TR Forums

https://youtu.be/Qj0Pp-Bja-4

Great song.

just brew it! wrote:

St. Vincent - St. Vincent (2014)

St. Vincent (a.k.a. Annie Clark) has her own unique flavor of quirky pop-art-rock. Maybe you could call her Kate Bush for the new millennium? Her sound is more aggressive than Ms. Bush though. Some echoes of Talking Heads on this one, which makes sense given that her previous project (Love This Giant) was a collaboration with David Byrne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVAxUMuhz98
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAdARF4rGcQ

She's a pretty sick guitarist too, though her studio material only hints at it; check out this live performance (great song, and closes with an extended guitar solo):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42fZSz0K0HE

Aw man, LOVE Annie Clark. Seen her live, and can confirm that she has chops for days. Saw her in a tiny venue before she blew up and she melted my face off

Also enjoyed seeing her in Noisey's Guitar Moves series, where guitarists share secrets to their signature "moves."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vRPmJx8bYs
(learning that Polka is the secret to Josh Homme's style was fun )

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Holst - Neptune, the Mystic

Not speaking any French, but this dude rocks (I mean raps) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHoT4N43jK8

Queen - I want it all!

Racing Cars - They Shoot Horses Don't They

https://youtu.be/GktXlCEJ-HU

Where my metalhead gerbils at?

Not in metalhead mode this AM. Listening to some classic fusion instead - Return To Forever's self-titled debut, released back in 1972.

Metallica one, finally listened to the lyrics and it's some scary crazyness.

Curtis Mayfield - If there's hell below, we're all gonna go....

Spock's Beard - The Kindness Of Strangers (1998)

Great Prog (Neo-prog?) Rock album that draws on multiple '70s Prog influences without sounding like a total '70s throwback.

Some old school hip hop. Mantronix - Bassline

Opeth - Morningrise (1996)

Their 2nd album. Great material marred by some seriously weedy production. My biggest gripe is that the drums sound like they were recorded from the far end of a football field, then mixed about 10 dB too low. C'mon, this is aggressive music -- the drums need to have some punch instead of being more of a background effect!

just brew it! wrote:

Shelby Lynne - Live At McCabe's (2012)

Great live set. Just her and her acoustic guitar, crisply recorded.

Just wanted to necro-quote my own post from a few months back, and point out to Captain Ned that he probably ought to check this album out if he hasn't already. Unfortunately seems to only be available as an MP3 download at present, but the sound quality is decent.

http://www.npr.org/event/music/55287141 ... sk-concert

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. There are days when I think he's better at the banjo than comedy.

Soen - Lykaia (2017)

Fan-damn-tastic Swedish prog metal. Some of it makes me think "Tool meets middle-period Opeth, with all clean vocals". (The drummer is a former member of Opeth, so there's an actual connection there...)

Any fans of Opeth who were disappointed with the left turn they took into retro-prog worship after Watershed, or frustrated by the extended drought of Tool releases, or, really, anyone who enjoys heavy prog rock or prog metal would be well advised to check this band out. Sure, they wear their influences overtly (and proudly, it would seem), and may seem derivative at times; but it's all very well done. Easily one of the best releases of 2017.

The CD was stupid expensive on Amazon, but Bandcamp had it as a lossless FLAC download for $9 so I went with that.

The first track from the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11CvvggCPrI

Edit: Some thoughts on production values... the claim is that this album was "recorded using analog equipment". Compared to their previous release Tellurian, I'd say it does have a warmer, more organic sound (whereas Tellurian sounded crisper, but also a bit more clinical). Obviously this is a matter of personal preference; TBH I slightly prefer the sound on Tellurian. I think both would have benefited from less dynamic range compression; the "loudness wars" continue unabated. Ironically, the compression actually seems a bit more apparent on Lykaia; IMO the music would have more impact if they'd backed it off a notch or two.

Neil Young - Let's Impeach The President

Joe Bonamassa - A New Day Yesterday (2000)

The debut solo album from Mr. Bonamassa. Fantastic blues rock. And yes, he covers the namesake Jethro Tull tune (it's one of the standout tracks): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ8-WXY6HVU

Oh hey lookee here (just found this), Bonamassa doing a live medley of "A New Day Yesterday" and the closing section of Yes' "Starship Trooper": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWE8EJZ4yiI

And (unfortunately) tying in with my thread about poorly mastered recordings with digital clipping artifcats, this album is pretty bad in that regard. Great music marred by stupid (and entirely avoidable) engineering mistakes really pisses me off.

The Wallflowers - Bringing Down the Horse

Saw them in concert at the end of July. Jakob Dylan is starting to sound like his dad in a lot of ways (which is not an insult, I swear), but he's still far more intelligible than Bob. His voice has aged well, for sure. Unfortunately the rest of the band is just a bunch of guys these days. Nobody on the tour is original except for Dylan. They've got a bunch of music outside of the one album that everybody knows, and I didn't really realize it. It was decent live, and I've bought some of it since then. Lots of great keyboard playing at the show - a B3 like you hear in One Headlight and The Difference and a soulful piano performance in 6th Avenue Heartache

Better than Ezra opened for them, and they kicked ass. This is a band that flew under the radar for me but this is the reason my wife wanted to go to that show. I only bought the greatest hits compilation, but there's 8-9 songs on it that I really like. They've had a little member turnover but not as much. The guitar sounds on stage were really distinctive. Some sort of Gibson ES hollow-body guitar (too far away to tell exactly what, they all look alike from a distance) and a Gibson SG.

just brew it! wrote:

Joe Bonamassa - A New Day Yesterday (2000)

The debut solo album from Mr. Bonamassa. Fantastic blues rock. And yes, he covers the namesake Jethro Tull tune (it's one of the standout tracks): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ8-WXY6HVU

Oh hey lookee here (just found this), Bonamassa doing a live medley of "A New Day Yesterday" and the closing section of Yes' "Starship Trooper": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWE8EJZ4yiI

And (unfortunately) tying in with my thread about poorly mastered recordings with digital clipping artifcats, this album is pretty bad in that regard. Great music marred by stupid (and entirely avoidable) engineering mistakes really pisses me off.

And here I thought you and I would never share anything on our playlists with all the prog rock you post, but Joe Bonamassa is one of my faves. Amazing guitar player and a good song writer.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Running Man's Bible

Mudcrutch - Dreams of Flying

derFunkenstein wrote:

And here I thought you and I would never share anything on our playlists with all the prog rock you post, but Joe Bonamassa is one of my faves. Amazing guitar player and a good song writer.

Oh, c'mon... I don't just post about prog rock! I skimmed my past 3 months of posts in this thread, and came up with the following tally of genres mentioned:

7 progressive metal
6 female singer-songwriter-guitarist (though I suppose Annie Clark arguably belongs in the art rock category)
3 "classic" prog rock, or derivatives thereof
2 art/experimental rock
2 comedy/parody (Weird Al)
1 space rock
1 classical
1 blues rock (the above Joe B post)
1 Celtic/folk rock
1 fusion

So slightly less or slightly more than half prog, depending how you decide to count Annie Clark and the art/experimental rock category.

Rock Candy Funk Party - We Want Groove (2013)

High-energy funk-fusion with Joe Bonamassa on guitar. Good stuff.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - I Won't Back Down

tons of brand new releases out for the industrial-oontz-synthpop-ebm-aggrotech fans!

Legend - Midnight Champion (2017)
Blancmange - Unfurnished Rooms (2017)
mind.in.a.box - Broken Legacies (2017)
Depeche Mode - Going Backwards (Remixes) (2017)
Diary of Dreams - Hell in Eden [2017]
Cut Copy - Haiku From Zero - 2017 - 320
Drab Majesty - Oak Wood 2017
Massiv In Mensch - Am Port Der Guten Hoffnung (CD)-2017
Gary Numan - Savage (Songs from a Broken World) (2017)
Akalotz - Confront (CD)-2017
Relic - Pulse Code Misery (CD)-2017
Encephalon - We Only Love You When You're Dead (CD)-2017
Patenbrigade:Wolff - der brigadier trinkt immer noch bier! (EP)-2017
O.M.D. - The Punishment of Luxury (CD)-2017
Seadrake - Someday (EP)-2017
Rusty Egan - Welcome to the Dancefloor (CD)-2017
Implant - Oxynoxe-x (CD)-2017
Die Form - Baroque Equinox (CD)-2017
Lionhearts - Flashback (CD)-2017
Birthday Massacre - Under Your Spell (CD)-2017
Marilyn Manson - Heaven Upside Down (CD)-2017
Robots With Rayguns - Slow Jams (CD)-2017

The Traveling Wilburys - She's My Baby

Tom Petty - Runnin' Down a Dream

David Byrne and St. Vincent - Love This Giant (2012)

I've mentioned this in passing before. It's been growing on me (as has been Annie Clark a.k.a. St. Vincent). This is a pretty unique album. If I had to try to describe it, I'd say it's Talking Heads meets Annie Clark meets a woodwind/brass ensemble in a dark alley. Yes, it's that weird. But it works.

Maybe instead of me trying to describe it you just need to hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpPYKJAnwUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SElBvU5xODA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvhxlWvVA40

Sam Phillips - Fan Dance (2001)

Sparse arrangements, good songwriting, and Sam's fantastic voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRjmEEttYfo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXAOKFbs_p8

Edit: Hey, she did one of those NPR mini-concerts too - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANOrllutAhs