by Kev Rowland | Jun 10, 2018 | Reviews
Pell released his first album back in 1989, and here he is back with his seventeenth studio album, showing no sign at all of slowing down yet. Centre stage is Johnny Gioeli (Hardline, Crush 40), as he has been for the last twenty years, while at the back is Bobby Rondinelli (loads of bands, but for me he will always be Rainbow) while bassist Volker Krawczak has been there since the very beginning, and keyboard player Ferdy Doernberg has also been there for more than twenty years. So with only the drummer not having been in the band for the last couple of decades, it perhaps isn’t surprising that they know what they are doing. The band have built a reputation for power ballads and released various compilations of these, but what we have here is a rock album first and foremost, based solidly on classic Rainbow.
True, there is a ballad, but for the most part, this is five guys out there having fun and kicking some serious ass. Pell has built a career around his style of melodic hard rock, and he isn’t going to change now, and when he kicks into the riffs of songs like “Slaves On The Run” all the listener can do is bounce the noggin and smile. I haven’t heard that many albums by the guys, but of the ones I have I can honestly say that this is the best I have come across. It hits the charts in many countries when it was released, including Top Ten in Germany – richly deserved. If you enjoy Rainbow-style hard rock, then this is essential.
7/10
by Kev Rowland
by Kev Rowland | Jun 10, 2018 | Reviews
Arena, a band that in many ways was brought together by a running joke in an underground fanzine, which led directly to Mick Pointer realizing that there was quite a vibrant prog scene. In turn, he was introduced to Clive Nolan, and the rest, as they say, is history. The debut ‘Songs From The Lion’s Cage’ was released in 1995, and the jokes soon started about never being at far left or far right on a band photo as you would be the next to leave, but the guys have been stable now for quite sometimes, with the same line-up since 2011’s ‘The Seventh Degree of Separation’. That was the last album I heard, as for some reason I missed 2015’s ‘The Unquiet Sky’, although I have been listening to quite a lot of Clive’s other works, as well as releases featuring guitarist John Mitchell (the line-up being completed by singer Paul Manzi and bassist Kylan Amos).
Having played Clive’s ‘Alchemy’ so much that it is almost worn out (according to LastFM it is my second most played album since I joined that site in 2007, behind only Camel’s ‘The Snow Goose), plus having known him for more than quarter of a century (I feel old) and having most of his projects, I was really looking forward to this album, and I wasn’t disappointed. While Arena is first and foremost a progressive rock band, what I found fascinating with this album is the amount of theatricality within it. Paul Manzi surely has one of the most expressive and emotive voices around, and his relationship with Clive is long-standing in this and other projects, and they have an innate understanding of what is needed to take a song to the next level. There are times when I am clearly reminded of his performance on the aforementioned ‘Alchemy’, such is the power of his storytelling.
But, this is very much a band album, although it obviously has been heavily influenced by Clive who wrote or co-wrote every song and provided all the lyrics, but Mick is playing better than ever, Kylan has a great sliding style that really suits the music. Then on top of it all, there is the incomparable John Mitchell. He may not have been the original guitarist (who was Keith More, ex-Asia, for the first two albums) but he has been there for twenty years now, during which time he has built a considerable reputation as one of the finest guitarists in the scene, and I don’t think anyone was really surprised when he joined It Bites. He knows when to riff and drive the music along when to provide solos, when to use restraint and when to just let the music rock.
Here we are in 2018 and both Galahad and Arena have this year released possibly the finest albums of their careers, only time will fully be able to judge that, showing that although they were in the underground scene in the Nineties, playing all the dives that entailed due to no publicity (or internet!), they are ready and able to reap the rewards of keeping going when others have given up. This is a stunning album, one that all progheads need to discover at once if not sooner. I loved it the very first time I played it, and it has only got better the more I listen to it.
9/10
By Kev Rowland
by Kev Rowland | Jun 10, 2018 | Reviews
After touring to support their debut album ‘I’m Not Well’, frontman Mark Holley didn’t really want to settle down at home in Exeter, so instead set off for Iceland, where he would go on to write the foundations of ‘Reiði’ (which apparently is the Icelandic word for rage). The result is an indie rock album that is incredibly angular, with edges so sharp that the listener has to be careful that they don’t cut themselves. This isn’t a style of music that I really enjoy listening to, but even I can appreciate the maturity and solidity of the songs that are on offer here. I used to live in Exeter, and was born and raised in the West Country, but can’t remember any local bands ever sounding quite like this.
This is music with drama, to be played on a stage with an opening and thundering sky. This isn’t music for the summer, but rather when it is bleak and cold, and as only then will the full potential and enormity of these songs really hit home. The guitars jangle, and the bass and drums keep it all well-grounded, and no-one could ever think that there was a band out for singles success, but rather is all about the album. When Holley says that the songwriter he most admires is Neil Young it is obvious, as that influence is through everything he is doing. If I can enjoy this and it’s not my normal style of music, what does that say about the quality of the album as whole?
7/10
By Kev Rowland
by Kev Rowland | Jun 10, 2018 | Reviews
Bob Arthurs is a jazz trumpet player, vocalist, and recording artist who has been appearing in clubs and at festivals in the New York area and abroad for almost five decades. In 2013 he released ‘Jazz For Svetlana’ with guitarist Steve Lammattina, following it up in 2017 with ‘Jazz For Molly’. Their producer, Irena Portenko (who is herself Ukrainian) asked if they would consider recording an album of popular Ukrainian folk songs, and once they had agreed she provided them with a list to choose from. Although the songs were unfamiliar to both Bob and Steve they found that as they worked through them to see how they could transform them into jazz numbers they became incredibly invested. The album is subtitled ‘Ukrainian Songs For Three Dad’s, Irena’s father, her uncle, and her daughter Anastasia’s dad, and her homeland.
I must confess that most of the folk I have heard is Western, so don’t actually recognize any of the songs being played, but what I found interesting is how this album sounds with no percussion or bottom end. Steve provides guitar, Bob provides trumpet and flugelhorn (along with some vocals), and it almost feels as if we have been allowed to sit in a studio while the guys play, as opposed to playing a CD. This doesn’t have the vitality and risk that I normally associate with jazz, but rather is far more considered in its approach. It certainly feels like they are reading scores, which they probably are in fairness, as opposed to going where the music takes them. This is due to them wanting to be true to the originals, and it certainly imbibes the music with a far different feeling from normal. I found myself enjoying the album more from an intellectual standpoint than an emotional one, but it is interesting all the same. I do wonder what this might have sounded like if the guys had brought in some other musicians and loosened up somewhat, but it definitely drags you in.
7/10
by Kev Rowland
by Kev Rowland | Jun 10, 2018 | Reviews
What we have here is an EP featuring two different mixes of a very interesting take on the famous Doctor Who theme, which is both instantly recognisable but also very different indeed. My normal rule of thumb on cover versions is that musically they should stay true to the original without sounding anything like it, and this hits that out of the park. Imagine Mike Oldfield being asked to recreate it in his own image and then you may get close to hearing what this sounds like. Both Tom Newman and Robert Reed have then provided their own mixes of the take, and it is intriguing to hear what they have both done with it. Then on top of that there are two more songs from each of the three, with one of Tom Newman’s unavailable elsewhere (and once you have heard “Happy Chickens” you will understand why, and Robert teasing us with a segment from the yet to be released ‘Sanctuary III’. If ever anyone was taking up the baton passed by Mike Oldfield in the Seventies then it is Robert Reed, and I look forward to the album with great interest. This is well worth getting if you have ever loved Doctor Who, Mike Oldfield, or fo course anything by the three guys involved – quite superb.
Physical copies of all of Rob’s releases are available through his site, but if you are interested just in digital then visit https://robertreed.bandcamp.com
8/10 By Kev Rowland
by Kev Rowland | Jun 9, 2018 | News, Reviews
A while ago Marek Arnold was approached by the organizer of the Artrock Festival, Uwe Treitinger, asking if he could provide a song to promote the festival. Marek had performed there last year with Seven Steps To The Green Door and was there again this year with Toxic Smile. Marek agreed to write and record a song, along with many friends who were also going to be performing this year, and then have it available as both a full-length prog number and also as a radio edit. Later, Uwe came back with the idea, to offer it as CD, to raise revenue to contribute to a sculpture of Wolfgang Mattheuer in Uwe’s home city of Reichenbach.
Those involved were Marek (Seven Steps To The Green Door, Toxic Smile, Cyril, UPF, Damanek, Flaming Row ) on piano, keyboards, and soprano saxophone, Martin Schnella (Flaming Row, SSTTGD, Gray Matters ) acoustic and basic electric guitars, backing vocals, Melanie Mau (Gray Matters ) lead vocals, Niklas Kahl (Flaming Row ) drums, Piotr Witkowski (Collage ) bass guitar, Denis Strassburg (Cyril) bass guitar. In addition to these there were the following soloists, Marcella Arganese (Mr. Punch, Ubi Maior ) guitar solo and additional guitars, Stephan Pankow (Toxic Smile, SSTTGD ) guitar solo, Kalle Wallner (RPWL, Blind Ego) guitar solo, Steve Unruh (Resistor, UPF, The Samurai of Prog ), violin solo Martin Schnella guitar solo and Gary Chandler (Jadis ) guitar solo and additional guitars. Just one song, loads of great musicians, but at the heart of this is Marek’s piano and incredible sense of melody. Somehow this manages to sound like a band instead of a project and is a crossover hard rock progressive number that is a sheer delight. I have always loved Melanie’s vocals, and here she just shines, being given the opportunity to have fun, and unlike many prog numbers, this makes me smile from beginning to end as it is sheer progtastic delight with hooks aplenty.
8/10 Kev Rowland
