Today, I'll be taking a deep dive into Closure / Continuation, the eleventh studio album from Porcupine Tree, whom I featured a few weeks ago in my other series, Scott's Spotlight (#scottsspotlight). This album's release in 2022 really shook the prog fandom, as it seemed like Porcupine Tree were a thing of the past, while the members were involved in various other bands and projects after they went on hiatus following 2009's "The Incident" (Reviewed here on PA). Steven Wilson (Guitar/Vocals/Multi-instrumentalist) released several solo albums, remixed many classic prog albums, and was involved in other projects?does the man ever sleep? Richard Barbieri (Keyboards) had a number of collaborations with other prog musicians. Colin Edwin (bass) among other things, formed the band O.R.k. Which featured King Crimson alumnus Pat Mastellotto on drums. Drummer Gavin Harrison became a member of King Crimson, as well as The Pineapple Thief. With all of that activity, no one suspected that 3 of the 4 members were secretly collaborating (for a decade!) on this album (Colin Edwin was not specifically excluded. As I understand it, but he never chose to be involved).

Let's jump in and see what Closure/Continuation (AKA P/T C/C on the album cover) is all about.

Track 1 - Harridan

The song begins with a bass riff from Wilson, who is credited with all of the bass parts on the album, with Harrison joining in on drums. This song may well have been the beginnings of this album, as it started in a jam session between Wilson & Harrison (with Wilson playing bass). Barbieri joins in with some keyboard textures and the vocals follow, with an effect on the voice. More instruments join as the music gets suddenly louder at around 1:15. The basis of the song is the bass & drum groove. The choruses have guitar and are more dynamic. There is a more mellow bridge around 2:40. After a brief pause, heavy guitar bass & drums comes in at around 3:15. Following that there is a part that reminds me of the earlier PT song "Halo." The heavier guitar riffs alternate with the "Halo"-like part. Between 4:30 and 5 minutes, they transition to a different groove that isn't as heavy. Harrison's drums in this song are amazing. Barbieri is present but keeps a low profile on this one. At around 6:30, the chorus abruptly returns. At around 7:15 the music gets much quieter, and Wilson sings softly with acoustic guitar and keyboard accompaniment. Quiet sound effects close this great track out.

Track 2 - Of the New Day

Clean, strummed electric guitar and Wilson's vocals start things off at a moderately slow tempo. Subtle keyboards join on the second half of the verse. Bass and drums join in for the second verse. So far this has been a fairly simple, yet nice, ballad. However, we didn't think it would stay like this for long, did we? At around 2:00 A heavy riff comes in and the signature PT sound takes over for an instrumental break. Things come back down for another verse following that. Then the heavier part comes back again. The meters keep changing here. Things mellow out for the song's closing. Nice track.

Track 3 - Rats Return

This one fades in with sound effects. At about 28 seconds they kick in with a tight riff. Just before 1 minute in, the instruments quiet down and vocals begin with an effect on the voice. Between verses, Barbieri plays some slightly dissonant keyboard lines. The effect on the vocals is removed in the next part of the verse, and the riff jumps in hard right at 2 minutes. Barbieri provides some textures over the rhythm. On the next verse, the effect returns and there are some cool drum effects between phrases. The effect disappears again, and the riff comes back. A bridge happens as the music gets quieter. The bridge names some infamous dictators in world history. The riff keeps coming back, but it's an awesome one. The song ends as it began with sound effects fading out. Classic PT.

Track 4 - Dignity

This song fades in as well, but with keyboard sounds. At around 45 seconds, however, a chimey electric guitar arpeggio riff begins. This leads to a drum fill and the first verse in a gentle 6-8. Excellent harmony vocals at 1:28. The next verse comes in similar to the first one. Nice electric piano from Barbieri. The keyboards have more presence on this one compared to the previous one and get a feature at around 3 minutes. Wilson's bass playing is featured along with lush keyboards and smooth drumming. The music pauses at around 4:35. There are very quiet sustained sounds until around 5 minutes, when Wilson begins to sing very softly. At around 5:20, he plays some clean guitar lead lines with a very subtle beat underneath. The next verse is accompanied with piano and is only a bit louder. Classic PT vocal harmonies join in as the volume goes up another notch and more instruments join in. The sound is beautiful at around 7 minutes. The arpeggiated riff from earlier returns, but this time it is repeated and has some variations over a nice strong rhythm. The music crescendos as we go along. Outstanding track.

Track 4 - Herd Culling

An odd metered riff on guitar & drums starts us off here. Vocals soon join in. Be careful if you turned the volume up at the soft beginning, as you'll get blown away at just before 1:30! The riff gets LOUD and heavy! It drops way back down just prior to two minutes. The cycle happens again. At 3:15 or so though the rhythm changes to 6-8 and patented PT vocal harmonies join in. It reminds me a little of "Lazarus." The dynamic shifts here are very wide. They make us "shiver with antici - - - - - - pation," as a pregnant pause happens from 5:12-5:19 but we just know an explosion is coming, don't we? And of course, Wilson & co deliver! The meters are complex and changing as Wilson plays a guitar solo over the prog-tastic riffing. Things pause yet again around 6:20. This time low sustained sounds take us to the ending. This was a very exciting track!

Track 5 - Walk the Plank

This one begins with almost underwater sounding keyboards and subtle drumbeats. I think that's the idea as the vocals join in and say "This ship is now underwater?" After the line "and my span, it gets shorter," a louder bass voice says "1, 2, 3." The rhythm begins to get more solid at around 50 seconds after a drum fill and the dynamic level rises. The bass is featured around 1:20. There are some hip-hop type drum effects between vocal phrases. The chorus hits at 2 minutes. At around 2:30, the bass line reminds me of the Bob Marley tune of "Get Up, Stand Up." This one never seems to establish too much of a groove except for in the choruses. While there are some truly interesting things happening here, this has been my least favorite track on the album so far. The "1, 2, 3," thing happens again as the track ends.

Track 6 - Chimera's Wreck

This is the longest track on the album at 9:39 and the final track of the standard edition of the album. As has been the pattern on this album, the song begins softly. Quiet guitar and keyboard parts slowly fade in. Vocals join quietly at around the 1-minute mark. A gentle rhythm is established by 1:20 and the song gradually crescendos. The beat double-times at around 2 minutes, but the song is still pretty quiet. There is a call and response pattern in the second verse. A bass pattern comes in at around the 4-minute mark, along with some drum fills and then a stronger beat. This song is a very slow burn. A porgy, very Rush-like riff comes in at around 5:20 (think "Natural Science"). The music finally cuts loose around 5:40 with some chord-riffing. The Rush-style riff returns a bit heavier now. Wilson then goes into a wah-wah frenzy of a solo at 6:18. To add to the Rush feel, Wilson's bass part is very Geddy-like under the solo. Things ease off a bit at around 6:40. I believe this is a sampled voice used for a tone on a keyboard solo. Harrison's drums are cookin' underneath it all. A restrained vocal part comes in at around 7:45, with proggy rhythms underneath. Things open back up at 8:15. I love the riffs here near the end of the song, but then, just vocals and keys take a phrase or two. They are followed by some eerie sound effects to close it out.

BONUS TRACKS:

I debated reviewing these, but I think I will as I'm guessing many of those who would read this have versions of the album that include them.

Track 7 - Population Three

This one is listed as an instrumental. It comes out of the gate right away after a very brief fade in with a big intro. Then we get eerie and sinister sounding riffs. Harrison is all over the kit! At around 1:20 they lock into a very PT groove. This seems to be alternating between free-er time sections and steadier sections. Structurally, it reminds me of "Wedding Nails." At 3:28, Wilson establishes a new riff on the guitar and then the band follows suit. Barbieri is such a great textualist on the keyboards. They lock into another nice groove at 5:40 or so. This is a great PT instrumental that has a big finish!

Track 8 - Never Have

Barbieri starts this one off with an arpeggio style piano riff to be soon joined by vocals. Harrison establishes a beat and the band kicks in high gear at around 1 minute. Harmony vocals soar over the riff. We are in 5-8 for much of this one. After a quieter part, Wilson plays a tremolo-picked solo. The music gets quieter after that and then there is an instrumental break. There is a very cool melody around 3:20. I love the sound of this one. Wilson, of course, is a fantastic producer. There are several layers of sounds here, but everything is clean. Great track

Track 9 - Love in the Past Tense.

A soft but busy guitar part with keyboard accompaniment initiates the festivities on the final track. Harrison comes in at around 30 seconds, but it's call and response between instruments and vocals. Lots of interesting polyrhythms at around 1:30. Stellar vocal harmonies as always. This one also is mostly in 5-8. A big change at around 4:10 as we go into 4-4. A lot of PT's greatness is in the way they paint with sounds, and this song is a great example. I am very glad that I chose to include the bonus tracks in my review as I really enjoyed all of them.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:

What a great comeback for Porcupine Tree! The only track I didn't like as well was "Walk the Plank," but I didn't outright hate it either. As I said above, the "bonus tracks" were as strong as the rest of the album. I hope that anyone who bought the standard version will seek those three songs out. Wilson and Harrison seem to have been the main instigators of this album, and it shows that Barbieri came in later. His presence isn't felt much on some of the earlier tracks, but it seemed to grow as the album progressed. While I do miss Colin Edwin's bass style, Wilson did a great job on the bass. He uses a more cutting tone than Edwin typically does. I am not sure if he played with a pick or his fingers, but it really cuts through the mix. All in all, though, this has been a wonderful listening experience. I'll give it a 4.25 out of 5. I hope that they return with more band efforts as Wilson has resumed his solo career with "The Harmony Codex," which I intend to review soon.

Clicked 4, but really 4.25.

With the departure of keyboardist Rick Wakeman after Tales from Topographic Oceans, Yes had big shoes to fill. Luckily, the guy they found had big feet (sorry). He was Swiss musician Patrick Moraz. Relayer is stylistically similar to its predecessor, however it is not a double album, and features just one side-long track, the opening song "The Gates of Delirium". The song is loosely based upon Leo Tolstoy's Peace and War, as well as the then ongoing Vietnam War. Upon starting the song, you are immediately taken to another world. Moraz's droning synth, paired with guitarist Steve Howe's gentle harmonics and runs, creates an ethereal atmosphere. This intro leads into a triumphant middle section, where Moraz supports the music with optimistic leads. This slowly devolves into sounds of battle, until we reach the outro section "Soon", which is one of the saddest and most beautiful compositions Yes has ever created. "Sound Chaser" is initially jarring, and very King Crimson-like. The greatest part of this song is Moraz's jazzy solo, which adds a new and unexpected dimension to Yes's music. The final song is the peaceful and triumphant "To Be Over", which ends the album on a victorious note. The long and ambitious soundscapes of Relayer and Tales from Topographic from Oceans would not be revisited by the band for a long time, for better or worse. Going for the One was the exact opposite of this album, although it is amazing in its own right. The themes of Relayer have made it timeless, and I consider this album to be in the upper echelon of Yes's discography.

Along with Little Dots, Imaginary Diseases chronicles the Petit Wazoo tour that Zappa undertook in late 1972 (the Petit Wazoo being a 10-musician big band jazz group, slimmed down from the 20-strong Grand Wazoo lineup). It's a bit more focused on conventional compositions over improvisational stuff compared to Little Dots, though you get plenty of the latter too; on DC Boogie Frank actually polls the crowd to see how they'd like the current song to end and then conducts the group accordingly. With compelling instrumental work from all hands, this forms the missing link between the Grand Wazoo big band sound and the tightly polished approach of the mid-1970s incarnation of the Mothers.

EDHELS enjoyed a surprising seven album run from 1985 to 2003. They were an all instrumental band from Monaco led by two guitarists who met while studying at the Monaco Academy. The main man is guitarist and composer Marc Cecotto. They were a four piece band with three of them being multi-instrumentalists. "Still Dream" is their second studio album, but first on the Musea label. Released in 1988 it was at least something half decent to listen to during the prog famine at the time. Still, those two album covers that they used for their first two albums deserve to be in the cover art hall of shame.

This is pretty good music with plenty of keys and guitars. It was probably smart not to have a vocalist I'm thinking based on some of their decisions they made, like their album covers. Or even having their best song "Heart Door" only on the cd release of this, not the vinyl issue. Sure lets leave off our best tune. That song was recorded separately from the rest of the album, and Musea would use that track on one of their compilation releases they released to pump the bands on their label.

Lots of melancholy here with the guitar soaring sadly much of the time. Besides "Heart Door" I liked "Annibal's Trip" with some organ featured for a change instead of the cheap 80's synths. Speaking of which, those cheesy synths lead on "Christie Feline Girl" but despite that there is some actual depth to the sound here. So a pretty enjoyable, all instrumental album that in hindsight is pretty weak, but it offered a little bit of light during those dark times. Have you seen the album cover for their debut? Or this one?

Several factors converged in 1996 to "Time" a favorable reception from critics and fans alike. First, it was the first STEELEYE SPAN album in since 1988's "Tempted and Tried", so it was long overdue and most welcome. While the band had been touring through most of the interim, having new material to promote always rallies the enthusiasm of supporters. Second, it marked Gay Woods' first album with the group in over a quarter century, and Steeleye suddenly had two frontwomen. Third, it featured several powerful cuts, namely "The Prickly Bush" (though it does drag somewhat); "the Old Maid in the Garrett/Tam Lin, IMO the best thing they EVER did, with its almost countryish verses, hilarious wordplay, an a fierce jam to close it out, oh my; and "Corbies".

Unfortunately, a dispassionate look behind the curtain is more troubling. The choice of material is a bit predictable, in particular the overdone "The Water is Wide" and the nonetheless well executed "The Elf-Knight". About the half the songs are placed on a redlining rack to make the whole a respectable CD length, when they aren't even engrossing enough to justify outlasting an egg timer, for example "Harvest of the Moon" thru "Go from my Window", "You will Burn" and "The Song will remain".

In spite of weaknesses that are obvious in retrospect, this is still good enough to lightly eclipse 2.5 stars, and significant enough to be rounded up. No wonder I was underwhelmed by the new material when I saw the touring group in 1997. Be selective with your time on this one.

This is the companion piece to Imaginary Diseases, and like that release offers a selection of recordings from the so-called "Petit Wazoo" tour of late 1972. Following the earlier "Grand Wazoo" concerts with a band of 20 musicians conducted by Zappa (who also contributed guitar), the Petit Wazoo segment of the 1972 tour trimmed the numbers back to a leaner but still fairly expansive 10, but the tighter lineup is still able to convey a big, impressive sound.

The opening number is an early pass on Cosmik Debris, which would later get a studio release on Apostrophe, and perhaps this is the hidden key to what was going on with the Petit Wazoo - Zappa was using it to find a means of attaining something like the polished, ornate sound of The Grand Wazoo (and Hot Rats, which via Waka/Jawaka was the immediate inspiration for the Grand Wazoo era) within the confines of a manageable band lineup. From there on out we get into stranger territory, but it's never less than compelling.

Within a few months after these gigs, not only would Zappa feel able to do full rock band-style tours (the Grand and Petit Wazoo tours were constructed in part to allow Zappa to sit down when he needed to, since he wasn't yet fully steady on his feet after his injuries of December 1971) but he'd also have put together a new incarnation of the Mothers and begin the run of albums which, starting with Over-Nite Sensation, really updated his sound for the mid-1970s and added a level of precision and technicality that prior backing bands had struggled to attain. The road there leads through here, and Little Dots illustrates this nicely, as well as being a fine listen in its own right.

Perhaps the journey of a thousand steps doesn't always start at the beginning, because at the beginning you might suffer death by a thousand cuts and venture no further. But I exaggerate: this debut by the band of the magically anointed name only contains 10 of these killer cuts, and unfortunately I mean that in the literal sense. They come as advertised as a mostly acoustic group in the mold of early and later kooky folk and neo folk but to describe them as acoustic is to describe your talentless 5 year old's violin playing as anything other than eardrum shattering. On the other hand, perhaps only an expert can actually strangle the instrument while playing it, making it another casualty of the violence herein. I haven't even mentioned the vocals, but I also haven't mentioned what a 2 year old might sound like with their hand alternating between the hot plate and a live socket, and I'm talking a coyote here. Having dispensed with the positives, I can only say approach with extreme caution; I know enough to avoid Decatur, though it might be best to just memorize their tour schedule and mysteriously disappear when they come to your town. Any suggestions on a remotely musical album from STITSR would be much appreciated.

After spending the first half of 1972 laying down two big band jazz albums - Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo - whilst he was recuperating from his nasty fall at the Rainbow Theatre in late December 1971, Frank Zappa found himself inspired to take the gang on the road, his recovery having reached the point where he could stand up from time to time (but not for sustained periods, and he needed a leg brace to do so) and he was broadly able to conduct and play guitar.

Thus, the Grand Wazoo band took to the stage, in a series of lavish concerts, one of which is captured here. Shortly afterwards, the lineup would be slashed back from some 20 musicians to 10 - the so-called "Petit Wazoo" - but here you get the full-fat version of the group, performing a mixture of selections from the studio releases and new material, including an early all-instrumental workout for The Adventures of Greggery Peccary, which would eventually see a different version recorded for the Lather quadruple album (and slip out on Studio Tan when the record label did Frank dirty).

Whilst it just wasn't financially viable to keep the Grand Wazoo big band going for longer than it did (and rather expensive to attempt these live gigs to begin with), it's lucky that we got this recording of the endeavour, which turns out to have been a real tour de force, the band doing a fantastic job of executing the big, expansive sound of their studio endeavours onstage.

Review Nº 826

The Doors began with a meeting between Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach, in Los Angeles. At the time, Manzarek was in a band called Rick And The Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while Robby Krieger and John Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers. During the year of 1965, Densmore joined together with members of the Ravens and bass player Patty Sullivan and recorded a six-song demo, in September 1965. The demo was very pirated and since then circulated widely as a bootleg recording and finally appeared in full later, in 1997, in a collection of The Doors. That month the group recruited Robby Krieger and the final line up of The Doors was formed.

The Doors had a relatively short life due to the dead of Jim Morrison. During those years the band released six studio albums, their eponymous debut and "Strange Days", both in 1967, "Waiting For the Sun" in 1968, "The Soft Parade" in 1969, "Morrison Hotel" in 1970 and "L.A. Woman" in 1971, and only a live album "Absolutely Live" in 1970. However, the band did many live sets all over those years. Later, many of those live acts would be released in several formats. So, from those days we have an amount of live releases of those live sets. This is the case of this live album, "In Concert".

"In Concert" is a live album that was released in 1991. But, "In Concert" isn't a live album released from a single live set from the band. In reality, "In Concert" is comprised of live recordings that can previously be found on three other live albums from the band, "Absolutely Live", "Alive, She Cried" and "Live At The Bowl '68", with the exception of the last track of "In Concert", "The End", that wasn't unavailable until now on CD in The Doors live releases and that was taken from the live concert that was made at the Hollywood Bowl. So, "In Concert" is a live album that was recorded between 1968 and 1970 in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Copenhagen. Thus, the picture of the band's live work is still a bit disjointed because the uneven levels of inspiration achieved at various moments.

"In Concert" is a very extensive live album with 2 CD's with about 2 hours and 20 minutes long. It covers a significant part of their career. It has many of their most known tracks, such as, "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)", "Backdoor Man", "When The Music's Over", "Break On Through (To The Other Side)", "Soul Kitchen", "Roadhouse Blues", "Light My Fire", "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)", "Love Me Two Times", "Moonlight Drive" and "The End". Besides that, it has many other live parts with some very improvising parts, mainly a rare track, "The Celebration Of The Lizard". The CD 1 is exclusively filled with "Absolutely Live". It's the most consistent part on the set, and it almost specifically bypasses the band's most popular songs. It opens with a non-music track "House Announcer" that is nothing more than the presentation of the band. Than we have "Who Do You Love" that can keeps the flavor of the original song with some psychedelic declinations and highly electric turns. The medley of four songs with "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)", "Back Door Man", "Love Hides" and "Five To One" is excellent. "Build Me A Woman" is a fairly standard blues. "When The Music's Over" follows the album's version pretty faithfully, but this an extended version. "Universal Mind" sounds much like most of "Morrison Hotel" material. "Petition The Lord With Prayer" and "Dead Cats, Dead Rats", are two short tracks with some vocal improvisations by Morrison. "Break On Through (To The Other Side)" is a great live version of the song. "The Celebration Of The Lizard" is a great piece originally planned for "Waiting For The Sun" that was never finished. "Soul Kitchen" is brilliantly chosen to end "Absolutely Live" and this CD. The CD 2 is less consistent. It opens with "Roadhouse Blues" one of their classic songs followed by "Gloria", a version of a Van Morrison's song. After that we have "Light My Fire", "You Make Me Real", "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" and "Love Me Two Times". "Light My Fire" is a landmark of the band, one of their most beloved. "You Make Me Real" is a nice song. "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" is a great song with recited lyrics. "Love Me Two Times" is a nice rock song with a blues' touch. All these tracks are good versions. "Little Red Rooster" is a version of a Willie Dixon's song. "Moonlight Drive", "Close To You" and "Unknown Soldier" represent also three nice live moments. The album and CD close with "The End". It's probably the most iconic piece of The Doors and the most progressive track ever made by the band too.

Conclusion: "In Concert" contains almost all of the material from the band's live releases, and can paints an accurate picture of the magic that these trailblazing iconoclasts were capable of making onstage. Free from the strictures of the recording studio, The Doors were able to stretch out both musically and conceptually, with some extended jams and Morrison's spontaneous poetics making once familiar songs into exciting new explorations. Once "In Concert" is a kind of a best off of three of their previous live albums, "Absolutely Live", "Alive, She Cried" and "Live At The Bowl '68", we can say this is a nice and cheap way to have that live stuff. It also can be a good introduction to the world of the band.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

"Empires Never Last", Galahad's eighth album, shows a grim and decidedly hardened facet of the British band, from a committed thematic that, although not designed as a conceptual work, is recurrent in the discouraging look of reality, propitiating an interesting scenario dominated by dense and muscular structures that move away from the kind neo- progressive waters of the band to experiment through the most agitated seas of Progressive Metal.

Beyond the solid sonic foundation built by Spencer Luckman's percussive proficiency and Lee Abraham's bass playing, the album's personality flows through Dean Baker's intriguing keyboards and synthesizers creating expressive atmospheric layers, over which Roy Keyworth's harsh guitar riffs (influenced by 'Threshold' guitarist Karl Groom, who served as co-producer) unfold with astonishing ease, and whose peaks of expressiveness are found in the intense half- time of the demanding "Termination", in the dual worldview of the martial and portentous "I Could be God" dramatised by Stuart Nicholson's actorly vocals, in the thick framework of the manipulative "Sidewinder", and in the eponymous "Empires Never Last" which intersperses moments of tense calm with aggressive instrumentation and the crushing message that all empires, sooner or later, fall.

And both the a cappella choral singing of the female guest trio led by Christina Booth (Magenta) in the opening "De-Fi- Ance (part 1)", and the delicate acoustic introduction in the instrumental "Memories From An African Twin", give a peaceful nuance to the album, resuming in its final stretch the sorrowful mode with the stark selfishness of "This Life Could Be My Last", an intense and grandiloquent ballad that is rounded off with a wonderful guitar solo by Keyworth.

More than fifteen years after starting their musical adventure, Galahad finally achieves general recognition with 'Empires Never Last', surely the best work of their discography and one of the best albums of the genre in 2007.

Excellent.

4/4.5 stars