Current Playlist

Current listening:-

Symphony X ~ Paradise Lost

Symphony X ~ Twilight In Olympus

La Torre del' Alchemita ~ Neo

Carptree ~ Insekt

The Flower Kings ~ The Road Back Home

Really getting into Symphony X at the moment. I really love their heavy symphonic prog metal. The current album is more darker than previous efforts and the production is wonderful.

The Flower Kings compilation is one of the most thoughtful I have seen in a long time. Most of the tracks have been remixed with extra musical and vocal parts added. Roine Stolt's notes on each track are very insightful too.

Half Yearly Best Of

Another long gap between updates. Well, never mind. On the prog release front it has been an excellent year so far. So I have posted below my favourite albums for the first six months of the year. For me, the Carptree album wins hands down. I was impressed by their last album “Man Made Machine”, but “Insekt” is even better. Vocalist Niclas Finck is most effective, sounding somewhere between Peter Gabriel and Robert Wyatt.

Carptree ~ Insekt
Porcupine Tree ~ Fear Of A Blank Planet
Anekdoten ~ A Time Of Day
Magic Pie ~ Circus Of Life
Therion ~ Gothic Kabbalah
Blackfield ~ Blackfield II
Threshold ~ Dead Reckoning
Kaipa ~ Angling Feelings
Beardfish ~ Sleeping In Traffic: Part One
Dream Theater ~ Systematic Chaos
Thought Chamber ~ Angular Perceptions
Rush ~ Snakes And Arrows
Mostly Autumn ~ A Heart Full Of Sky
Alan Morse ~ 4 O’Clock Hysteria
Symphony X ~ Paradise Lost
La Torre dell’ Alchemista ~ Neo
The Reasoning ~ Awakening
Steve Thorne~ Part Two: Emotional Creatures

As well as the above other notable releases this year have been:

Steve Hillage ~ Back Catalogue Remasters
The Moody Blues ~ Seventh Sojourn Remaster
Hugh Hopper ~ Hoppertunity Box Remaster
Alan Parsons Project ~ 1st Batch of Back Catalogue Remasters
The Flower Kings ~ The Road Back Home Compilation
The Tangent ~ Going Off On One Live
Laurie Anderson ~ Big Science Remaster
Holger Czukay ~ Movies Re-release

So a pretty good year so far.

Something else I would recommend is the recently published Classic Rock Magazine Prog Rock special. This 132 page special is an excellent overview of all the usual suspects as well as looking at prog now. Lots of articles with very few adverts of which are all prog related. Anything that promotes the genre must be good!