And this is for Slappy.

Artist: The Beach Boys
Album: Pet Sounds
Year: 1966

Track Listing

1. Wouldn’t it be Nice (2:22)
2. You Still Believe in Me (2:30)
3. That’s Not Me (2:27)
4. Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) (2:51)
5. I’m Waiting for the Day (3:03)
6. Let’s Go Away for Awhile (2:18)
7. Sloop John B (2:56)
8. God Only Knows (2:49)
9. I Know There’s an Answer (3:08)
10. Here Today (2:52)
11. I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times (3:11)
12. Pet Sounds (2:20)
13. Caroline, No (2:52)

Let me begin by saying that my opinion on any music produced before the late nineties is generally tarnished by the production quality of the record, so unless I find the music to be absolutely top notch, I probably won’t like it.

This is a seminal release. Everyone knows this. It’s very hard to take a step back from the fact that all those same people I know of who think that Bob Dylan and The Beatles are the two greatest artists to walk the planet consider this album to be amazing. I really just don’t. I don’t like pop songs, generally, unless there’s something orgasmically tacky about them. Yes, Pet Sounds is full of tack, but it’s not scorned for it. It’s not considered ironic at all. But I’m being tangential. Let’s look at the album.

Wouldn’t it Be Nice is a very popular track, probably because it’s about love. Love songs tend to be popular. And it begins with an annoyingly short instrumental passage, a theme repeated across most of this album. I cannot tell you exactly why this irks me, but I think it may be a mixture of the fact that they use some nice and varied instruments in a very limited fashion, and generally cut too much of the treble out of the mix, leaving a galumphingly horrible sound, like a silent pelican is open-mouthedly kissing your ear. Another section of the song’s make-up that holds true throughout the rest of the album is the voices. They are shrill, frustrating, and trafficking the most annoying American accents I’ve ever heard. Biasedly, this tune was used for a Cadbury ad. here in Oz, and I can’t stand Cadbury chocolate. QED.

Another of those frustrating intros leads into You Still Believe in Me. It’s a love song. With inaccurate vocal harmonies. Few things are more irksome on a studio record. Live, understandably, one can’t expect a group to produce pitch-perfect harmonies 24/7, but if you’re setting out to create a non-tongue-in-cheek album with a huge focus on vocal harmonies, and your slidy co-singers find it difficult to hit a note, rather than sort of amble up to it at a medium pace, I probably won’t like it. Just a thought.

I’m going to have to skip ahead because I really have those exact same things I’ve already said to say about every other track on this album. I’ll pause a couple times, though, because track six is an instrumental. I wouldn’t actually call it an instrumental, if I were to call it anything other than shite, since it’s completely lacking in anything other than backing music. It’s like they composed a song and couldn’t be bothered writing any more ball-squeezing vocals, left it as was, and cashed in. Boring boring boring.

Now, God Only Knows is the saving grace of this album, since it’s the only track I’d ever actually choose to listen to. Except I’d probably choose to listen to a cover of it, since it’s bound to have a better instrumentation and a real climax. I have the same feelings for most Genesis songs, in that I love covers of them, but can’t stand the originals. So props to the boys for writing a song I can bear to hear, but only half-props, ’cause I’d rather listen to someone else play it.

Oh, the other thing that just makes this album unbearable is the ridiculous amount of reverb on everything. Yes, it’d sound great if the theme was churches, but the theme is clearly love, and love and religion don’t go together in my mind at all. So there are another few boring tracks, just like the first side, and another boring instrumental. The best part of the album is probably the ending of Caroline, No, where there are train sounds, and Brian Wilson’s dogs barking at the train. I can see where Godspeed You! Black Emperor got their starting point from. It’s an interesting foray into the world of ambience. Bravo.

1.4/10

Moved into a new place just today with a mate of mine who works down at the pub I frequent and am additionally employed by, and the lovely neighbour across the road has an exquisite open wireless connection that he so grandly hasn’t yet objected to me using! Maybe once he realises I plan to catch up on seventeen episodes of the various shows I’ve missed over my last month of living without an internet connection he’ll have something to say about it, but I say bring it on!

So yes, reviews will most definitely be coming, and thanks to those guys who commented on my Fromuz review just to tell me how much they disagree with it. I’m sorry that I’m not a reputable prog site, but people seem to like opinions sometimes, and I seem to like giving mine, so there it is. And I think my whole foundation was that I didn’t consider it complex at all, so other thinly-veiled critiques of my critiquing, could you please stand up?

See you all soon!

Often the idea of playing this music is what makes me happiest. Not that I’m uninterested in creating my own music, not at all, as anyone who knows me has been hearing about my Genesis project, just that in times in the past, sitting on a train with my headphones at 90% loudess, or driving up my favourite mountain in my car with the stereo blasting out the dulcet vibes of whatever particular prog I’m into at the moment, I have been moved to tears, or very close to, by say Moon Safari or Neal Morse, or even back in the day Dream Theater. Yes I’m a fucking wuss, however much I’d like to deny it, but I honestly find it easier to cry thinking about playing Sweet Elation to a crowd of elated motherfuckers than thinking about my dog dying.

So I think what I’m trying to say is that although sometimes I am in the mood for something not happy, such as Silhouettes, a phenomenal album, if I’m ever down and troubled, and need a helping hand, I will pull out some Lightning Strikes by Yes, a song I have been laughed at for due to its unabashed tackiness, and something about that will stir up something in me that the most well composed technical death metal could never hit. I suppose this little discussion has been pointless, but I’d like to hear anyone else’s thoughts on it. Thanks for your time, society.

In Search of Arcana is coming along very nicely, development on Trial the Threeth continues, and the ballad is being worked on too. Also I’ve had a review request for Silhouettes by Textures, just to tell you all how awesome it is. And I should be getting on all those reviews some time soon, when I’ve got nothing to do. Jobsearching continues at the moment; hopefully I can pull off a call centre job before my funds run too low!

I’m still looking for a job, and hopefully am going to go into some sort of menial call centre work that pays multi tens of dollars an hour plus a bit of commission on the side, if I’m as personable as I think I could be. The work is shit, or so I hear, but a man is strongly influenced by money, especially when he thinks it’ll cost more’n a few thousand dollars in a year’s time to get this whole recording of a two hour epic concept album with ten fucking vocalists on. And it would be nice to have something from which to retire at the end of the day, since all this time out at coffee shops and drinking beers feels like an escape from nothing.

I’ve been writing a fair amount for Genesis: BSW, as one might think, with all this time on my hands. Locusts part two is defnitely done and dusted, Locusts part one is on its way, being written mostly by Thomas, Trial the Threeth has got some wicked blues style laid down, with a nice opening metal section of perhaps an Opeth cross Dream Theater variety. Also, the ballad, Eyes in the Darkness, has got a fair few chord progressions happening, but is all a bit up in the air at the moment. So shit is coming along, and that 2010 release is looking palatable. My guitar’s in the shop getting its first setup, and hopefully I can get that kinky little chip fixed up at some point in the near future.

And in answer to my previous requests, it seems the review calls are lining up. I’ll have to put Pet Sounds on hold for a little while, since I feel a bit awkward torrenting off a lovely little coffee shop’s network, but Human Equation and No World for Tomorrow are totally doable, and you can expect them coming up some time in the near to middling future.

Goddamn that is a horrendous smell I do acquire. Not personally, but through my nasal passages, full of hair as they are.

Unfortunately for one of my loves, Eurosport is quite hard to come by in Australia, and again, no internets, therefore, The Masters snooker tournament is out of reach for the time being, and based on the scorecards so far, it looks like I’ve missed out on some pretty great matches. My tips to win it are all over the shop, since everyone’s form seems to be either top or sub-par. I could see anyone in the quarter finals bar Mark Allen and Ali Carter, who I don’t feel generally lives up to his world ranking past the semis, making it all the way. If I were forced to put money on it, and I know that you probably don’t care, but I’d go for Ronnie, seeing his hard fought matches against Joe Perry going either way recently. He won the last one, and there hasn’t been a much harder tournament player lately, especially in the early stages. If not him then Mark Selby, who’s a bit of a pretty boy, causing me to be unwillingly endeared to his mouse-like charm.

There I am rambling about snooker I haven’t even had the privilege to watch. Boring as I am, I’ll be able to do it much more once I get a ob set up and some dollars under my belt. Even perhaps my own little studio apartment. It’d be a bit bitchin’, I think.

Have a good day, y’all, and keep the whatevers comin’ my way.

So I feel like Bill Bryson, making a post about a trip I’ve just done, but there will be observations about my new place and my situation that should enthrall you all, and send your middle and inverted legs a’quiverin’.

I left Brisbane, my home of nine years, at seven o’clock in the morning AEST on the fifth. Seting out for Dubbo at an average highway speed of about 120 kmph I pulled off the journey with few hiccups in about ten hours. To discover the cheapest beer I’d ever seen in a dingy bowls club next to my motel. If there’s one good thing to say about medium-sized country towns, it’s that if they’re big enough to have a three star motel, but too small to be anything other than a tourist trap or home for farmers and other such agriculturally minded individuals, the beer will be free-flowing, ice-cold, and cheap as your mother on a Friday night. Your mother, not one’s mother. So for an enjoyable twenty dollars I had some bistro lamb chops soaked in a red wine blah blah blah don’t care food is boring and two schooners of the local favourite: Toohey’s New. Find me better value in a place with over 2 million inhabitants and I’ll shout you a free fucking house.

Six the next morning, which was five Brisbane time (daylight savings comes into effect when you cross the border from QLD into NSW), and twilighty as hell, the second leg of my trip began, which I mowed down in a solid eight hours, with very few stops. Cruise control is a godsend, and if the option’s there, I would recommend it. People reckon it chews up your gas, but in a 2.2L medium-sized 1997 Liberty, my precious ride, with the air-con blaring and the stereo pissing in your ears, I was still pulling off 700 ks to a tank. Fifty litre tank. So it cost me all of one hundred dollars to drive the 1800 kms to Melbourne. Happy fuckin’ times, wouldn’t you think?

And so I got to Melbourne, to my new little share house at two-thirty on that hot as a bitch day, to find possibly the worst looking little six bedroom house I’d ever seen. But who am I to complain; I’m paying two hundred a week, no bills, for a bed in a room in a six bedroom pre-Fraser-government shitbox with one other tenant: a fifty year old agitated bloke with very little decency, and a tendency to remove his shirt at the most inappropriate times, allowing me full use of his gorgeous hunk of a hairy blotched body for a penis delengthener if the need should ever arise. As you can tell, the place isn’t great.

The area, however, is fantastic. Two hundred metres from a tram line, and Sydney Road, the retail heart of Brunswick, with lovely little coffee shops, one of which I am at now, and home to The Brunswick Club, an aged pub with a fifties style snooker club upstairs, that was started by one Patrick Donovan, grandfather to JR, a snooker player I knew back in Brisbane town. So there are both sentimental ties to the place and the cheapest snooker I’ve ever seen. And a dollar twenty off pots of beer, and three dollar Crownies. A thirty dollar year membership is sinceredly recommended, even if you go for a single pot of Draught once a week. My savings will be immense.

I drove out to the country yesterday, to see my old and good friend Tannar, another fantastic quick drive, and I only got lost once! It did chew down a bit more fuel, but I’ve got enough savings that I could do it a hundred times over and be able to purchase breakfast in the morning.

Finally newsworthy update, I had a job interview this morning, as a Debt Collecting Consultant (the job, not my interviewing persona) for IAG, who run RACV, CGU, and NRMA, some of the biggest car and home insurance companies in Australia. Forty dollars an hour for call centre work is, I hear, awesome, so if I can pull off that job full time I’ll be rolling in it.

Oh and some developments since I started writing this post include: new Scottish roommates, loud and drunk, always good; the fifty year old bloke is a professional con artist; and Fighting the Rising Tide of Locusts Part Two is up to about six minutes of music. Almost finished.

That about wraps it up! I should be back to reviews and such once I’m in a place with interwebs, but for now, probably just some “this is what I’m up to” posts. Have a happy tenth of January!

Artist: Yes
Album: Union
Year: 1991

Track Listing

1. I Would Have Waited Forever (6:32)
2. Shock to the System (5:09)
3. Masquerade (2:18)
4. Lift Me Up (6:30)
5. Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day (5:18)
6. Saving My Heart (4:42)
7. Miracle of Life (7:30)
8. Silent Talking (4:01)
9. The More We Live – Let Go (4:34)
10. Angkor Wat (5:24)
11. Dangerous (Look in the Light of What You’re Searching For) (3:39)
12. Holding On (5:24)
13. Evensong (0:52)
14. Take the Water to the Mountain (3:10)

Alright, because this is an especially terrible example of the greatness that is the Yes legacy, I will point out that one positive aspect to the album is the number of tracks. Yes, a progressive rock album with fourteen tracks. You don’t often hear it. But you don’t often call this kind of music progressive rock. It’s ostensibly pop-rock, of some form. I will say that there’s enough of the old Yes still there to keep it proggy in some sense.

So the story goes, when the album was being made, the Yes name covered Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Trevor Rabin, Tony Kaye, and Alan White, but there was another Yes offshoot from the late eighties including all the Close to the Edge and Relayer years members bar Chris Squire, who stuck with Whitey and Rabin: Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, and Steve Howe, with Tony Levin guesting on bass. Or Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, as the copyright devils forced them out of using the Yes brand, even though one could argue that they were more Yes than the Yes using the Yes name. In the end, some smart-arse record producer decided to convince Jon and Chris to merge the two groups to make a new Yes, comprising of two lead vocalists, two lead guitarists, two bassists, two keyboardists, and two drummers. Plus a whole host of guest musicians, including Billy Sherwood, who would join the group for The Ladder in 1999, and Jimmy Haun, who now plays with Billy, Tony Kaye, and Alan White in Circa:. It all does seem to come full circle, doesn’t it?

Before it gets even more confusing, I’ll point out that tracks 1-3, 5, 8, and 10-15 were all written and played by the original Yes line-up, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, and the rest of the tracks were written and played by the new Yes line-up, funnily enough known as Yes. With some exceptions, mostly that Squire did backing vocals for some ABWH songs.

This ridiculous idea for an album and band collated primarily by money-hungry record producers, who didn’t actually end up getting much out of the album*, but made their money back on the resulting tour which involved spiralling stages in the middle of stadia, providing half a band who really make up a full band for each half of the audience, basically, obviously doesn’t sound as good as one might think the individual members capable of producing. But it’s still one of the best pop records I’ve ever heard, and I still enjoy listening to it, even though it’s not what I would consider Yes.**

Onto the album. I can’t spend too much time talking about each individual track, because as a pop album, there’s just not as much to talk about. The very start of the album, i.e. the first forty-five seconds, I have realised is basically the perfect precursor to their latest studio, Magnification. But then at around the fifty second mark we get treated some very simple ostinati, but a little bit of Squire harmonised vocals along with the lead Anderson line. It’s not an uninteresting song, but the pop is just too noticable. A bridge appears, with much the same flavour as the precursor section, there’s another verse, and then I Would Have Waited Forever appears again (the theme from the start). Not complex at all. Bob Dylan did it. This whole idea is basically repeated a couple times until there’s a relatively uninteresting guitar solo around the four and a half minute mark. Come five-twenty, and it’s chorus time again. Again, not that interesting, but still pleasanter to listen to than the radio, I feel. That’s about all for that track.

The riff at the beginning of Shock to the System is actually more complex than one might expect, with a thirteen feel in its first iteration, followed by a second iteration completed with five eighths of a standard bar to make up the requisite twenty-four for a 6/2 phrase. A little bit heavy metal! We get a few verses with nothing particularly interesting in them and the riff punctuated throughout. The bridge again reminds me of Magnification. I see what they were going for, in double hindsight! The chorus is boring, and all I just wrote is repeated. And another chorus mostly acapella. I do like Jon Anderson’s voice. It’s very daisylike. The riff comes back, and there’s an okay guitar solo, nothing special from the guy who did the intro. to Close to the Edge, something I feel will never be written in the style of ever again. No-one else can do it. Another quick ostinato to finish, and you’ve got another well-crafted pop song.

Track three is just a solo Howe piece, unfortunately lacking in the proggyness of his earlier ones, and with a decidedly early nineties tone I don’t enjoy at all. The raw is gone, and the skills is gone too. He got a bit lethargic in his middle years.

One of the Rabin tracks, finally, which I hear was actually a demo, and he was astounded they bothered to put this cut on the album. I love this song, I really do. The guitar tone is so cleanly overdriven it makes my boners plow through my pantyhose like a comet through Sputnik. There’s a wicked little run in a Lydian style, and then a nice one-four-five chord progression that will become the chorus. The verses are relatively simple, but this is again a fantastic pop song. Lift Me Up and Turn Me Over, they sing. Entirely meaningless, and devoid of any of the spirituality Anderson preached back in the Tales days, but entirely fitting for this more superficial and yet gorgeous musical output. More verses and another chorus lead to more verses and another chorus, but now we get a Rabin solo, which I really do enjoy. They don’t have the raucousness of a Howe solo, but in this pop context, their soaring enharmonic leads with interesting rhythms fit the boot like the way a condom doesn’t not fit a penis. There’s always a bigger size. It will always fit.

Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day is another Magnification track to be, I believe, but using primitive instrumentation and poor drum sounds to achieve next to nothing. I am bored by this track, except for that little seven section near the middle. And then it gets happy like The Ladder, but without any driving force, at all. The song never takes off. Thumbs down.

A stupid Rabin ballad in twelve. Guitar tone is again mids and bass heavy. Bluesy as a swallowed spider. Such an incredibly standard song, but I can’t hep but enjoy the fact that there are good musicians playing boring pop music. Vocal harmonies are spot on. And the solo is incredible, coming after a key change. Imagine if Bon Jovi wrote one of his classic ballads, and then got interesting musicians to play it. Wait, they’re called Toto. This is like Toto. That’s it! Imagine Toto made a Yes album. This is it. Apart from the one they called Falling in Between.

Interesting tempo changes and harmonic ideas with some nice driving rhythm guitar and a seventies keyboard line herald a proggier song on the album. The song’s in 17/4, with a 12/8 pattern going underneath on the guitar. Freddie Mercury vocal harmonies ask you to hold on the Miracle of Life. And I want to! Naturally, for the style of this album, the song slows down and turns to four, with some easy verses and simple choruses. Boringly, it takes the last six minutes of the song to do this over and over. So it’s a great intro. let down by the superfluous ending.

Silent Talking kicks off with a circle of fifths utilising chord progression, and a guitar riff in nine. Stupid keyboard runs ruin the fact that the vocals and drums are in four underneath. A silly bridge a little way into the song doesn’t help it, and afterwards, the keyboard idiocy continues. There’s a nice little run just after the two minute mark that I don’t mind. But luckily, the last half of the song tries to be happy, and that usually makes things better. In this case, only just, because it’s pulled off in only a small amount of time, and not exceedinglily interesingly.

The next track is just crap. Don’t bother. Let Go.

Angkor Wat is a waste of five and a half minutes of your life, with bad synth patches playing different chords over frustrating samples the whole time. Skip this one too.

Dangerous sounds like a Michael Jackson song, and it tries to sound like one, too. Except with Chinese patches on the synths? And slap bass. Interesting sound, but not a really enjoyable one. Another one that’s over before it began. Not too much to say. Meh!

Holding On is just a mish-mash of everything else on the album. Not literally. And it doesn’t work. No catchy Rabin tunes to save the day. Just uninteresting harmonies that don’t lead anywhere, and no odd time signatures to help rid me of blue balls. Seems like the whole end of the album is just not worth it, you say? I would agree.

One minute of synth? Actually quite good. Reminds me of Stars of the Lid, if they used percussion. Loop it, play it backwards, stick ‘em in a stew, it’s quite nice! Could be thrown out, though. No real use for it, eh?

Take the Water to the Mountain builds up, and doesn’t go anywhere. There are some disjointed vocals at the end, but it’s generally an exercise in how to write another five minutes of nothing to tack on the end of an album because no-one’s making vinyl anymore, and you should probably fill the seventy-four minutes you have on a CD, before the tax-man starts a’knockin’, and the party hunts you down for wasting their precious plastic and magnetised strips of whatever the fuck goes in a CD; I really don’t care, except I do now and I’m going to look it up on Wikipedia later; but if you do decide to take this advice and write another five minutes of nothing, expect for it to be slammed by bloggers seventeen years later in the end of a post that perhaps forty people will read. At most.

So the album is hit and miss. The hits are big, and I do enjoy ‘em as Yes classics, and you can also hear where Magnification came from. Listen to it, if you have both albums as I do. But realistically, the last five tracks could have been cut, and it would have been a much more pleasurable step from Big Generator to Talk, with some semblance of a real band existing somewhere in between.

6.7/10

* Half a million sales.
** Yeah, you just try and break that sentence down.

And I am naturally sorry to note that they are all prog or proggy in some way. In descending order:

10. Frost* – Experiments in Mass Appeal – Disappointing compared to their previous album, but a solid effort nonetheless.
9. Meshuggah – ObZen – Probably my second favourite Shug album, but I can’t bring myself to love them, since they’re really just a little silly.
8. Neal Morse – Lifeline – Another disappointer, considering the two previous Neal Morse albums are definitely some of my top of all time, but again, nothing to laugh about.
7. It Bites – The Tall Ships – With the guitarist from Frost*, who I greatly enjoy, taking a lead role on this album, it turns out to be some of the best prog-pop I’ve ever heard.
6. Beardfish – Sleeping in Traffic: Part Two – One of the most interesting new finds of the year. A pretty unique sound with a pretty unique flavour. Good stuff.
5. Simon Says – Tardigrade – Another new find, with more keyboard sounds than a Fantom X. Great nostalgic prog.
4. Opeth – Watershed – ‘Nuff said.
3. The Tangent – Not as Good as the Book – Thought they were another poor supergroup, but it turned out they were a fucking fantastic supergroup. My favourite album of theirs, too.
2. Moon Safari – Blomljud – Vocal harmonies the size of windmills with a happiness rating of ten. So down.
1. Textures – Silhouettes – Blew me away. It really did. Never thought some progressive death metal with a djent lean would hit me so hard in the right places. Recommended to all fans of anything.

Well, that about wraps it up. Any comments on these picks would be great. Fights, even! Happy New Year and all that.

Anyway, I, Alex, affectionately known as Chowski, and professionally known as Hare, due to my abundance of hair, am writing an overtly epic progressive rock (mostly) fictional story-based concept album with my creative partner Tom Kidd, affectionately known as Major Tom, and professionally known as Wolf, due to the fact that he’s more of a wolf than any of those anti-racistly-casted Native Americans in the horridly popular Twilight series. Click this link for a representation of The Hare and the Wolf from late 2007. We have changed since, most noticably that my hair is all of a visible two inches longer (five stretched) and that we both have more facial hair, but you get the picture.

I’ll start with the basics. The title is Genesis: BSW (where BSW = By the Shield of the Witch and/or Before Star Wars), we’ve been writing it since mid-2006, but don’t worry, most of the progress has been made recently, and we plan to keep it that way, and, as previously mentioned, the genre is progressive rock, with some metal of death, black, and doom varieties thrown in, and somewhat of a lean towards a musical or rock opera style, mostly lyrically and vocally, most certainly not as badly as Andrew Lloyd Weber or other wankjobs of his ilk. I sport the guitars, backing vocals, and perhaps a character or two here and there. Major Tom’s weapon of choice is the drum kit, and he will also be contributing backing vocals and a character or two here or there. Currently lined-up guest musicians include Dave Simpson of Los Angeles, known on the internet as Borealis, an avant-garde multi-instrumentalist and singer, currently performing with Noctambulant, and collaborating with Christian Fennesz; Hannah Cox, resident flautist and band friend; Reuben Schafer, a rock ‘n’ roll bassist who’s one of our best mates, but talented as all fuck; and Gareth Hogan, progressive rock keyboardist influenced most notably by Neal Morse and Jordan Rudess. And I’m sure there will be many more equally talented musicians contributing solos or vocals across the expanse of the album.

The story is convoluted and far from serious, based (very) loosely on the book of Genesis from the bible, and with a gigantic tilt into mythological and fictional creature and character territory. It goes a little something like this (a mere mockery of the true embellished story: not as it will be written in the liner notes):

A happy village, dancing and singing, is celebrating a festival, when a great swarm of locusts rises over the hill, fast approaching the township. Adam (our hero) leads an army to fight the locusts, using a shield of mystical origin and his faithful blade. The locusts are defeated, but only ten brave men survive. They set out on an epic quest, hoping to find the reason for the locust attack.

Luckily, Adam still bears the gem he removed from the shield, and he survives. Venturing further into the valley he is reunited with his wife, Eve. The two are overwhelmed by happiness, and set about repopulating the earth with their seed. However, in a dramatic twist, Adam is found to be sterile. Desperate to save the human race from extinction, Eve begins mating with the beasts of the valley. The two raise a family of half human savages, and humanity as we know it is born.

There you have it. As I said, convoluted as all fuck, with enough mythical creatures and silly pop culture references to feed an army of emos for months, and about five endings, it’s just as ridiculous as we feel any concept album we could possibly write could be planned to be. Naturally, due to the scope, and our enjoyment of extended compositions, it’s going to be at least two discs, feature amazing cover art, and the liner notes will probably need to come in a separate package. But The Tangent did that, why can’t we? Oh, and expect a 2010 release, since my move to Melbourne might slow things down a bit.

I think that just about wraps up anything I have to say about the album, so here’s a list of the tracks, notes about how they’re going, and estimated track lengths:

1. Festival Impending Storm – Finished – 2:00
2. Fighting the Rising Tide of Locusts Part One – In the process of being rewritten, as was written in 2006. We’ve changed since then! – 6:00
3. Overture – Half-finished – 8:00
4. Fighting the Rising Tide of Locusts Part Two – Also being rewritten, but actually has been rewritten, mostly. – 4:00+
5. Question of the Journey – Theme written. Nothing else. – 9:00
6. Agrath the Merciful – First section written. – 6:00
7. In Search of Arcana – Nada. – 5:00
8. By the Blackened Teeth of the Banished Savage – Ideas down, not written. – 3:00
9. Fading Light, Hasten – Nothing. – 2:00
10. Witch’s Ale – Finished. – 7:00
11. Eyes in the Darkness – Ideas down, not written. 6:00
12. Trial the Oneth: The Finesse – About a quarter done. – 10:00
13. Trial the Twoth: The Threshhold – About a third done. – 11:00
14. Trial the Threeth: The Cunning – Ideas down, not written. – 12:00
15. Revelations (Cleansed) Repentance (Consequence) – Nothing. – 25:00
16. There is Hope in the Night – Nothing. – 18:00

Please leave any comments to say how you feel about this endeavour or to ask any questions: I’m more than happy to get angry at you or agree or answer them.

Artist: Opeth
Album: Watershed
Year: 2008

Track Listing

1. Coil
2. Heir Apparent
3. The Lotus Eater
4. Burden
5. Porcelain Heart
6. Hessian Peel
7. Hex Omega

Opeth are probably the most accessible cross-over artist in the industry, appealing to not only the prog and death metal crowds, but to any other interested metal crowd, screamo kids, and even some hardcore lovers who just in the end like loud music that seems a bit angry. My own opinion is that their earlier albums (i.e. every one other than Watershed) are in general, yes, full of testosterone, and even full of some pretty wicked heavy riffs, but are often let down by the production, mostly in a mix volume sense, that leaves certain favourable aspects of the recording less obvious or perhaps not as foregrounded as I would prefer, and also the fact that the touted ‘progressive sections’ usually end up being the boring acoustic guitar in six with sweeping chords that says more “Steven Wilson is a god among men” than “This is some interesting prog style music”.

So in a more fortunate turn of events than with my previous review, I found this album to have everything I liked about previous Opeth releases plus what I thought was missing: emphasis where needed, and excellent prog sections. The first track, as is noticable by the track lengths, is a relatively short acousticky intro. to the rest of the album, with that twangly-twangly twelve-string Eagles tone so exploited by Åkerfeldt and some fantastic major tonality vocals by the man himself, arguably one of the most influential composers and producers in modern prog metal. Another point of interest to Coil is the inclusion of female vocals, something I usually find to be poorly done, with an over-the-top style that doesn’t suit the serious side of the genre, and generally do not like, for simply subjective aesthetic reasons. Here, however, it’s stomachable. Something about it fits, as a contrast from Åkerfeldt’s vocals in the first part of the song, and provides a beautiful closing. I haven’t even bothered to talk about the orchestration, since it’s minimal, but very effective nonetheless, with the oboes sounding anything but wanky, playing consonant-but-dissonant-lead-line-harmonising-mimickers right out of the Bartók composing school.

Coil leads ever so concept albumily into Heir Apparent, my favourite track of the album, with an extremely metal dissonant bass chord minus flat three and flat flat seven, in the eighties metal style. A simple underpinning drum line with a majestic sixteenth note anacrusis to each bar, of sorts, into a short piano break with a general idea of the chord progression of the section followed again by the diminished chord and simple drums, and pick slide, into verse one … definitely one of my favourite riffs of all time, coupled with some sweet double bass and a slow crash and snare beat into yet more dissonant riffing, the likes of which I’ve never seen done so well or so originally. And now into my favourite riff ever, with dual guitars playing yet another Phrygian masterpiece with some epic rhythmic and harmonic battles taking place in the upper register. I must pause for the moment to point out how hard it is to write an original riff when if you play basically any common enharmonic run, it’s probably been done before. So to come up with new rhythms with such interesting lines that have only ever really been touched on by say Porcupine Tree is a truly wonderful achievement, and I appreciate it greatly. A short acoustic break appends the gigantic solo, leading to a sweet 6/4 into 6/8 section with some heavy drums and yet another diminished progression with another solo. An identical acoustic break follows, the 6/4 to 6/8 section repeats to be expanded upon with some great octaves over the 6/8 on guitar, suddenly turned into a 3/4 by this extremely talented drummer, whose linear style I love, and whose groove is admirable for a relatively grooveless genre. Another octave-fuelled riff into staccato tritones and rising keyboards leads to a climax, and the ending of the song is here, with a Dream Theater styled chord progression but obstinately heavier, overlapping lines on bass and the two guitars, and a little feedback that is the only element remaining following the end of the fourth phrase, cutting off to leave some humming, the beginning of The Lotus Eater.

Which starts very promisingly with a nice six blast beat on the drums and Ayreonish layered vocals, with interspersed growling. Åkerfeldt’s growling is not my favourite, but it’s definitely not cheesy or without chest hair, so I can stand it. Another great riff follows in a non-standard chord progression, and we’re back to that original six style, minus blast beat. A strange keyboard interlude segues us back into the blast beat and a repetition of the first verse. Embellishments on the drums at this point are very difficult and handled masterfully by this drummer. I really ought to stop spending the time explaining every riff because I’ve basically got the same thing to say about them all, so I’ll cut to possibly the most fantastic portion of the album. After a nice soft break with some jazzy guitar I dig, the drums herald a eighties jazz breakdown. Miles Davis, perhaps? The keys take the lead here, with some groovy bass and wah guitar, and an off beat ride cymbal tap says “Although this doesn’t really fit well within the context of anything, this jazz-metal breakdown, it’s fucking awesome and you’d better like it too.” And I sure do, so no complaints here. We come back to what could be considered the chorus as the end of the song into another nice syncopated drum pattern at the end with some heavy sweeping chords and punctuated at the end by some unintelligible voices and accordion style chords on the keyboards, which in direct contrast to Karmakanic, work.

Burden can be seen as the ballad of the album, with a low dynamics piano intro and slow guitar line. Synth strings underneath hint at more to come, and the vocals soar in quite quickly taking a very Genesis course, but those absolutely pumping drums give this the energy that most Genesis lacks, in my opinion. It is a metal album, though, and this is to be expected. It picks up a bit before taking a step down again and repeating the verse with different lyrics. In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t care much about lyrics, and unless I consider them extremely astounding, or astoundingly extreme, I probably won’t mention them. Hammond organ solo after the verses? Why not, they said, and I agree. Hammond organ is possibly the best sixties instrument, and used in a modern context with fantastic production it comes out twelve times better than a cool drink of water on a hot hot day. Again after the longer buildup, it’s verse time, and the song seems to be taking a Lateralus course, with soft-loud, soft-loud-loud, and hopefully a soft-loud-loud-loud-loud-end finish. You’ll have to wait to find out, with the drawn out verse satisfying your need for suspense well, and not uninterestingly at that. As predicted, after the tuneful guitar solo, we have a long outro. section with some nice harmonising guitars and wide backing. Now, a shot right out of left field. The last minute and a half of the song are an ostinato played on one acoustic guitar and soloing over the top on another ’til the solo stops and the first guitar is gradually detuned while playing the ostinato, creating possibly the weirdest effect in modern music. It’s so unexpected when I first heard it, I thought my car CD player was breaking. It ends with some looped laughter turned into a short sound wave for a few seconds. Great choice of ending.

And Porcelain Heart kicks in kicking with a kicking riff again, and eventually some double kicks and a kick into a nice acoustic line in the same key and progression as the original riff. The vocals kick off after the keys copy the acoustic guitar line, with a nice kick added in some harmonised vocals at the end of the phrase. Huge dynamic contrast again, as is penchant of this album and band, the riff is back with a very nice two-phrase-long solo by drummer Martin Axenrot, and into the acoustic verse again. These songs are not verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus, but there’s definitely a semblance of conventional structure to them, unlike a lot of other modern prog metal, and it works in their favour, these simple pop sensibilities that prog so oftenly hints at to remind the listener exactly what they’re considered to miss out on. Some lovely choral vocals over a version of the original riff continue after this passage, never too long, never too short, and the dynamic contrast is continued by bringing in a very mid-heavy clean guitar solo with a hint of delay and no backing. A six section follows with a simple acoustic theme, a verse worth of vocals, and beautiful harmonic oboes copying these vocals for another phrase following the verse. This pattern is repeated again, to repetitious, but not poor, effect. The volume pedal comes on slowly as another guitar ostinato heralds a return to loud, with the full riff taking off slowly after a phrase of built intensity. When the choral vocals repeat again, you realise what part of the song has just continued, and the ostinato is the only sound left as the rest of the instruments fade out, the end signalled by the discontinuation of the ostinato. Another simple but effective ending.

Hessian Peel starts in an interestingly bluesy fashion with forty-five seconds of acoustic guitar with one pedal bass note, and a couple nice blues licks. The acoustic continues with a nice six rhythm and simple progression that drops a minor third to allow the vocals not only an easier range, but affording the track some interesting harmonic work. Short guitar lines come in between vocals, oboes, and vocals again, with the chord changing by the minor third each phrase. This leads into a simple compound triple time signature with some groovy drums, again linear as all fuck, with violins now providing that harmonic difference from the vocals, which bring in a new theme, in a chord progression strangely similar to Oh Lord My God by Neal Morse. Completely different style and effect, however. The viols return, underpinned by some great drum fills utilising many interesting drum sounds but not in that boring Peart-ish fashion. Finally, four and a half minutes into the track, we’ve got another Dream Theater style riff, harmonised upon by the second guitar, with an ‘end is near’ style sound. This concludes with some high acoustic work and that classic flute tone on the keys so expressively used on In the Court of the Crimson King. This continues its decrescendo to end on a short piano break, with a keyboard ostinato very slowly building, and POW, that death metal portion of the album is back, featuring probably the angriest vocals and strangest guitar. The next solo is very Petruccish and brings us to another shiteating riff, with bends that would send your mother to bed early. Again with very quick double-bass, but somewhat understatedly, we come to another Dream Theatery bridge, ended with a strangely rhythmically consonant staccato section into another set of vocals over drums and muted guitar, but in a thirty-count phrase, ten three-note bars, if you will, epiloguing with a groovy acoustic theme you can be sure you’ll hear later on, in the more standard eight bars of three. A segue at higher dynamic appears, but not for long, and we’re back to that acoustic break, slightly more punctuatedly, with excited drums, playing all across their range and a louder string backing. One overdriven chord puts an end to this pansy nonsense, and feeds back before providing a simple tritone to major second riff. Providing a strange dissonance, this section is almost Mastodonish in style, with snare hits all over the place, and eighth note guitar lines. In a few phrases at the end, we are treated to another drum solo with a huge percentage of tom explosions, but again with some brilliant flavour that makes them more interesting than any standard YouTube thrasher. A strange keyboard segue into that earlier ostinato seems to soften up, before crescendoing a small percentage and cutting out just before the last track.

Hex Omega is a fair monster contrasting its size on the album. A mate of mine did tell me that the final guitar riff is possibly the biggest he’s ever heard, and although I don’t quite agree, it can’t be put down as a poor album ender. Anyway, I won’t skip the start just to talk about the end, so we’ll pick back up from the finish of Hessian Peel. The first riff starts right at the beginning with an odd sense of emphasis in strange places in its eight bar phrases that seem to last either shorter or longer depending on where in them you’d like to consider the beginning. After it quietens down to that flute tone on the keys some vocals come in as another anacrusis in a Mixolydian style, which turns more brutal as the guitar comes in, and the dynamics are picked up again with another short guitar riff and some drums very in sync with the rest of the rhythm section. The verse returns with some harmonising to interesting effect, and the vocals continue beyond where they did before, allowing a splash of xylophone out of nowhere. Who cares? It sounds great! After another long vocal note, the riff comes in again, with punctuated drums yet again, and pauses felt far and wide. Brilliant time for a guitar solo. This one definitely trumps them all, with fantastic use of both tonality and whammy bar. The length is just right, as there have been enough soarers that a short and sweet one is perfect for this footnote to the album. Vibraphone segues into the flute theme again, and another drum fill allows the sugary toned guitar to let the vocals in for a third time, and a very understated slide guitar line provides a wonderful counterpoint to this less complex section. The vocals do come in for the third time, more urgently than before, with those harmonies harsher. And the final two minutes have come, with that aforementioned ballsy riff. In the right speaker at first for two phrases, with an anacrusis into the third, drum fills practically unparalleled and china crashes at all the right times, the riff passes by with no sense of need for anything else. Drone gone right, I think. After the drums finish their final flourishes, we’re left with a lovely enharmonic major chord on an organ sound from the keys for about the length of another phrase. Still doesn’t make you feel like it’s a very happy album, but again, perfect way to end the song interestingly.

Now although I’ve given this album nothing but praise, I will say that in an overall perspective, there’s not much different in tonality and it’s not as complex as the music I usually enjoy greatly, but these are to be expected, since these guys have done all that, and they know what they’re making. This, I believe, is the pinnacle of it. They’ve done the job of making death metal melodically palatable, in an interesting and progressive sense, and the acousticky parts don’t sound like a leaden Don Henley classic. There are some amazing breaks and interesting sections you don’t get the chance to hear that oftenly in this kind of music, as well, and the production is of an absolutely excellent quality. However, it’s not as happy as the music I consider beautiful, not making it bad, but it takes a few tenths of a point off, and I do feel a little sorry for the keyboardist, Per Wiberg, as he didn’t really get much exploration except for his little groove station on the Lotus Eater train, but I daresay if he was foregrounded in the mix more, those riffs wouldn’t sound anywhere near as ballsy, and I wouldn’t enjoy them anywhere near as much. So is as is. Top job, blokes.

9.7/10

Artist: Fromuz
Album: Overlook
Year: 2008

Track Listing

1. Stone Salad (15:17)
2. Other Side of the Water (14:09)
3. Crashmind (10:51)
4. 13th August (11:53)
5. Return to W.I.T. (17:00)

I thought I’d take a look at this album, as it was on a fair few top of 2008 lists on the Progarchives.com forums, and unusually for a fusion offering taken to by prog fans, it’s extremely bad. I can’t even be bothered to go into a track by track rundown, because they all elicit the same thoughts and feelings from me. Also, there’s a replay of some highlights from this year’s Northern Ireland Trophy on the viz-box. Yes, a replay of some highlights of the round of thirty-two is more interesting to me than this album at the moment. But I’d like to keep posting, and I don’t only want the good reviews to get in here.

So we’ve got a standard fusion band, with guitar, keys, bass, and drums, none of which seem to be played with any real virtuosity, with just the occasional tangential bit of flair added to otherwise boring instrumental tracks. For starters, a five track album which averages over twelve minutes a song is usually very much my thing, regardless of genre, and due to most modern fusion composition being quite harmonically and melodically interesting, I was quite excited. It definitely all went downhill from there. Basically, it’s like Liquid Tension Experiment took the ideas of Allan Holdsworth, with a Planet X tone, but decided their target market was seven year olds with a slight bit of theoretical musical knowledge. Honestly, the excessively boring riffs intertwining with those classic fusiony soft passages with completely amelodic and dissonant runs from both keys and guitar which usually work so well as a basic formula have come unstuck by a clear lack of musical expertise, or desire to create anything other than, yes, I will say this, drone-fusion. If Stephen O’Malley and Earth suddenly decided to try their hands at a completely differently styled album to their usuals, collaborating on an attempt at virtuosity, and then played it backwards with chorus, flange, and reverb mowing down the barn door, spliced into thirty-three millisecond sections and completely replaced in a random order, then released it on charred vinyl from the wreckage of the Titanic, it’d sound better than this.

That said, it’s not Britney Spears, and they are Uzbekistanis. I don’t think that that particular nationality comes with any sort of progger expectation, nor that they haven’t thought this album out at all. Just that I really don’t dig the output.

1.9/10

Before I begin, I must note that I will probably make many references to other current or past progressive rock bands when discussing another. I’m not trying to be elitist, it’s just the way the scene goes. You might learn something! Without further ado, and I promise I won’t make another speech like this:

Artist: Karmakanic
Album: Who’s the Boss in the Factory?
Year: 2008

Track Listing

1. Send a Message from the Heart (19:33)
2. Let in Hollywood (4:56)
3. Who’s the Boss in the Factory? (13:07)
4. Two Blocks from the Edge (9:54)
5. Eternally Pt. 1 (1:54)
6. Eternally Pt. 2 (6:23)

Alright, we’ll go track by track, and I’ll try to keep it like that, but I do like talking about albums as a whole and I’ll probably do that at the end.

Ahem. Send a Message from the Heart starts with those words sung in Swedish by bassist Jonas Reingold’s son, to a very classically prog swishy style opening to an epic. I must mention that opening an album with an epic is a bit different. Neal Morse did it on One, and it’s happened on a few Flower Kings albums, but apart from those examples, and of course the 70s examples where it was either top of the album or bottom, due to physical limitations, most prog epics tend to fall elsewhere in an album’s composition. Another digression: the album is definitely going to sound Flower Kingsy, before you even take it out of the case, seeing as it’s written by their bassist, the aforementioned Reingold, and features their long-time studio drummer Zoltan Csorsz. To complete the link, guitarist Krister Jonsson played on A Place in the Queue and live for The Tangent, an amlgamation between The Flower Kings and Parallel or 90 Degrees, and a heavyweight prog artist in its own right. So the sound is going to be related to all those sort of Swedishy retro-prog sounding bands who are consistently touted as Yes ripoffs, something I’ve never quite gotten, as I see Yes very different, and thusly will refer to them as symphonic prog.

Back to the track. The real instrumental intro. following the little vocal nuances of young Reingold is so classically Flower Kings, with Chris Squirish bass and ancient Wakeman keybord tones, plus a time signature of seven with a Stoltesque guitar tone. Chord progression is equally Flower Kings. But for some reason it’s not Flower Kings. That could be that they’re a different band, but there really is something there that makes it noticably different. I must say I had my early misgivings, however when the vocals kick in with, yes, a Swedish accent, but a tone unlike Roine Stolt, the band becomes a different band in its own right. A lovely quiet passage follows with vocals akin to a classic eighties ballad, with the drumming from an early seventies Yes record, leading into a reoccurence of the intro. theme, which naturally becomes the theme of the whole track, and the track title repeated in a choral fashion. This takes a Tangent-like chord progression dive bomb right into another seven passage, with little notability other than obvious harmonic suspense. A quick major break follows, the kind of thing I’m really into, with a cute little soft piano line mimicking the title theme again directly after. The next two minutes are just some simple soft lyrics, but they lead to my favourite part of this track, the Krister Jonsson solo, where he leaps around and about the key in his jazz fusion fashion, only to bring out some orgasmic harmonic convergence into a groovy keyboard oriented section with some classic Dream Theater style X/16 runs, where X is a prime number between 7 and 13. Don’t worry if you don’t understand me, you don’t need to to appreciate that if you know Dream Theater, you’ll understand it when you hear this section.

Phew, we’re about halfway. Say hello to an uplifting augmented chord progression with soaring guitar and choral undertones leading into the end of Trial of Tears, but in seven. This fortunately only lasts two minutes, and doesn’t really show off Jonsson’s chops to the best of its ability. We come back to the soft vocals of before, but in seven this time, all building up to around the fifteen minute mark, where in a segue Zoltan shows us what he’s got. I hear “times are turning, times are changing”. I don’t care too much about lyrics. This theme is repeated at a lower dynamic by the guitar, and the vocals are back, but stronger, again in power ballad style. I’m thinking Robbie Williams. Am I strange? Probably. Ahh, finally, some resolution. We’re back to the home key and chord progression with another majestic guitar line, although with a more trebly tone and a touch of wah, and a hell of a lot more groovy solo. I am down with this section. Some more happy vocals follow, with the title repeated again chorally, once again the type of thing I’m into. After a little more of this, the song does end in a very Flower Kings fashion, with a diminished chord progression with some wicked riffing from Jonsson, finished up with a repetition of the theme, happily, by all instruments. Cymbals and weird keyboard sounds to outro.

Second track, Let in Hollywood is apparently about how you can’t get on the radio with a song in 7/8. Firstly, I don’t like that they bother distinguishing the /8, due to its insignificance with no outside reference, and secondly, most of us proggers have realised that the radio doesn’t cater to us and don’t care about it anymore. I guess some of these old fogeys still care. That said, the song kicks pretty hard, with a wicked 14/4 section near the middle. (The /4′s only there because it would be stupid to count the phrase as 7/8 like the rest of the song.) A somewhat boring keyboard solo follows. I don’t think Mr Lalle Larsson has any non-classical musical ideas, because all of his chops seem to be very enharmonic, not something I particularly dig. Track ends with a chorus, another thing I don’t enjoy that much. Repetition of themes is great, and very applicable to the type of music I like, but choruses are just too poppy for my elitism.

Title track time now. Soft Dream Theater style intro, with a classic Reingold bass tone. Quite uplifting, but unfortunately I like it more than the rest of the song. Some vocals over the end of the section, by either Roine Stolt or this uninteresting vocalist trying to sound like him. The song picks up in a Transatlantic style, if Transatlantic suddenly all picked up the wrong instruments. Something about the blend doesn’t sit well with me. Additionally, Karmakanic have decided to use a sample from a movie or television show in this section to say something quite uninteresting. Not a fan. A pseudo-metallic riff is what they think can save it, but it’s pretty boring and standardly bluesy. The next vocal section directly rips off I Am the Sun by The Flower Kings, which pisses me off, because I really like that track, definitely one of my favourite from the Kings, and because it doesn’t fit at all this context. The stupid first vocals follow again. This all eventually ends up at a boring keyboard and piano solo over alternately the pseudo-metal riff and some choral work from some women. But the solo is saved when it takes a Tord Gustavsen-ish turn, to some interesting soft smooth jazz piano with a groovy drum and bass backing. However, in another turn of events, the solo ends in a Mozart progression, which I find both deplorable, and unless tongue-in-cheek, not fun at all. This wastes a few more minutes until those vocals I keep hating on return again. And we’re at the end, almost. First they decided to take any Dream Theater progression and throw it together with the guitar and keyboard tones from the closing section of Close to the Edge. Poor ending to a mostly poor song.

Two Blocks from the Edge does the Trial of Tears intro. thing, again, but pulls out its balls with some nice bluesy guitar, and a backing guitar tone from the eighties coupled with vocals mirroring every song from 90125. Simple acoustic guitar and deep vocals bring in the theme, and yet again a very pop-ballad vocal line takes us into the chorus, using that 90125 tone and vocal theme, except with the addition of fantastic prog wind player, Theo Travis, adding some fucking groovy saxophone, much needed in what was becoming droll. Sends you to a different era completely. Verse, chorus, again, with a little organ and sax segue into a nice bass solo over an interesting progression. Thumping bass guitar and bass drum bring in the next solo, by Krister, with some interesting major takes on what was originally a minor theme, which turns out to act as juxtaposition for Theo’s solo, in that bluesy saxophone style from a Billy Joel concert, except with the testicles of a real player. Verse and chorus time again, which I can actually put up with, seeing as I like them both! Now the real Roine Stolt makes an appearance with his classic Wah solo tone. Definitely a nice touch to what’s already a groovy song with more elements than the periodic table. The segue from before makes a reappearance, but unfortunately, they end the song yet again with cymbal crashes and a minute of ambience. I feel the end could have been saved by pretty much doing anything else at all.

Eternally Pt. 1 is annoying because they’ve got a twenty minute song and a thirteen minute song and yet they’ll call something a two minute part of another song and give it a different track on the CD just because it’s a piano solo. A completely kick ass piano solo, but I don’t like that inconsistency across the album without reason. Seriously, this piano solo is both classical in nature and progression, but with the flair of a Debussy piece without the lack of movement.

So on to Pt. 2. The only problem I have with it is that if it had no vocals, it’s just six minutes of score to any European film ever. Complete with accordion. I can’t say I like accordion, feel that it fits, or am interested in it in any way, but these vocals are so epic I feel like prog has hijacked Anthony Callea and the songwriting team from Australian Idol. Or alternately Muse. The chord progressions are the same. Luckily in true ballad style, there’s a great guitar solo, but it’s ruined a little by a synth-strings backing, and marching style drums. The last verse is so epic you could knock out a troll with it, and amazingly it all comes together, except for the minor ending, which I felt it could do without. It’s almost a ripoff of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, except for the minor ending. Ergo, it felt wrong.

All in all, not a bad album, but there are definitely some major flaws, and a couple of definite standout tracks for me. Get it for the epic, Two Blocks from the Edge, and Eternally, but cut the Flower Kings ripoff and the boring ‘rocker’.

7.5/10

While watching the final of this year’s Premier League Snooker event, I was thinking about how Mark Selby, the eventual runner up, was generally one of the most consistent players on the professional circuit. Unfortunately for him, he played uncharacteristically below par against Ronnie O’Sullivan in this particular match. This got me thinking, and I expressed to my friend Major Tom how one could conceivably represent a player’s consistency: c (consistency) being the derivative of g (goodness). So goodness is a base measurement, such as distance, but when juxtaposed over time, this could create a sort of consistency. At least, the consistency of the gradient of this line would be how consistent they are. And the consistency of that gradient, and so on … Therefore, this idea didn’t really work out, due to its cyclical nature.

I decided to wing it, and throw down some values for the players nonetheless. Basically, I went by Wikipedia’s reports of the last two years’ worth of ranking snooker tournaments, plus this year’s premier league, and derived how far into each event the players progressed. Since no league currently starts earlier than a round of 64, this would be the base measurement*, and if, for instance, Mark Selby dropped out in the first round of the Northern Ireland Trophy, he receives 1 point in Goodness for this effort. First round of another tournament being a round of 32, he would receive 2 points for the same effort. These points go up to 7 for winning the final of a ranking event. I could have also skewed these points based on the fact that double the ranking points are earned in the World Championships, but that’s a bit subjective for me. Playing is playing, generally.

I have digressed. I plotted these Goodness points on a graph for all the tournaments both of these players participated in over those two calendar years, and then plotted the average Goodness points for each, as a line. As you will see in Figure 1, Ronnie clearly trumps Mark by a whole round on his average, but this still doesn’t show how consistent he is, as he could just win five tournaments in a row and then drop out in the first round in the next three and maintain this average. My problem was not yet solvered.

Figure 1. Derivatives of Goodness: Click for Full-Size

As you can now see, there is in fact another straight line for each player down the bottom of the graph, but believe it or not the lower line is the better, which if you’re perhaps a little colour-blind or your screen is small, belongs to Mr O’Sullivan. I constructed these by merely finding the standard deviation of both data sets, and plotting its line on the graph. So, if you know how standard deviations work, basically both players have the same chance of finishing their run in a tournament within 1.7 Goodness points from their average. I’d work out what this chance is exactly, but I’d need much more data for that to be definitive, and I feel at this point the standard deviation will suffice.

In conclusion, it does seem that Ronnie’s consistency is only very slightly better than Mark’s**, and so my thoughts were actually not spot on; they’re pretty much as consistent as one another. Remarkably so, I feel. But I did end up coming with a roundabout way of quantifying consistency, which is what I really set out to do. So I achieved my goal, and that’s always fun, especially when you enjoyed the process. I hope you enjoyed it too.

* Assumption made that all major tournaments were qualified for by both players, due to their world rankings allowing them direct entry to all ranking tournaments, plus The Masters.

** The difference between the two players’ standard deviation values is 0.04120062, correct to nine decimal places. (The last zero is, I feel, arbitrary, as long as I tell you that it’s one whole decimal place more accurate than you might think!)