Ten years in the making, the day is finally here. the long-awaited new album from Moon Safari, Himlabacken Vol. 2. is officially out. Their 5th studio album is being heralded as one of the best in the group’s already outstanding discography.
“A veritable pomp-rock-meets-melodic masterclass.” – Classic Rock
“Moon Safari have exceeded any and all expectations with Himlabacken Vol.2.” – The Prog Report
“With ‘Himlabacken Vol. 2’, Moon Safari have delivered the most wonderfully uplifting collection of songs I have heard this year.” – Progradar
“Arguably their best release yet” – Sonic Perspectives
“An absolute stone-cold masterpiece, 10/10!” – The Prog Corner
The band share this message about the album’s release: “It’s been a decade! A decade of real highs and lows. There was a 50/50 chance that this album wouldn’t exist, and a 50/50 chance that Moon Safari wouldn’t persist. Yet here we are, with an album that satisfies almost all of our musical dreams. And hopefully yours too.
What eventually tipped the scales was love, pure and simple. The love we put into the music and didn’t want to abandon. The love between the members (that we sometimes have to remind ourselves about). And, above all, the love you’ve showed us over the last 10 years.
You’re the reason we kept going. This album is now yours! HAPPY RELEASE DAY!
CHEERS / MOON SAFARI”
Track Listing: 1. 198X (Heaven Hill) (3:55) 2. Between the Devil and Me (10:38) 3. Emma, Come On (3:19) 4. A Lifetime to Learn How to Love (8:28) 5. Beyond the Blue (2:12) 6. Blood Moon (5:44) 7. Teen Angel Meets the Apocalypse (21:03) 8. Forever, For You (10:08) 9. Epilog (3:22)
Moon Safari is: Petter Sandström – Lead and Backing vocals, Acoustic Guitar Simon Åkesson – Lead and Backing Vocals, Piano, Organ, moog. Pontus Åkesson – Lead and Backing Vocals, Electric and Acoustic Guitar Sebastian Åkesson – Backing Vocals, assorted keys, percussion. Mikael Israelsson – Backing Vocals, Drums, percussion, keyboards, piano Johan Westerlund – Lead and Backing Vocals, Bass Guitar
Special guest performance by Jamison Smeltz – saxophone on “Forever, For You”
The award-winning progressive rock band Big Big Train will release their 15thstudio album ‘The Likes Of Us’ on March 1st, 2024. The album is the internationally-based group’s first full collection of songs since the unexpected passing of long-serving lead vocalist David Longdon in late 2021. Besides marking the debut of new frontman Alberto Bravin, a former member of the Italian band Premiata Forneria Marconi, ‘The Likes Of Us’ also heralds the beginning of a new relationship with InsideOutMusic, the group having self-released their music for almost two decades.
The band comments: “We are delighted to announce the release of ‘The Likes Of Us’. After the events of the last few years, this is a particularly important album for us, both as a band and individually. We’re very proud of the new songs, which we recorded principally in a studio in Italy. Working together in one room brought additional inspiration, real energy and a clear sense of purpose. We’re thrilled with the results.”
To coincide with this announcement, the band have launched the first single from the album, a track titled ‘Oblivion’ which the band were seen performing on their UK and European tour in August and September 2023. The video was filmed by Tim Sidwell of Toward Infinity at Urban Recording Studio in Trieste, and you can watch the clip here:
‘The Likes Of Us’ will be released on several different formats, including for the first time as Dolby Atmos mixed by The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord, while the stereo mixes were undertaken by the band’s regular engineer Rob Aubrey together with Alberto Bravin. The Dolby Atmos mix will come as part of the Limited CD & Blu-ray Mediabook edition that also contains the album as 5.1 Surround Sound & 24-bit high-resolution stereo. The album will also be available as a Gatefold 180g 2LP (available in black, sky blue, olive green and orange formats), Standard CD Jewelcase and Digital Album. The stunning artwork was created by the band’s longstanding collaborator Sarah Louise Ewing, with layouts by Steve Vantsis.
In May 2023, six members of Big Big Train left their homes in England (bassist Gregory Spawton, guitarist Dave Foster and violinist Clare Lindley), the United States (drummer Nick D’Virgilio), Sweden (guitarist/keyboardist Rikard Sjöblom) and Norway (keyboardist Oskar Holldorff) to gather for a week in lead vocalist Alberto Bravin’s home town of Trieste in north eastern Italy. They convened at Urban Recording, a studio recommended by Alberto, to lay down the basic tracks for the band’s new studio album ‘The Likes Of Us’. Being face to face in a room, as opposed to emailing sound files, the intimacy of the process generated moments of inspiration that would otherwise have gone unheard.
The process would prove emotional. “There were some tears; I cried a few of my own,” recalls D’Virgilio. “There are many reasons to explain why we hadn’t worked that way in quite a while, but the process brought out the best in everybody.”
“These were stories from our lives and we have a deep, personal connection with them,” Spawton remembers. “If there was blood on the tracks, we did everything possible to let that sink into the music.”
On the group’s most recent tour, two selections from ‘The Likes Of Us’ – first single ‘Oblivion’ and ‘Love Is The Light’ – were introduced to an ecstatic audience response. During a tidal wave of rebirth and celebration for Big Big Train, Alberto Bravin was accepted as one of the family. Indeed, the chemistry of the band’s latest line-up has delivered mouth-watering results. “We’ve got a great mix of people that want to be here and go the extra mile to do something very special,” D’Virgilio concludes. “There’s a big world of talented musicians out there, and luckily some of them want to hang out with us.”
ALBERTO BRAVIN – Lead vocals, guitar, keyboards NICK D’VIRGILIO – Drums, percussion, vocals, 12-string acoustic guitar, vocals DAVE FOSTER – Guitars OSKAR HOLLDORFF – Keyboards, vocals CLARE LINDLEY – Violin, vocals RIKARD SJÖBLOM – Guitars, keyboards, vocals GREGORY SPAWTON – Bass guitar, bass pedals, 12-string acoustic guitar, Mellotron
Australian progressive metal outfit Caligula’s Horse release their new single “The World Breathes With Me” from their upcoming album Charcoal Grace, due out on January 26th, 2024. “The World Breathes With Me” is the second single and the 10-minute opening track from the new albumand takes the listener through the emotions and vibe of the new album.
The band shares about “The World Breathes With Me”: “’The World Breathes With Me’ is a powerful musical journey that sets the stage for Charcoal Grace as a whole. It pulls right back to a bird’s eye view of what we saw and experienced during the years of the pandemic. While we did lose our faith in humanity, we ultimately reconnected in the understanding that we are all forever connected to one another through breath and to the world through each other.”
Listen to “The World Breathes With Me” here:
Stream The World Breathes With Me on your favorite DSP’s here: https://ffm.to/twbwm
In November, the band released its first single Golem, which served as the first glimpse of the thematical depth of Charcoal Grace.
The band says about Golem: “Golem is about how we all struggled with the weight of expectation through the pandemic. We felt that weight acutely as musicians, being trapped with no notion of when, or even if, we would return to the life we knew, all while feeling the pressure to create our next work rising. While that’s our specific experience, the themes of Golem are something we can all relate to. It’s a heavy song with an emphasis on riffs and driving rhythms.”
Charcoal Grace is the 6th studio album of the band, and it combines raw rock power with immense emotional depth. Charcoal Grace is borne of the static hopelessness that the pandemic forced upon the band and, indeed, much of the world, these past few years. It is an album reckoning with the experiences and outcomes of this time geared, ultimately, towards catharsis – moving towards a more hopeful future.
The title Charcoal Grace is described by the band as “the grim allure and strange beauty in stillness, silence, and loss”. This can be heard through the album’s 10-minute opening track “The World Breathes With Me,” a mission statement for the album’s main themes. Musically, it’s a work of contrasts, moving from the lightest ebb to the heaviest flow. Meanwhile, the second track and first single from the album, “Golem,” examines struggling with the weight of expectation through the pandemic. It’s a heavy song with an emphasis on riffs and driving rhythms.
At the center of the album is the 4-part title track suite, a 24-minute opus that pushes deeper into the album’s foundational themes: connection, alienation, and the ways humanity acts under duress. Musically, it covers every facet of the band’s vocabulary, from heavy and dense orchestral-accompanied intensity embodying the song’s darkest lyrical ideas, through to soft acoustic-driven moments and introspection.
Tracklist:
Side A
The World Breathes With Me (10:00)
Golem (05:20)
Side B
Charcoal Grace I: Prey (07:48)
Charcoal Grace II: A World Without (06:48)
Charcoal Grace III: Vigil (03:22)
Charcoal Grace IV: Give Me Hell (06:13)
Side C
Sails (04:31)
The Stormchaser (05:57)
Mute (12:00)
Charcoal Grace is available as Ltd. CD Digipak, CD Jewelcase (US only), Gatefold 2LP in various colours & Digital Album.
Pre-Order Charcoal Grace here:
https://caligulashorse.lnk.to/CharcoalGrace-Bio
The band recently announced their Charcoal Grace North America Tour 2024 with special guests Earthside. Tickets available at caligulashorse.com.
US:
01/31 Union Stage – Washington,DC 02/01 Underground Arts – Philadelphia, PA 02/02 Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall 02/03 New York, NY – The Gramercy Theatre 02/04 Montreal, QC – Le Studio TD 02/06 The Axis Club – Toronto, ON 02/07 Thunderbird Cafe & Music Hall – Pittsburgh, PA 02/08 Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL 02/10 Exit – Nashville, TN 02/12 The Underground – Charlotte, NC 02/13 The Masquerade (Hell) – Atlanta, GA 02/15 Come Take it Live – Austin, TX 02/16 Granada Theatre – Dallas, TX 02/18 Nile Half House – Phoenix, AZ 02/19 Brick By Brick – San Diego, CA 02/20 The Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA 02/21 Cornerstone – Berkley, CA 02/23 El Corazon – Seattle, WA 02/24 Hawthorne Theatre, Portland, OR 02/25 Rickshaw Theatre, Vancouver, BC
John Mitchell (Arena, Frost, Lonely Robot, It Bites, Kino…) will be delighting audiences with acoustic shows just before Christmas.
John will be performing acoustic versions of songs from his multiple bands and projects (It Bites, Frost*, Lonely Robot, Kino…) as well as a selection of his favourite covers, sharing personal anecdotes and stories throughout the evening. He will be joined by Jez Fielder (Indigo Down) on guitar and backing vocals. This will certainly be a very special show and a great opportunity to experience a privileged evening not to be missed!
Legendary Italian prog ensemble Acqua Fragile, fifty years after the first album by the same name in 1973, comes out with a brand new work, an album with totally original songs, entitled “Moving Fragments”. Confirming the salient characteristics of A F style – vocal harmonies, odd tempo signatures, romanticism, aggression, theatricality, and research – some new features and significant developments embellish this new album. The three original members of the band Piero Canavera (drums, percussion and vocals), Franz Dondi (bass), Bernardo Lanzetti (lead vocals, guitar and Glovox), are joined in by Stefano Pantaleoni (keyboards), Claudio Tuma (guitars) and the vocalist Rossella Volta, all previously together on stage in live adventures, over the past two years. Nine songs of which five in English, one instrumental and three in Italian. Developing the mode experimented in Aqua Fragile’s previous work, “A New Chant”, released In 2017, there are numerous guest musicians including one British and one American. In three songs, Bernardo Lanzetti’s creative motor is fueled by the contribution of keyboardist and composer Stefano Pantaleoni. The production is entrusted to Dario Mazzoli, already a partner of Lanzetti in various adventures in the recording studio, including his latest solo album “Horizontal Rain” (2021).
In detail, here’s the CD track list. Naturally for the vinyl, with sides A and B, the order is different:
1. “Her Shadowʼs Torture” (S. Pantaleoni/B.lanzetti). Guest Gigi Cavalli Cocchi on drums but also produced the cover and the band’s brand new logo 2. “White Horse On Dope” (B. Lanzetti). Guest guitarist Stef Burns 3. “Moving Fragments” (B.Lanzetti) 4. “Malo Bravo” (B.Lanzetti). Guests Brian Belloni/guitars and Sergio Ponti (drums) 5. “I A – Intelligenza Artificiale” (S.Pantaleoni/B.Lanzetti). Guest Davide Piombino (7 string guitar) 6. “Black Drone” (B.Lanzetti). Guests, Gigi Cavalli Cocchi (drums) and David Jackson (sax and flute) 7. “DD Danz” (S.Pantaleoni). Instrumental 8. “Il Suono Della Voce” (B.Lanzetti) 9. “Limerence Ethereal” (B.Lanzetti). Guest Sergio Ponti (drums)
All guest musicians have militancy or knowledge of the Progressive Rock genre. The presence of Stef Burns who, in a concert with his Rock Trio, did positively strike Bernardo, is quite interesting. Of course, famous for his collaboration with Italian Big Star Vasco Rossi, Stef mentioned a previous period of research very close to Prog.
“White Horse On Dope”, the song featuring Mr. Burns on electric guitar, could be described as “Hard Rock in odd time” on which vocal harmony, in pure Acqua Fragile style, produces an eerie effect. “Black Drone” makes use of the total contribution of the horns of David Jackson, legendary player with Van Der Graaf Generator and frequent visitor to Italy. Once taken in all parts of the arrangement submitted by Bernardo, David went so far as to perform EVERYTHING!
Among the songs in Italian it is worth mentioning “IA Intelligenza Artificiale”, where the vocalist Rossella has two short solo parts, as the song was written three years ago, before the topic became so every day.
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