Chris Braide: Yes, I am fine thank you getting on as best as we all can in these times.

JWS: I do like the new album (‘Halcyon Hymns’), I think it is quite positive.

CB: That surprises me as other friends have asked if anything has happened and am I okay? I think lyrically this album is a lot darker than its predecessor (‘Skyscraper Souls’), that album was like evening whilst this is more of an afternoon album, colour wise. I would say this one is orange where ‘Skyscraper Souls’ was a deep blue, this one has some rather dark songs, like Remembrance for instance.

JWS: How did this album even come about?

CB: Well, with the virtual shutdown of the industry and tours being cancelled etc. it was very much a case of ‘right what can I do now then?’. This album came out of that period, Geoff (Downes) had sent me some ideas and I got to work on them. I chose to look at the world as it was when I was younger, the endless summer days, cycling around everywhere, pure rose tinted nostalgia for a world that had been but suddenly was not available to us now.

JWS: This album has some guests too?

CB: Yes, we have David Longdon on one track, Marc Almond on another, Ash Soan (my colleague of 20 plus years) on drums and a few others too, it makes for a nice mix.

JWS: So how did you and Geoff originally meet?

CB: I met Geoff at a one-off Buggles reunion in London. I was part of a group called The Producers with Trevor Horn who was, of course, the other Buggle and he asked me if I’d like to be an honorary Buggle for the evening, I said yes very enthusiastically and we had a great time of it. I met Geoff and enjoyed his company and felt we had a good connection.

I was due to move to Los Angeles shortly afterwards, when I told Geoff he said that it was no problem as he was due to be in LA himself soon as Yes were due to record the ‘Fly From Here’ album. Geoff and Trevor were back in the Yes camp for that project and when he was doing that album, he would come and visit me at my home. We started to write together songs that would become the first Downes Braide Association album.

JWS: I have the live album and DVD set and I will be reviewing this latest album for Progradar too.

CB: Cheers for that. We enjoyed that gig at Trading Boundaries, did you go?

JWS: I wanted to be but it was a bit too far to travel to East Sussex I am afraid but I did enjoy the album and the DVD. If you had been playing locally in Stoke or Crewe, I would have been there

CB: Well, hopefully when everything gets back to normality then we can start gigging again, I have other musician friends who have also been unable to do anything this past year!

JWS: So Chris, I know you have a long musical history but what sort of music really gets you?

CB: I’m a huge Marc Bolan and T-Rex fan have been seen I was a kid really. I also like Yes, the whole spectrum of their sound and, of course, the fantastic covers. Which is why we enjoy working with Roger Dean who crafted those fabulous sleeves that you could lose yourself in whilst listening to the albums.

I also really like Kate Bush who surely must be a really unsung progressive icon with the stuff that she has done for the past 40 years or so. If I was stuck on a desert island I’d take Marc Bolan, Yes and Kate Bush’s music to sustain me.

JWS: I saw Kate on her only UK tour in 1979 in Birmingham, she was quite remarkable. It was the ‘Wuthering Heights’/’Lionheart’ albums tour, if I recall correctly?

CB: Wow, what a fantastic memory! She stopped touring as that tour was cursed when a lighting guy fell (Bill Duffield) to his death at the warmup show in Poole. It was later coined ‘The Tour of Life’ and Kate did a benefit concert for Bill in London as the end of the tour, it must have been amazing.

JWS: I can remember if being very visual and extremely exciting to a young 19-year-old, as I was then. So you have also been involved with loads of modern “Pop” acts along the way, I believe?

CB: I was originally a solo artist signed to Dave Stewart’s ‘Anxious’ label (on which he released his debut solo album ‘Chapter One’ in 1996). This was before I moved to LA and began working with the likes of Sia, Christina Aguilera, Pixie Lott and Yuna, amongst others, getting into writing these songs for these different artists, I am a writer, that is what I do.

JWS: But your love of music stretches a lot further than just Pop?

CB: It certainly does, it’s far wider than that. I love the progressive stuff and I like to combine that with certain Pop sensibilities, if I can, and DBA gives me a vehicle to do just that.

JWS: I think that when this album is released it needs to get to a far wider audience, if possible, as lots of people of my age and younger will find much to enjoy here.

CB: Yes, indeed it is but it’s getting it out there that is the hard part!

JWS: Well you need to get your DBA Songs onto mainstream media. Get it onto Good Morning Britain for instance or get Clarkson to use it on the Grand Tour etc. Obviously we will try what we can but it’s only scratching the surface really, the album is out on the 5th February in the UK?

CB: Yes, the day before my birthday.

JWS: Oh wow! well, Happy Birthday for the 6th then, dare I ask how old you will be?

CB: Well, I feel like I am still 19 really but I will be in my 40’s. I’m actually really enjoying my 40’s, its even better than the 30’s were and the 20’s were too! In fact, I think every decade has just been better for me.

JWS: Well I’m 61 now and my best decade was my 50’s. A lot happened, I got divorced, started writing reviews and did interviews with people like Keith Emerson, I’ve even interviewed Geoff once. I started dating and eventually got remarried again so it was a great decade for me, you have this to come, I guess. Anyway, Chris, my time has gone so thank you for talking to me, I appreciate it and all the best with the new album!

CB: Thank you too, I have enjoyed it.

Interview With Steve Hackett by John Wenlock-Smith

Steve Hackett talks about his new acoustic album ‘Under A Mediterranean Sky’, released on the 22nd January 2021.

John Wenlock-Smith: So how are you Steve, how’s lockdown been treating you and Jo?

Steve Hackett: It is a strange time, at least some of us will get vaccinated soon. I am okay, I have had a bit of kidney surgery recently, so am about 80 or 90% now able to play the guitar again now after leaving it for a month or so. My fingers are working fine, my hearing is working, oops better not jinx it all now though! How are you and yours doing in all this?  I’ve not caught it yet so hopefully all will be fine.

JWS: We are both fine, staying in and avoiding contact with anyone as much as we can. We had a Tesco delivery this morning so, yes, we are both doing ok really. So, let us talk about this new album of yours…

SH: Yes, ‘Under A Mediterranean Sky’, it’s been ready for a while, Jo says it was ready by June last year but I think it was actually a little earlier. We started it around March or April and it took a couple of months to complete and then suddenly it was all done.

The thing that takes all the time on rock albums are the vocals. Drums and, strangely, guitars don’t take that long that, maybe because I have a degree of proficiency in that department.

I don’t have to hire anyone in to do those parts but when, it comes to something like this, it’s basically one guitar, which you have to get your tone right for (and be able to play it) and then there are orchestrations by Roger King, who is proving himself to be somewhat of a genius in his arrangements and his engineering and musical skills.

JWS: I have had a listen to it and I have to say that it sounds particularly good indeed.

SH: I must agree and say that It does sound mighty fine indeed.

JWS: I watched a couple of the videos for the album too.

SH: You know what I think? I think its good for those that like that sort of thing but, if you want Van Halen or Buddy Holly then stop right there. However, it is a bridge between what the prog people might like and what the classical types might enjoy.

It’s an audience that I’ be happy to connect with. When I started doing classical stuff with the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ album (1997) I suddenly had people writing to me who obviously would never deign to listen to any rock and roll, wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole actually, and they were saying nice things.

I thought this is nice, people who listen to Radio 3 or Classic FM and the occasional Tchaikovsky album and learnt the piano at some stage of their life, they’re listening to my music. I thought this is nice, it is a different thing, a different strata of listener.

JWS: A different type of listening too perhaps?

SH: Yes, less leather jacket more Laura Ashley I Think?

JWS: For the ladies at least, floral dresses on blokes does not work, well it does not for me at least!

SH: Floral Guitars and decorations?

JWS: You obviously have travelled extensively through those areas in the past/

SH: Yes, it’s a musical journey, I hope it will take people there in spirit even if we can’t go there at the moment. I get Production copies of the album today, I always await that with eagerness as you can actually see the finished article. I listen on CD as you get the full bandwidth of sounds on that.

I don’t think that this will be a big one for Vinyl enthusiasts, I think it needs the purity of CD rather than the snap crackle and pop that vinyl gives, if retro is your thing that is.

On this album there is a piece I have composed for Domenico Scarlatti who was born in Naples in 1685 and was an Italian composer. He was primarily a composer for the harpsichord. On this album I have composed a composition called Scarlatti Sonata as a way of tribute to him.

So that is me, if I want to play a bit of Beethoven then I will or Chopin, Muse could and Keith Emerson used to do that, we used to talk about that all the time. It does not have to be current to be good.

I used to have a friend who was an art Critic and I asked him how he felt about Avant-Garde and he replied that if he was interested in it, he considered it to be Avant-Garde.

I mean Bach was a radical really, anyone who wrote the Italian concerto that has been a ball breaker for keyboard players evermore since has to be, funny that!

JWS: On this album you have some interesting pieces like M’dina, in Saudi Arabia?

SH: No, it’s the other M’dina, the walled city inside Valetta, the capital of Malta. It’s quite a long piece, a sort of mini concerto that’s probably closer in spirit to the Warsaw Concerto by Richard Adinsell (written for the 1941 Film ‘Dangerous Moonlight’ which was about the Polish Struggle against the Nazi’ Germany in 1939.) being a short piece of about 10-minute duration. This song, M’dina, has echoes of that, reflecting the way that Malta has been affected its occupation many times through different wars over the years.

JWS: I also Like Scirocco.

SH: I particularly like that one too, I like how the classical meets the cinematic element of it, I was going to say something else about it, an attempt to pair the Middle East with music and recollections of travels in those places, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan,  fantastic places that I’ve loved.

When I go to such places I tend to write things in my notebook. I don’t carry an instrument with me really because it’s too valuable and puts you at the mercy of airport baggage handlers, which is not something you really want, so it’s easier to record impressions in a notebook for reference at a later point.

I first went to Egypt many years ago and spent 24 hours in Cairo and visited the museum and the Sphinx and the Pyramids, of course. It is the spirit of things really. We went back to Egypt a few years ago and took a Nile cruise where you can really feel the history and the culture of the area.

I usually write the chords and the top line and Roger comes up with the rest, I think I am at the stage where I am ready to call him a genius! We went to Petra in Jordan and saw Lawrence’s pile of stones, there is lots of history there, we also rode with the Bedouin in the desert too.

JWS: I like the Andalusian Sky track too.

SH: You like the orchestral ones?

JWS: I like that they evoke a feeling of a place.

SH: It is the interaction between us that makes it work.

JWS: Where did you find Roger?

SH: Originally, he was just a name in the phone book! He was a composer with a background in Film Music who had worked on the movies Cliffhanger and In The Name Of The Father, so that is where he came from. I think for much of it he was uncredited, often the way with folks like Michelangelo and his acolytes who painted much of the Sistine Chapel.

JWS: I was watching the video’s last night and thought that you would be good at doing one of those type of programmes.

SH: I really enjoy watching those type of programmes and had thought that I would like to do that, standing there talking about things that I know a little about.

JWS: Well, it has worked for Michael Palin and Steve Coogan!

SH: Yes, however I would rather be down with the locals finding out what they do, how they live and what they eat etc.

JWS: So what is next for You?

SH: Well, I have started work on the next album, although I have temporarily stopped due to this lockdown. I have got about 45 minutes done already, I have a shopping list of all sorts of things I want to do but it is not finished until it is finished.

There is quite a lot to live up to from recent albums, a house band, some great singers, it has been quite a big team of musicians from all around the world. some great singers and musicians all working together and I like to work as part of a team. It is a lot of fun to me, like a toy that I have never outgrown.

JWS: Yes, I think if you are not enjoying it then it is time to give it up!

SH: I agree and guitars in particular, I have only got to hear a guitar tone, it could even be someone else’s sound possibly from some time ago, the sound that I have heard in my mind and been striving to attain. When I find that tone then you have the vehicle to go anywhere you have imagine. This is the vehicle, the rocket, the boat, and that is the voyage that I want to take.

ARC OF LIFE release second single JUST IN SIGHT

Arc of Life is Jon Davison, Billy Sherwood and Jay Schellen (additional drummer) from YES together with Dave Kerzner on keyboards and Jimmy Haun on guitar.

The new band release their debut, eponymous, album on February 12th and have just released a video for the second single from the album, ‘Just In Sight’.

THE FLOWER KINGS – launch video for ‘Black Swan’ / track taken from latest album ‘Islands’ out now

In October 2020, progressive rockers THE FLOWER KINGS released their new double album “Islands” on InsideOutMusic, just a year after the group’s much celebrated “Waiting For Miracles”. Today the band have launched a brand new video for the track ‘Black Swan’, and you can watch it now here:

Roine Stolt comments: “’Black Swan’ was a little piano melody I wrote around spring 2019 – I thought of it as ‘Polish melancholic’ or a ballet piano piece. I did present a demo for the Transatlantic sessions but when it didn’t stick there I brought it along to the TFK ‘Islands’ session. Here it found its way in to the album and concept and with a slightly more dry guitar-driven sound and with nods to both The Beatles & Queen it became one of my favourite tracks. Hasse delivers some of his finest vocal on the album here.”
 
With an epic length of 92 minutes, “Islands” offers all trademark sounds and melodies, the band is renowned for including vintage keys, brilliant guitar solos, odd drum patterns and symphonic elements. Rounded off by artwork courtesy of the legendary Roger Dean (Yes, Asia, Gentle Giant, Greenslade, Uriah Heep), THE FLOWER KINGS present a dynamic and complex record that is bold, bombastic and beautiful.

 “Islands” is available as a massive Limited 3LP & 2CD box set with slipcase and 180 gram vinyl housed in one gatefold, one single sleeve; as Limited Edition 2CD Digipak and Digital Album.
 
Order here: https://theflowerkings.lnk.to/IslandsID

Disc One (49:40)
1 – Racing With Blinders On 4:24
2 – From The Ground 4.02
3 – Black Swan 5:53
4 – Morning News 4:01
5 – Broken 6:38
6 – Goodbye Outrage 2:19
7 – Journeyman 1:43
8 – Tangerine 3:51
9 – Solaris 9:10
10 – Heart Of The Valley 4:18
11- Man In A Two Peace Suit 3:21

Disc Two (43:01)
1 – All I Need Is Love 5:48
2 – A New Species 5:45
3 – Northern Lights 5:43
4 – Hidden Angles 0:50
5 – Serpentine 3:52
6 – Looking For Answers 4:30
7 –Telescope 4:41
8 – Fool’s Gold 3:11
9 – Between Hope & Fear 4:29
10 – Islands 4:12

Line-Up:
Roine Stolt – Vocal, Ukulele, Guitars, Additional Keyboards
Hasse Fröberg – Vocal & Acoustic Guitar
Jonas Reingold – Bass, Acoustic Guitar
Zach Kamins – Pianos, Organ, Synthesizers, Mellotron, Orchestrations
Mirko DeMaio – Drums, Percussion
Guest: Rob Townsend – Soprano Saxophone

LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT – Announce details for new album ‘LTE3’

 Album due out March 26th, 2021 

2020 came to a close with LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT announcing their return and new album to be released on InsideOutMusic. Today, the legendary supergroup comprised of Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, Sons of Apollo), John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), and Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) are pleased to officially announce that the new album ‘LTE3’ will be released on March 26th, 2021 via InsideOutMusic, twenty-two years after the bands’ last studio album. 

“After over 20 years since the last time we recorded together, the four of us stepped into the studio and it was as if no time had passed at all! All of the magic that made the first two LTE albums so special was still there and we had such a great time making this record. I’m extremely proud of what we created together and can’t wait for everyone to hear it!”

-John Petrucci 

“The best thing to come out of 2020 was this long-awaited reunion! And it was surely worth the wait as after all these years, the magic chemistry was still there and stronger than ever!”

-Mike Portnoy 

Tracklisting: 

1. Hypersonic (8:22)

2. Beating The Odds (6:09)

3. Liquid Evolution (3:23)

4. The Passage Of Time (7:32)

5. Chris & Kevin’s Amazing Odyssey (5:04)

6. Rhapsody In Blue (13:16)

7. Shades Of Hope (4:42)

8. Key To The Imagination (13:14)

Bonus Disc: Includes almost an hour of improvised jams.

The pre-order will start on January 22nd 2021 and the album will be available as:

•Limited deluxe hot pink 3LP+2CD+Blu-ray Box Set (incl. a poster and 4 artcards, Blu-ray includes a 5.1 surround mix with visuals, and full band interview from the studio)

•Limited 2CD+Blu-ray Artbook

•Limited 2CD Digipak

•Gatefold black 2LP+CD

• Digital album (2CD)

Watch the recently released teaser trailer, created by Christian Rios, here: 

In 1997, Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, and Tony Levin, joined forces to create Liquid Tension Experiment. The foursome would release their iconic, self-titled debut album in 1998 and the dazzling follow-up, LTE2 in 1999, creating a dynamic, frantic, and inventive sound all their own. The incredible creativity between the collective would prompt Petrucci and Portnoy to invite Rudess to join Dream Theater, effectively marking the end of this side project.  However, since that time, there have been few reunions more in demand. Now, with the world in lockdown and calendars unexpectedly aligned, the inconceivable has finally happened… a new Liquid Tension Experiment album. 

Band picture by Tony Levin.

Review – Tiger Moth Tales – The Whispering Of The World – by John Wenlock-Smith

This is the latest album for Tiger Moth Tales (aka Peter Jones) but this time around it is a quite different beast indeed. This album is a marked departure from the glorious madness and tomfoolery that Peter has offered up with earlier albums like ‘Cocoon’ and ‘The Depths of Winter’ and is far more direct and straightforward. It is also the first time Peter has worked at a different location, this album being recorded at Fieldgate Studios in Penarth, South Wales, also utilising the production skills of Andrew Lawson.

So, the sound is different, it is basically Peter Jones playing a grand piano and singing, although, this time, he is backed highly effectively and sympathetically by a string quartet. This lends the music a different tone as any solos are either taken by Peter’s piano or by the string quartet.

This is a very brave album with Peter certainly taking a real risk here but, in doing so, he reaffirms just what an excellent singer he really is. This approach also allows the songs to speak for themselves with the strings providing both a warm backdrop and accentuating the lyrical themes.

So, what does it sound like?

Well, it is certainly different but listening to the several times will reveal this to be a very personal set of songs that deal with life, mortality, the dawn chorus, recollections of early holidays and remembrance and the importance of having memories.

The album opens with Taking the Dawn, high strings leading into a striking piano melody and creating a rhythm of sorts, before Peter begins to sing and delights in the commencement of the dawn chorus and the joy that sound brings him. He really praises the power of nature and celebrates that power and the sense of fullness that it gives him, the gift of living from the skies. This is a particularly good opener, personal and uplifting and it sets a good base for all that is to follow.

Next comes is the moody, slightly dark The Whispering of the World, on which the strings get their chance to play some evocative moody and slightly chilling tones. The song is based upon childhood memories of sounds heard on a deserted Devon beach coming through a hollow rock that scared Peter as a child. Sweeter Than Wine is Peter’s remembrance of a school friend who died suddenly and unexpectedly, here Peter assures us that they may be gone but they are not forgotten and will be remembered in the memories that he treasures and the gratitude he feels in having known them.

Quiet Night features a haunting melody and, having a lot of sensory imagery, this is a striking track that seems to deal with how we cope with loss and the hope of a life thereafter. Peter is not religious but seems to think that lives that have gone play some part in our lives now. As I say, this is a very personal and emotional song and is handled very delicately by all. A Town By The Sea follows and is the lone, completely instrumental track and one that acts as a tour de force for the string quartet to really shine along side the stately grand piano of Peter Jones. This brief interlude works as a demarcation between the two halves of the album, the song Blackbird is next and while it’s not a cover of the Paul McCartney track of the same name, it does bear similarities to that song. Peter talks of walking home late at night and hearing a lone blackbird singing before the dawn, striking imagery for these days in which we find ourselves, a glimpse of hope for better days that are coming.

Waving, Drowning is another very personal track, one in which Peter talks of the depression that he has suffered from, of how the suffocating feelings of that time made him feel and how he finally managed to break free. He recalls how friends reached out to him and helped him establish firm ground under his feet, enabling him to take tentative steps to freedom. This is a very hopeful song, emotionally bare and yet striving for a life that has been eluding him but one that he is determined to have once again. This is a wonderful track full of warmth and life, brilliant.

The closing song of the album, Lost To The Years, is simply beautiful and is a comment on the loss of Peter’s grandmother in 2019. In this song he remembers her with warmth and love and much gratitude for all that she meant to him and talks about how he is determined to keep her memories alive in his life. This is a beautifully dignified and lovely set of memories that he sings of and he uses them as a challenge to himself to ensure that he learns from what she has taught him and as to how he will live going forward from here. This is highly personal and very emotionally laden with love and gratitude. Ultimately, he realises that death, while incredibly sad, comes to us all and that we should learn to make the most of the time that we have available to us. Which is a very realistic and encouraging sentiment for us all to live by

This album is one that will really touch you emotionally, or should do if you have an open heart to hear the message that it sends out, “Life is precious, love and enjoy those around you whilst you can”. There is much depth in these words and this album is very recommended for being a heartfelt, beautiful collection of some vastly different and personal, yet universal, songs for us all to appreciate.

Released 4th December 2020

Order from White Knight Records here: 

https://www.whiteknightshop2.co.uk/store/Tiger-Moth-Tales-c36255878

Review – Mark Kelly’s Marathon – by John Wenlock-Smith

Well, this one nearly passed me by but, thankfully, thanks to recommendations from a friend, I was able to capture this one. Apparently Mark Kelly has been planning a solo album for nearly 30 years but it was the national lockdown that was the window in which he was finally able to realise his plans. I have to say that this album is simply magnificent, one that harks back to his main role in Marillion but also one that shows just how integral to how Marillion sound he truly is. This album is possibly the best of any that have been made outside of Marillion, yes it really is that good! In fact, it does nicely in lieu of any current group activity (although the band continue to work on the follow up to 2016’s ‘F.E.A.R’ album and have planned a tour for late 2021.)

The album has 10 tracks, two of which are 10 minutes plus (with one being over 20 minutes long) and the sound is remarkably like that of Marillion themselves but here Mark has surrounded himself with some amazing new talent, especially guitarist John Cordy (whom he was recommended by non-less than Steve Rothery), the always excellent Henry Rogers on drums and Mark’s son Conal Kelly on bass guitars and background, among others. Lyrics were written by barrister Guy Vickers who certainly rose to the challenge, capturing the mood and the themes of both Amelia and Twenty Fifty One superbly.

On Amelia the album opens like 99% of Prog albums do, with swirls of keyboards as the story of the controversy and mystery of bones discovered on Nikumaroro or Gardener island in 1940 unfolds. These had been originally discovered and appraised in 1941 by a Fijian anthropologist but this had been challenged by a University of Tennessee Professor who had stated that, after his own research, the bones were actually those of Amelia Earhart, the missing famed aviator who had gone missing on a round the world trek. The background to this song is in the notes contained in the booklet, and a fascinating read it is too and this shows that the music and subject matter is certainly informed and captivating. The playing on this song alone makes the album an essential purchase, it is simply brilliant and a real treat even with a magnificent guitar solo from John at the end, a fantastic opening track.

When I Fell is a delicate and emotional song about love and loss with some great textures to the song and sympathetic, ethereal keyboards from Mark . Along with some great basslines from Conal, this is a lovely and moving song. Add in some great organ sounds from Mark, it all sounds fabulous and concludes an excellent song.

This Time follows, a brief but certainly interesting track, with some great textures to it. The song is about separation and being apart from those you love and how the separation can make these times more meaningful. This is all ably supported by fabulous performances and music where everyone is really making this a worthwhile, short but exceedingly sweet piece of music.

Puppets is next and this features Mark’s Marillion colleague Steve Rothery on guitar. The song is somewhat philosophical and touches on concepts such as determinism, free will, libertarianism, cartesian dualism and other spiritual and philosophical concepts. That the band can tackle such weighty concepts is to be applauded in itself, this certainly is an album for thinkers along with those who love good music played sublimely, this album meeting those criteria head on, confidently and with real style and skill. The song asks some interesting questions about how we make choices and how free we are, as I say, this is music to make you think, never a bad thing in my opinion.

The last selection of pieces forms the long suite Twenty Fifty One, which details the difficult relationship that existed between Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, especially in relation to the film and novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. The song is an interesting narrative to the questions of life outside of earth and are we alone in the universe? It details the story that Stanley’s film took much longer than Arthur’s novel writing and, as a result, that Arthur had to rely on Stanley funding him until the film was completed and he could finally publish his novel. The song continues to ask the question of, if we are not alone, do we really want alien interference and possibly destruction? We have previously historically been very mercenary in our expansions and in our dealings with other nations and tribes. It is an interesting question and one that we should consider seriously, this song is bold enough to ask the question.

This truly is a remarkable album, and the band are already planning a follow up, which holds great promise for us all. I also must comment on how glorious the artwork for this album is, it is very sympathetic to the subject matter and the accompanying live studio DVD is certainly a wonderful touch as it really brings the material to life. In all, this is an album that I would heartily recommend to any Marillion fan or indeed fan of intelligent and interesting music.

Released 27th November 2020

Order direct from the artist’s website:

https://marathonsounds.com/

Review – Rain – Singularity – by John Wenlock-Smith

Rain are a new project that came to light during the first initial period of lockdown in the UK. So some time after 23rd March when the powers that be realised that this virus and pandemic were a lot more serious than had previously been acknowledged. So much so that ‘Herr Boris’ got serious and told us all to stay at home, not go to the pub, segregate and do not mix.

Now this in itself was unusual and very much outside of Boris’ perceived jocular foppish and playful demeanour where he likes to portray himself as a man of the people. It was that in this time that John Jowitt and Andy Edwards (both formerly of IQ and Frost*) decided to form a new group that would allow them to do what they do best, i.e., make some fine new music. To this end they drafted in Rob Groucutt (son of former ELO bass player Kelly Groucutt) who has followed in his fathers footsteps with a career in music and also adding Mirron Webb of Birmingham based band Hey Jester on guitar, vocals and lyrics and, as such, the stage was set.

Rain first appeared on the Fusion festival lockdown special in April debuting the song Devils Will Reign, which was certainly a strong and enlightening first peek into this new band,

The album ‘Singularity’ was released in November 2020 and it is a rather interesting listen, one that will stay with you for a long time. It is one of those albums that initially intrigues you, albeit in a good way, with that feeling continuing with repeated plays. As you do so, it begins to emerge what they are on about, for this is very much an album borne of the frustrations and limitations that lockdown periods have inflicted upon us all. Here Rain have channelled those feelings and thoughts into 5 gloriously crafted and formulated songs.

The album opens with Devils Will Reign which has two sets of lyrics, one from Rob Groucutt, the other from Mirron Webb, that Andy Edwards put together, finding that it worked particularly well. It is a song about one’s own personal demons which seem to come to the fore in times of doubt or when there is nothing else going on, times like a lockdown for example. This song really hits the mark right from the off, opening with gently plucked acoustic guitar and some subtle keyboard backing before the drums pick up the beat and then some strong percussive guitar riffing emerging. The song also features a very nifty Spanish type guitar solo that is exceptionally fine indeed.

Second song Dandelion is about the lies we get sold by those in power, especially as seen during this pandemic with test numbers etc. There are some remarkably interesting sounds on this song also referring to possibly the whole sorry saga of the lies surrounding Brexit and the dodgy Bus of Lies, all £350 million a week’s worth that simply disappeared somehow.

Walkaway is the first lengthy track and is about wanting to escape even if only temporarily. Again, there is some sublime playing on this track with a muscular section after the second chorus which really sounds good around the 3 min 45 mark. This includes with a nifty solo, Mirron, Rob and Andy all adding fantastic guitars to this mix. This is an exceptionally fine track indeed with superb vocals that really add to the tone of the song.

The Magician is the album’s second longest track at 11 minutes and 16 seconds, all of which is wisely used to craft a sinuous and twisting behemoth of a track with oblique lyrics which really suit the subject matter. This track speaks of a magician who hides the meaning behind the reveals so that the truth is meant to be unfathomable. The listener never really hears the hidden knowledge, implying that it is a drug trip or an interventional dimensional breakthrough. Which, of course, in itself hides what it is trying to say. Again, another fabulously diverse and rewarding track.

The final track, Singularity, is the title track to the album and, after the convoluted The Magician, this could be a gentle comedown or a return to the real world. It certainly is a far gentler track, free from the bombast that has been evident on the album this far. It has touches of Devils Will Reign, which adds emphasis to the song. Containing lots of ambient noises, including birdsong, it is a stunning finale to what has been a sensational and awesome set of songs. The musicianship throughout has been impressive and Rain certainly prove to be a significant new band with much promise for the future, once the virus is kicked into touch.

The album is well produced and sounds very impressive and, even as a late comer in the year, it still is impressive enough for me to rate it as one of my top twelve for 2020. This release is one that any fan of progressive rock (or who likes either Frost* or IQ) would enjoy and find much in it to admire and appreciate. 

Released 23rd November 2020

Order from the band’s bandcamp page here:

https://rainprogband.bandcamp.com/album/singularity