Category: Progressive Rock

It’s always a pleasure to introduce another Pennsylvania band to the larger international audience. Here’s Pittsburgh’s Order of Nine with their fifth albumSeventh Year of the Broken Mirror on Nightmare Records.

I had to laugh when I read the one-sheet which calls OoN’s style thrash metal. There may be some moments of that, but SYOTBM falls largely into the melodic progressive power metal category. Yet Order of Nine’s style is seems dark, at times even foreboding. And sometimes they remind me of brooding darker Queensryche, especially with Michael DeGrena’s. Sometimes he sounds like Geoff Tate, only in a lower register. His voice has, at times, an inherent sadness, a melancholy to it. Unfortunately, sometimes it seemed too familiar, lacking variation.

HEADSPACE began as an outlet for Adam Wakeman–the keyboardist for both OZZY OSBOURNEand BLACK SABBATH, and son of YES mastermind Rick Wakeman–and a close circle of his musician friends. There were no preconceptions of launching a progressive rock band, and certainly no visions of grandeur– they just played music that they loved.

“We’re quite open about our influences because that’s the music that we love,” the band comments.“There’s RUSH, YES, GENESIS, a lot of bands. We even give a tip of the hat to DREAM THEATER in a few sections. That’s all a part of what we are.” 

The history of Italy’s Adramelch dates to the late 1980’s with a seminal progressive metal album Irae Melanox. As is the case with so many bands, Adramelch dissolved after several years. History continues to be sketchy, but it appears they reincarnated in 2004 and then cut Broken History in 2005.

Now they’re back with their third effort Lights From Oblivion. The band blurs the line between several genres. This album is equally melodic rock as it is progressive rock, and sometimes it can near prog metal.

What makes Lights From Oblivionso intriguing is the band’s ability to put so much music in, generally, short compositions. Most songs clock in at five minutes, but offer lots of variety, intrigue, and excellent musicianship. Notable is the guitar solos and bass work. But that unfairly minimizes the other participants, all of which are extremely talented. The wild card here are the vocals from Vittorio Ballerio. He’s a good singer, yet sounds, throughout the album, somewhere between anguished and unsure. Yet, he still fits, and his style grows on you. Go figure.

Band Elfonia
Info: Mexico
Info: This Sonic Landscape
Style: Progressive Rock/Atmospheric/Folk
Years: 2005
Info: Lossless/FLAC (traks+.cue, scans)
Rip By: Vknish/cbguder
Info: 372 Mb

Band Elfonia
Info: Mexico
Info: Elfonia
Style: Progressive Rock/Atmospheric
Years: 1980/2005
Info: Lossless/FLAC (image+.cue, bonus video, scans)
Rip By: IvanZS
Info: 490 Mb

The Protomen performed a grueling 16-song Queen set at the Exit/In in Nashville in December of 2010. They drilled fiercely for a month, even creating tape loops to run during the performance, and closely studied and replicated Brian May’s techniques from Internet tutorials. Two replicas of the Red Special were used by Ringo Segundo and Sir Bakker for the night (no Queen performances by the group since then have used those guitars); they even performed using 10-pence coins as picks. This CD is a cleaned up and remastered version of that intense live concert. Photography for the cover created by Matt Sundin (co-director for the upcoming Light Up The Night video). Logo and other artwork illustrated by M.L. Hope.

Eight years have passed since “Anyman” was born and NEO has produced an equally fabulous endeavor in “Vikings.” Vikings album It has been 2 1/2 years now that the composer, Michael Lunn, passed away. Since that sad event the band members have spent their time and energy fullfilling his goal of recording his music.

Now…

The last Steve Cichon album I heard was 2010’s “Cranial Feedback”, a release that was full of skill and technique, but ultimately not that exciting. New one “Heavy Sleeper” is a similar beast, though fortunately the adrenaline levels are pumped up several notches making it a lot more then mere background music.

The sound is still a combination of jazz, prog metal, hard rock and occasional electronica, but a lot more effort has been put into the variety and the spunkiness of the rhythms this time. Gone are the stupid live crowd effects, gone are the very fake drums, being replaced by fake but considerably better percussion sounds. The result is enthusiastic, interesting and a lot more energetic than the guy on the artwork.

Band AD (Kerry Livgren)
Info: Art Of The State
Style: Melodic Rock / Progressive Rock
Years: 1985
Info: CBR 192 kbs
Info: 62.12 Mb
Info: USA

Due on May 22 via Radiant Records, “Cover 2 Cover” is the new CD from Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy and Randy George. Together, this group of musicians hand-picked these classic cover songs to complete the second such CD in the bands extensive catalog. This widely diverse selection of songs is sure to capture the essence of the age of music that has impacted these accomplished musicians!