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— First review of this album —

As a life long fan of the great guitarist, this highly anticipated release was very much looked forward to by these "experienced" ears. Jimi's step-sister, Janie, who now heads Experience Hendrix has marketed and exploited Jimi's legacy in a less than honorable way with this release, in my opinion. Touted as over 60 minutes of complete and unreleased studio recordings is far from the truth. Yes, these are all studio recordings, but only a few are actually complete, such as the unreleased track from Axis: Bold As Love, Mr. Bad Luck, which isn't a new song at all, just an earlier version of Look Over Yonder. Most of the tracks are raw studio re-workings of early songs, and/or studio versions of jams or tunes that were played in concert, such as Sunshine Of Your Love. It's obvious that these studio sessions are mostly live in the studio jams, and many are edited and fade out at the end, which usually indicates that the whole jam fell apart before the end. Don't get me wrong though, as these tracks will still give you an exciting listen, especially when Jimi kicks in with his always powerful, stellar, and otherworldly lead guitar. It seems that Experience Hendrix is now deperate to find and make more money from Jimi's legacy, and are now digging at the bottom of the barrel to find more Jimi gems. Really there's nothing new here. All of the tracks are songs and tunes that you've heard in one form or another on either official releases or bootleg recordings. If Jimi was around, this release would have never happened. Jimi was, besides being the God gifted guitarist that he was, a master arranger too, and ALL of the tracks would have been perfected with overdubs, and the end result would have certainly been a much more sophisticted product. than we have here. Plus, I doubt if Jimi would have released these particular tracks together on one album. But of course, getting any unreleased Jimi is better than nothing. The only real problem I have is in the way Experience Hendrix is marketing this release. My expectaions were a bit bruised, but I should have know better. But for any fan of the master guitarist, this release is certainly worth getting. My rating: 4 stars.

Oh, how I hated this record...

I can vividly remember the first time I listened to Amarok. I don't think I've ever been so irritated and disappointed by a record, before or since. I enjoyed the finale, but all of the disjointed themes and intentionally aggravating sounds (speaker-shattering orchestral hits, Margaret Thatcher, random carpentry, etc) littered throughout the otherwise perfect melodies left me feeling like I'd run a marathon uphill during an ice storm, with the neighborhood kids laughing and pelting me with ice balls the entire time. Every brilliant melody was immediately discarded and replaced by unrelated melodies at a frantic rate. It was incomprehensible gibberish. What themes there were came and went with psychotic abandon, handicapped by confusion. I threw the album in a drawer in disgust and forgot about it for about two years.

Eventually I got around to listening to it again (feeling like I hadn't gotten my money's worth), and found myself thinking that it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered. I'd put it on again every couple of months when I needed something vastly different from all of that 'regular' (sane) music.

Over time I came to realize that the problems are not in the music. This composition is as perfectly flawless as music can ever be, the very embodiment of an idea. Mike knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote this album and he did a smashing job. All of the changing melodies and aggravating bits are in there specifically for the purpose of boxing your ears any time you might get comfortable. Right at the moment when you'd be getting chills on one of Mike's other albums, this one will blast you or aggravate you or just plain run off in an unrelated direction in an intentional attempt to ruin your listening experience.

Ordinarily Mike takes a lot of care crafting music that flows to an apotheosis of some kind - I tend to think of it rather like a master craftsman creating an intricate and gorgeous stained glass window. Had Mike done that here it would have still been one of his best works. Instead, he takes a gleefully sadistic tact and smashes this creation with a sledgehammer every time it begins to come together. The end result is that you've got to piece it together for yourself after repeated listening. For some, it may come together right away, for others, never.

This creates an incredibly frustrating musical experience for people expecting music that follows the normal rules, in any genre or format. I've only just recently been finding new artists that are learning and doing what Mike did here two decades ago - Kayo Dot and Mars Volta being two examples of similarly challenging artists that I also rather enjoy. The bits in Amarok that once pissed me off are now the highlights of the record. I wouldn't have thought it possible to go from hating a record to loving it, but here I am.

This record taught me how to listen to music in a new, and I think, better way. After this I've had no trouble at getting into genres and styles of music that I once found bland or distasteful. No other record, or artist, has done anything like that for me before, so I find I have to give this album the highest possible marks.

I wouldn't call it my favorite - that's not the point of the album. For me it's been more of a doorway into experiencing other kinds of music. It also gives me my own gleefully sadistic thrill to inflict this album upon unwary listeners for the first time. It's wickedly satisfying to see their faces while bopping along to the first movement - right when the orchestra hits kick in. It also stands out for uniqueness. I've never heard anything remotely like this album in the thousands of records I've listened to.

One friend of mine who has also come to enjoy this record described it as "the most user-unfriendly listening experience I've ever had." I think that's an apt summation. I've come to learn that the finest musical compositions rarely sound good on the first listen. The masterpiece reveals itself when the listener is ready. Thank you, Amarok, for teaching me that lesson.

When I first started listening to this CD I was iffy on the vocals. I decide to stick with it and I am glad I did. When the second song A Grave Inversed came up, I was shock to hear the sax in a extreme metal album but it was so well done it blended nicely with the track. I completed the album and after my first listen I gave it 4 stars. Then I re listened to the CD again and it just clicked.

Each track in this CD is just great. It has a very mature sound and each track feels like it was given the highest attention. The inclusion of the sax gives an almost dark side of the moon sound in a few areas. Overall this is a fantastic album and highly worth a listen.

I saw Fläsket Brinner a few weeks ago at a small club in Gothenburg. The concert reminded me how good they are (and were) as an improvising unit. The box "Swedish Radio Broadcast" is were anyone not familiar with this combo should start. The first disc represent the first line- up with Sten Bergman and is packed with loose and glorious stuff.

The following two discs represent a line up consisting the core group of Dahlen, Bruun, Bergsten and Dahlbäck together with the jazz piano player Bobo Stensson and the famous Bo Hansson. A good part of the repertoire is taken from Hanssons solo albums, but played with much more guts. A fantastic combination of great composition skills and fine improvisations!

The last disc represent a later line up from the mid 70's, still with Dahlen, Bergsten and Bruun at the helm. This time the music is more structured and in some ways more symphonic (by Fläsket standards anyway). But do not get fooled, this is still highly intresting music and the beat from the ace drummer Bosse Skoglund is tight but at the same time loose!

Fläsket Brinner only released two LP:s during the 70's and this is why this box is so welcomed. If you like to invest your hard earned cash in some Swedish prog, let this one be your choice. You won't regret it!

Lenny White recorded his solo debut still being a RTF drummer. But the music there isn't too much connected with RTF works. Yes, it is jazz fusion, but more similar to Herbie Hancock albums from early 70-s.

Lenny White is not a second Billy Cobham, but he is very competent and has great funk feeling. So, the album opener is funky fusion composition. But even if some funk is presented in more places there on the album, very important are both keyboards and guitars ( on few compositions). Spacey synthesizers (not in a manner of many electronic space bands, but very dreamy, atmospheric, heavily influenced by Hancock Mwandishi trilogy sound) build bigger part of album's music. Only final composition is filled with Al Di Meola - Larry Coryell guitars duet (beside keyboards).

Possibly not so deep experimental as Hancock's Trilogy, album sound is more accessible melting light funky rhythms with very innovative (for jazz fusion of mid 70-s) synth's airy constructions."Venusian Summer Suite" and "Prince Of The Sea" are both excellent examples of funky synth fusion from that time.

One of greatest Lenny's recordings, and really one of valuable fusion works from 70-s. Recommended to all jazz fusion fans. Lenny White's solo works has limited popularity, but this album could be a good entrance into his discography.

This is not a good disc. The singing is poor (and thankfully, somewhat buried in the mix), the guitar sound is awful (think cheesy 80's pop sound that comes out of a GK solid-state amp), the guitar playing is limp and ineffectual, and the mix is uneven, with some keyboard parts way up in your face at seemingly inappropriate times. It almost sounds like this disc was not mastered by someone who knows their stuff.

I wanted to like "Down and Out...", and forced myself to listen 5-6 times before writing this brief review. Maybe most of the PA reviews here are from die-hard The Tangent fans. Not recommended.

After his last performance with ELP (the disappointing "In the hot seat") and a good solo album ("Emerson plays Emerson"), Mr Keith Emerson has come back here with his interesting duo, featuring M. Bonilla once again...well this latter vocalist is a good singer and it seems He's perfectly fitted into the AOR style! Well talking about the first suite- entitled "The House Of Ocean Born Mary"- it's not certainly equal to "Pirates" from "Works- vol 1" and sometimes is enriched by means of some interesting epic numbers, being the best tune here... the other songs are uneven and sometimes quite stupid (listen -for example- to his "honky-tonk" piano style within "Gametime"); instead "Falling Down" is a commercial song, which is not inspiring and quite disappointing too; and moreover the other two tracks, such as "Malambo from Estancia Suite" taken from a composition by Alberto Ginastera and the final tune "The Parting " are not mixed in a good manner, even though this latter song is useful to conclude the album by means of an intelligent and quite powerful ballad at the piano; and otherwise the performance by Emerson is always elegant in the album, all along its length, despite of a few stupid moments.

At the end his work here is not as good as the best albums by ELP, but you can find some interesting breaks-through inside, also thanks to the remarkable performance at the guitar by Bonilla...make your own choice, as usual!!

This was the album of the 70's that divided fans of Tangerine Dream. A change in the line-up of the band, with Peter Baumann being replaced by Steve Jolliffe certainly changed the tone for this album. What he brought to the band was vocals!! I hear the Tangerine Dream purists shreak with horror. How could this brilliant electronic band bring in vocals! I personally love it, my favourite TD album ever.

The album starts with Bent Cold Sidewalk. Vocals, synthezisers, clarinet and flute are all in there. Starting with Jolliffe's vocals and some underlying synth I find it very accomplished. Then comes in the clarinet/flute section, ending with more vocals.

Next comes Rising Runner... a shorter track also with vocals that are maybe not as good as Bent Cold Sidewalk but the synth is still as good as ever.

The final track is Madrigal Meridian. This is entirely instrumental and one of the best tracks they have ever made. The beat is faster than many of the earlier TD albums. There are many subtle changes in sound that means it does not become repetitive (a problem many tracks that are 20 minutes long suffer from).

Overall an excellent album. You should give it a try. Even if you are not keen on the vocals, the music itself is up to the same brilliant standard that TD had set themselves with their previous albums.

It is a fan-only dark secret that Rush really do take parts of other popular music styles and frankenstein them into their own.

The anger that fans directed toward this wonderful three-piece, yelling "The Police!!!" during the Grace Under Pressure days, must have had an effect.

After the very nice and tidy "Hold Your Fire" and the equally inoffensive "Presto", the trio thought back to the things that their fans wanted, rather than the charts.

"Roll The Bones" was an admirable attempt, it must be said.

But "Counterparts" is probably where they started getting it right. It's an excellent listen. Like "Caress Of Steel" before it, this album doesn't get much love amongst the fickle fans.

"Dog Years" is pure Rush, the best non-single for many, many years.

And as a gay man, I cringe every time I listen to "Nobody's Hero", but the sentiment is there...so...

This album was released when I was 12 years old, not that far from the youthful reflective territory that Peart's lyrics are aiming for.

As a lifetime Rush fan, I discovered this album long after my personal break-through "Power Windows". All of the few Australian Rush fans, at that time, pointed me firstly toward "Moving Pictures", as you would. It's an amazing achievement in an album. Then I heard the stories about "Signals" being the problematic follow up album, with too much synth coming in, and Alex Lifeson being unhappy about his guitar mix, and it's disappointing reception by fans and la la la.

Sorry, but over time, I have found myself kindly disagreeing.

"Signals' is a point of change for a band that has been working their craft for ten years by this stage. After their biggest selling album to date, and followed up by an enormously successful double live set, the band chose to take their music into a new and challenging area, not only for the fans, but for themselves too.

Although Rush had been moving toward shorter and more adept songs for the past two albums, "Signals" was the first time that we saw them incorporate a holistic theme into one album, something that would become a trademark of their 80's and 90's work.

"Signals" is all about youth - having it, wondering about it, losing it, being special with it, and questioning it. As always, Peart layers his lyrics to the point that it takes the listener some time to really get the emotion.

It's not my favourite Rush album, but it comes close. Try listening to it when driving in the country on a rainy day, and you will see what I mean.

love cronks