Symphonic in the 00's, an advantage or a handicap?

Aye, Pendragon & Pallas - most excellent (especially the latest Pallas XXV - thats a marvellous effort)...Par Lindh - Gothic Impressions - absolutely superb CD - but a lot of people will be put off by the Priestly singer - it has some magnificent Church Organ - very Hard to place that CD though - it's not neo-prog thats for certain...... My copy of GI , is signed by PL.....probably coz I bought his entire back catologue from his web-site in a manic burst of CD buying....

Edited by M27Barney - December 11 2012 at 06:58

^ never really liked Pallas. Saw them play live about 10 years ago at a prog festival and there were a group of fans in front of the stage going absolutely bananas for them while the rest wondered why. One of those bands that divide opinion I presume. I only recently bought my first Galahad album (the live double). Still digesting it. They seem a bit 'second division' compared to IQ and Marillion (and Arena) imo.

M27Barney wrote: richardh wrote: progbethyname wrote: richardh wrote: [QUOTE=progbethyname] [QUOTE=richardh] [QUOTE=progbethyname]] The Wake is one of my favourite albums. I think they 'got to the point' on that album. At the time I was blown away by the sheer intensity of it. Shades of later seventies Genesis but with almost a punk/new wave sensability. I was gutted when Nicholls left shortly afterwords... but thankfully he was to return. Right again. NOMZAMO and ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY are god awful in my opinion and I didn't even bother buying either album. Nicholls is the heart of the band and EVER was an epic return. I almost cried. Nomzamo is their weakest album but it still has 3 or 4 good tracks but at the time I hated it admittedly. Are You Sitting Comfortably is more 'pop prog' but is enjoyable nevertheless. Paul Menel deserves credit for keeping the band afloat at least and perhaps the other guys learnt one of two different things that stood them in good stead for future albums. The two mid eighties IQ efforts are easiy their weakest - I played one a few months ago and was put off by the weakness of the production - the richness just seems to be missing - when you compare with the resumption of IQ post Menel -you see that IQ were rudderless - and pop-prog probably covers those two albums perfectly - sort of ATTWT/Duke/abacab analogs if you will. But IQ - superb band that they are - are blown out of the water by bands like Galleon/Flower Kings/Spocks Beard/Transatlantic.......They kept the interest till the mighty  bands I just mentioned took symphonic prog onwards and upwards....

Edited by richardh - December 10 2012 at 13:30

Suppers Ready is a great example but then just about any major prog release (edit - at the time) would exhibit such characterictics ie TAAB ,Starless , Close To The Edge, Trilogy and the list goes on.

Edited by richardh - December 10 2012 at 01:39

Supper's Ready, definitely

SUPPERS READY is a great example of dynamics. Just Saying.

Part of the problem is sometimes a lack of variety and twists and turns.
Sometimes though variety and twists and turns are present, but the guitarist and other musicians use a compressor. Sometimes this has real musical purpose, as to bring out more sustain. Most use it to pack more punch, but it makes it impossible to play real quiet. You could of course turn it off at times, but I think many if not most guitarists just leave it on, and they end up playing at comparable levels of volume whether they're playing power chords or finger picking. Then the recording engineers come along and compress everything even if the musician didn't play it that way.

I don't want to diss compression too much, because it's not without it's own value. I use it at times. My main man, Steve Hackett, historically one of the major advocates of dynamic contrast, plays with a lot of compression these days. It's valuable to him from a playing standpoint in giving him incredible and beautiful sustain. I also try to play like Frank Zappa, and for that you need to accentuate notes in different places (like with rogerthat's last YouTube link), can't do that with compression.

My point is that compression has gotten to be such a herd mentality, benefits aside, that I think it would be a step forward if we could re-introduce volume as a component to music. But, would this be a disadvantage in how the bands are viewed if they take what is essentially a step "backward" historically? I hope not.

Gerinski, it's a trend observed generally and not just in prog, whether it's rock music or even R&B.   This R&B song has such fantastic dynamics (and of course some incredible singing).   I don't know if a contemporary R&B song has ever so much as broken through into my consciousness, let alone hook me and enchant me.



Popular music has generally got more electronic, processed and calculated over the years and Pedro may have hit on some of the reasons why.  I don't know if it has to do with the media but these days, people almost seem to be afraid of listening to music that throbs with life, going from whispers to explosive bursts and everything else in between.  They want music to fit into a certain comfort zone and that applies to prog rock as well.   Somebody like Surrealist likes to put it down entirely to the medium but it's a broader, cultural change and hasn't spared the Third World, from where I write, in its wake either.  Is it good or is it bad?  I don't know.   But I just like to point to the artists who deviate from the norm....if you like them, celebrate them, recommend them and maybe that encourages more artists to follow their example.  In that way, maybe the balance is slightly redressed....and even if it isn't, at least there are more artists to enjoy for us.


Edited by rogerthat - December 09 2012 at 03:04

I fully agree that "dynamics" should be understood as much more than just "quiet - loud - quiet - loud - quiet", it refers to a very broad spectrum of musical variation, and in this respect modern symphonic bands (generalizing of course) seem less inventive than the 70's classics.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I enjoyed that.