progressive rock
Thomas H. Green
As the music industry slips into the rhythm of lockdown, so the spigot slowly becomes untapped and events, livestreams and similar start to flow more steadily. This week a host of big names are up to a bunch of different stuff, all worth checking. Dive in!A Theatre for Dreamers/Von Trapped Family Livestream + Dave Gilmour Live at PompeiiA couple of treats for Pink Floyd fans, from both ends of the band’s career. Most current is the latest home-stream by guitarist David Gilmour’s family. These take place each Friday and partly celebrate Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson’s bestselling novel A Theatre Read more ...
Asya Draganova
When it comes to new releases by Scandi rockers Nightwish, it’s not unusual to hear the well-worn phrase “I like their early stuff…” – usually referring to the mythical times when the band were with their first singer Tarja Turunen. Indeed, listeners might even have given up on Nightwish or at least failed to stay up to date with their line-up changes. However, their new release Human II: Nature deserves close listening. The symphonic metal band have made a massive contribution to Finland’s global metal image and their unmistakable style continues to evolve in exciting directions on this Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The cape, the banked-up synths and the glam have gone. Rick Wakeman’s Grumpy Old Christmas Show consists of just the man, his piano and his stories and jokes, mostly about Christmas and family. The music is partly from his new solo piano album Christmas Portraits (Sony Classical), plus tunes from his own back catalogue, notably Piano Odyssey, and songs by Bowie, the Beatles and others. This was the second date of an 11-date tour of venues in England, and Wakeman is just enjoying the process of letting the set list evolve. As he mused while describing his programme: “It sort of works, really.” Read more ...
Katie Colombus
For a band mostly known as a brilliantly ludicrous cocktail of other’s people’s sound-styles, the Simulation Theory tour is proof that Muse have become musical legends in their own right.Yes, their progressive rock is the combined conglomeration that would result of you threw Queen, The Darkness, Prince and Radiohead in the tumble dryer and they came out crackling with static. But while there are intelligent and irreverent references to elements of the above, the bombastic futuristic narrative and preposterously prophetic wisdom of Muse’s lyrics combined with instrumental genius and Read more ...
Nick Hasted
“Thanks for being in here with us tonight,” Wayne Coyne begins, “when you could be outside with the universe shining down on us.” Having clearly experienced a pre-gig epiphany from the unexceptional South London sky, The Flaming Lips singer seems primed to take us all higher. And so this 20th-anniversary celebration of their breakthrough LP The Soft Bulletin begins with an explosion of joy. Giant balloons rain down and stay rogue, bouncing through the childishly engaged crowd for the next two hours. Confetti cannons fire at will, dry ice pumps. And as the yearning anthem of quixotic human Read more ...
Owen Richards
Among the summer gigs being held in Caerphilly this summer, it seemed a tall order for electronic/math rock instrumentalists Public Service Broadcasting to pack out a castle. They may be more current, but the others (The Stranglers, Groove Armada, The Zutons et al) at least had notable commercial periods. PSB’s biggest singles have never troubled the UK Top 75. And though a £40 ticket price on the door seemed optimistic, the castle’s savvy booking became clear as we passed through those ancient gates. A large courtyard, very much packed.After three albums and several EPs, PSB have crafted Read more ...
Owen Richards
Oh Sees have long been touted of as the perfect festival band. Their racuous, high-tempo rock'n'roll always riles up the drunken swathes, even if no-one recognises the song. However, going to a headline show is a different prospect - these swathes are the loyalists, not ready to accept anything less than carnage. After witnessing a relentless sold out show in Cardiff, maybe it's time to remove "festival" from that opening statement.Oh Sees have appeared under many guises, but their most recent form is pounding prog beast. Two drummers sat centre stage, orbited by guitar, bass and keys. Rhythm Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Now going for over a dozen years, ever-busier since Live Nation took over its parent company in 2015, The Great Escape Festival is the annual multi-venue band showcase and music conference which sees Brighton swamped with music biz sorts. This year these especially seemed to be young men and women called Piers and Hannah watching female-fronted indie bands. This writer only catches the last of the three days – Saturday – but is sucked into the venue-trawling spirit of the thing.Down on the seafront an encampment of marquees has appeared on the eastern end of Brighton beach, enclosing three Read more ...
Katherine Waters
It was in the early 2000s in a tiny, gritty bar that I first saw Rodrigo y Gabriela live. Camden was less pretty then – a look was close to a glare and there were more spikes and kohl – the nineties were that much closer. I was right at the front, pressed up against a rib-height stage, alarmingly close to the percussive thrum taking place inches above my head. The atmosphere was heady, their acoustic performance electric. Their hands moved like fire, catching the area’s thrash sensibility – I’d not heard anything like it.Over a decade on and the two are playing the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Their music is a bit wizard-y. It’s certainly imbued with a pungent sense of mammoth weed. And the “bastard” is surely for the sheer, meaty rock’n’roll heft of the word (much as Motörhead used it to title an album). But don’t be fooled. Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard are not a passing indie-punk turn with a novelty name in the vein of, say, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin or Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. Their new album carries serious weight. It’s heavy as osmium.Fans of this quartet from Wrexham, Wales, will observe that Yn Ol I Annwn (Return to the Underworld in Welsh) isn’t as heavy as their previous Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s the season of giving so theartsdesk on Vinyl feels compelled to draw your attention to Unicef’s Blue Vinyl campaign. This sees 17 celebrated albums auctioned off in special editions on givergy.com with all proceeds going to Unicef’s Children's Emergency Relief Fund. Albums include classics by David Bowie, Kate Bush, Alicia Keys, Ozzie Osbourne, Jimi Hendrix and… The Spice Girls. Go and have a look. Meanwhile, watch out next week for the boxset-jammed Christmas theartsdesk on Vinyl special, but right now, here’s the first of our two December editions. What’s new and juicy and plastic? Read more ...
theartsdesk
Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why. Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small but perfectly sleazy work of sweary, cynical brillianceBob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks ★★★★★ The fourteenth volume in the Bootleg Series is a keeperBrad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads the Constitution! ★★★★★ Prolific improvising pianist creates the apotheosis of the piano trioThe Breeders - All Nerve ★★★★★ Kim and Kelly Deal - plus Read more ...