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Topic ClosedTony Patterson Vs Steven Wilson ***Concept Album**

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tina125 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Tony Patterson Vs Steven Wilson ***Concept Album**
    Posted: March 31 2015 at 05:13
Hi im new here Wink

Two really strong prog rock musician Tony Patterson & Steven Wilson have similar affinities/taste folk, rock, classical, jazz and other styles.

Which Album Is Better & why?

Tony Patterson & Brendan Eyre - Northlands 2014.

OR

Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase - 2015.

***Vote & Comment***
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 05:34
I've never heard of the first one (although I did a quick search on PA and found out that Tony Patterson has worked with Nick Magnus (another cat I don't knowLOL)), but I really dig what I'm hearing from the new Swilson album. 
I think most of the responses you'll get will reflect mine, simply because mr Patterson isn't on PA.


Welcome to the forum btwBeer (oh and just out of curiosity; why does your location say US when you're situated in Iran?)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 05:44
Thanks Guldbamsen

I hope is useful.

Roger’s Review

At the end of 2012 Tony Patterson and Brendan Eyre met to discuss a project focussing on their native North East of England. That project became the Northlands album we now have before us. Tony Patterson is the singer with Genesis tribute act Re-Genesis, but thankfully for the most part here he keeps the Garbrielisms at bay and has a dreamy and beguiling voice all his own. The exception is So Long The Day where he sounds more like Mr G than the man himself in places. Brendan Eyre is a well-respected musician in the UK prog community, perhaps best known for his work with Riversea and Nick Magnus, who is one of the long list of guest musicians on this album.

It is always helpful for the reader to have a reviewer make comparisons if he or she has not heard a particular band or album, and a handy if glib example is that from track three onwards Northlands comes over a soundtrack to a dream, a kind of precursor to the more menacing and, yes, nightmarish epic sweeps of Gazpacho’s grandiose constructs. Northlands is The Hobbit to Gazpacho’s Demon’s Lord of the Rings, if you will.

You will note I say “from track three”, and that is because despite playing it many times the lengthy album curtain-raiser Northbound is just not doing anything for me. Any piece of music over ten minutes long has to have something in there that makes the listener want to go back again, be it a repeated refrain, or a commanding theme, or that the lyrics tell an interesting and engaging story, or that the music is constantly developing. It does not have to be complex, for in the progwelt that can be as much for its own sake as anything else in a Dream Theater soulless “look at us, aren’t we clever” fashion.

Unfortunately Northbound has little of the above to commend it. It’s entirely inoffensive, obviously well played, but from a musical perspective it promises much without really ever delivering. A series of tantalising introductions that never quite resolve into anything substantial, Northbound consists of compositional sections containing simple melodies and chord structures in barely changing tempos that meander on pleasantly enough but to little effect. From the section I Recall onwards, a very Genesis-like nostalgic song remembering the dreaming shores, I find myself losing interest. The section that follows, The Crossing, is typical of the whole track in that it takes way too long to go hardly anywhere at all. Again, it is pleasant enough, perhaps too much so, for if you heard it in a shopping mall you wouldn’t be overly surprised. I can only conclude that Northbound is a classic case of a prog track being long for the sake of it. Had it been edited by at least half then the many piano flourishes, occasional guitar interludes and general atmospherics would have worked far better.

The story in the lyrics, of a man returning to his homeland after a long time away, and all the trials and tribulations that entails takes up only a relatively small part of the piece, and could have been developed further. This leaves the instrumental sections to hold my interest on their own merits, which I’m afraid they don’t, for me at least, suffering as they do from their barely changing dynamics. Following Northbound is The Northlands Rhapsody that has more of interest in its less than 150 seconds than much of the preceding 24 minutes. Opening with a languorous flugelhorn followed by flute in the round, a brief sunrise of music heralds what is to come, for the rest of the album is a delightful stroll through melancholy tinged with regret, ending with hope of redemption.

Cinematic vistas created in grand instrumental sweeps give glimpses of sepia-tinged times past, then a river flows as metaphor for a journey through time, and suddenly we arrive in the capital. Anyone who knows Dean Street and has seen it on a rainy day will be transported back to its slightly different beat, all lazily world weary and finger-poppin’ with a touch of the devil-may-care. A Rainy Day On Dean Street is the best song on the album simply because it lifts the album towards a slightly animated version of introspection, and sounds more rounded, human even, as a result. Quite evocative, it has to be said.

It seems to me that the true sound of Patterson & Eyre lay not with the somewhat laboured prog stylings of Northbound, but in a melding of an emotive Blue Nile-styled post-rock infused with a very light-touch jazzy sensibility and the occasional symphonic denouement. This shines through on the simple and rhythmically repetitive but this time effective Legacy, a tune that at a touch under five minutes is exactly as long as it needs to be, no more, no less.

The only track I’m not too enamoured with, post-Northbound is the aforementioned So Long The Day where the gentle atmospherics established throughout the record are somewhat disturbed by a large dose of unnecessarily histrionic geetar squawking from Steve Hackett that is stylistically out of synch with the rest of the album, albeit and perhaps pointedly mixed fairly low in the soundstage. A case of getting a “name” guest in, regardless of whether his contribution really fits the project in hand, methinks.

Northlands plays out on the lovely solo piano piece A Sense Of Place which fades away to the sound of seagulls and a gentle sea tide lapping the beach, as if to underline the essentially English nature of this record.

Definitely an album of two halves, and suffice to say I’ve made a playlist with Northbound at the end where it seems to fit better. When they keep their songs to reasonable lengths Patterson & Eyre show that they are capable of creating some good mood music that goes beyond the morose “woe is me” of so much of modern prog of the heavier kind. Northlands is a decent album , but for me it does not live up to the vaunting praise I have read elsewhere, but you probably guessed that already.

TRACK LISTING
01. Northbound (24:04)
– i Three Rivers
– ii Time & Tide
– iii Homeward Bound
– iv Take The Safe Way
– v I Recall
– vi The Crossing
– vii Three Rivers (Reprise)
02. The Northlands Rhapsody (2:14)
03. A Picture In Time (6:00)
04. And The River Flows (2:55)
05. A Rainy Day On Dean Street (4:37)
06. Legacy (4:42)
07. I Dare To Dream (5:25)
08. So Long The Day (6:30)
09. A Sense Of Place (2:05)

Total Time – 58:53

MUSICIANS
Tony Patterson – Vocals, Keyboards, Flute, Duduk, Programming, Orchestrations & Guitars
Brendan Eyre – Keyboards, Piano, Mandolin & Programming
~ with
Steve Hackett – Guitar (8)
John Hackett – Flute (6)
Nick Magnus – Keyboards, Programming & Effects (vii)
Doug Melbourne – Piano (5)
Nigel Appleton – Drums & Percussion
Tim Esau – Bass
Carrie Melbourne – Vocals & Stick (3)
Adrian Jones – 12-String, Nylon & Lead Guitars
David Clements – Bass
Andy Jongman – Guitar (vi)
Fred Arlington – Northumbrian Pipes, Accordion, Sax & Flugelhorn
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 05:45
01. Northbound (24:04)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD90fvu5Cmk
– i Three Rivers
– ii Time & Tide
– iii Homeward Bound
– iv Take The Safe Way
– v I Recall
– vi The Crossing
– vii Three Rivers (Reprise)
02. The Northlands Rhapsody (2:14)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF1ZAZW2NHA
03. A Picture In Time (6:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-L_zIzSSi8
04. And The River Flows (2:55)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1gUwXqxiwc
05. A Rainy Day On Dean Street (4:37)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQnj9mS9mbE
06. Legacy (4:42)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWd2_Y8UISQ
07. I Dare To Dream (5:25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39cKdnncBQs
08. So Long The Day (6:30)

09. A Sense Of Place (2:05)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARWB3kV2n3E
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 05:50
Seems like a cool review, but I guess the members here can't exactly judge how the music sounds purely from that. 
I just made a search on YouTube looking for a few tunes to help you out, but it seems as if there only is a small preview available from the album you mention.

The only thing I could find on PA about this album is a review done by Angelo.

EDIT: I just clicked your YouTube links and sadly they don't seem to workOuch


Edited by Guldbamsen - March 31 2015 at 05:52
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 06:36
It's working!!!! test now
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 06:49
Sorry to rain on your parade Tina, but it still isn't working for meOuch

Maybe it's because I live in Denmark?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 06:55
Removed

Edited by tina125 - April 01 2015 at 23:10
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 07:52
Thanks for the link. I appreciate it. Certainly deserves to be here somewhere (funnily enough he's never been suggested for inclusion).
I would still have voted for Steven's newest as the style of music found on Northlands isn't my bag. I imagine a fair few members on here would love the album thoughThumbs Up
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 09:25
u r welcome Wink
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 13:59
Probably being a bit impetuous but I've gone and bought the Northlands album. The list of musicians involved sells it quite easily. Once I hear it I can give my opinion (obviously).
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2015 at 14:14
Both are great albums, but I give a slight edge to SW.
A GREAT YEAR FOR PROG!!!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 02 2015 at 00:37
Originally posted by Wanorak Wanorak wrote:

Both are great albums, but I give a slight edge to SW.

Thanks for your vote
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2016 at 10:26
Hand.Cannot.Erase has more memorable tracks, but it is victim to very poor and often cheesy lyrics. 

Northlands, while also on the mediocre side when it comes to lyrics, is a little fresher and more creative in the songwriting department, and has more replay value. I also think it's much stronger than his new followup Equations of Meaning. It's a top 5 album of the past few years in my opinion. 
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