The Whirlwind by Transatlantic might be one of the best prog albums from 2009. Transatlantic is a super-group consisting of Neal More (Spock’s Beard), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) and Pete Trewavas (Marillion). They’ve been out there for about a decade but haven’t released any albums for quite a while.

The Whirlwind is their reunion album and it’s killer! The whirlwind’s first CD only has one song: a 77-minute master piece called the Whirlwind. The other CD has 4 new songs and 4 cover songs. The second CD is not just a bonus, this CD could be a stand-alone album if necessary.

transatlantic the whirlwind

But we’ll focus on the first CD here: The Whirlwind song. This is a great 77-minute experience. When you have time: sit back, put it on and enjoy. Every part of it is beautiful, there’s almost no flaw in any of the songs. And the great catchy melodies are nicely interluded by some awesome guitar and keyboard work. The build-up to the final song is also quite the experience: is it really happening is a song that starts very slowly but builds up to some amazing drum-work and some amazing keyboard and guitar playing!

If you like Transatlantic: this is a must have. If you don’t know them but like 70′s-progressive rock (yes, genesis, pink floyd, …) then you should definitely check this album out!

As a big prog rock fan I love epics. You know, those 20-minute long pieces of music that bring to another place. Some bands go even further and create 40-minutes or longer epics. Sometimes these are hard to digest but after a while you get into it. Some very known epics are for example Thick As a Brick (by Jethro Tull), A Change of Seasons (by Dream Theater) and Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Pink Floyd).

I composed a mini playlist for myself today, existing only out of 3 songs, but lasting for about an hour. This playlist is by my opinion the ultimate compilation of the best three epic songs out there:

• Shine on You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd
• Supper’s Ready by Genesis
• Close to The Edge by Yes

All three songs are probably equally great, and are also their representative bands most known epics.  So if you have an hour to kill and want to enjoy some great music, this would be a great way to do so!

pink floyd wish you were here

Genesis foxtrot

yes close to the edge

So if you are into Pink Floyd like I am, and you like Pink Floyd’s Animals this album is going to rock your world. Seriously I’m fairly positive that in the history of cover-albums there has never been a more awesome cover for any Floyd album!

Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade was a cover band that recorded two live albums: Live Frogs: set 1 and Live Frogs: set 2. It was released in 2001 by a band that was assembled by Les Claypool. Les Claypool is a very talented bassist, mostly known for being the bassist for the band Primus. But when he assembled this group they created something so beautiful, that when I first heard it I was left speechless!

les claypools frog brigade live frogs set 2

The album is a complete cover for the Pink Floyd’s album Animals. In the first frogs set they also covered parts of Shine on You Crazy Diamond, showing that they were true Pink Floyd fans. But Les Claypools frog brigade totally went out of their way to show off what they could do with audio effects on a live-podium They copy-cat the effects almost perfectly and it doesn’t sound like a cover band at all. It just sounds like it could’ve been Floyd playing this live, except for the voice which is a bit different. But the rest is just so great.

This is a great item to add to your collection if you’re a Floyd fan. So be sure to check it out!

Before I was really familiar with the whole progressive rock genre I used to listen to this CD by Dream Theater called Octavarium. It was the first one I owned and I really loved the title track, I still do. The intro really intrigued me, so I started wondering wether there was more music like this out there. After reading through several forums I read a post from some guy stating that the whole intro was pretty much a rip-off from Pink Floyd’s Shine on you crazy Diamond: a nine part composition with probably the best intro I ever heard in my life.

This album can be summarized in one word: epic! It only has 4 songs, but all of these are so great it’s hard to pick a favourite.

Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Cover

So this masterpiece opens with the great Shine on you crazy Diamond. This opus is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett. At first the band intended it to be a side-long composition like Echoes and Atom Heart Mother, but they ended up splitting the song in two and they used it to bookend the album. I’m not a big fan of this choice, I rather listen to the entire song as one song. Anyhow why is this so great: it probably features more solos than you will ever hear in any other song: it has keyboard solos, great guitar solos and an awesome sax solo at the end of part one. The lyrics are a beautiful tribute and the overall feeling is just majestic! My favourite part is the keyboard solo at the beginning of the second part, right when the tempo starts picking up again.

A machine-like hum fades in and segues into Welcome to the Machine. This song is packed with excessive use of heavily processed synthesizers and guitars, and is also contains a varied range of tape effects. The accoustic guitar in the background makes this all the more special! It is probably the band’s most clear statement that they hate the music industry as a money-making machine, they would rather see it as a forum of artistic expression.

Have a Cigar Cover

Have a Cigar opens the second side of the LP-version. This is probably the most rock-oriented song on the entire album, whereas the rest is progressive or psychedelic Rock. It has an unchanging guitar riff. The vocals are not done by any member of the band, it is Roy Harper who is in charge of the vocal section because Roger Waters strained his voice while recording Shine on you Crazy Diamond. The final solo really shows that this is a heavy rock song.

The title track is a beautiful rock balad also in memory of Syd Barret, it’s Roger Waters who expresses his feelings of alienation from other people. It’s mostly accoustic, and is the calmest on the entire album. The track is listed on Rolling Stone’s the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. After a sort of vocal solo it segues into the intro of the second part of Shine on you Crazy Diamond. Which concludes this masterpiece!

Wow! What an album. This is the root of all progressive rock out there: Crimson King are by many considered the founding band for the entire genre. And this album contains anything you might recognize in many other rock bands. I hear Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin in the opening track, Genesis comes to mind when listening to the title track. Epipath just makes me want to grab those Pink Floyd cd’s. Mirrors, the instrumental part of the opening track, will make any Yes fan go “hell yeah!”.

King Crimson In The Court of the Crimson King Cover

21st Century Schizoid Man is beautifull, chaotic and funky all mixed together in 7 minutes of mostly instrumental music. The vocal parts are great and makes you sing along, and the instrumental solo in the mid-section (name Mirrors) builds up to a great climax. This song is probably the best composed song on this album though not my favourite. Sometimes I feel that they overdid the chaos-element and that it’s just plain noises.

The fluit that opens I Talk to the Wind pulls you back to reality. This song is a beautiful love balad, very peaceful and with a great keyboard solo.

In my opinion, the best part of the album is Epitaph, I’m a big Pink Floyd fan and this song reminds me so much of their music. It’s just so good. The vocals are obviously the best on the entire album, the instruments are perfect and allow the vocalist to do his job. This also reminds me a bit of Kansas, the vocal parts for sure. It’s just hard to describe how much I rapture this song!

The next song Moonchild actually begins pretty good, with it’s 12:13 it’s the longest track on the album, but sadly only the first 2 minutes are good. After the vocal section is over there’s a lot of ummagumma-like experimentation with the keyboard which doesn’t seem to stop. It’s a great song to fall asleep with but that’s all…

The killer title track is a great finale for so great an album. The melody and the chorus make this a great progressive rock song!

It appears to me that most of the people who are familiar with Rush either are die-hard fans or haters. I place myself in between. I appreciate most of their music though I’m not that enthusiastic about them. Though their 1981′ Moving Pictures is just plain cool. Even though I feel that The Camera Eye lasts for just a little bit too long, I enjoy most of the album.

Rush Moving Pictures Album Cover

The album starst off with one of the better parts of the album. Tom Sawyer was named the 19th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1. Personally I wouldn’t place it that high but it deserves some credit! Even though I kinda feel that it is made a bit too radio-friendly. I get the feeling that they cramped the song in those four minutes.

Red Barchettta and Limelight are also two radio-friendly songs that combine their artistic success with their comercial success. Also making this their best-selling album.

Yyz is definitely my most favourite song of Rush. The main reason being that I kinda hate Geddy Lee’s voice and this is a pure instrumental song. His voice sometimes give me the creeps, it’s like he has a permanent cold. The other reason why this song is my favourite is because it’s just plain good. This is a great showcase for the entire band!

The Camera Eye lasts a bit too long, and there’s not much variation. It’s basically one riff being played over and over with some vocals on top. Though these vocals are in my opinion the best on the album, sadly that the rest of the instruments aren’t nearly as cool as they were on Yyz.

I really like the dark atmosphere created in Witch Hunt. This is a pretty heavy song for a band like Rush, but they pull it off pretty well! The album closes off with a Police influenced song named Vital Signs. This song is just brilliant. It’s a perfect closure for an album this good.

Rush band

So this album is really the album to get if you want to get into Rush. It’s not that complicated to process and this album was released when they had just broken through to mainstream. They were definitely at the top of their game with the release of Moving Pictures.

Bob Dylan is legend! And he proved this massively with his 1965′ album Highway 61 Revisited. Personally I think this is Bob Dylan’s best album. It offers so many different songs, but beside that the lyrics are epic. Especially it’s closing track Desolation Row, has some of the best references ever seen in lyrics. It’s important to notice that when listening to Dylan you’re not only listening to a great musician but one of the best lyrics-writers of our time. His songs are all about the lyrics, focusing on many different themes.

This album has nine great songs but two of them attract me more than the other: its opener Like a Rolling Stone and the closing track Desolation Row.

Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited

The album starts off with what is probably considered as Dylan’s best song released until today: Like A Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone magazine listed it at number 1 on its list of “The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2004. This song changed music forever: all limitations were shattered with its lyrics, ambition and length. Every Rock-fan has heard this song atleast once, and I think it’s hard to find someone who dislikes this song.  Bruce Springsteen has described the beginning as the “snare shot that sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind”. This song really tells a great story about how it’s like being out there on your own, without having anyone.

The rest of the songs also left their mark: he answered the question wether he had gone electric with From a Buick 6 and Tombstone Blues. With great electric guitar riffs blazing all over the songs.

The album concludes with the 11-minute epic Desolation Row. This is probably my favourite song on the album. The vocals are so calming and charming and the lyrics have such major references that it takes a library to understand the song. The song is all acoustic, which is quite strange considering that this album actually destroyed folk. It’s both moving as extraordinary rude.

- The Titanic sails at dawn and everybody’s shouting “Which Side Are You On?”

When guitarist Steve Hackett left the band, Genesis’ changed their music style from progressive rock to pop rock. This ofcourse this didn’t happen overnight. They have two major transition albums: Duke and And Then There Were Three. The latter was more of an experiment. They were looking for a new sound, but kept using the previous wining formula. Two years later Duke came out and they created something great: a semi-concept progressive rock album with some pop songs woven in between the prog tracks.

As for the two hits Misunderstanding and Turn It On Again, they’ve done a pretty good job. Turn It On Again is great, and misunderstanding is a good pop song. Phil Collins’ voice is amazing as always and the instrumental parts are often very interesting.

Genesis Duke Cover

The songs Behind The Lines, Duchess, Guide Vocal, Turn It On Again, Duke’s Travel and Duke’s End all belong together, thus making this a semi-concept album. There’s some pop-parts in these songs but mostly they’re prog. Especially The 8 minute Duke’s Travel which is nearly only instrumental.

Behind The Lines is a strong intro for this album, and fades out in Duchess which is probably my favourite on this album (next to Duke’s travel). The chorus is great, and the instrumental parts are really good. I don’t really get Guide Vocal, but luckily it’s only 1:21. It’s dull and I don’t find it fitting together with the other songs.

Turn It On Again has one of the best vocals on the album, but the main instrumental melody starts to be anoying as hell after two listens. Duke’s Travel on the other side has no way of ever being anoying. It basically has everyting a good prog song should have. And after 8 minutes it only feels like two minutes are over and you’re sad that it’s already over. This is by far the highlight on the album! And even though there’s only one little vocal section, Phil Collins only enriches the song with his voice. Lastly there’s Duke’s End, an instrumental summary of the other songs. Mostly just replaying the intro and ending with a great climax.

Genesis Duke CD Cover

Besides this concept-part there’s 6 other songs on this album. Man of Our Times is in my opinion not really that much of a great song. It’s just like any pop song, and after a while the melody starts to become anoying. Misunderstanding is a lot better even though I used to skip this song, but now I think it’s melody is fun and it’s easy to start singing along with the chorus.

Heathaze is one of the better songs of this album, it’s Collins in his best form. Even though it’s nearly only vocal the song isn’t written by Collins, but by Tony Banks. The lyrics are also very nice, and it has some great build up parts. Maybe one of the slower songs on this album, but it’s one of the best.

Alone Tonight makes me think of some Disney movie. It’s a nice tune, but it really does not work with the rest of the album. On it’s own the song is ok though. Cul-De-Sac recreates the atmosphere of the previous songs, sadly it’s not one of the bands favourites and it’s never been played live. Please Don’t Ask is a necessary evil on this album. The song on itself is once again ok, but it doesn’t really fit the album. Yet the song is necessary to increase the effect of Duke’s Travel, which follows this song.

Overall I would rate this album pretty high in a best-of-Genesis list. There’s some downsides though, but Duke’s Travel on itself makes up for these minor slips.

This review will be quite extended because I’ve been looking forward badly to the release for Black Clouds & Silver Linings. I could be considered a modest Dream Theater fan, I haven’t been to a concert but I do appreciate all their albums. And I’m happy to say that they didn’t dissapointed their fans like they did with their last two albums. I don’t consider myself as one of those fans, cause the simple reason that I love Octavarium and I think that In The Presence Of Enemies is easily one of their best songs. Octavarium was also my first album and the title track is epic.

Anyhow Black Clouds & Silver Linings has a really Dream Theater-like feeling. There’s not many surprises in the songs, but the fans love this kind of music so there’s no need to change music style when people love it. So basically it feels like you’ve heard this before, and that feeling is extended when listening to The Shattered Fortress where there’s a lot of parts taken from previous songs, but more about that later on.

Dream Theater black clouds and silver linings

So there’s three versions of Black Clouds and Silver Linings: the 1-disc version, the 3-disc special edition and a limited Deluxe Collector’s Edition Box Set. I got myself the 3-disc special edition, and boy was I happy that I did. The extras are amazing. They’ve added instrumental versions of every song on the album, and as a surplus there’s six covers from bands like Queen, King Crimson and Iron Maiden. They did anounce this quite a while ago, and suggested that it would be impossible to guess the covers and that they woudl surprise the hell out of everybody. But I didn’t really felt surprised, King Crimson is considered the founding band for progressive rock, they’ve already covered Queen, Iron Maiden and Dixie Dregs before. So the surprise was not with the artists they choose, but more with their performance. Dream Theater’s cover for Queen’s Tenement Funster / Flick Of The Wrist / Lily Of The Valley, is amazing. The original version of these three songs were already considered heavy, so this fitted perfectly into Dream Theater’s profile. But not let us get ahead of ourselves, there’s 18 songs on this album, so let’s begin right off with A Nightmare To Remember.

You could consider  A Nightmare To Remember as one of their better openening songs. It’s intro is very metal-like, a 8-note piano part that ends with all the instruments jamming togheter. After a few minutes of this, Petrucci plays a guitar riff a little bit to long, and then the vocals begin. This reminds me a lot of something we’ve heard before… Strange Deja Vu from Scenes from a Memory has quite the same feeling. The song tells about a car-accident and the same way as they presented a story in Scenes the lyrics are just describing the event. Nothing wrong with that, if it works. Luckily it does with A Nightmare To Remember.

After about five minutes of story-telling, there’s a break with some slower instrumental parts and some nice vocal-sections which ends in the typical solo duel between the guitar and the keyboard. There’s a bit of Petrucci and a bit of Rudess all over the place for the next 3 or4 minutes, when the main melody kicks in again. What happens next is still a question to me, Portnoy tries something he’s tried before: some sort of shouting-rap-I-have-no-idea. Luckily this doesn’t go on for ages, so after this there’s some riffs here and there and then after 16 minutes the song is over.

The first single of this album A Rite of Passage has a great chorus and mild verses. The whole “free-masons”-subject is sometimes irritating because the lyrics are sometimes just stupid (this also counts for some other lyrics on this album). Anyhow, this is a typical heavey metal song, and something you’d expect on any Dream Theater album. One sad thing thing about this album is that the keyboard solo sucks. The guitar solo is pretty great, and the keyboard solo begins pretty good. It kinda feels like a robot who’s producing music from it’s speakers in the beginning. But then suddenly the robot explodes or something and there’s just random sounds being bombarded all over the place. It’s sad, because this really affects the whole song.

Black Clouds and Silver Linings inside

The next song Wither is a rock balad alike the ones they’ve done before. Something between Wait For Sleep, Anna Lee and The Answer Lies Within. A lot of people that like rock but aren’t into all the heavy stuff will definitely appreciate this song. It’s very steady and has beautifull lyrics. The guitar solo is also very calm and not the usual 10-time-signature-changes. Dream Theater has done a great job making a great rock balad.

The Shattered Fortress is the ending of the Twelve-step Suite also known as the Alcoholics Anonymous Suite. The whole Suite consits out of 5 songs spread over 5 albums:

• The Glass Prison (6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence)
• This Dying Soul (Train of Thought)
• The Root of All Evil (Octavarium)
• Repetance (Systematic Chaos)
• The Shattered Fortress (Black Clouds and Silver Linings)

The song is basically a summary of the four previous songs. There’s a lot of reference and sometimes just copies from the previous songs. I love how they mix all the songs into one final conclusion song. If you liked The Glass Prison you’ll love this for sure. It’s heavy, it’s wild and it’s awesome! The connection between the different songs is very subtle so it doesn’t really disturb you, even though they switch to different atmospheres all the time.

The best of Times begins very peaceful and I’m sure as hell that I’ve heard the intro before but I can’t seem to place it. After this calm intro there’s a lot of riffs flying all over the place and then the vocals take over. The vocals feel familiar as well, it has a 6DOIT-feeling and something else that I still can’t place. The guitar solo is much like the one from Wither, very calm and beautiful. Again they delivered us a great rock balad that I for sure will play over and over until I can’t stand it any more, then wait a few months and then some. And after that it’ll start all over again.

The last song on this album also has the worst lyrics on the album. It’s quite a shame, because it really doesn’t make me like sharing this song with my friends. The count of Tuscany is musically above average and has a great “adventurous” intro. The keyboard and guitar work in the intro are really great and stop just right on time, because after four minutes I kinda felt like listening to some vocals. Anyhow, the lyrics suck but the vocals are okay. There’s some heavy singing and Portnoy’s voice really ads a lot of feeling to the song. Sometime later the instrumental break starts, with great solos. But what happens after this is quite surprising. They build up to the finale, and when I feel like the song is about to stop… it didn’t.

Anyhow, the song is only halfway and what’s next really makes me go nostalgic to 6DOIT. This part can be best described as Goodnight Kiss meets Octavarium intro. Anyhow, after this keyboard break, there’s some great vocals featering aweful lyrics. But I kinda feel like I’ve mentioned that before.

The album ends in something that’s quite like Close to The Edge… but wait! There’s more: covers for 6 songs by some great bands. These covers are really worth the extra few dollars you’ve got to add to get the 3-disc version. I really loved how they covered those songs on A Change of Seasons LP, but these covers are even better.

A Rite of Passage Announcement

My conclusion for this album is that it was definitely worth the wait. I would be surprised if the fans would bash these albums like they did with the two previous ones. A Rite of Passage is a good single, but I would’ve prefered Wither as their first single. But I kinda feel like it’ll be the next single. Anyhow, get the 3-disc version because it’s worth it! Enjoy!

When I first listened to this album I was completely stunned. The only thing I could think was: “wow, this is a great album!”. I had been listening to some later Led Zeppelin albums and didn’t expect much of the earlier work, but boy was I wrong! This album is pure rock&roll!

Led Zeppelin

The name Led Zeppelin comes from “led zeppelin”, because drummer Keith Moon suggested that they would go over with audiences like one). They did rip a lot off old blues artist, even sometimes without the proper credit, but it’s brilliant anyways. The album consists of 9 tracks with a great blues rock track Good Times Bad Times. Following this is the epc Babe I’m gonna leave you, this album has been covered throughout the years, but never did I hear a cover like the one from Led Zeppelin. You shock me and Dazed and confused are very much alike in structure and atmosphere. There’s some great Jimmy Page work in these songs!

The next song Your Time Is Gonna Come reminds me a lot of Sweet Home Alabama meets No women no cry. The only downside on this album is the song Black Mountain side, it basically breaks the whole album in two.

Following this “album break” there’s three more great songs with lots of great solo’s, lot’s of Rock and Roll and blues riffs. Communication Breakdown, I Can’t Quit You Baby and How Many More Times are great songs!

Overall this album is a must for any Rock & Roll fan! A great variety of songs and some nice “sing along with the music moments”!