Very rarely do a band release a great album in a year only to top within 12 months but Crippled Black Phoenix are becoming the masters of this trick. Their latest offering No Sadness Or Farewell is a masterpiece.

It starts off with a 12 minute instrumental called How We Rock which is simply the best thing they have ever recorded. Starting off slowly with some oriental theme going on in the background it breaks into a guitar solo Dave Gilmour would be proud of. The song almost stops, and then the guitar picks out a naggingly repetitive motif before the piano and then drums join in and all the while gently building and increasing the tension. It's like Tubular Bells with added balls - cymbals are added, power chords, choral backing and still it builds. Over 4 minutes to go and there are even real bloody tubular bells joining in now. Listening to this through headphones on heavyweight vinyl is just awesome as the whole thing reaches a crescendo before letting you down gently and leaving you with the ringing bells.

There are other tracks but you need to breathe and relax after that opener. Hold On (So Goodbye To All Of That) starts like U2 at their most pretentious before deciding to end the song an an accapella crowd sing along.

Jonestown Martin is just indescribable really - Heavy guitar, synths effects stolen from Hawkwind and according to the sleeve notes 'Monk Voices' !!

It all ends with Long Live Independence a galloping rocker very similar to Laying Traps from the last album (which was good enough to nominated in the Prog Magazine awards recently)

This is a band so full of invention and variety that they deserve so much more than to be adored as cult heroes by those who dare to try. This is the real Prog for the new age and not the tepid outpouring of one Mr S Wilson

How We Rock - indeed......

One of this year's easiest reviews - Doro has released her latest offering and it's called Raise Your Fist

And it sounds EXACTLY like a Doro album..... Grab yourself a studded leather wristband, throw some devil horns and just pretend grunge never happened.

Details are really superfluous but let's see - Track featuring Lemmy? Check. Power Ballad sung in German? Check. Terrible track titles? Check (Little Headbanger and Rock Till Death being great examples)

To be fair the power ballad Engel is fantastic song and the album overall is a big dumb slab of enjoyable metal.

The art work below is just a joy to look at !

two very quick reviews.....

Blueneck have released an instrumental album, Epilogue, as a soundtrack to a film that doesn't exist !
It is exactly that - a backdrop to put your own visuals to.... Lots of piano and shimmering guitar but you do miss the vocals of the earlier albums. Whilst it worth a listen you won't return to it again and again like the Fallen Host album

(and I think it was probably a film like Aliens they had in mind......)

                                                                                                                 

Biggest disappointment of the year so far is the new Placebo EP - 5 tracks and only one is in any way memorable. The lead of song B3 could well be an outtake from the Battle For The Sun album, and the rest appear to be filler with the exception of I.K.W.Y.L. This is the standout track with a nippy little guitar riff and lyrics straight out of the New Model Army songbook of vengeance. One of their best songs since Nancy Boy

I approach the forthcoming album with caution

What is it with French music - You wait ages and suddenly they're producing bands all over the place (Delusion Squared, Gojira) and now Alcest

Apparently they used to be a black metal band but the album Le Voyage de L'ame shows very little of that heritage. By the sound of it they may have travelled a similar path to Opeth. A lot of the track are long with plenty of instrumental passages. Vocals appear to be in both English and French but are part of the sound rather than standing out for you to dissect the lyrics.

Là où naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles is the one track to feature growled vocals in the background and Faiseurs de Mondes includes some brutal drumming to keep the whole thing interesting.

There are also a lot of Pink Floyd influence with some beautiful chiming guitar lines especially on the extended outro of the album closer Summer's Glory.

This is an eclectic album but one of my favourites so far of the year. Music to immerse yourself in

Two of the albums I've most been looking forward to this year and neither disappoints...

Firstly the Smoke Fairies have returned with Blood Speaks, their second album.
This album still retains what the press call a "spook folk" feel but with a harder edge than before. Some tracks such as Awake have that ethereal feel they perfected on the debut album but the more guitar driven Feel It Coming Near show their sound palette is still expanding. The harmonies are reserved more for the choruses and it interesting to hear both girls voices to the fore in different places

The outstanding track is The Three Of Us featuring some raw slide guitar and one of the best lyrics they have yet written. The title track Blood Speaks starts at a much more sedate pace over skittering drums before building to a glorious crescendo showing off the harmony vocals to full effect.

An album that shows no shortage of ideas after a stellar debut and still driving forward to further recognition

                                                                                                   

Secondly Marillion have returned with their 17th (!) studio album, Sounds That Can't be Made and it's a stunning release. Not as sprawling or as unfocused as the last couple of releases, it appears having the stop gap acoustic album was a good idea to allow the creativity more time to flow

I had worries that the band was becoming a vehicle for the singer Steve Hogarth but this is a fully functioning band production. Highlights are many and very few negatives.

The opener Gaza rocks harder than anything since possibly This Strange Engine. It's a complex 17 minutes complete with political lyrics and imagery and some searing guitar soloing from Steve Rothery. It's a bit of a shame that Hogarth feels the need to apologise in the sleevenotes for the lyrics - Stand by your words and defend what you sing
The return of Rothery's guitar is really welcome and can be heard to good effect on the title track and Lucky Man.
The Sky above the Rain is a poignant album closer with soaring peaks of music built around the lyric of a disintegrating relationship.
Album highlight for me is the lengthy Montreal which is just a series of diary entries which somehow ends up as a fascinating set of images of a trip to Canada with the whole band contributing some immense musicianship.

This is simply Marillion's best album since Marbles - a consistent set of brilliant songs

Time for a roundup of recent singles I've downloaded recently........

Firstly In My Blood by Black Stone Cherry. A fantastic track which sounds like the single Skynyrd should have written sometime in the late 70's..... When you can include lyrics such as "when Tuesday comes, I'll be gone again" and a chorus blessed with a hook that could catch a whale it should have been a massive radio hit. Says a lot about the state of radio and record promotion when this remains a hidden gem but Kings of Leon are a commercial radio staple - such a shame


Now a song that was not designed for the radio - L'enfant Sauvage by Gojira. Confusingly a song with a French title by a French band but sung in English !!
This chugs along with a simmering brutality and vocals best described as an acquired taste. Sound is somewhere between Sepultura without the tribal drums and a heavier Apocalyptica
Worth a listen just to see what is happening across the channel in the world of metal


Regina Spector's single All the Rowboats is one my highlights of the year so far.... An ode to paintings hanging in museums, this is one of the cleverest lyrics I've heard in a long time. Some insistent piano in the background means comparisons to Tori Amos will be made but this is less self consciously kooky and with a harder edge. The unexpected ending with the synthesised drum crashes is strangely in keeping with the whole feel of the song


Fear Factory have returned (in case anyone noticed they had been away) but for a band that once was the cutting edge of metal, this is just treading water. Recharger could have come from any of the last 3 albums I've heard.... Whilst there is some melody in the chorus, this band ceased to be relevant many years ago. Check out the albums Demanufacture or Digimortal to hear the band in their prime rather than listen to this


Finally Kate Bush has released a remix of Running Up That Hill. Debuting at the closing ceremony of the Olympics, the first thing to note is the re-recorded vocals and then the fact that thankfully she hasn't tampered too much with what is a classic song. Whilst it always a delight to hear new material from Ms Bush this is probably the least essential thing she has done in years.

Finally a bit of a mis step..... Read some very good reviews about a band called Delusion Squared who I believe come from France

They are a prog rock trio with female vocals and so I bought the album II (the cleverley titled second album)

It's not a bad album in that you rush to turn it off but it's utterly forgetable once the last song finishes. The vocal are polite but nothing special. The opening track Double Vision suggests they may listen to a lot of latter day Marillion and the whole album feels like a bit of a Porcupine Tree homage in places

The music is all well played with some nice keyborads in places but there just aren't enough hooks to make you want to revisit the album on a regular basis

A shame but an album that fails to shine