Bad title puns aside, the music scribe gig often leads to a ton of backlog. Tons of CDs cross the desk in a seemingly endless procession, causing some worthy albums to get lost in the shuffle as we try to keep up. This is my attempt to give some of these records their due. This isn’t because any of them weren’t worth a day’s posting all to themselves – merely that I’ve got an overflow and these are older albums in danger of being ignored, which they don’t deserve. So pardon what seems like a sudden onslaught and keep in mind that these records earn attention.
I’ll post a few of these today and do more tomorrow. Then hopefully I’ll be caught up and will be back to our regularly scheduled, uh, schedule.
AYREON – Timeline
(InsideOut)
Well-respected Dutch progressive metal master ARJEN LUCASSEN, AKA Ayreon, has been making records long enough to warrant a compilation, thus this 3-CD/1-DVD box set. Lucassen’s conceptual sci-fi operas may seem nonsensical at first, but his dedication to the human consequences of expanding technology and space/time dimensional exploration gives his prog metal a warmth and heart not always found in this genre. Diehards will argue that removing these tunes from their context strips them of meaning, but Lucassen’s dedication to melody and atmosphere is what really makes these songs hold up.
THE BLACK WATCH – After the Gold Room (Eskimo)
TBW puts a quick turnaround on a follow-up to its magnificent LP Icing the Snow Queen with this six-songer. “On Another Plane” and “Quartz Pink Cloud” come from that opus, though they appear here in remixed/edited form. Of the new tunes, “The Things I Never Said” and “Strawberry Girl” indulge the band’s noisy side, while “One for the Republicans” ( a bit late, but still funny political commentary) and the sweet “When Lauren First Opened” work its acoustic pop groove. None of these are as strong as the songs on Snow Queen, but all are worth hearing, especially for fans.
MICHAEL CHAPMAN – Time Past & Time Passing (Electric Ragtime)
Chapman is an unsung peer of British guitar greats like BERT JANSCH, JOHN RENBOURN and DAVEY GRAHAM – he may not have as high a profile, but he gets the same respect from aficionados. He’s not as flashy or complex as his buddies, nor as entrenched in the English folk tradition. Chapman’s placid instrumentals concentrate on repeating melodic figures rather than tricky technique; his vocal songs (sung in a personable growl just above a grumble) bring to mind DOC WATSON more than jigs and reels. It’s as if he sat down on your couch and just started picking out tunes for his own amusement – a personable quality which makes the record that much easier to love.
LUNATIC SOUL – s/t (K Scope)
A mix of exotic psychedelia, introspective singer/songwriter folk and atmospheric progressive rock, Lunatic Soul takes the widescreen ambitions of RIVERSIDE, the main band of MARIUSZ DUDA, and expands them into a lush, amber palette of deeply felt songs and sounds. Interestingly, the Polish vocalist/multi-instrumentalist eschews the electric guitar at the heart of his other band’s music, which lessens the bombast to which a tune like “Out On a Limb” could fall prey. Armed with strong melodies and highly musical arrangements, Duda downloads his soul into a book of gorgeous tracks that reveal new depth with each turn of the page.
