DON AIREY

Love it or hate it, but this is one of my all time favourites. For not being prog, I'll rate it 3 stars, but on any generic rock or music site, I would have definely given it 4 stars.

The album starts of with a short instrumental that might make you think you are at the movies and watching the add for Digital Sound or THX. Then there's an instrumental that will let you imagine yourself at the planetarium watching a documentary of the galaxy with a rock band performing. The album moves on with different flavours and textures, sometimes going heavy with guitar and hard rock vocals, sometimes going all SF, and sometimes even waxing classical.

Towards the end of the album we can hear some fabulous piano work on Into Orbit, accompanied by violin, and on Sombrero, which is my favourite track off the album for its frantic pace and almost Spanish feel. It's hard to imagine that the guy who played so many standard synthesizer chords on some famous guitar band albums is ripping up the keys here like a blitzkrieg.

There's a heavy Hammond organ instrumental called Pale Blue Dot and the impressive closing instrumental Til the End with more fast finger work on the piano keys. The album offers a few songs with vocals as well in case you are not up for a completely instrumental album.

Overall I was very impressed with this album. But I also noticed that after a few months it was not available anymore. Airey's new album is out and I would love a chance to snag it before it becomes a rarity. If it's anything like this, it will be amazing! Truly an essential addition with serious consideration for a masterpiece!

With help by Gary Moore on guitars, Cozy Powell on drums, Manfred Mann's Earth Band's vocalist Chris Thompson and Keats' singer Colin Blunstone, Airey wrote a concept work around the deadly disaster took place on the K2 mountain between the 6th and 10th August of 1986, leading to the death of five mountaineers, and it is strongly recommended to the listener to follow the concept.The majority of the album consists of short tracks/themes around the fatal event, divided into narrations, bombastic orchestral passages and even some keyboard Fusion with a strong Hard Rock flavor overall.The atmosphere ranges from dynamic grooves to very dramatic solos, highlighted by Moore's exceptional solos and Airey's mournful synthesizers.Only some cheap sounding keyboards and the quite plastic production will spoil the so long very decent material.By the end of the album, just when the events peak their top emotional moments, Airey placed his longer and more sensitive compositions.Sensational vocal parts, orchestral and grandiose keyboard work along with Moore's thrilling trademark solos give birth to the excellent finish of the album and the story.

''K2 (Tales of Triumph & Tragedy)'' serves nicely the purpose of its existence.It is much a product of its time but it is also a very good concept release, where Hard Rock meets AOR meets keyboard-based Prog with a good alternation between different emotions.Recommended.

At a first glance I thought that I was dealing with another average AOR album, when I took out Don Airey's latest album "All Out". I bought it anyway and after having listened to it once, I couldn't stop listening to it for days in a row. It's just great music. All right, it may not be the world's most original album. You can clearly hear the Rainbow roots of Don Airey and you can hear his admiration for albums like "Tarkus" by E.L.P., but what an incredibly well produced album! Don has surrounded himself with an extremely talented bunch of musicians. The band line up consists of Don Airey on all vintage keyboards he could lay his hands on, Darrin Moons on drums, the bass is handled by Laurence Cottle, the vocals are taken care of by Carl Sentence, while the band's guitarist Rob Harris is often substituted or assisted by Bernie Marsden, Keith Airey and even the great Joe Bonamassa.

The vocal parts all show a Rainbow/Purple like style of hard rock, but with a more impressive Don Airey, than what you got when you were actually listening to the Rainbow albums or to the Deep Purple albums. His 2 Hammond organs, amplified by Marshall JCM 900 and driven by the famous rotating Leslie speakers roar like hell. Carl Sentence is a great singer and well up to the job. He may also be held responsible for the lyrics on the album. All vocal songs contain excellent and catchy choruses and are all supplied with the necessary more than average guitar and keyboard solo's. Each song highlights another guitarist and this keeps every one of them interesting to the very last bar.

The hard rock based vocal songs are alternated with very impressive instrumental compositions. Like Keith Emerson on "Brain Salad Surgery", Airey has opted for a composition of Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera (1916 ? 1983). At the moment I am listening to Ginastera's original version of "Estancia", but to be honest I prefer Don's more aggressive Moog and Hammond driven version. The original has a narrator that is interrupting all the time. Don's adaptation sounds more heavy and will certainly please all E.L.P. fans.

The hand of the master is shown when Joe Bonamassa takes the lead in "People In Your Head", a very Purple sounding composition.

Rob Harris displays some great fusion playing in his guitar solo's in "B'cos", co-written by Harris and Airey who supplies the composition with orchestral sounds on his keyboards.

"Running From The Shadows" might well be a hit and houses both a catchy intro guitar lead by Bernie Marsden and a great chorus, supplied by Carl Sentence. The song has a strong Boston- feeling.

One of the strongest and most convincing compositions on the album is the "Right Arm Overture" (a strange place to put an overture). It has a little touch of Arab influences, but soon the sound gets a more classical and baroque feeling. It's a very E.L.P. influenced composition and it shows Don Airey as a real brilliant keyboard player. The great Hammond solo's keep coming and are well alternated with solo's on his collection of Moogs and his grand piano.

The album goes on with one of the most convincing renditions of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" and again Rob Harris proves to be a genuine guitar virtuoso.

Another highlight on the album is the more jazz-rock orientated "Long Road", co-written with Keith Airey who is featured as the main attraction of the song as well, a great guitarist.

"Wrath Of Thor" will certainly appeal to fans of Deep Purple. It's another proof of the vocal skills of Carl Sentence and the song shows us a Don Airey as we would expect him in Deep Purple.

The main attraction of the album is "Tobruk", a composition of more than 10 minutes that deals will the hell of Tobruk in Libya during W.W. II and which is dedicated to Norman Airey who participated in this battle. It's a first class progrock composition and it justifies my conclusion that this album could well be in every progressive rock fan's collection. There are lots of tempo and character changes that keep you captured right till the end.

It has been long since I had so much fun in listening to a new album, so I can't help it and I will have to reward "All Out" with five stars!

Erik de Beer.

Let's look into all 10 tracks prepared for us by this famous keyboardist:

1. "The Way I Feel Inside" - album kicks off with very fast-paced heavy metal track in the vain of "Deep Purple". Not a bad start but could be much better. It's too guitar-oriented for me as I expects more keyboards-driven stuff, it's keyboardist's CD after all... Airey seems to limit himself to simplistic organ riffs here and leaves lots of space for guitarist & vocalist.

2. "Estancia" - and here's the point where "All Out" really begins for me! According to Internet sources "Estancia" is a first movement of Alberto Ginastera's 1941 ballet. I never listened to that ballet, but Airey's version is surely a very "unorthodox" version 'cos it's simply mad! Oh man, I haven't heard such a monster-track from a long time, Airey's Hammond organ is a true destroyer here, like a mammoth damaging your ears with an incredible power. As far as I'm concerned only Ray Vanderby from Australian band "Cosmic Nomads" loves such huge organ sound nowadays, but Don is much more technical player. One crazy composition filled with Hammond blasts, booming bass, crashing drum beat and one chilling Moog synthesizer solo. A winner!

3. "People In Your Head" - another metal song similar to album's opener. This time Joe Bonamassa is guesting on electric guitar, but it doesn't make much difference to me. It's maybe a bit more AOR oriented than "The Way I Feel Inside" but in general it's just a simple headbanger. No prog/art rock here. Airey stays in the background with his organ again. Sure letdown after fantastic "Estancia".

4. "B'cos" - here we are with 2nd instrumental composition. Unfortunately it's completely different than "Estancia". In fact such tracks Don Airey used to place on "A Light in The Sky" as short, 1-minute interludes and it was OK than, but stretching it to 5 minutes wasn't such a good idea. "B'cos" is just a slow-tempo electric guitar solo backed up by Don's organ & poly-synths. More like a movie soundtrack or radio jingle to be honest. Not a total waste, but rather uninspiring.

5. "Running From The Shadows" - very mainstream sounding AOR song filled with repetitive melodies and pop-like singing. Seems to be inspired by 80s Rainbow stuff. From this point I started to seriously worry if I will come back to this album more often in the future...(BTW Bernie Marsden plays guitar here)

6. "Right Arm Overture" - ...fortunately the very next track appeared to be breath taking instrumental which fully satisfied my needs. "Right Arm Overture" is a 7 minutes of pure pleasure for keyboard-prog maniacs. Airey masterfully switches between more complicated, jazz-rock parts and monumental symphonic fragments. I also love that middle- east inspired melody! Real orgy of memorable Hammond lines and crushing solos. In this place I can surely see inspiration taken directly from Keith Emerson, but to be honest Rick Van Der Linden (from "Ekseption" and "Trace") seems to be even better comparison.

7. "Fire" - I'm not a fan of Jimi Hendrix's original and I don't like this cover even more. Simplistic & overlong track with rather annoying vocals. I just don't like Carl Sentance's wailing especially near the end of the song. However organ/guitar interludes in the middle are rather juicy, the rest is mediocre.

8. "Long Road" - almost a carbon copy of "B'cos". Just another overlong guitar solo (this time played by Don's brother - Keith Airey) placed on synth/organ sounds-capes. It's not exactly the stuff I expected, that's all I can say about it.

9. "Wrath Of Thor" - this one is much better! Stomping hard rocker with crunchy Hammond chops and heavy organ riffs. Surely it sounds very much like "Deep Purple" but I don't blame Airey for this, DP is one of my favorite classic hard rock bands. I can also hear some similarities with American stoner rock band "Blood of The Sun". Swirling organ solo is stunning here.

10. "Tobruk" - album finishes with a splendid epic recorded in a truly progressive rock style. In the beginning we can hear some strange wind-like sounds and mysterious Grand piano melody, but after a while Airey hits as with a pompous organ blast & Carl Sentance starts one of his best vocals performances on this CD. And what's next? Everything you should expect from prog-rock suite: frequent tempo changes, furious Hammond and gentle piano solos, Moog flights & deep bass support. I don't know why but when I listen to it I often think about such bands like "Refugee" and "Social Tension", both of them used keyboards in equally elaborated fashion to create the best music out there.

Conclusion: while "All Out" includes more fillers than "A Light in The Sky" it's still a worth having album especially if you're a fan of keyboard-driven extravaganza and/or classic hard rock. Surely it's not east to find such music in 2011! If you like such music I'd also recommend you Australian band "Cosmic Nomads" (yes, I mentioned them already), they also know how to mix heavy organ-based music with some more symphonic elements.

Best tracks: "Right Arm Overture", "Estancia" & "Tobruk"

I wasn't sure how to rate this album, but taking in consideration 3 best tracks I give it 4 stars.

Let's start with the background facts here. K2 is the second highest mountain in the world and also the most difficult mountain in the world to climb. Even the standard route have several very difficult vertical passages. That means they are severe difficult even at sea level. In thin air and with heavy clothes and shoes, these passages even become more difficult. Add frequent storms, snowfall, the constant threat of avalanches and the remoteness of this mountain and it is perfectly understandable why K2 is rightly being called the king of all mountains. The only slightly higher Mount Everest is easy to climb compared to K2. Indeed, Mount Everest is sometimes used as a training climb for those who aspire to climb K2.

Julia Tullis was a famous British climber who aspired to climb K2. She finally managed to climb it in 1986. On her way down and still high on the mountain, she and others in her expedition had to seek shelter in the highest camp due to a savage storm. She died in her sleep up there and her body was buried some days later high on K2, never to be seen again. This event and many other death on K2 in 1986 was the worst mountaineering disaster up to that date and Julia's death made an immense impact here in Great Britain. K2 later also killed scores of other very experienced mountaineers on two more occasions and it is widely regarded as a savage mountain with a very high death rate. But Julia's 1986 expedition and her passing is the concept for this album.

Inspired by this tragedy, Don Airey wrote this concept album and hired in musicians to perform it. The sound is very typical 1980s and so is this concept album. It reminds me about this Chess concept album by the two Bjorn's in Abba. Don Airey starts with a long 1980s like keyboards intro over some spoken words who explains this concept to us. Vocals, guitars, bass and drums then comes in. Some of the vocals are pretty terrible. The whole concept is executed pretty horrible. This is a concept album, but this is not symphonic prog by any means. This is a mix of heavy metal and pomp rock. Mostly pomp rock. With the exception of the opening minutes, the material here is pretty bad. This album sounds dated and irrelevant where other many decades old concept albums sounds fresh and relevant. In short, this is not a good album.

For those of you interested in this mountain, I refer to the many books on this subject. Don't go for this album or the K2 movie which is even more revolting than this album. This though is not a revolting album. But it is only an album for nerds like myself. And even I don't rate this album.

2 stars

For his first solo album, keyboard player Don Airey offers us a conceptual album about the mountain in Asia known as K2 - the second highest mountain in the world after Mount Everest. The narration that appears throughout readily brings to mind that of Rick Wakeman's concept album Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (which initially involves a mountain on Iceland). The music itself is actually not unlike that of Wakeman, but more of the 80's than of the 70's variety. Another band that springs to mind when listening to K2 is Alan Parsons Project and, indeed, both Chris Thompson and Colin Bluntstone contribute vocals. Guitars and drums are provided by Gary Moore and Cozy Powell with which Airey had worked previously in Collosseum II and Rainbow respectively. Moore contributes some fine guitar solos, but overall the presence of guitars, vocals and drums is rather scarce and the sound is mostly dominated by Airey's keyboards. Cozy Powell's usually thunderous drumming is not easily detected here and I wonder what he in fact did contribute to the album.

After having worked with such greats as Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Ozzy Osbourne in the late 70's and early 80's, you might expect a solo album in the style of these bands. However, nothing could be further from the truth. This music owes more to Mike Oldfield, ELP and Alan Parsons Project than any of the bands Airey worked on before (and since). The production is heavily rooted in the 80's and the sound comes across as rather dated. Some songs are out-and-out 80's Pop of the worst Alan Parsons sort. Needless to say, this music has little to do with the Jazz-Rock/Fusion or Heavy Rock for which Airey is primarily known. It is indeed admirable that he was able to move outside of his comfort zone, but this venture is not particularly successful despite some nice moments. This release is far from worthless however, but there are many other albums by other artists that achieve the goals Airey set himself here much better.

On the version of this album that I have heard the songs Julie, Death Zone and Whiteout are combined into one long track, and this track holds some of the album's best and rockiest moments (Julie is not among them though). Had the whole album sounded like those best bits this would have been a far better album, but as it stands it lacks direction. Though tied together by a concept, it often sounds rather incoherent and lacking a unified structure.

A decent effort for sure, but not everyone's cup of tea

Don Airey is perhaps most well known today for being the permanent keyboardist of Rock institution Deep Purple since Jon Lord's departure early in this millennium, but Airey has a long career of working with many distinguished bands and artists in the Jazz-Rock/Fusion, Heavy Metal and Prog areas. Some people on this site may know him for his work with Jon Hiseman's Jazz-Rock/Fusion group Colosseum II in the 70's (remember Dark Side Of The Moog?), but Airey has since provided his impressive keyboard skills to albums and live concerts by such great bands as Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne, Jethro Tull and Judas Priest. The list of famous guitarists with which he has played is truly impressive and include Gary Moore, Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Michael Schenker, Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, Brian May, Martin Barre, Glenn Tipton/K.K. Downing, Uli Jon Roth and Steve Morse! These are generally (and rightly) considered some of the best guitarists in the history of Rock! It is perhaps strange that Airey himself remains relatively unknown in comparison, but maybe Rock keyboard players are doomed to be less famous than guitarists?

A Light In The Sky is Don Airey's second solo album and the music here reminds of Deep Purple in the vocal moments and ELP in many of the instrumental passages. The mighty Hammond organ has pride of place here, but a plethora of other keyboards are used as well. Some songs utilizes violin and in places, like on the title track, Kansas may spring to mind. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, Airey relies on unknown musicians here and he does not invite any of the famous people he has worked with over the years like he did for his first solo album (on which Gary Moore and Cozy Powell provided guitars and drums respectively). The vocalist here is clearly in the Deep Purple-school of singing and the same might be said of the rest of the band. Though, A Light In The Sky is clearly jazzier and "spacier" than anything by Deep Purple.

The album consists of 17 tracks, some of which are short interludes. Many of the songs flown into each other and there is little to distinguish where one song ends and another begins. However, I hesitate to call the whole album a suite. There are no real standout tracks as such and the album must be judged as a whole. I must say that while thoroughly enjoyable, it is not really memorable (though, I would say the same about most of the Colosseum II output). I constantly get the impression that this has come about as a series of jams rather than a committed writing process.

Good, but certainly not essential

Let's check the tracks one by one. There are 17, but don't worry some of them are only few seconds instrumental interludes so there is enough space for well developed prog songs with long, perfectly-composed solos of main keyboards Maestro (as well guitarist Rob Harris from time to time).

1. "Big Bang" - 1 minute intro with space-like waving synthesizer and no other instruments. It finishes with fanfare of "BOOM!" on the keyboards. Nice ditty which introduces us to main cosmic topic of the album.

2. "Ripples in the Fabric of Time" - beginning of this instrumental track is similar to previous one. Some syntheizer noises a la Pink Floyd's "Echoes" & slow rhythm bass, after few seconds drums "join the party" and along with background organs become more and more interesting. Atmosphere is similar to some of the best Ayreon's compositions. After 2 minutes suddenly guitar kick-in with all its power and present tasteful solo. But when Don starts seriously push his organ in front composition reach the hights. Hammond/guitar interluding solos are placed one after another and we almost feel that Keith Emerson is jamming with Blackmore here. But it's not even jamming! Music flows perfectly organized and tight. No show-off. Simple enjoyment of music.

3. "Shooting Star" - first track with vocals delivered here by Carl Sentance. And what kind of song is it! Extremely catchy, "bouncy" guitar riffing & roaring Hammaond + great 70' inspired hard rock vocal. Sounds like Deep Purple from their best period. The only difference is that I've never heard such fantastic, high-pitched Moog solo in any DP's recordings!

4. "Space Troll Patrol" - this instrumental composition with quirky title perfectly catch the essence of organ driven progressive rock a la The Nice, ELP or Tiumvirat. Only Hammond organ, drums and deep sounding bass guitar (ok, also a little synth in a background from time to time). Dynamic, full-enjoyment composition with perfectly sounding, "real thing" Hammond A100 organ with surely good-old Leslie effect. You need to hear these endless soloing which don't sound tiresome even for a second!

5. "Andromeda M31" - without doubt Don was full of fresh ideas when he sat in the studio to record this phenomenal album 'cos here is another big prog-rock hit. It starts with guitar mid-tempo playing based on nice "eternal" synths background. Somehow Pink Floyd style of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". Around 2 minutes organ joins again with marvelous solos. Everything is closed with another electric guitar solo. I can hear some obvious echoes of early "Eloy" in this composition - organ-driven space-rock if you axe me.

6. "Endless Night" - second arrive of Carl Sentance vocalist and another DeeP Purple oriented song. Great heavy prog which could be as well recorded in early 70s. Carl sounds like a mix of Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes here. We also have obligatory guitar solo, but the real treat is a dynamic Hammond showcase of Mr. Airey in the middle of the song. Lord (Jon of course :-) is surely proud of him 'cos it seems he learnt a lot from him.

7. "Rocket To The Moon" - short (only 1:20 minutes) 50s-like rock'n'roll but with Brian Auger/Jimmy Smith like organ instead of guitar. To be more interesting drummer Harry James is a lead vocalist on this one! And don't worry song is short, but Don is Don and he found a place to fit another tasty Hammond solo...

8. "Lift Off" - short interlude in the same style as "Big Bang". Calm synthesizer "landscapes" which are inspired by Jean Michel Jarre. Nice 1 minute to take a breath.

9. "Love You Too Much" - in the middle of the album arrives a little surprise - power ballad. After first couple of Deep Purple, ELP and Jarre inspired tracks this one is surely a big change of mood, but I have to admit that it's a really good song which I like to listen a lot. It reminds me late Rainbow output but I much prefer Danny Bowes' vocal (yes, it's the first & only song sang by him on this album), than Joe Lynn Turner's one. He has much more power and passion in his voice. This composition is mainly piano-driven but in the middle we can listen to good, atmospheric synthesizer solo too.

10. "Cartwheel Eso 350-40" - 3rd sort ditty of electronic sounding synth, but with a bit Eastern-style melody this time.

11. "Somarero M104" - another great instrumental here. Fantastic Grand piano performance but in contrary to other prog-rock artists which like to add such compositions (like Attilio Perrone or La Torre Dell' Alchimista) except piano we can also hear great drumming and some background synths which make the track "fuller'. "Somarero M104" is very dynamic and Airey's playing is truly virtuosic. Everything sound very symphonic, almost like real classical music.

12. "Into Orbit" - another instrumental track is much different then the previous one. This time Don proves that he can also play very calm, dreamy passages on his piano. However the real hero is Lidia Baich in here. Her violin is truly breathtaking and melodic in the same time. This composition sounds like classical music with an inch of psychedelia similar to violin-loaded 1st album of Japanese keyboardist Hiro Yanagida called "Milk Time".

13. "A Light in the Sky, Pt. 2" - no matter what happened with part 1, "A Light in the Sky, Pt. 2" is one of the best songs on this album. Mix of Deep Purple with the hardest ELP output (a la "Knife-Edge" or "A Time and a Place") makes it a must-have for everybody. Carl Sentance again delivers passionate heavy metal vocal (I could swear it's young Ian Gillan!) and Don play the hardest possible Hammond organ chops. It's the longest track on the recording so we can also enjoy bunch of good solos: Moog and Hammond in the middle, electric guitar near the end and everything finishes with another long, crunchy organ solo where Airey goes crazy in a clear Vincent Crane's way (from "Atomic Rooster" band).

14. "Pale Blue Dot" - along with "Space Troll Patrol" this is another The Nice-like organ- dominated performance. The main Arabic or Indian-like theme is marvelous and makes a big difference compared to classical music inspired music of Emerson. Solid Hammond A100 organ freak out!

15. "Metallicity" - another short interlude but this time except cosmic synthesizer also drums and electric piano are presented.

16. "Big Crunch" - I've read interview with Don Airey that this album was intended as some kind of tribute to Keith Emerson (obvious in many, especially instrumental compositions), J.M. Jarre (mainly in this 1 minute long ditties) and Mahavishnu Orchestra. As far as I know Mahavishnu Orchestra is a jazz-rock band but I've never listened to them to I can only suppose that this track is strictly dedicated to them. It's quite long (almost 7 minutes) jazz jamming with powerful, dynamic drums and thundering violin, synthesizers and electric piano solos (no organ this time). For me it's just OK, but maybe for fans of such genre it can be even more interesting.

17. "Lost in the End of Time" - the closing composition is also an instrumental one. It's a very beautiful track driven by acoustic piano with orchestra-like synthesizers, violin and electric guitar for good measure. Everything sound very symphonic, classical oriented. I really dig all of these fanfare-like, pompous keyboards "explosions", they perfectly blend with Airey's splendid piano runs.

All in all this is a must-have for prog-rock lovers, especially these ones who prefer classic 70s style full of good melodies, passionate vocals and powerful instrumentals loaded with analog keyboards. In general I would like to recommend this album to fans of keyboards-driven prog and especially to Hammond organ freaks (like me :-). To be more precise this album reminds me the most 3 other artists: Ryo Okumoto's latest album called "Coming Through"(similar mix of different styles, analog gear), Collossus Project "The Empire & the Rebellion" (similar vocals & old school keyboards) and Ayreon's output (mix of organ with electronic sounding digital synths and analog Moogs). For me this is surely 5 stars effort.