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Category: Prog Rock ekr4

Prog Rotation Part 2 – Eclectic Prog from Texas’ Herd of Instinct – Conjure!

The other instrumental prog rock band that has been in my listening rotation over the last week or so is the Texas eclectic prog band Herd of Instinct. I have listened to their second release Conjure. The band’s self-titled first release was released in 2011 and was four years in the making. Flashback to 2007 – Wow- that was a long trip – the band 99 Names of  God had disbanded after ten years on the Texas Music scene as an Art Rock band – yeah right?? How do you get beer drinking into that music! But I digress back to 2007 where drummer Jason Spralin and WARR Guitarist Mark Cook are trying to form a new band. Soon they joined forces with ex-Nervewerks guitarist Mike Davison and got down to work!!  Four years later they produced that self titled album (hum about two times as long as the gestation period of the elephant) Anyway, critics praised the album and comparisons were made to King Crimson. The band’s music is drawn from a variety of influences including: multi-cultural music, literary clues, Horror and cinematic film scores, and obscure elements of Rock, Avant-garde, Electronic, Prog, and Psychedelic music. (Horror films and Psychedelic music may survive on the Texas Music scene, no wait – psychedelic music is that hippie music!) read more

Crossover Prog from Canada’s AsZension – Biosphere!

One of the albums that has been in my prog rock listening rotation over the past several days is Biosphere the sophomore release from the Canadian Crossover Prog band AsZension. The band is currently a studio-based band but there are plans to make it a live band. The band was founded by multi-instrumentalist Kevin Thiessen after he completed his studies in Contemporary Music and Technology, audio engineering, production and guitar at Selkirk College in Nelson B.C. After finishing his studies Thiessen set out to find like-minded musicians. First he met and then added guitarist and engineer Calvin Shiu, a martial arts practitioner and at the time, a recording arts student at the University of Lethbridge to the band. Shiu brought with him  his ”Shamisen”, a Japanese fretless lutelike instrument. This led to inspire Thiessen to use more world instruments in his miusic. In today’s recording era this is accomplished through “Virtual instrument technology or Vst’s. The final member of the band drummer Kyle Sheppard was an easy choice for the band since he had worked with Thiessen and was a life-long friend of Shiu’s. Their self-titled debut album won rave reviews and was nominated for Best Début Record at the 2012 ”Prog Awards” The Web World Awards dedicated to Progressive Rock. read more

The Safari Explores the Music of the Brazilian Progressive Metal band Angra!

So the other day, Spotify suggested that I listen to the song “Reflective” from the album Sounds of Innocence by Kiko Loureiro. Since the name looked interesting and he appeared to be a guitarist I downloaded the album onto the iPhone and it became the soundtrack for my ride to the Motor Vehicle Inspection Station. I discovered that Kiko is a very, very talented progressive rock guitarist and a member of the Progressive Metal band Angra. So after listening to Loureiro’s solo album, I downloaded Angra’s latest release Aqua and gave it a listen! Both of the albums are very good, but I think I prefer Aqua. Sometimes solo prog rock guitar albums seem a little boring to me. So here’s what I discovered about Angra. read more

The Safari Explores the Classical Side of Progressive Rock’s Jordan Rudess – All That is Now!!

The question of the day is: Can a prog rocker create beautiful classical piano music? My answer to that is a resounding yes – especially if that rocker entered the Julliard School of Music Pre-College Division for classical piano training at nine years old, like rock keyboard artist Jordan Rudess did!!. I think that the prog rock world is glad that in his late teens Rudess became increasingly interested in synthesizers and progressive rock music and left the classical world behind and set out to make his way as a solo progressive rock keyboardist!! read more

The Safari Encounters Mad Fellaz, an Italian Progressive Instrumental Band!!

Mad Fellaz is a five man is an instrumental progressive rock band from Bassano Del Grappa, Italy. The now five-man band started out in 2010 as an experimental unnamed trio consisting off:Emanuele and Paul Bason Busatto on electric guitars and Mark on drums. As the band developed, bassist Carlo Passuello, keyboardist Henry Brunelli and Rudy Zilio on flute and synthesizer were added to the band.The current line-up of the band is:

Mark Busatto: Drums
Paul Busatto: Electric Guitar
Carlo Passuello: Electric Bass
Henry Brunelli: Keyboards
Rudy Zilio: Synth – flute read more

Archives: An Afternoon of Prog Rock with the United Kingdom’s Aqauaplanage!

Aquaplanage

Ok so this post was written last March, one of the problems with listening and exploring so much new music, is that you forget about the ones you listened to and like, like Aquaplanage!! So here’s that March post!

This afternoon I went to Mog to listen to Echoes of Indiana Avenue by Wes Montgomery only to find that they didn’t have the album. So I listened to another album for a bit and then I looked at albums “just for me”, which now is a collection of all types of genres, who would think that my music listening is all over the musical spectrum? Anyway one album that caught my eye was a self-titled album from 2008 from a band called Aquaplanage. Now Mog says they picked it because I listened to Seven Steps to the Green Door and Nine Stones Close, which means that it’s Prog Rock. So I put it on and loved it! I went to ProgArchives.com to check out what they thought and the overall rating was 3.39 out of 5 with several reviews at 4 out of 5. read more

The Safari Explores the Music of Germany’s Frequency Drift – Over!

Over the last few days I’ve been exploring the music of the German Grossover Prog Band Frequency Drift; I stated with their current release Over. On my first few listens I wasn’t to sure about the vocals. The female lead singer’s voice was just a little too high and operatic sounding than I  like. What I was sure of was the music,I know I heard some instruments that you don’t normally hear like violin and flutes.Here’ what I read about the band at their website: read more

The Safari revisits Finland and Explores the Music of Cardiant – Verge

Today the Safari returned to Finland and explored the music of Cardiant a power metal band that was formed in the city Hämeenlinna by Antti Hänninen and Dave Alberti in 2000. Today I listened to Verge the third album from the band. The line-up of the band has changed drastically from the first album when the band didn’t have a lead singer and was forced to use a session singer. This resulted in the album Midday Moon only being released on Japan!

Current band members bassist Mikko Mänttäri, keyboadist Marko Lindroos, and vocalist Erik Karhatsu joined Antti in a revamped by in 2008. Prior to being chosen as the bands lead vocalist, Karhatsu had appeared on Finnish Idol! read more

The Safari explores the Progressive Metal of America’s – Thought Chamber – Psykerion!

As I listened to Psykerion the second album from Thought Chamber, I came to the realization that maybe the best way to listen to Thought Chamber is with headphones on, because with headphones on you can catch all of the intricacies of their music!. I am listening to the track “Transcend” and the music is coming at me from each side,guitars in the left ear, drums in the center, it’s great!

Thought Chamber is a progressive metal group from the US founded by guitarist Michael Harris. I discovered the band last year prior to the release of Psykerion, so I listened to their first release Angular Perceptions, which was released in 2007. At that time, the band consisted of Harris on guitars, keyboards and vocals, Ted Leonard (Enchant and as my son Nick pointed out to me, the new lead singer of Spock’s Beard). Rob Stankiewicz – drums, Bobby Williamson – keyboards, and Derek Blakley – bass. Harris said this about his initial vision for Thought Chamber…. read more

XNA – When We Changed You – Symphonic Prog from the USA!!

XNA is a Symphonic prog/Progressive Rock band from the United States. For the last few days their debut album When We Changed You has been in my listening rotation. As I listened to the album, it was obvious that these guys were heavily influenced by Genesis and other early prog bands. On several tracks images of Jethro Tull popped into my head! My wife listened to a short portions of the album, didn’t really like the lyrics and thought that the singer was a little too theatrical. But how can music that is influenced by Genesis not be theatrical! read more