Haven – Kamelot – The Best of Progressive Metal

Haven – Kamelot  Progressive Metal from the United States   ****

The progressive rock album that has been playing on the iPhone over the last week or so is Haven from Kamelot. Kamelot is a progressive metal band from Tampa, Florida. If progressive metal is characterized by the following according to ProgArchives.

a blend of heavy, guitar-oriented metal music enriched with compositional innovation and complex arrangements, usually expressed through diverse instrumentation and often (but not always) with odd-time signatures. Common, but not essential to define the movement, are the frequent use of keyboards, high-pitched vocals, concept lyrical themes and tracks of longer duration. Similar to progressive rock, progressive metal draws influences from other genres, such as jazz/fusion, ethnic, classical and symphonic music read more

Running with the Empirical Ghost of Lis er Stille

The Run….

So while Elizabeth conquered the Broad Street 10 miler yesterday, I conquered the RG Riverside half a ten miler on Saturday, running five miles for the first time this year!! I had set out to run a 4.2 mile course I call the Harper Loop. I have not run that course yet this year mainly because it has a long ascent up Pancoast Avenue and then another shorter ascent up Fairview to Harper. Followed by a descent and short ascent along Harper followed by a longer descent down Cranberry Lane.  I did well keeping a slower and steady pace knowing that the hills would be a challenge. The first three miles were 10:44, 11:06, and 10:54 beat you can guess where the hills were!! I slowed down on mile four because I hadn’t really run a four miler with hills and I was tired. But when I stabilized my breathing thanks to the rhythms of Lis er Stille, I didn’t feel too bad, so I thought “let’s see if I can go five”, knowing that Lizzie was doing ten on Sunday! At least I could do a half of that!! read more

Tangentially Running with A Spark in the Aether

Running Soundtrack: The Tangent A Spark in the Aether: The Music that Died Alone Volume Two

Today’s run showed me the value of running at LEAST twice a week. Last week was busy, making it was very easy to put off running. As a result, I have not run in almost 2 weeks. My last run was on Tuesday the 14th. The lack running was not a problem on the first mile, which was run at a pace of 10:24 min/mile. I started to feel it on the second mile, but I made it through that mile at 10:51 min/mile. I think it was at about the 2 and a third mile mark, that I started to struggle, and actually thought about shortening the planned 4 mile run!! But I finished third mile in a somewhat slower 11:13 min/mile,  still not bad. I continued to struggle through the last mile and ended that mile with an 11:51 min/mile pace!! The final overall pace for the run was 11:07, which really isn’t that bad, but  I just missed my goal, which was to run the four miles at under an 11 minute per mile pace. read more

Sonic Travelogue – Progression By Failure

France’s Progression by Failure provides the Sonic Travelogue for a steady run!!

So yesterday i almost put off my run until today because it was supposed to be a whole lot warmer. The forecast said that today’s high was going to be 77! So far it is nowhere near that temperature. One reason not to put off the run today was that I have to work at Target 5:30 to 11:15 pm and I had half-day’s work for Lippincott, that was made a longer by the wet soil in the woods that tried to swallow the backhoe. The bottom line is that I didn’t put of the run yesterday and I’m glad I didn’t! read more

Psychedelic/Space Rock From Eloy Powers My Run!

reincarnation on stage - eloy
Psychedelic/Space Rock from Germany’s Eloy Powers My Run!

So you know that you are listening to a progressive rock album, when you run for 30 plus minutes and when you are finished you are only on the sixth song on the album! Such was the case today, when music from  the band Eloy became the soundtrack for my run. I had spent much of this morning exploring several prog bands.The bands that I explored included Sylvium from the Netherlands, and The Myrrors from Texas. I liked both of the bands. When I went to ProgArchives and read about The Myrrors, I discovered that they were classified as a Psychedelic/Space Rock band This is not the first time that I have liked a band within that subgenre., read more

Voyager: Cailyn’s voyage through our Solar System!

Cailyn Lloyd

Voyager – Cailyn (Lloyd) – Released January 2015

Several weeks ago, I took a trip through space courtesy of the music of John Serrie and his album Day Star. Over the last week I have traveled through our own solar system tracing the travels of the Voyager ship, via the music of Cailyn (Lloyd)and her latest release apply titled Voyager. 

Cailyn is a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. She began her music career at an early age, starting with piano and quickly moving on to violin and bass. By her teens she was living in London, England and playing in blues and prog-rock bands Cailyn eventually returned to the states, still studying and playing guitar, bass and keyboards. Not satisfied with that she added drums to her repertoire. Oh, and she took some time off to raise a family!! Around 2004, Cailyn returned to music full-time, initially touring with the Alimony Blues Band as a guitarist and then with the power-rock band IX Lives playing guitar, bass and keyboards. read more

Unreal City – Il Paese Del Tramonto – Great Italian Prog Rock!

Last night I was checking out the New Progressive Rock releases at New Prog Releases. One of the albums of interest to me was Il Paese Del Tramonto (Country of Sunset) from an Italian Progressive Rock band Unreal City.  Their music was classified as Symphonic and since I have enjoyed other symphonic prog bands, I figured I’d like these guys. I figured right I put the album on while I was multi-tasking or as I like to call it ADDing! I was watching the football game, reading and listening! It didn’t take long to for the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz to take a backseat to the keyboards Emanuele Tarasconi and Francsca Zantta’s guitar! (the decision was aided by the uncompetitive nature of the game, between the Colts and Pats! Ido believe, Unreal City would have lost out to the Packers and Seahawks!). Anyway I loved the album and today it became the soundtrack for my drive out Street Road to pick up my replacement hearing aid at Costco.  Listening to the album in greater detail only brought out the great keyboard and guitar work on the album, solidifying my opinion that this is a great album!! read more

Unreal City – Il Paese Del Tramonto – Great Italian Prog Rock!

Last night I was checking out the New Progressive Rock releases at New Prog Releases. One of the albums of interest to me was Il Paese Del Tramonto (Country of Sunset) from an Italian Progressive Rock band Unreal City.  Their music was classified as Symphonic and since I have enjoyed other symphonic prog bands, I figured I’d like these guys. I figured right I put the album on while I was multi-tasking or as I like to call it ADDing! I was watching the football game, reading and listening! It didn’t take long to for the voices of Phil Simms and Jim Nantz to take a backseat to the keyboards Emanuele Tarasconi and Francsca Zantta’s guitar! (the decision was aided by the uncompetitive nature of the game, between the Colts and Pats! Ido believe, Unreal City would have lost out to the Packers and Seahawks!). Anyway I loved the album and today it became the soundtrack for my drive out Street Road to pick up my replacement hearing aid at Costco.  Listening to the album in greater detail only brought out the great keyboard and guitar work on the album, solidifying my opinion that this is a great album!! read more

Ad Maiora! from Ad Maiora – Rock Progressivo Italiano

The phrase Ad Maiora means “to greater things” in Latin and that’s where, in my opinion,  the Italian Prog Rock band,  who chose that expression for their name, is headed.  Yes, based on their self-titled debut album. I think that Ad Maiora will be moving on to greater things!

The band was formed in 2009 in Milan, as a progressive rock project. During the period between 2009 and 2013 Ad Maiora was writing their own compositions, all of which appear on their debut album Ad Maiora! which was released in January of 2014. It was also in  this time period that the band contributed the track “Whaling Stories” to a Procol Harum tribute album, and played in support of  Italian bands like Ubi Maior and Shylock. read more

Exploring the Music of Mostly Autumn

Mostly Autumn – Folk Prog – United Kingdom                    

Update: Since I wrote this post in 2014, Mostly Autumn has released six new albums. I have only listened to two of those albums. First Sight of Day released in 2017 and then 2019’s White Rainbow, White Rainbow even became a soundtrack for one of my runs. After listening and writing about Karnataka, whose music is similar to Mostly Autumn’s, I’m looking forward to listening to Mostly Autumn latest release Studio 2. As well as, other albums in their discography.

Dressed in Voices (2014)

Mostly Autumn is  Prog Folk band, Prog Archive d read more