MAGNOLIA is a Swedish band. Their eponymous debut CD has little in common with Progressive, but nevertheless most of the nine songs on this recording leave a pleasing impression, evoking the days of my early youth - when I felt myself being in the seventh heaven even while hearing average Hard- and Blues Rock. If the music of Blue Cheer, UFO, Mountain, Slade and the like ensembles still has any significance for you, you might experience a nostalgic wave upon the initial listening to "Magnolia".
In my honest opinion, the creation of one of the brilliant composers and
keyboard players in the history of Prog, Manfred Mann, is extremely underrated.
In the middle of the 1970s, his ensemble, Earth Band, shined with a highly
original and unique music, filled with the complete set of essential progressive
ingredients. Certainly, their weakest album in that period was "Roaring Silence", -
the most commercially successful album in the band's history. Closer to the end
of the 1970s, when many of the major bands of Symphonic Art-Rock (especially
Gentle Giant and ELP, to name a few) turned towards a commercial sound, Earth
Band released their most ambitious, complex, and hard-edged album "Watch".
It is way progressive than the majority of the Symphonic Art-Rock albums that
were released not only the same year, in 1978, but also in 1979. The mid-period
masterpieces by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, "Solar Fire" and especially
"Nightingales & Bombers", are pure magic. I still listen to all three of the
said albums with great pleasure, and I know that I will love them to death.
I heartily recommend these albums to all of the 'classic' Prog-lovers, but
especially to those who're unfamiliar with this band's creation at all or heard
some of the other albums by them.
Running 62+ minutes, "Lycanthrope" is the second album by contemporary Italian
Art-Rockers MANGALA VALLIS, although their singer Bernardo Lanzetti began his
career more than 30 years ago. (For more info, please read the review of their
first CD "The Book of Dream".) Well, the
Genesis influence is still obvious in places, but overall, "Lycanthrope" is much
more original and, what's central, noticeably more intriguing than its predecessor. The album is made up of eight tracks, and most of them are classic symphonic Art-Rock with a strong sense of the '70s, which is at least partly explained by the predominance of vintage Hammond and Mellotron in the picture. A couple of songs reveal also elements of Jazz-Fusion, due to the contribution of Van Der Graaf Generator's saxophonist / flutist David Jackson. The longest three tracks (from 10 to 13 minutes in length), The Boy That Howls At the Moon, The Mask and The Transparent & the Obscure, conclude the material and are the best. A very good album. Recommended.
Mind Gate is a quintet (vocals - guitars - organ & synthesizer - bass - drums) from Poland, and "Willow Whispers" is their second album. Keeping in mind the status of Rainbow's 33-minute "Rising" (and not only), I think that any musical production, the duration of which exceeds 32 minutes, can be regarded as a full-length album. In any case, I perceive "Willow Whispers" exactly so, especially since the music on each of the songs here is so eventful and contains so many different themes that it would be enough for some Neo band to construct a double CD album from its contents. High originality and complexity, genuine inspiration, mystery, and magic are the key aspects of this amazing piece of art. On the whole, all four of the songs on the album are about a unique blend of Gothic Prog-Metal and Classic Symphonic Art-Rock with elements of Classical Music. The arrangements here are almost always in the state of constant development, and solos and passages of all of the instruments on the album cross each other by trajectories that are typical for Avant-garde Academic Music rather than Classic Progressive. Being excellently acquainted with Polish Progressive Rock and Metal, I can assert that "Willow Whispers" is the best album to come out from Poland in the new millennium, at least. What's especially surprising is that the price of this masterpiece is only 4 Euro, which includes postal expenses. The CD can be ordered via e-mail to the band.
Sweden's MIND'S EYE is a trio of quite atypical configuration (lead vocals - bass/guitars - drums/keyboards/vocals). Their "Walking on H2O" is a brainchild of the drummer, who penned almost the entire album. Well, there is not much to talk about. The music is influenced by Threshold and is quite tasty keyboard-laden Cathedral Metal, at times with nice orchestral arrangements. However, there are few guitar solos, mainly just riffs, and too many vocals and choruses to my taste. A nice album, but I'll have to be very daring to call it a true Prog-Metal.