Gibralrar:
Echolyn is a five piece from Pennsylvania, whose sound is direct, tightly arranged and colorful. The lyrics take a prominent role, delivered with feeling and plenty of raw emotional content. Their sound is layered and complex, but not overly busy. The "Mellotron" sound is used generously, but the overall sound has more variety than usual and tends to be a little more experimental. Of their first album: Quite impressive is the album opener "Fountainhead," a very experimental collage type piece that leads into the first full length track "The Great Men," a thought provoking track about idealism and human nature. The balance of the album is equally exceptional. A second album has just been released Suffocating The Bloom, it's even more powerful than the first, with the band showing more musical maturity all around. Echolyn represents the lighter side of progressive music: the Yes/Marillion influence, catchy tunes, repetitive choruses, mainstream style ... the list goes on. But I cannot deny that they are good musicians, the writing is solid, and that I like them. They take the style of Kansas (group voicings, power chords, overlaid keyboards) and make progressive rock out of it. Throw in some counterpoint, a busy rhythm section, and thoughtful, introspective lyrics, and you've got Echolyn. The band strides the fine line between neo-prog and progressive and somehow manages to capture the best of both worlds. While completely accessible to the average listener, *and* to anyone who isn't into progressive rock, they have enough going on to keep the attention of people like myself who need a little dissonance and/or complexity to stay awake. Prediction time: Echolyn is going to be big. Real big. They have all the tools to blow this brand of lite-progressive into the mainstream. But are they representative of the strongest aspects of the genre? Over time, they will achieve popularity, but only expose a small corner of what progressive music is and can be. Any attention brought to the genre will be lost on bands like Xaal, Deux ex Machina, and others that equal if not eclipse Echolyn in potential. Suffocating The Bloom contains a lot of variation, but it is well contructed, like a really good concept album. I don't particularly like the singer's tone of voice, but it's OK, and he more than makes up for it with his convincing delivery of some good lyrics. There are plently great sections of music in this CD. This contains my favourite drummer of these 5: his drums have been tuned to make maximum excitement in fills, and he uses his china cymbal really well. One thing I don't like, especially on first listen, is the start of the album, in which the guitar player sounds very amateurish, although he later proves he's not. Mind you, it's amateurish in the same way that I think Steve Howe sounds amateurish in some bits of Asia! Overall, a very good album, although I can't listen to it lots of times in a row. Compared to the previous albums, as the world is a much better recording. With as the world, they build upon the sound they established on their earlier albums where the music is characterized by a complex interplay of each instrument, then overlayed with thick vocal harmonies. Their composition does not follow the classic jazz format where one instrument breaks off for a solo before returning to the theme, but rather they adhere to the philosophy that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Each instrument does something different and plays an integral role in producing the finished sound. They have strong progressive tendencies as evidenced by the rapid time signature changes, which bring to mind parts of Gentle Giant and Happy the Man, however I would not classify them as neo-progressive since they sound nothing like Marillion, IQ, or that genre. They have jazz overtones, a tiny bit of folk, and some classical moments. The vocal harmonies, which are one of the strengths of Echolyn, remind me of Steely Dan, especially in the types of chords used. Their lyrics are thoughtful, but not really deep. However, they're not cryptic either, which I find a plus. Overall, as the world is a very mature effort containing a good balance of songs: some with pretty melodies, some with discord, and most with comlex and shifting rythms. As such it may appeal to a variety of listeners, but by the same token there will probably be parts that each listener may not particularly like. My experience is that the album gets better with every listen as I hear new things and gain greater appreciation for where the music is headed. Because of this Echolyn has become one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately, the latest news is that they've broken up. It looks like another talented band falls by the wayside. -- Doug Hobbs These five American musicians present the usual lineup with vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass and drums. Flutes and strings are used in some of the acoustic parts. The compositions on Suffocating the Bloom and As the World are based on introspective lyrics but never neglect the instrumental aspect of the music. The clever interaction between the voices and the other instruments introduces elements of complexity to this otherwise very accessible music. They actually pull-off an excellent fusion of the best elements from numerous influences. -- Paul Charbonneau
COSMIC DREAMS AT PLAY :
The Dschinn record had a very convincing Dali plagiate painting on its sleeve, courtesy of one Klaus Holitzka. I can reveal that the music isn't as surrealistic as the sleeve would imply, it's a quite conventional type of hard rock. This is not meant as a criticism, though - it is a great album! The lack of originality is nonchalantly replaced by sheer power, both in the music and the vocals. They wrote all nine tracks together, except for the cover version of "For Your Love". It was recorded at Tonstudio Mitte, Bremen and produced by Rolf Jenzen, a character unknown to me. Sadly this one album is their sole legacy, apart from a track on the 1973 sampler Mama Rock & The Sons Of Rock'n'Roll (Bacillus BLS 5526; 2nd edition BAC 2025), named "Rock'n'Roll Dschinny". Not even a single was lifted from their eponymous album and the group disappeared without trace.
from Gibraltar:
This band has developed a following in the DC area, and this is their first CD release. This is pretty much in the neo-prog vein, with fairly strong similarities to IQ, musically, with vocals in a more "American" style. The little I heard of Kingdom of Ends came across as straight forward radio rock. Very weak in terms of progressiveness, almost laughable in fact. This is one of those bands that gives neo-prog a bad name. -- Mike Borella The 55 minute Kingdom of Ends consists of two previously released cassette EPs: Cathedral (1991) and Kingdom of Ends (1992). There are four songs in the five minute range and four in the 7-10 minute range. The players on this album are: Gary Sisto, guitar; Ted Thompson, lead and backing vocals; Todd Braverman, keyboards; Mike Hounshell; bass and backing vocals; and Mark Copney, drums and backing vocals. For the most part, Cathedral fall into the Genesis/ IQ/Marillion neo-prog camp but they do it very well. There are also evident Pink Floyd influences, mainly in the guitar. This is an album I would listen to as often as IQ's The Wake or Twelfth Night's Fact and Fiction. Sisto reminds me mostly of David Gilmour and a souped up Steve Hackett but on "Beneath the Wheel," he manages to sound a bit like Roy Albrighton of Nektar! Copney and Hounshell are better than the average neo-prog rhythm section. Even Thompson's voice, although nothing spectacular, is better than the average neo-prog singer, usually a major flaw in bands of this genre. Cathedral have penned appealing compositions with memorable melodies. The longer tunes, such as the eight minute "Psychotic" or the ten minute "Pinocchio" have several sections of tension and release that give the songs direction and purpose. They are doing more than going through the motions. Even the shorter tunes, like "Seldom Seen" and "Nothing About Nothing" manage to provide a few change-ups to keep me interested. Occasionally, some of the complex passages sound slightly forced but I give them credit for trying. Ultimately, however, Cathedral are derivative and provide nothing new or fresh, a trait that keeps them lumped with the other neo-prog bands. As such, Cathedral stand head and shoulders above most others in this genre.Cathedral developed a more original sound for their second release, There in the Shadows. Featuring the same members, there are similarities to their previous release but Cathedral have honed their style into something more original, and more varied. Eight songs comprise the 65 minutes of this disc, ranging from 6:35 ("Change My Mind") to nearly 12 minutes ("Existential Crisis"). The album opens with "Holy War," which features good doses of Gary Sisto's Gilmouresque guitar. Though Sisto's style often is strongly reminiscent of Pink Floyd's guitarist, it actually helps him stand out among many faceless neo-prog guitar players. This is followed "Junk Drawer," a ballad of sorts, with acoustic guitar and voice, with minimal bass and percussion. At more than eight minutes, this drags on too long, unless you get into the story line, which draws an analogy between a household junk drawer and lifetime memories. If you don't pay attention to lyrics (like I don't), then "Junk Drawer," as well as songs such as "Don't Ruin the Memory" and "Change My Mind" can be rather tedious. Songs that are 6-8 minutes in length should have some development but these go nowhere. There are much better songs though, from the heavy, almost Black Sabbath-like riffing of "Renfield" (the Dracula character) to the Rush/Gilmour mixture of "Soul Windows (Version 3.1)." The standout track is the three part "Existential Crisis." It opens with a flanged (phased?) riff that recalls Hendrix, Robin Trower or Mahagany Rush (perhaps not as heavy) and vocals, that fades after 2.5 minutes into a spacy guitar solo that once again recalls Gilmour. The final five minutes is mostly made up of another instrumental passage ("The Dream of the Stimulating World") that recalls the heavy riffing of "Renfield." This song is easily the best developed, as is the closing "The Wayfarer," which makes for a very solid final 20 minutes. Though derivative mostly of Pink Floyd/Gilmour/Rush, Cathedral showed solid improvement from their first release. Singer Ted Thompson's voice was harder to take all the way through in one listen, which I attributed to the likes of "Junk Drawer," et al. In all, another solid album from Cathedral, sure to please fans of their first album, as well as attract new fans. -- Mike Taylor
Style: hard
Country: us
Audio: lossless (wavpack, log, cue)
Size: 240mb
from Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
This Detroit-based group are of particular interest as their leader, Ted Nugent, later attained rock stardom. The Amboy Dukes attracted national attention when the title track of their second album became a U.S. Top Twenty hit. Nugent's frenzied guitar playing also made them a prime 'live' attraction, and the number that usually closed their shows, Them's U.K. hit Baby Please Don't Go included on their first album is also featured on Nuggets. A typical punk garage band, The 'Dukes should, by rights, have faded back into obscurity post-1969. But Nugent's persistence kept them on the road and the band, having gone through various personnel changes, was still putting out largely tasteless albums into the seventies. A compilation The Best of The Amboy Dukes (Mainstream 6125) was also issued in the seventies, but the best compilation of their material is the double LP Journeys And Migrations (Mainstream ) in 1974. Another compilation of their material was Dr Slingshot (Mainstream MRL 414) in 1974.
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