BRYAN BELLER’S NEW SOLO WORK, ‘SCENES FROM THE FLOOD’, AN EPIC-SCALE MODERN PROGRESSIVE DOUBLE CONCEPT ALBUM, TO BE RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 13TH, 2019;PRE-ORDERS NOW AVAILABLE
As a bassist and composer, Bryan Beller (The Aristocrats, Joe Satriani, Dethklok, Steve Vai) has never been accused of being insufficiently driven. But nothing he’s done before can truly prepare audiences for his newest release, the massively ambitious and unapologetically progressive double concept album Scenes From The Flood, scheduled for worldwide release on September 13th, now available for pre-order at bryanbeller.com.
A work so sweeping in scale that it took Beller nearly a decade to conceive, compose, and now fully realize, the album grapples with an existential question: When the storm comes for us, the big one after which things will not be the same, who are we and what do we become in those defining moments? What do we keep, and what do we let go? Scenes From The Flood explores themes of ambition and loss, intentionality and reality, hope and disillusionment, and uses every second of its 18-song, 88-minute running order to tell an emotionally consuming and unforgettable musical story.
Realizing Beller’s vision meant enlisting 26 musicians spread across four continents to bring Scenes From The Flood to life. Special guests on guitar include legends Joe Satriani (on the optimistic, “road trip” vibed opening track “Volunteer State”), John Petrucci (who lays down a screaming lead on the 9-minute story-climactic progressive epic “World Class”), Guthrie Govan (taking the lead on the album’s closing ballad “Sweet Water”), and Mike Keneally (going from layered acoustics on one track to furious metal riffing on another), just four of fourteen total guitarists who appear on the album. Drummers include veterans Gene Hoglan (Dethklok, Strapping Young Lad, Death), Joe Travers (Zappa Plays Zappa, Joe Satriani), Ray Hearne (Haken), and Nate Morton (Cher, The Voice)
uly 1st marked the debut of the animated video for one of the album’s signature tunes, “The Storm”, a dark and heavy odyssey that serves as one of the signature compositions of Beller’s new opus. The 7-minute piece features the aforementioned metal legend Gene Hoglan on drums and an army of four guitarists to deliver the song’s urgent, powerful message. See it here:
“Not exactly light fare, is it?” chuckles Beller, who just turned 48. “But all of my truly favorite albums take me to deep, sometimes challenging places, even upon repeated listening. Especially the double albums. Somewhere inside me, in the eleven years since my last solo album, I’d absorbed and processed a series of life experiences that, I thought, could possibly inform an extended work like this. I felt like I had something big and complex to say. And then I just dove into it.”
Presented in the classic format of four vinyl sides (or four “parts” on two CD’s), Scenes From The Flood was inspired by hallowed progressive double-albums like Pink Floyd’s The Walland Yes’ Tales From Topographic Oceans, as well as more modern expanded works, such as Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile. The deluxe packaging (2CD 8-panel digipak + two 20-page double-CD booklets; 2LP gatefold + 24-page full-size booklet) reveals not just album artwork, but unique cover-style artwork for each of the eighteen songs, or “scenes”. The resulting sense of story urgency and dramatic narrative presents like a soundtrack to a movie suspense thriller as much as it does a double album. A limited run of 200 colored (purple) vinyl will also be produced.
Scenes From The Flood is performed by: Christopher Allis, Bryan Beller, Nili Brosh, Paul Cartwright, Darran Charles, Julian Coryell, Mike Dawes, Janet Feder, Guthrie Govan, Ray Hearne, Gene Hoglan, Mike Keneally, Jamie Kime, Fred Kron, Teddy Kumpel, Jake Howsam Lowe, Evan Mazunik, Nate Morton, Rick Musallam, Mike Olekshy, Griff Peters, John Petrucci, Matt Rohde, Joe Satriani, Rishabh Seen, Joe Travers, Leah Zeger
PART ONE The Scouring Of Three & Seventeen Volunteer State Everything And Nothing A Quickening Steiner In Ellipses
PART TWO Always Worth it Lookout Mountain The Storm The Flood
PART THREE Bunkistan As Advertised Army Of The Black Rectangles The Outer Boundary Angles & Exits
PART FOUR The Inner Boundary World Class Sweet Water Let Go Of Everything
Scenes From The Flood will be released on September 13th, 2019. Pre-orders are now available. All studio and live releases from Bryan Beller can be purchased at http://bryanbeller.com
PATTERN-SEEKING ANIMALS is the brand new group featuring the talents of current & former Spock’s Beard members Ted Leonard, Jimmy Keegan & Dave Meros as well as long-time contributing songwriter-producer John Boegehold. The band will release their self-titled debut album on July 5th, 2019.
Today they launch a play-through video courtesy of Ted Leonard for their latest single ‘No One Ever Died and Made Me King’.
John Boegehold comments: “Dave and I wrote this a while back from the viewpoint of a guy feeling sorry for his lot in life. I love the bass tone he came up with and Ted’s guitar tone is classic 70s. Is voodoo-swamp prog a genre?”
The album has already been receiving great reviews, find a few of them below:
“shiny and soulful but spiky symphonic prog” – Prog Magazine
“a must-have for any respectable music collection”– Power of Prog
“a strong album with top-notch performances from some of the best players in the prog world” – Sonic Perspectives
“this album is a must-have.” – Progressive Music Planet
Originally a vehicle for a few tracks John had been working on in early 2018, he quickly came up with enough music to work towards producing an album. With that in mind, he enlisted the talents of Jimmy Keegan (drums & vocals), Ted Leonard (vocals & guitar) & Dave Meros (bass), with Boegehold handling all the synths. He adds: “Besides live strings on a few songs and a female backing vocalist on another, it was all done between the four of us with Dave and Ted ending up as co-writers on some of the material.”
With the band obviously being closely associated with Spock’s Beard, John was conscious of exploring different avenues with Pattern-Seeking Animals, whether it was song structures, vocal arrangements, synth sounds or emotional textures. “Pattern-Seeking Animals was a clean slate so I found myself drawing on a few different musical influences and using some contemporary production ideas and sounds that I probably wouldn’t use with SB for various reasons.”
The album will be released on limited CD digipak, gatefold 2LP + CD & as digital album. Pre-order now here: www.insideoutmusicshop.com
As John notes, as the project came together it quickly became apparent that they would want to take this material out live: “Originally it was intended to be a recording project but as it was coming together we started talking seriously about doing it as a live band. Because of the complexity of a lot of the material, it’ll require an additional musician or two to pull it off live. The plan is to tour as much as possible and to come out with a new album at least once a year. In fact, work on the second album is already well under way.”
Stay tuned for a first taste of music from Pattern-Seeking Animals in the coming weeks!
Nad Sylvan, the vocalist with Steve Hackett, recently announced the release of his new solo album ‘The Regal Bastard’ on July 5th, 2019. His third album for InsideOutMusic, and his 5th overall, this record is the final part of the Vampire trilogy that he began on 2015’s ‘Courting The Widow’.
Today he launches the third single from the album, and you can watch the video for ‘Whoa (Always Been Without You)’
Nad comments: “’Whoa’ is one of those gifts that just came to me while I was on tour in Italy last summer. It kept pounding in my head, like someone’s knocking on your door and won’t stop, even if you open it. To me, it’s probably the strongest song on the album. Very relatable lyrics, we’re all waiting for that big life changing moment in life, no matter the circumstances.”
Find some of the brilliant media reactions below: “a grandly elaborate theatrical production” – Prog “a carefully crafted sonic experience with precision instrumentation and is a superb showcase for Nad’s vocal, compositional and arranging talents.” – The Prog Report “Sylvan has nonetheless created an original, and vibrant example of modern progressive rock” – Metal Wani
Once more, Sylvan has pulled together a tremendous array of musical talent to bring his inspiration to life. “Almost everyone who worked on ‘The Bride Said No’ is back with me again. Anders Wollbeck has again co-written two songs and plays an array of instruments as well as co producing them. Steve Hackett plays guitar on one track, Guthrie Govan on two, while Tony Levin does the bass on a song. Jonas Reingold plays bass on much of the album, and Nick D’Virgilio handles the drums. And I also have the same female singers working with me once more, these being Sheona Urquhart, Jade Ell and Tania Doko. And on ‘Honey I’m Home’, there’s a big choir section, with every singer that has been involved with the 3 albums that make up the Vampirate trilogy, concluding the story in an honourable way. We also have Nick Beggs joining in on this part of the song.”
‘The Regal Bastard’ will be released as a limited CD Digipak (incl. 2 bonus tracks), Gatefold 2LP + CD & as digital album. Pre-order the album here: www.insideoutmusicshop.com
Track Listing 1. I Am The Sea 2. Oahu 3. Whoa (Always Been Without You) 4. Meet Your Maker 5. The Regal Bastard 6. Leave Me On These Waters 7. Honey I’m Home 8. Diva Time (Bonus Track) 9. The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Bonus Track)
Nad comments: “For me, this is the best of the three records. I honestly believe it will delight the fans. It is maybe not as riff heavy as the others. I would describe the sound as coming from the notion of pop going prog, with R’n’B elements in there as well. It is very soulful. But that suits my style. I am a vocal chameleon, and you’ll hear that throughout. It is the finest possible way to bring the trilogy to an end.”
Nad will spend most of 2019 touring once again with Steve Hackett, as he celebrates the 40 years anniversary of “Spectral Mornings”, as well as the Genesis classic ‘Selling England By The Pound’. Find the full list of dates here: http://www.hackettsongs.com/tour.html
“Fill In The Blank” (Live at Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH)
Car Seat Headrest today announces Commit Yourself Completely – a new nine-track live album that will be released only via digital means June 17th. Culled from performances across the UK, US and France, the nine-track album spans material from 2016’s breakout Teens Of Denial and 2018’s reimagined epic Twin Fantasy – as well as the first officially released recording of longtime live staple ‘Ivy’ by Frank Ocean. A filmed version of the performance of ‘Fill In The Blank’ which appears on the album, recorded in Columbus, Ohio, can be seen now above.
“This is a compilation of songs from shows we played in 2018,” says Will Toledo. “We recorded every show we did that year, and I went through about 50 of them to get the final tracklist for this album. This isn’t necessarily the best possible version of each track, but it’s some of the most fun we’ve had on stage. I particularly remember the show we did in the small French town of Amiens, maybe the smallest show we did that year, and how great it felt to be up in people’s faces with everyone plugging in to the music right away. The recordings we made of the shows came out very clean, so rather than try to artificially recreate how it sounded in the different venues night to night, I tried to give the whole album that in-your-face feeling, like we’re playing the songs right in front of you. When you’re onstage with everything happening at once, you never really know what it sounds like in the room anyways; all you know is how the music is feeling. Hopefully this will give you a sense of what these shows felt like.”
A snapshot of the 7-person lineup featuring members of Naked Giants experienced by crowds worldwide over the last two years, Commit Yourself Completely offers a visceral, loose and ebullient take on these much-loved songs, as well as an incandescent capstone of a formative touring period as Car Seat Headrest readies his next studio album. Musicians featured on the album are Will Toledo (vocals), Seth Dalby (bass), Ethan Ives (guitar, vocals), Andrew Katz (drums, vocals), Grant Mullen (guitar, vocals) Gianni Aiello (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Henry LaVallee (additional percussion).
Tracklist 1. Cosmic Hero (Live at the Tramshed, Cardiff, Wales) 2. Fill In The Blank (Live at Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH) 3. Drugs With Friends (Live at La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France) 4. Bodys (Live at La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France) 5. Cute Thing (Live at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, England) 6. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales (Live at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, England) 7. Destroyed By Hippie Powers (Live at the Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR) 8. Ivy (live at the Capitol Theater, Olympia, WA) 9. Beach Life-in-Death (Live at Crossroads, KC, Kansas City, MO)
Boston-based art-rock band Bent Knee are pleased to announce their brand new single “Catch Light”, the first new music to arrive from their forthcoming new studio album out later this year. This comes on top of the beginning of their North American tour alongside Thank You Scientist.
The band comments: “Catch Light is about the pressure women feel to shrink themselves and their ideas. The song is the culmination of over a year of collaborative sonic experiments and marks a drastically new direction for the band. More to come.”
Listen to ‘Catch Light’ here:
The band’s full list of upcoming North American live dates can be found below:
11th June – Buffalo Iron Works, Buffalo, NY 12th June – Mahall’s, Lakewood, OH 13th June – Pyramid Scheme, Grand Rapids, MI 14th June – Shank Hall, Milwaukee, WI 15th June – The Citadel Music Hall, Indianapolis, IN 16th June – The Southgate House Revival, Newport, KY 18th June – Ottobar, Baltimore, MD 19th June – Space Ballroom, Hamden, CT 20th June – The Met, Pawtucket, RI 21st June – Port City Music Hall, Portland, ME 22nd June – Palladium, Worcester, MA
Earlier in the year, Bent Knee embarked on their first, extensive, European tour alongside label-mates Haken and Danish act VOLA. To coincide with this they launched a video for the track ‘Boxes’, taken from their last album ‘Land Animal’. Watch the video for ‘Boxes’ now here: https://youtu.be/T3Zkqgw33vk
Bent Knee formed in Boston in 2009 as a democratic collective determined to push the boundaries of pop and rock, combing myriad influences into a seamless, thrilling whole. Lead singer and keyboardist Courtney Swain’s soaring vocals are instantly arresting. Guitarist Ben Levin is one of the most dynamic and versatile guitarists around, shifting between the raging and raucous to the sublime and meditative. Bassist Jessica Kion and drummer Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth combine into an enthralling rhythm section that’s equal parts powerhouse and nuance. Chris Baum’s kinetic violin work provides drama, grace, and intrigue. World-class producer and live sound designer Vince Welch weave’s it all together with a captivating, expert touch. Fiercely innovative, the group bridges the gap between the experimental and the familiar, merging texture and style into music that’s moving, addictive, and unapologetically original. The band has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Their last three albums, 2017’s Land Animal, 2016’s Say So and 2014’s Shiny Eyed Babies, were hailed as significant art-rock achievements, and the band continues to be garnished with praise for their live show, performing hundreds of concerts worldwide to date.
‘Land Animal’ is available on CD, LP & Digital Download here: http://smarturl.it/BentKneeLandAnimal “Mind-boggling… the grandest and subtlest ideas are on the table” –NPR “The silo-smashing Bent Knee’s unique mix is equal parts ingenuity and deliciousness” – The Wall Street Journal “Bent Knee breaks new stylistic and temperamental ground” – The Boston Globe
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