Unqualified-Kritic

Power or Prog Presents A Progressive Christmas IV

by Unqualified-Kritic | Nov 24, 2023 | New Releases

The album features many styles of holiday music, from traditional to original music but most importantly, songs that touch our hearts.

This year’s album will feature music by A Multitude of One, BlissBliss, Bodyguerra, Juan R Leõn, Christina Burbano-Jeffrey, Journeyman’s Progress, Kurt Michaels, Stanislav and The Lion, Sudler’s Row, Gabriel Katona +

Aethellis Release Long Awaited 4th Album

by Unqualified-Kritic | Nov 17, 2023 | New Releases, News

The Affinity Oeuvre is the 4th Aethellis release and features a collection of instrumentals and songs with lyrics that reflect the challenges people have faced in the past few years. The music styles are eclectic as well, ranging from prog-rock to new wave to pop to jazz fusion; the diversity being representative of the diverse situations people have experienced recently. The latest Aethellis release differs from the previous three as the spotlight is on guitarist/vocalist Mark Van Natta, both compositionally and vocally. Ellsworth Hall and Erik Marks still contributed to the album, however, adding their signature composition styles.

Tracklist
1. Anandia 12:36
2. Affinifunk 03:26
3. Pathdancer 05:28
4. Dreams On Pause 03:40
5. Do Like I Do 03:15
6. Chicago News 03:35
7. Another Car 04:23
8. Let Me Be Me 03:33
9. The Stennis Compromise 02:09
10. Why Do You Keep Fighting 05:03
11. RIP 04:32

Aethellis is:

Ellsworth Hall – Keyboards, Vocals, Guitar, Drum Controller
Mark Van Natta – Guitar, Vocals, Bass, Keyboard
Erik Marks – Bass

Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ellstudio, Timonium MD, USA
Portions recorded at the Van Natta home studio, Cockeysville MD, USA

Aethellis Online
http://www.aethellis.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Aethellis
https://twitter.com/Aethellis
http://mrrmusic.com/aethellis/

Melodic Revolution Records Online
https://li.sten.to/mrrmusiccom

Aethellis Front Man Ellsworth Hall Releases Remastered Album of Conversations With George Edgar Selby

by Unqualified-Kritic | Nov 16, 2023 | New Releases

The Remaster of Ellsworth Hall’s orchestral solo album Conversations With George Edgar Selby provides added warmth to the mixes but still allows the power and crispness to shine through. It includes Ellsworth’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in four movements, the soundtrack music to the video production of Beside The Manor Selby (which he also wrote and directed), and a bonus track “Checkers’ Rhapsody” which was composed in his late teens and clocks in over 11 minutes. The song from the album “In Grief Unbound” was awarded Semi-Finalist placement in the VH1 2014 Song of the Year Contest.

Track-list

Piano Concerto No.1

1) Lento e Allegro (6:47)
2) Andante e Presto (6:28)
3) Allegro Moderato (4:03)
4) Andante (7:25)

Beside the Manor Selby – Motion Picture Soundtrack

5) Beside the Manor Selby Overture (2:46)
6) Newsreel (1:16)
7) After Ferdinand (0:56)
8) Round About the Garden (1:06)
9) The Archduke Earsworth (5:07)
10) The Tower (1:40)
11) Gather the Heirlooms (3:33)
12) La Masque a Enleve (2:25)
13) Verdun (5:33)
14) Undone in Verdun (2:17)
15) Here Lies a Wretched Corpse (5:07)
16) In Grief Unbound (3:54)

Ellsworth Hall is best known as the front man: Vocalist and Keyboardist for the Neo-Prog band Aethellis whose self-titled debut album was self-released in 2004 and the follow-up album Northumbria was released by Melodic Revolution Records in 2011 with much praise from fans and critics alike. And so, it begins three years later, Ellsworth returns with his first solo album “Conversations with George Edgar Shelby” a classical soundtrack album that features the music from the WWI epic Beside the Manor Selby which Ellsworth directed and wrote.

“The Archduke Earsworth” originally from the three-movement piece The Blind Potentate. Ellsworth performs on a Steinway grand piano along with the vibrant sound of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, to be released in July the track listing is as follows.

Website: http://www.aethellis.com
Bandcamp: https://ellsworthhall.bandcamp.com/album/conversations-with-george-edgar-selby-remastered

Steve Hackett celebrates over 50 years of music with his new conceptual studio album The Circus and the Nightwhale

by Unqualified-Kritic | Nov 16, 2023 | News

16th November 2023: Legendary rock guitarist Steve Hackett will release his new studio album The Circus And The Nightwhale on 16th February 2024, via InsideOut Music. A rite-of-passage concept album with a young character called Travla at the center of it, The Circus And The Nightwhales 13 tracks have an autobiographical angle for the musician who says about his 30th solo release: I love this album. It says the things I’ve been wanting to say for a very long time.

The Circus And The Nightwhale is Steve’s first new music in over two years. It follows the beautiful acoustic LP Under A Mediterranean Sky from January 2021 which rose to No. 2 in the UK Classical chart and, in September of that year, his metallic masterpiece Surrender Of Silence, which hit the UK Top 40. His 2023 live album, Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live in Brighton, reached No. 2 on the Rock & Metal Chart. Steves’s new LP promises ballads, blues, blistering progressive rock… and healthy measures of theatre and fantasia.

Recorded between tours in 2022 and 2023 at Siren studio in the UK with guest parts beamed in from Sweden, Austria, the US, Azerbaijan, and Denmark, the line-up for The Circus And The Nightwhale includes some familiar faces alongside Steve on electric and acoustic guitars, 12-string, mandolin, harmonica, percussion, bass, and vocals. Roger King (keyboards, programming, and orchestral arrangements), Rob Townsend (sax), Jonas Reingold (bass), Nad Sylvan (vocals), Craig Blundell (drums), and Amanda Lehmann on vocals. Nick D’Virgilio and Hugo Degenhardt return as guests on the drum stool, engineer extraordinaire Benedict Fenner appears on keyboards and Malik Mansurov is back with the tar. Finally, Steve’s brother John Hackett is present once more on flute.

The new album will be available to pre-order from the 1st December 2023 on several different formats, including a Limited CD+Blu-ray media book (including 5.1 Surround Sound & 24bit high-resolution stereo mixes), Standard CD Jewelcase, Gatefold 180g Vinyl LP & as Digital Album. All feature the stunning cover painting by Denise Marsh.

The full tracklisting is as follows:

1. People Of The Smoke

2. These Passing Clouds

3. Taking You Down

4. Found And Lost

5. Enter The Ring

6. Get Me Out!

7. Ghost Moon and Living Love

8. Circo Inferno

9. Breakout

10. All At Sea

11. Into The Nightwhale

12. Wherever You Are

13. White Dove

Summing up the Circus And The NightwhaleSteve says: It’s a lovely journey that starts dirty, scratchy, and smoky and becomes heavenly and divine. How can you resist it?

Steve is currently on tour in North America, continuing his Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights run. Next year he will tour the world extensively, including a brand-new UK tour under the name Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights & Solo, and that will see him return to the legendary Royal Albert Hall. For the full list of dates, head to: http://hackettsongs.com/tour.html

STEVE HACKETT Online:

www.hackettsongs.com

www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Hackett/123101228589

www.twitter.com/HackettOfficial

http://hackettsongs.com/tour.html

INSIDEOUTMUSIC Online:

www.insideoutmusic.com

www.youtube.com/InsideOutMusicTV

www.facebook.com/InsideOutMusic

www.twitter.com/insideouteu

XANDRIA Releases New Official Video for “Your Stories I’ll Remember”

by Unqualified-Kritic | Nov 14, 2023 | Featured Video, New Video, News, Tour

Leading symphonic metal band, XANDRIA, have released a new official video for fan favorite “Your Stories I’ll Remember”. The track is taken from XANDRIA’s latest and most successful album to date, ‘The Wonders Still Awaiting’, which peaked at #9 on the official German album charts.

XANDRIA returned with an impressive new lineup, enchanting their fans with new songs during this year’s ongoing European tour with label mates DELAIN. The two symphonic metal frontrunners will play three more shows in the Netherlands and Belgium from November 17-19. XANDRIA is also looking forward to their headline tour through the UK, Germany and Switzerland with Phantom Elite and Skarlett Riot, kicking off on November 25th.

Watch the Official Video for “Your Stories I’ll Remember”

XANDRIA opens an exciting chapter with the eighth studio album, ‘The Wonders Still Awaiting’. Mastermind Marco Heubaum returns with a new lineup and leads the band once again into wonderful spheres, without renouncing their characteristic trademarks. The impressive vocal wealth of Ambre Vourvahis – ranging from rock grit, operatic highs and even death metal growls – opens the unit’s sound to a wider palette of colors. Songs like the opening epic “Two Worlds”, “The Wonders Still Awaiting” and “Ghosts” manifest the thematic mood of the album while constructing incredible soundscapes of pure symphonic metal. XANDRIA addresses issues of social inequality and the quest for a just world. “Paradise” showcases some of the album’s strongest hooks, captivating with great metallic pop melodies. The veil of various influences is lifted once more in “Illusion Is Their Name”, dashing all deception with heavy power metal vibes. Tracks like “Your Stories I’ll Remember” and “Scars” show the intimate side of XANDRIA on one hand, while combining rhythmic heaviness on the other. The latter is reminiscent of a James Bond theme, dressed in a heavy musical soundscape. The epic nine minute album closer “Astéria”, featuring Greek lyrics written by Ambre Vourvahis, lands as the album’s exclamation point, proving with a grand finish that the five-piece has fearlessly started a revolution in the symphonic metal genre – commencing an impressive new era of XANDRIA with ‘The Wonders Still Awaiting’.