MOSTLY AUTUMN – Sight of Day (2017)

  Since I discovered Mostly Autumn, almost 6 years ago, I fell in love with their beautiful music.   

  Sight of Day is their new work, that was released a few months ago and is the band’s 12^th studio album. The recording was funded through a pre-order campaign. Those who pre-ordered the album, received a special double-disc edition of the album, limited to 2000 copies.

  For all the others there is a single-disc edition available. Although I have the special edition, here I will deal with the normal one.

   First of all, the album includes 10 songs and has a total running time of almost 75 minutes. All 10 songs are excellent, and I never felt the need to skip not even one of them.

  The album opens with the 14-minute-long epic Sight of Day, which shows to the listener that many things has changed since the release of the previous album Dressed in Voices. An excellent and a typical Mostly Autumn song, and definitely one of the album’s highlights. 

Sight of Day is followed by Once Round the Sun, with Bryan Josh on vocals and the upbeat tempo. Then, the soft and melancholic The Man Without a Name enters, which will sound familiar to all those who know the music of Mostly Autumn well enough. Hammerdown is another beautiful tune with Bryan Josh and Olivia Sparnenn sharing the vocal duties.

Changing Lives is a pleasant tune, but is doesn’t add something more to the album. The fans of the TV series “Vikings” will probably appreciate guitar-driven and powerful Only the Brave that comes next. Native Spirit is another long song, including many changes, and it is filled with energy and beautiful guitar solos. Tomorrow Dies is not bad, but nothing special either, followed by Raindown; one of the album’s finest moments, without a doubt.The album’s final song is Forever and Beyond, which although is a good song, it sounds a little bit “weak” after all the previous wonderful songs.

  So, let’s try to sum up: Sight of Day is a wonderful piece of work, including soft melancholic tunes, mixed with powerful parts, great guitar riffs and wonderful vocals. The album’s sound is rich, including instruments like whistle, violin, flute, tambourine, Uillean pipes, etc… (There is no reason to mention the “classic” instruments, like guitar, bass, etc).

As I mentioned before, this is an album, that you are going to listen from the first ‘till the last song, without having to skip not even one song! Despite that, I will write down my most beloved songs of the album, which are: Sight of Day, Once Round the Sun, The Man without a Name, Hammerdown and Raindown.

                            Highly Recommended!

                  4.0 stars without a second tought.

PROG & ROLL Radio Show, including the Song of the Month contest (25/6/2017). The complete playlist and more.

Hello!
  Last night, the last Prog & Roll radio show of June was on air; which means that the show was including the Song of the Month contest.
  We had a rather upbeat playlist prepared, including songs from many different genres and sub-categories once more, and as it seemed our listeners enjoyed it.
  We had a good crowd listening, from many countries once more, including Greece, England, Germany, Finland and United States.
  During the 4th part, we did the Song of the Month contest, where we played the songs that gathered the highest average rating through the whole month, and our listeners had to grade them once more. At the end of the show, the song with the highest average rating, was announced as the song of the month, and already took its place in Prog & Roll's annual Top-10 song list.
  We listened to some very good songs during the contest, but there was one which in our opinion was the absolute favourite. And as it seemed we were right! So, according to our listener's grades, the Song of the Month for June is: Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath!
Here you can take a look at the whole playlist from last night:

1st Part: STEVE WYNN: Black Magic / GREEN ON RED: 16 Ways / NEIL YOUNG: Rockin in a Free World / BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Darlington County / THE ROLLING STONES: Mixed Emotions.

2nd Part: AC DC: Highway to Hell / CULT: Fire Woman / ACCEPT: Balls to the Wall / IRON MAIDEN: Fear of the Dark (Live).

3rd Part: ANTON ROOLAART: Gravity / MOSTLY AUTUMN: Once Round the Sun / CREDO: The Letter / FLYING COLORS: Kayla.

4rth Part - The Song of the Month contest: ROGER WATERS: Déjà vu (Av.Rating: 7.62) / CAMEL: Air Born (Av.Rating: 8.69) / CELLAR NOISE: Underground Ride (Av.Rating: 8.13) / DEEP PURPLE: Burn (Av.Rating: 9.08) / BLACK SABBATH: Heaven & Hell (Av.Rating: 9.29)

I would like to thank all those who listened to Prog & Roll last night. I hope you enjoyed it!

Prog & Roll will be online again, on Sunday the 2nd of July, at 20.00 UK time as usual.

Take care!

GFreedom's Juke Box No.197

Hi all!
Despite the very busy schedule I have lately, I always try to find some time to listen to music. This week has been an extremely busy one, so I couldn't listen as much music as I would love to, but I managed to make a Top-5 song list for you.
So, for this week, these are the songs I chose as the best ones:
CREDO: The Letter (Rhetoric - 2005)
CELLAR NOISE: Temple (Alight - 2017)
EDGAR BROUGHTON BAND: Hotel Room (Edgar Broughton Band - 1971/2004 re-issue)
BLACK SABBATH: Heaven & Hell (Heaven & Hell - 1980)
ARLO GUTHRIE: Cooper's Lament (Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys - 1973)
If you are interested to listen to the songs in my list, just click on the following YouTube links.
Have a nice weekend!
Thank you!
CREDO: The Letter
CELLAR NOISE: Temple
EDGAR BROUGHTON BAND: Hotel Room
BLACK SABBATH: Heaven and Hell
ARLO GUTHRIE: Cooper's Lament

GALAHAD: Quiet Storms (2017)

Five years after the release of the albums Battle Scars and Beyond the Realms of Euphoria, Galahad returned with a rather different and beautiful album.

  Quiet Storms is a collection of their older songs in mellow versions, but it is also including a few new songs as well. You can find the original versions of most of the songs on the band’s previous albums and on a couple of singles as well.

  Here, the listener has the opportunity to enjoy the melodic and more dramatic side of the band, without the loud guitar riffs and the usual powerful tempo. The piano and the keyboards are the dominant instruments, which, together with Stuart Nicholson’s excellent performance, are creating a wonderful overall experience. 

Songs like This life Could be My Last, Guardian Angel and Termination, sound totally different than their original versions, which is very interesting, to say the least.

  Personally speaking, I like Galahad a lot, so I couldn’t miss this new release of theirs. I added the album in my collection and never regret it! I am sure that I am going to enjoy it more on a rainy afternoon, together with a glass of red wine, rather than the heat we have right now in Athens. 

I feel that there is no reason to write more on the subject, because you should listen to it and form your own opinion.

  I definitely recommend it to the fans of Galahad, but also to those who can enjoy an atmospheric, melodic and kind of melancholic album.

                 My Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0 stars

  

PROG & ROLL Radio Show (18/6/2017). The complete playlist and more...

Hello all!
  Last night one more Prog & Roll radio show was on air, at the usual time, but this time we had a surprise for our listeners. Instead of my wife Nihal, I had with me a friend and a listener as the show's co-host. During last week we worked together preparing a rather enjoyable playlist, and last night we presented it to our audience.      We begun the show with some good-old classic Rock, then we turned the style to Hard Rock, then we moved to Neo-Prog and finally we concluded the playlist with some classic Progressive Rock from the 70's.
  We had many people listening, from many countries once more; including Greece, England, France, United States and Canada. The chatbox was rather busy from time to time, and the whole atmosphere was jolly and friendly as usual.
Here you can take a look at the playlist:

1st Part: THE DOORS: Strange Days / THE WHO: Pinball Wizard / TEN YEARS AFTER: I’d Love to Change the World / LOVE: Between Clark & Hildale / THE ROLLING STONES: Stray Cat Blues / FREE: Wishing Well.

2nd Part: URIAH HEEP: Sympathy / LED ZEPPELIN: Immigrant Song / DEEP PURPLE: Burn / RAINBOW: Sixteenth Century Greensleeves / BLACK SABBATH: Heaven & Hell. 

3rd Part: FISH: Plague of Ghosts (Pt. V & VI) / ARENA: The Butterfly Man / KARNATAKA: Tide to Fall / KAIPA: In the Heart of Her own Magic Field.

4rth Part: RENAISSANCE: Opening Out / CAMEL: Air Born / EMERSON LAKE & PALMER: C’est la Vie / GENTLE GIANT: Three Friends / VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR: Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End.

  I would like to thank Yannis, for participating in last night's show, and all those who chose to spend two hours listening to us. I hope everybody enjoyed it.

Thank you all!

PROG & ROLL Radio Show (11/6/2017). The complete playlist and more.

Hello all!
  One more Prog & Roll radio show was on air last night, and here I am today in order to inform you about it.
  When we were preparing the playlist, we decided to play many songs from new releases, and that's what we did. Since we are almost in the middle of the year, we thought that it would be nice to present some new releases to our listeners. So, during the first and the last part, we played songs taken from albums that was released this year exclusively. 
  We also did a music quiz, but this time we had no present to give as a prize to the winner. The winner of the quiz was Sarah from UK, and the only thing that she won was the title of "Lady" on the chatbox. So, after the quiz she became Lady Sarah! (Sarah, I am really sorry that we had no prize to give this time. But the quiz is mostly for fun as you know very well).

 I really believe that it was a very interesting show, including very good songs, and as it turned out our listeners enjoy it a lot. (That's what they told us at least).
Here you can take a look at the complete playlist:

1st Part: BLACKFIELD: Family Man / SCHOOLTREE: The Big Slide / GUNGFLY: On Her Journey to the Sun / CELLAR NOISE: Underground Ride / VALDEZ: No Stone Unturned.

2nd Part: RHAPSODY (OF FIRE): Il Canto Del Vento / DUNWICH: Il Falso Prinsipio / MAGO DE OZ: Gaia.

3rd Part: ALL ABOUT EVE: Witche’s Promise (music quiz) / KANSAS: Voyage of Eight Eighteen / EVERSHIP: Silver Line / COMEDY OF ERRORS: Spirit.

4rth Part: ROGER WATERS: Déjà vu / ANUBIS: The Second Hand / NAD SYLVAN: Crime of Passion / ISILDUR’S BANE & STEVE HOGARTH: The Love & the Affair.

A very big thanks to those who chose to listen to our show once more.

I hope you enjoyed it!