ARENA: The Unquiet Sky (2015)

  'Arena' was formed up in 1995 by Mick Pointer (ex-Marillion) and Clive Nolan (Pendragon). They were considered as one of the most important bands of 'Neo-Prog'. In their early years their sound was obviously influenced by Marillion and IQ (mostly). Between 1995 and 2005 they released some excellent albums, with 'Pride' (1996), 'The Visitor' (1998) and 'Immortal' (2000) being some of them. After the release of 'Pepper's Ghost' in 2005, there was a 5-year break before the release of their next album 'The Seventh Degree of Separation', in which the band appeared with a new singer, and a change in their sound. 'The Seventh Degree' wasn't much appreciated by the fans of the band, (and me as well), mostly because of the change in their sound I mentioned, which was "flirting" with Heavy Rock and even Progressive Metal in some occasions. Furthermore, many people didn't seem to like the new singer, who has been "accused" as responsible for this major change in the band's style.

  This year Arena released their 8th studio album named 'The Unquiet Sky', which in my opinion is better than the previous one, but sadly it does not even approach the standards of their earlier works. The 'Unquiet Sky' can be considered as a concept album, and it's been based on the horror story 'Casting the Runes' written by M.R James.
  The album's opening track is 'The Demon Strikes' with the heavy and impressive intro, followed by 'How did it come to this', one of the best - if not the best - songs of the album. 'The Bishop of Lufford' which comes next, is a rather heavy composition, with a nice guitar solo.
 (I'm not going to present the songs one by one here; for that you'll have to listen to the album and form your own opinion).
  The album consists of 12 songs, and has a total running time of almost 55 minutes. As you can understand, there are no long songs here, and all of them are between 2.30 - 5.00 minutes in length. The only exception is the last track 'Traveler Beware', which is almost 7.30 minutes long.
 From the 12 songs of the album, I would choose the following as the best ones: 'The Demon Strikes', 'How did it Come to This', 'The Unquiet Sky' and 'Traveller Beware'.
 Concluding this post, I would like to say that 'The Unquiet Sky' is not something superb, but it is a nice album in general, and I believe the fans of Arena will appreciate it.
            If I had to rate it, I would give 3.00 out of 5.00 stars
 P.S: In the following links you can listen to a couple of songs from the album. Enjoy! :-)
The Demon Strikes
How did it Come to This

GFreedom's 2015 Top-10 Rock & Prog-Rock albums list. (Part.1)

Hello all!
Since we are in the first month of 2016, it is a good time for me to write down the list with the best albums of 2015. (According to my opinion, of course).
My list is based on the albums I had the chance to listen to, which are about 60-65. From those 60-65 albums, I chose 10 as the best ones.
I am going to present my Top-10 list in 3-4 parts probably, so be a little patient please.
In case you are interested, you can check my Top-10 lists from the previous years, by clicking the following links:
2014 Top-10 albums:
Part. 1: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2015/01/gfreedoms-2014-top-10-rock-prog-albums.html
Part. 2: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2015/01/gfreedoms-2014-top-10-rock-prog-albums_17.html
Part. 3: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2015/01/gfreedoms-2014-top-10-rock-prog-albums_21.html
2013 Top-10 albums:
Part. 1: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2013/12/my-personal-top-10-prog-orientated-rock.html
Part. 2: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2013/12/my-personal-top-10-prog-orientated-rock_30.html
Now, let's take a look which albums are included in my 2015's list. Have in mind that the list is in alphabetical order:

           ANEKDOTEN: Until all the Ghosts are Gone

  Anekdoten is a Swedish band, formed up in the 90’s, by some musicians who joined their “forces” in order to play “modern” Progressive Rock. And now - 20 years and 6 studio albums later - they sound better than ever! The truth is that, all Anekdoten’s albums have a quality and some standards that you can’t find easily in our days. All their albums are almost equally good, but last year’s release was their best work so far. (Always in my opinion).

  Those who are familiar with Anekdoten, will realize that this album sound different. Here, the band “enriched” its sound, with the use of Mellotron and keyboards much more than before, and their sound became softer.

Also, the album includes some very interesting names as special guests, who helped for the needs of the recordings. So, further than the 4 members of the band, we see in the credits: Per Wiberg (ex-Opeth), Theo Travis (King Crimson & Steven Wilson) and Marty Wilson-Piper (ex-All About Eve).

  The album includes only 6 songs, but all of them are very good compositions. Listening to the album for the first time, I never felt the urge to press the ‘skip’ button, and that is something very important I think.

Highly recommended to all those who can enjoy a well-structured – but not so complicated - album, filled with beautiful melodies.

In case you are following Prog Archives, you should know that ‘Until all the Ghosts are Gone’ received an average rating of 4.28, and it is 2^nd in their list with the 100 best Prog albums of 2015.

Here's the song 'If it all comes Down to This' taken from this album, in case you want to have a small idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSLB_htKSYs

                      ARENA: The Unquiet Sky

  Arena is the “child” of Marillion’s former drummer Mick Pointer, and Clive Nolan, who is a member or participates in almost a dozen bands and/or projects.

  In 2011 the band released the album ‘The 7^th Degree of Separation’, which was not a good album in my opinion. As it seems, Clive Nolan and the rest of the band realized that it wasn’t an album that could fit to Arena’s standards, and in 2015 they presented to us the beautiful ‘The Unquiet Sky’. 

  After the disappointment of the previous album I must admit I wasn’t expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised.

‘The Unquiet Sky’ is a great album, with a dark concept theme, beautiful melodies, great arrangements, and a symphonic sound. In a few words, a proper Arena album!

Speaking for myself, I believe this is the best album that the band recorded after Contagion (2002).

Highly recommended to all the fans of Progressive Rock and Neo Prog. (But not only them!).

The Unquiet Sky has an average rating of 3.83 in Prog Archives.

By clicking the following link you can listen to the song ‘How Did it Come to This?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNfkd09NKac

  

ARENA: Double Vision (2018). My Review...

  It’s almost 3 years since the release of The Unquiet Sky and Arena returned with a new album. Double Vision was released a few weeks ago, and as it seems, it is the best album the band recorded since Contagion (2003).

  In Double Vision Arena re-discover their musical identity, and present an album that totally worth its money. Personally speaking, I didn’t like the two previous albums as much as their older ones, so I had no idea what to expect with this new one. 

You can read the review I wrote about The Unquiet Sky (2015) here: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.com/search?q=arena+the+unquiet+sky

  In my opinion, this album can be characterized as Arena’s come back! With the heavy riffs of  John Mitchell’s guitar, the beautiful passages of Clive Nolan’s keyboards, the nice melodic turns, the very good compositions and the excellent overall performance of the band, it is definitely a good album!

  Double Vision includes 7 songs, all of them good ones, and has a total running time of almost an hour. It begins with Zhivago Wolf, a rather powerful song, (which I didn’t like so much to be honest), but right after that, the rest of the album is a real treat for the ears and the soul.

  The album is closing in the best way possible, with the 22-minute-long epic The Legend of Elijah Shade, a really strong composition, which is going to be loved by every Progressive Rock fan, with its endless turns and changes.

  Favourite songs (so far): The Mirror Lies, Scars, Red Eyes, Paradise of Thieves, The Legend of Elijah Shade.

  Although it is kind of early yet, I believe that Double Vision has very serious possibilities to be included in my Top-10 album list of 2018.

  This is a very serious piece of work and I recommend it to all the Progressive Rock and Neo Prog fans. Give this album a try and you won’t regret it!

                   My Rating: 4.5 (out of 5.0) stars.
 By clicking on the following YT link you will be able to listen to the song The Mirror Lies and get a first idea.

ARENA: The Mirror Lies

JustinCase Radio's birthday on Prog & Roll. (10/5/2015). A small review...

This was a difficult night...
  As I mentioned in a previous post, on last night's Prog & Roll we would celebrate the 3rd birthday of the radio station. Many of the producers gathered up in the studio, along with friends, girlfriends etc, and also musicians from some Greek bands, and altogether we had a party. At the same time, there was a radio marathon going on, since 17.00 UK time, and the chatbox was packed with people who logged in, and musicians from many countries who wanted to thank us for our support, and tell us their wishes. At some point must have been more than 40 - 45 musicians in the chatbox, which was really impressive.

 We arrived rather late at the studio, and I was kind of stressed about what was about to happen. Upon entering, we saw that a big crowd was already gathered up, eating, drinking, chatting, and having fun in general. A few minutes before the time of the show, we sat in front of the computers in order to make some final adjustments, and at that point the main computers crashed. I was panicked to be honest, because we tried to restart it and re-connect to the server, but it wasn't responding. Now, imagine having a very big crowd listening, many of them musicians, friends, etc, and suddenly there is quiet... We tried again and again, and finally after some time, everything seemed ok. So, Prog & Roll finally started with almost 20 minutes of delay.
 We tried to overcome the shock and get on with the show, hoping that there will be no more problems on the way, and thanfully everything went fine. Further than that, we had some fun during the show, but we were so busy with all the things we had to deal with, that at the end we were exhausted.
 During the show we were asking people from the next room (the 'party area') to participate, and say a few things on the microphone. Also, during the 2 hours of the show we gave almost 25 cd's as presents to our listeners, which were given to us by many bands and artists.
 At almost 21.30 (UK time) many people gathered up in the studio carrying a birthday cake, and altogether we sang 'Happy Birthday' on air, which must have sounded really horrible! :P
 Concluding this, I would like to thank all those who logged in last night, and I hope that they had some fun with the show. I want to apologize for the technical problems, but more than that because i wasn't able to participate in the chatbox as usual. Everything was difficult and stressful, so I missed some of you. I'm really sorry for that...
 Here you can check the songs we played on last night's show:

LUCIFER’S FRIEND: Ride the Sky / BLACK SABBATH: Hole in the Sky / QUEENSRYCHE: Eyes of a Stranger / SAVATAGE: Strange Reality / GALAHAD: 21^st Century Painted Lady / ARENA: The Unquiet Sky / DRIFTING SUN: The Wizard / JUDAS PRIEST: Diamonds & Rust (music contest) / PAUL Mc CARTNEY & WINGS: Let me Roll it / LED ZEPPELIN: The Rover / THE KORDZ: Last Call / RENAISSANCE: Opening Out / GENESIS: Can Utility and the Coastliners / YES: America / MIKE OLDFIELD: To France / ELOY: The Light from Deep Darkness.

 Thank you all! :-)

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.123

Hello all!
Since it's Saturday once more, it's time for me to write down the list with my 5 best songs for this week. Despite my very busy schedule during the week, I found out time to listen to music, and these are the songs I picked as my best ones:
GRATEFUL DEAD: St. Stephen (Aoxomoxoa - 1969)
KAIPA: Map of Your Secret world (Sattyg - 2014)
ANDREW LLOYS WEBBER: Gethsemane (O.S.T Jesus Christ Superstar - 1973)
CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX: No! (White Light Generator - 2014)
ARENA: The Demon Strikes (The Unquiet Sky - 2015)
I will conclude this post as usual, by adding 2 videos with songs from my list for you to listen to.
Enjoy the music, and have a nice weekend! :-)