For my previous reviews of Agents of Mercy, I had only heard bits and pieces of the albums I talked about, a fact I hope I made that clear in those reviews. However, for their 2011 offering The Black Forest, I got to hear the album in its entirety several times. So what to say about this album? It does indeed have the similarities to Transatlantic I mentioned before, particularly in the high quality of the production. But where Transatlantic has a definite Beatles vibe, The Black Forest is completely missing such a flavoring. Instead, imagine if Genesis had become a bit more accessible while still remaining progressive and you’re in the ballpark of what this sounds like. That’s doubtless at least in part due to vocalist Nad Sylvan‘s Peter Gabriel-like tone, though he seems to have cut back on this just a bit for this album, at least for some of the songs. He’s a very verstile and emotional vocalist, and it’s great for him to have such a high quality backing band behind him now (relative to his former band Unifaun, even though I liked them too).

And it’s great for us too, because The Black Forest is a really good album. It’s not ground-breaking or challenging in any way, but it’s really good symphonic neo-prog with great playing, mature compositions, and sparkly-clean studio work. If you need challenging or avant-garde wierdness in your music, you’ll undoubtedly characterize The Black Forest as “boring and uninspired” or something similar. But for my tastes, this is a really good album that I’ll be listening to with some frequency for years to come. Check it out and decide for yourself … very nice in my opinion. — Fred Trafton

Click here for Agents of Mercy‘s web site
Click here for Agents of Mercy‘s MySpace page

Blue Mammoth got started in 2009 as a project of bassist/producer Julian Quilodran (Octophera) and keyboardist/composer Andre Mitchell. Originally, this was a studio project with just these two, but the quality of the music began to attract other musicians, and they soon became a band including drummer Thiago Meyer and guitarist Andre Lupac (later succeeded by Cesar Aires when Lupac had to leave due to “personal issues”).

The resulting debut album Blue Mammoth is steeped in ’70′s prog mannerisms, heavy on synthesizers/keyboards and intricate bass lines (no surprise given the origins of the band), but with a bit of King Crimson flavoring as well, and even a Gentle Giant-ish a capella vocal section. Mitchell also handles vocals (in English, with only a little detectable accent). It’s heavily symphonic, with lots of heavy, majestic passages and important-sounding philosophy. And a great album cover (above, pasted together into the full panorama from separate jpg’s found on their old web site … I don’t think they ever published the entire thing, which is a shame. Right-click to open the thing full-size in your browser … it’s amazing) by artist Julio Zartos, see link to his web site below.

I’ll admit, Blue Mammoth was a slow-grower for me. I had to listen to it multiple times before the music and lyrics started to really touch my emotions, so I suggest at least three times through the album before you give it a thumbs-up or -down. Now that I’ve let it sink in, I think this album is near the top of my favorites list for 2011, it’s a wonderful album, leaving me hoping for more from these guys. Definitely one you’ll need to check out if you like ’70′s-style symphonic prog. — Fred Trafton

Click here for the official Blue Mammoth web site
Click here for the web site of artist Julio Zartos

For about 12 years now, I’ve had in my GEPR F.A.Q. page a paragraph that mentioned my old christian prog band Chosen. I said that one day I’d get our album digitized and make it available. So, over the Holidays, I finally found time to make it happen. I said in the F.A.Q. that I wanted to do it as a freebie, but now with the band discussing a 30-year reunion album, I thought I’d charge a small amount to help finance the new work. You can audition the whole thing using the below widget (if it doesn’t work, go directly to chosen-az.bandcamp.com). If you like what you hear, download a copy at our Bandcamp site.

One word of warning: if you think a new album will be like the old one, probably not. It probably will be quite different. Guitarist Jerry Kosak has gone on to create a really new and unique guitar style and is now way beyond where he was at the time (which I always thought was pretty cool even then). The rest of us still play as hobbyists, but have also moved on to different styles and even spiritual paths. But I still think we could make some fabulous music together … we’ll see. In the meantime, enjoy our 1982 album remaster. 30 years? Man, that’s hard to believe!

With appreciation to JL who posted a link to this video in a comment to my previous post.

What’s an album like World Without Walls doing in the GEPR? “That’s not prog!” I hear you say. Well, in my view it’s definitely progressive, in the true sense of the word, rather than the “sounds like Yes, Genesis or King Crimson” sense. Ancient Future coined the phrase “World Fusion” to describe their music. Not insipid easy-listening “World Music”, though it might make you think of that if you aren’t listening closely. World Without Walls is a remastered re-release of their 1990 classic, and doesn’t sound dated at all.

World Without Walls is a fusion of musical stylings, scales and rhythms from around the world. The main influences I hear are Middle Eastern, Indian and South American, though there’s also Jamaican “Island Music” sounds, Balinese and probably dozens of other influences too subtle for me to notice. The instruments run the gamut of acoustic instruments like violins, piano, tuned percussion instruments and tablas (by renowned master Zakir Hussein) and also electric guitar synths and synthesizers. Leader Matthew Montfort plays (along with other guitars) a unique scalloped-fretboard acoustic guitar which allows for subtle pitch-bending and timbre-modulation effects. A careful listen will reveal that this is way beyond the usual health-food store “World Music” offerings and is instead a high-energy, very experimental fusion of styles from around the world. Highly recommended, and now offered as a digital download for the first time (see link below).

{CLOSEDLOCKEDSEALED} is a high-energy album of instrumental music. The initial release is 300 CD’s mounted on LP-sized boards with the cover art printed on it and the whole thing in a sealed anti-static envelope. The packaging is a work of art in itself, like LP’s used to be in the old days. In fact, due to the size of the package, you’ll probably want to store this with your LP collection. Doubtless what Hess and Franzen had in mind. If this seems like overkill to you, you can also download the album from CD Baby for the paltry sum of $4.99. (In “Genre” on this site, they call it Metal/Punk: Instrumental Metal. Don’t you believe it. This is prog.)

Now to describe what the music is like … the guitars are prog-metal if you consider Lark’s Tongues in Aspic to be prog-metal. The busy bass lines are more along the lines of what you’d expect from, say, John Myung, and the drums are definitely double-bass prog-metal in style. Except that, near as I can tell, there is no drummer … I believe these are sampled drums, and they’re incredible. What gives them away is the incredible stereo imaging of the drums, rolling across the headphones like thunder echoing from nearby hillsides (oh, yes, you’ll want to listen to {CLOSEDLOCKEDSEALED} on a good set of headphones!). That and the fact that I’m not sure any human could actually play these drums. Not even Mike Portnoy.

And yet there are also sampled string sections, lyrical piano interludes, and even one section that sounds as if it’s about to be a female vocalist any second, though she never actually starts singing. Never mind, then … “she” is a very natural-sounding sample. There are also influences of space rock throughout, both the Hawkwindish metal type and the Hidria Spacefolk synth-based type.

But ultimately {CLOSEDLOCKEDSEALED} isn’t prog-metal, space rock or any other genre you could name. Hess and Franzen have come up with an incredible debut for their fresh new style, and I recommend it very highly. If I had to complain about something, it would be it’s LP-ish length … about 47 minutes. I could have easily listened to much more of this … perhaps a bit more on the next album, which I sincerely hope is in the works. — Fred Trafton

I can’t believe it’s taken *cough* seven years to get around to reviewing this awesome album. I’ve had it since its release, and I’ve listened to it a few times over those years. But though it was obviously a technically brilliant album, it just never spoke to me. It seemed like too much chaos and no structure. It didn’t sink in. But this past week, with my life in utter chaos … my daughter going into labor, taking my precocious (read: hyperactive) three-year-old grandson off her hands so she could concentrate on that, an angry customer screaming at me at my job, and finally my refrigerator conking out … I chanced to put Ahvak on again. Guess what? It’s not chaotic at all! It’s carefully and precisely structured, with every note and percussion hit fulfilling its necessary role, and every noise, sound treatment and special effect meticulously placed for maximum effect. If I ever needed a lesson about how, in music, context is everything, this would be it. I actually found Ahvak to be calming.

Ahvak, I’m told, means “Dust” in Hebrew. Pertinent, since most of these band members are Israeli with the exception of Dave Kerman, who I believe was visiting Israel during this time. Fortunately for all of them, they teamed up with Israeli sound/production icon Udi Koomran (who, you’ll notice, is granted full “band member” status on this album for his contributions) to create what will surely be recognized by those who decide such things as one of the all-time masterworks of the RIO/Avant-Garde genre of prog. If I’ve never before quipped in the GEPR that RIO is simply Avant-Garde with drums, then I’ll do so here. It would be hard to argue that this is really modern classical music played on rock instrumentation, and of course with drums. It has a lot in common with bands like Thinking Plague, Yugen or 5UU’s (and I don’t just mean Dave Kerman), but without vocals. That just makes it even more difficult to carry off without the human element of voices.

Ahvak‘s sole release is an absolute masterpiece, and if you’re a fan of RIO at all, it’s a must-have in your collection. If you’re like me, it may take a few listens before it registers with you, but if you have the right ear for this style, it’s a thrill ride. Superb. — Fred Trafton

Rolling Stone Magazine did a reader’s poll to find out who they thought the top 10 prog bands of all time are. Some of the results may surprise you … but remember, this is a poll of “regular” people, not prog-heads. Still, they’re all solid choices. Just probably not the choices I would have made. At least not all of them. Before clicking the link, make your prediction for who won the #1 slot, remembering the magazine who sponsored it. I guessed right! It is pretty obvious.

Click here to go to the Rolling Stone poll site. — Fred Trafton

In the last release of the GEPR, I added an entry for Derek Sherinian with a bunch of blathering about his tenure with Dream Theater, etc. To this I should have added his credentials of playing with lots of famous rockers in a supporting role, including Billy Idol, Alice Cooper (Cooper dubbed him “The Caligula of the keyboards” whatever that’s supposed to mean), Kiss (backstage, black and white face paint and silver platform shoes were not required) and tech-metal icon Yngwie Malmsteen. In addition, he’s the keyman for “Classic Rock” super-group Black Country Communion. But I didn’t have much to say about his solo albums because I hadn’t actually heard any of them. Well, now that’s changed because I’ve now heard the soon-to-be-released (Sept. 5, 2011) new album Oceana. I have to say, I’m quite impressed, though not for the reasons I thought I would be.

I expected to hear keyboard work and soloing similar to what I heard from his (former?) band Planet X. This is very guitar-like in the way he bends pitches, trills and makes fast speed-metal-like arpeggios. There’s a little of this on Oceana, but overall I’d say it reminds me more of Chick Corea from the Return to Forever / Elektric Band days, or maybe even a bit of Eddie Jobson from the first UK album. In other words, fusion, not speed metal at all.

Well, OK, when guest guitarist Tony MacAlpine cranks up, it gets pretty speed metallish sometimes. On the other hand, sometimes the guitar work really reminds me of Allan Holdsworth, though I’m not sure if this is MacAlpine, one of Sherinian‘s other guests, or possibly even Sherinian himself playing in “guitar mode”. Whatever, Oceana is a collection of really good fusion pieces with influences from other musical genres also playing in “guest-starring” roles. Production, composition and technical execution are all second to none. It doesn’t get any better than this. Highly recommended!

One more thing – the album cover is great! Right-click the cover photo to open it up full-screen and check out the detail on the vintage keyboards at the bottom of the ocean. — Fred Trafton

The dates don’t seem like they line up right for this to be genuine. Also, as my buddy who sent this to me Ted Zeppelin pointed out, it’s hard to believe us prog-heads had never heard of such a performance before, even if the original recording had been lost. Ya know, I hardly care if it’s real. It’s unbelievably cool. I just wish the quality wasn’t so grungy (perhaps to disguise the fakery?) I’d love to hear someone do a cleaned-up version with some “Gabriel Clone” singer. Heck, this could end up being an epic cover song, like when Yes did their cover of “America”. I liked the Simon and Garfunkel version too, but Yes really made it their own. Nad Sylvan, are you listening? Maybe Karmakanic could do it just for fun?