Let Go” is a new collection of songs written and recorded by multi-instrumentalist Matt Dorsey. Stylistically it stands as a blend of all the artists and bands that influenced him including, Rush, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, XTC, The Police, Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan and more. It can be described as progressive-pop-rock. On it Matt sings and plays guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion and, on two of the songs, the drums. Marco Minnemann provides drums on three tracks and Jonathan Mover on another three. Dave Kerzner performs a keyboard solo that he wrote for one of the songs.
Says Matt, “‘Let Go’ is a collection of songs that cover many aspects of life. I studied philosophy in college and the first song I wrote following my studies was MAN, which is something of a summary of the human condition and a celebration of the mystery and miracle of human existence. Following my college days, I shifted my focus from western to eastern philosophy and you can hear a sense of that influence in the song Echo which expresses a deep connection with all living things. ‘Let Go,’ too, is a reflection of the eastern philosophical tradition expressing a sort of taoist disposition toward the flow of things and a zen-like non-attachment. Waiting for the Fall and Castles Made of Sand are a bit darker, expressing a more existential despair, the one about perpetual failure and the other about the fleeting nature of time. But, to round the album out, Compromise, Dangerous and Impossible Friends are more straight-forward love songs. Life is many things. Art should reflect that. ‘Let Go’ is an album about the philosophy of life.”
The album contains 8 tracks recorded almost entirely at Matt’s home studio in Orange County, except for the drum tracks provided by Minnemann and Mover, and the keyboard solo by Kerzner. The album was mixed by Matt and mastered by Andy VanDette. The album artwork was created by Ed Unitsky.
Best known as a founding member of Sound of Contact, he has also played with Beth Hart, Dave Kerzner, In Continuum, and most recently with the all-star progressive rock cover band ProgJect.
Says Matt, “I hope those who listen to my music actually get something meaningful or useful out of it, even if it’s just the enjoyment of the rhythms and melodies or the tapping of the foot. If one gleans anything more deeply significant, all the better. If I’m honest, I write and play music entirely for the sheer joy of it. I guess that’s a bit selfish to say. That said, I know there is power in music, to be sure, and it can move people in very potent ways. I feel privileged to be a part of that. I guess to sum it up my message is simply, life is extraordinary and we would do well to look longer and more carefully at it.”
Track List:
1. Castles Made of Sand 2. Compromise 3. Waiting for the Fall 4. Man 5. Impossible Friends 6. Echo 7. Let Go 8. Dangerous
Arjen Lucassen’s Supersonic Revolution will release their spectacular debut album Golden Age of Music on May 19 via Music Theories Recording/Mascot Label Group.
You can watch the lyric video for “SR Prelude & The Glamattack”
You think you know Arjen Lucassen? Towering Dutch prog rock polymath? The man behind the super successful prog rock conceptualists Ayreon? Not to mention his prog metal of Star One and Guilt Machine? Enormous overarching concept albums about space and time, packed to the hilt with special guests that read like a who’s who of modern day progressive rock? Arjen Lucassen? Well, think again…
Supersonic Revolution, the band behind ‘Golden Age Of Music’, are simply five men: Arjen on bass, long-standing keyboard player Joost van den Broek, guitarist Timo Somers, drummer Koen Herfst and singer Jaycee. Five men rocking out and having one hell of a time doing it.
The whole project grew from a request to provide a track for a cover CD for the German music magazine Eclipsed. “They asked if I had any cover versions lying around,” he recalls. “I said, ‘No but I’ll happily record one for you.’ So, they gave me a list of bands and I saw a ZZ Top song ‘I Heard It On The X’ that I really like. I said I could record it for them, but then they told me it had to be ready in one week…”
“I was like ‘Oh my god!’. I contacted my favorite musicians in Holland via WhatsApp and literally within 30 minutes I had assembled five people. A band basically. From there the seed was sown in Lucassen’s mind. ‘I want to form a band. And I want to simply have fun!’.
“I’m a perfectionist as you know, so I’m always sending musicians their parts back and asking them to change stuff,” he acknowledges. “But this was all brilliant. We were having fun, calling and WhatsApping all the time, and within a week we had a complete product.” He continues, “Also I wanted to have an up-beat, positive project.”
“I was like, let’s form a band and let’s write songs in the style of the 70s, and have the lyrics be a celebration of all the memorable things from that time, because those were my formative years,” he enthuses. “But I didn’t want it to sound like the 70s because that’s already been done, and I can’t do it any better than ‘Stargazer’ or ‘Kashmir’.”
“The guys are all younger than me – around 30 – so they weren’t even alive yet in the 70s. So, it was a great way for me to make 70s music with lots of Hammond and blistering guitars, but to update it to this time.”
The end result is 11 tracks of high energy, progressively inclined heavy rock that swings with the kind of groove Deep Purple rocked with in the early to mid-1970s. “This album is not a typical prog album. It’s not Yes or Genesis. But it’s not a metal album either. There’s a track called ‘Burn it Down’,” Lucassen notes, “it’s totally based on ‘Smoke On The Water’ but written from the perspective of the ‘stupid with a flare gun’ mentioned in the original lyrics.
The album also features covers of some legendary songs given the Arjen Lucassen treatment as bonus tracks: T-Rex’s ‘Children of the Revolution,’ ZZ Top’s ‘Heard It On The X,’ Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘Fantasy’ and Roger Glover’s ‘Love Is All.’
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real Arjen Lucassen. Job done. Having fun.
01 SR Prelude 02 The Glamattack 03 Golden Age Of Music 04 The Rise Of The Starman 05 Burn It Down 06 Odyssey 07 They Took Us By Storm 08 Golden Boy 09 Holy Holy Ground 10 Fight Of The Century 11 Came To Mock, Stayed To Rock 12 Children Of The Revolution (Bonus Track) 13 Heard It On The X (Bonus Track) 14 Fantasy (Bonus Track) 15 Love Is All (Bonus Track)
The album will be available on various formats; 2LP Transparent Blue, 2LP Pink Marble, 2LP Purple Marble, 2LP Yellow Marble, CD, Digitally and Artbook. You can pre-order it from here: https://lnk.to/SupersonicRevolution
Christian Progressive Rock FromFort Walton Beach, Florida.
Newcomers, Ascher, premiered their video, ‘The Great Divide’, to promote the first single from their upcoming debut album, Beginnings, today. The performance video was edited in black and white and features the members of Ascher interspersed with several anonymous clips that help convery the message of the song.
The Great Divide was written by Doug Bowers to convey feelings he had concerning friendships ‘lost along the way’. The lyric, “Time is not the enemy – Does not provide the wait-and-see” is the writer’s way of saying that that the passage of time time cannot be blamed for the loss of a friendship and it doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds. It is up to the individual to keep relationships alive. The song came about late in the writing sessions for the album, ‘Beginnings’, and each band member’s contributions during the recording sessions made the song the standout piece that it is.
‘The Great Divide’ is currently available as a digital download at Ascher’s Bandcamp site. The page also contains the song’s lyrics. Vocals and lead guitars were recorded remotely by Kyle Graves and Rob Perez respectively with the bulk of the song recorded at Berwood South in Fort Walton Beach by Doug Bowers. The song was mixed and mastered by Doug Bowers at Berwood South.
The Great Divide is the first single from the album, Beginnings.
THE GREAT DIVIDE LYRICS
Here in the shadows of a self-made reality, the product of all I have known Built from assurance that the life out in front of me was all that my mind’s eye was shown
Here, now, we never thought to figure in the how Gaze, smile, this moment will be gone in just a while, just a while
Reaching for promise while lost in the innocence of youthful dreams so far, so neatly placed No thought of the notion that a hat tip to common sense might help ease the future that I faced
Youth, haste, too much to do to let time go to waste Friends lost, in moving on I didn’t count the cost
Time is not the enemy, does not provide the wait and see We all must face the truth to heal our wounds The great divide will only grow if left unchecked the seeds we sew Will bind us
Left to my thoughts and consumed by the arrogance of a life well lived, the product of my goals Behind me the paths that might have been my inheritance, untrod, my unfulfilling roles
Truth, lies, the compass I create I will despise Give, take, the moment won’t exist for its own sake
Time is not the enemy, does not provide the wait and see We all must face the truth to heal our wounds The great divide will only grow if left unchecked the seeds we sew Will bind us
A message from a long-lost friend arrived yesterday In it, I heard faint echoes from my past The great divide with no amend had led us astray If only time could make that friendship last
But, time is not the enemy, does not provide the wait and see We all must face the truth to heal our wounds The great divide will only grow if left unchecked the seeds we sew Will yield the vines that grow, surround, and bind us
Song Credits
Music and Lyrics by Doug Bowers Recorded by Doug Bowers, Rob Perez, and Kyle Graves Mixed and mastered by Doug Bowers
Ascher is:
Doug Bowers: Keyboards, Rhythm Guitar, Bass Guitar, Percussion Programming, Lead and Backing Vocals Blake Dickeson: Acoustic and Electric Rhythm Guitars Rob Perez: Lead Guitar Kyle Graves: Lead and Backing Vocals
RIVERSIDE are set to begin their worldwide touring campaign for “ID.Entity” this Friday, Feb 17th in Tampa, Fl. The tour takes them across North America thru March. Ticket info: https://riversideband.pl/en/gigs
RIVERSIDE – “ID.Entity” – Live 2023:
RIVERSIDE new studio album “ID.Entity” managed to appear in various international sales charts as follows:RIVERSIDE – “ID.Entity” – Chart Positions: Germany: # 4 Poland: # 2 Switzerland: # 6 The Netherlands: # 9 Finland: # 14 Austria: # 22 Belgium: # 97 France: # 155 UK: # 89 UK / Rock Charts: # 3 USA / Top New Artist Albums: # 7 USA / Current Album Sales: # 61 USA / Hard Music Albums: # 9 USA / Current Rock Albums: # 20
“ID.Entity”, the group’s 8th studio album was recorded and mixed in two studios – The Boogie Town Studio in Otwock with Paweł Marciniak and in Serakos studio in Warsaw with Magda and Robert Srzedniccy -, mastered by Robert Szydło and produced by RIVERSIDE’s Mariusz Duda himself. The “ID.Entity” artwork was created by Polish artist Jarek Kubicki. Order “ID.Entity” in its various formats here: https://riverside.lnk.to/IDEntity
RIVERSIDE – “ID.Entity” (53:11) Tracklist: 1. Friend or Foe? (07:29) 2. Landmine Blast (04:50) 3. Big Tech Brother (07:24) 4. Post-Truth (05:37) 5. The Place Where I Belong (13:16) 6. I’m Done With You (05:52) 7. Self-Aware (8:43)
The bonus material appearing on “ID.Entity” includes the instrumental tracks “Age of Anger” (11:56) and “Together Again” (06:29) as well as “Friend or Foe? (Single Edit)” (05:59) and “Self-Aware (Single Edit)” (05:29).
RIVERSIDE line-up: (From left to right on photo by Radek Zawadzki) Michał Łapaj – keyboards and Hammond Organ Mariusz Duda – vocal, bass Maciej Meller – guitar Piotr Kozieradzki – drums
TRANSATLANTIC – the Prog Supergroup of Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Roine Stolt & Pete Trewavas – are set to release the new concert set ‘The Final Flight: Live At L’Olympia’ on Friday, February 17th, 2023. It was recorded and filmed in France on the last stop of a tour to promote the band’s fifth and most audacious album to date, ‘The Absolute Universe’. This was the multinational group’s first outing in eight years.
Watch the live clip for ‘We All Need Some Light’, originally featured on the bands debut album, here:
Watch the band performing ‘Owl Howl’, a highlight from ‘The Absolute Universe’ album, here: https://youtu.be/7kHEtZNPtsQ
Released in February 2021 to unanimous praise, ‘The Absolute Universe’ came in two alternate formats; an abridged 64-minute record known as ‘The Breath Of Life’, and a companion piece entitled ‘Forevermore’ that added a further four songs, clocking in at an hour and a half. Though the foundations of both were shared, each format featured lyrics and music independent of the other.
However, when Transatlantic finally hit the road they opted to perform a third format of the album, a full-bells-and-whistles, 96-minute Blu-ray culmination of both takes known as ‘The Ultimate Edition’ that had been released in 5.1 surround sound. Following that segment of the show Transatlantic took a short intermission and returned to the stage for a rollercoaster trawl through the remainder of their lavish catalogue. From the first note of ‘Overture (The Absolute Universe)’ through to the medley based around the first two Transatlantic albums that closes the evening, the performance comprised 3 hours of music in total.
“Ever since the start of this band we have played for three hours, so that’s something we’re all used to,” states drummer Mike Portnoy, who grins whilst describing his own experience as “butt-numbing”. However, Roine Stolt is ready to admit that this time felt very slightly different.
“It was a great tour,” acknowledges the guitarist and multi-musician, “but when you include our spot at Morsefest [where besides performing ‘The Absolute Universe’ the band also revisited their 2009 album ‘The Whirlwind’ and revised a cover of Procol Harum’s ‘In Held (’Twas) In I’ that had featured on their debut from 2000, ‘SMPTe’] I felt the challenge of learning, or re-learning, three-and-a-half hours of music before leaving Sweden. Now that I am getting slightly older, I was a little worried about playing for that long – it requires a lot of concentration: ‘Is this one in 7/8 or 9/8? Maybe we’ll play it in 13/8 and in a different key?’ But of course, once we got out there onto the stage, those thoughts went straight out of the window.”
With a chuckle, vocalist and keyboard wizard Neal Morse reveals that as the tour found its feet Transatlantic threw an additional curveball. “We started playing songs slightly differently to the way you’ve heard them on ‘The Ultimate Edition”, he grins. “So what you get with this live album is similar, but essentially it’s a fourth version [of the record]. When you play live, from night to night it helps to keep things fresh by jamming a bit and changing things up as you go. There are a few examples of that, for instance, the beginning of the last section that starts with ‘Belong’ is quite different than the record – partly because we couldn’t remember it! So we made up a new structure.”
“We’re always as well prepared as we can be but in a way Transatlantic is kind of a show band” points out bassist Pete Trewavas. “Playing alongside Mike who is a powerhouse on the drums, there is this raw power. If he wants to raise the energy that’s what we do. We’re all taking solos here and there, though we get the songs across we’re all showing off as much as we can”.
Filmed by Paul Green (who also shot their ‘Whirld Tour 2010: Live in London release), and mixed by longtime collaborator Rich Mouser, this set will be available as a Special Edition 3CD+Blu-ray Digipak (incl. 5.1 surround sound) & as a Gatefold 180g 4LP release. Both feature artwork by Thomas Ewerhard & photos by Nidhal Marzouk.
1. The Absolute Universe Intro 2. Overture 3. Reaching For The Sky 4. Higher Than The Morning 5. The Darkness In The Light 6. Take Now My Soul 7. Bully 8. Rainbow Sky 9. Looking For The Light 10. The World We Used To Know 11. MP Intro 12. The Sun Comes Up Today 13. Love Made A Way (Prelude) 14. Owl Howl 15. Solitude 16. Belong 17. Lonesome Rebel 18. Can You Feel It 19. Looking For The Light (Reprise) 20. The Greatest Story Never Ends 21. Love Made A Way 22. The Whirlwind Suite 23. NM & RS Intro 24. We All Need Some Light 25. The Final Medley
Line-Up (on this recording): Neal Morse – Keyboards, Acoustic Guitar & Vocals Mike Portnoy – Drums & Vocals Roine Stolt – Guitar & Vocals Pete Trewavas – Bass & Vocals
With:
Ted Leonard – Guitar, Keyboards, Percussion & Vocals
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
