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Jethro Tull - 2024 - Jethro Tull Christmas Album. Fresh Snow At Christmas (Deluxe Ed)

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(407:00; InsideOut) I’ve said it before, and I will probably say it again, but it is all Ian Anderson’s fault. An unhealthy obsession with Tull in the Eighties led me to writing to Record Collector to see if anyone knew anything about Carmen, which in turn had me asked to write a piece on that band for the Tull fanzine ‘A New Day’, which then had me thinking this writing lark was quite fun. Thousands of hours and millions of words later and I’m still at it. What we have here is a reissue of the 2003 release, ‘The Jethro Tull Christmas Album’. It has been expanded so it has the original album, a complete remix by Bruce Soord (which is what I am listening to), the ‘Christmas Live at St. Bride’s 2008’ album (again remixed by Soord), the previously unreleased ‘Christmas Live at St. Bride’s 2006’ along with a Blu-ray featuring more remixes. When the album was originally released it featured no less than seven re-recordings of old Tull numbers such as “Ring Out, Solstice Bells”, Weathercock”...
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Stanislav and The Lion - 2024 - Robota

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(49:22; Melodic Revolution Records) Here we have the second album from the duo of Corey Stano (author, vocals) and Juan R Leõn (all music), following from last year’s excellent debut, ‘Myths Retold & Other Lies To Tell Your Children’. When I reviewed that release, I mentioned Hibernal, as Mark R. Healy have been undertaking similar works for more than a decade now, but the major difference between the two is Mark always brings in professional voice actors to take on the roles, where here Corey speaks her own words. That aside, we are in a futuristic world of robots, and one that is becoming sentient as it has started dreaming (perhaps of electric sheep?). What makes this album work so incredibly well is that it is an amalgam of two very different styles, namely the spoken word, which is often in the first person of 5-E, and soundscapes of music. Each of these could stand on their own (and there is a version of this album available which contains demos, unused and unfinished tracks ...
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Djam Karet - 2024 - All From One, And One From All

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(178:06; Djam Karet) All the way back in 1984 four musicians from Topanga, California, started a new band, none of them ever thinking that forty years later they would still be going strong. There have been some guests here and there, but guitarists Gayle Ellett and Mike Henderson, bassist Henry J. Osborne, and drummer Chuck Oken, Jr. were there for 1985’s ‘No Commercial Potential’ and were still around for 2022’s ‘Island In The Red Night Sky’, and this collection brings together a track from all eighteen studio albums and two live, hence the witty title. At three hours in length, this is a collection of uncompromising music which may be too much for the unwary or is it? To celebrate their soon to end fortieth anniversary the guys are currently making this available free of charge from their Bandcamp site, but this is a limited time offer so get in fast as this not something you will want to miss out on. I first came across Djam Karet back in the Nineties when Cuneiform sent me an albu...
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Blind Guardian - 2024 - Somewhere Far Beyond (Revisited)

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(44:16; Nuclear Blast)  In 1992 Blind Guardian released their fourth studio album: it was their major label debut and launched them into the world as they had hit the right formula of speed, heaviness, melodies, drama and choruses on 1990’s ‘Tales From The Twilight World’ and here they honed it even further. Fast forward to 2022 and the band planned to play the whole album live, in sequence, but then they started to worry about what might happen if the shows didn’t happen. Perhaps they should ought to record the rehearsals just in case? That led to the realisation that fans would not be happy with such an approach to what is viewed by many as a classic so why not go the whole hog and record it anew, compensating youth with experience but maintaining the hunger of yore. The basic tracks were recorded live, and then the harmonies and melodies were added on top to create something which is vital and true to the original but also feeling like it is from today, although with somewhat le...
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Anubis - 2024 - The Unforgivable

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(46:30; Bird's Robe Records) To celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band, and 15 years since they released a concept album as their debut, Sydney-based Anubis have returned to the concept theme again for their seventh. The story here is about a young man joining, and then escaping from a religious cult in the American Midwest known as The Legion of Angels. It is designed as a single piece, split into ten parts, which fits neatly over two sides of vinyl at 47 minutes running time.  One of my favourite sayings is “too much music, too little time”, but I must confess I am somewhat surprised to have only now come across this band as this is modern prog which is very palatable indeed.  The band comprise Robert James Moulding (vocal, guitar, percussion), David Eaton (keyboards, soundscapes, 12 string, bass pedals, vocal), Douglas Skene (electric and acoustic guitars, vocal), Dean Bennison (electric and acoustic guitars, vocal), Anthony Stewart (bass, vocal), and Steven Eaton (drum...
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Dim Gray - 2024 - Live In Europe 2023

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(27:32; Grim Day Records) In August and September 2023, Norwegian rock quintet Dim Gray toured the UK and Europe, playing 15 dates across nine countries as special guests of Big Big Train. Each show was recorded and now we have a six-song 28-minute-long EP which for me is a great introduction to the band as I have somehow missed out on both their albums to date. They were formed in Oslo by Oskar Holldorff (keyboards, vocals), Håkon Høiberg (guitar, vocals) and Tom Ian Klungland (drums), with Milad Amouzegar (guitar, keyboards) and Kristian Kvaksrud (bass) becoming permanent members in 2023 and that is the line-up on this set. Given there are two songs from London, and then one each from Oslo, Stuttgart, Veruno and Pratteln, I am guessing they took the best performance of each song on the tour and there are no overdubs. I don’t know if this is the complete set they played each night or not, but unless they screwed the same song up every night, I would imagine this is it. Oskar Holldorff...
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Big Big Train - 2024 - A Flare On The Lens (Live)

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(162:00; InsideOut) ‘A Flare On The Lens’ features the band’s full show at Cadogan Hall from the second of their two nights there last year and also includes seven songs which were played only on the first night, which means we have eighteen songs and a total running time of more than 160 minutes (note, this has been cut back on the double vinyl release). From some comments and fades it is obvious this is not a complete set run through as such, something I always like my live albums to be like, but the performances from all those involved are so sumptuous I am prepared to overlook it. The line-up for these shows was Alberto Bravin (lead vocals, guitars, keyboards), Nick D'Virgilio (drums & percussion, vocals), Rikard Sjöblom (guitars, keyboards, vocals), Greg Spawton (bass, bass pedals), Oskar Holldorff (keyboards, vocals), and Clare Lindley (violin, vocals) along with Maria Barbieri (guitars) and The Big Big Train Brass Ensemble which takes me back to the days when prog bands ...
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