Album Reviews

Another two album reviews posted on Moshville Times:

• Uriah Heep - Outsider
• Rush - Hemispheres

One I am utterly positive about and one that I have a reservation about but otherwise liked. Can you guess which one is which?

Review: Rush - A Farewell To Kings

It took me a while but I finally managed to finish my review of A Farewell To Kings, the April re-issue from The Twelve Months Of Rush series. This was the first Rush album I heard and it was the one that got me hooked, not only to Rush, but to rock music in general. After all these years, it remains one of my favourite Rush albums.

I am enjoying listening to and reviewing stuff for the Moshville Times but the writing gets squished into what little free time I have, so it takes me a long time to finish things. Let me know what you think of the review either here or on Moshville Times. Is it worth the time it takes me?

Review: The Sun Explodes

I have managed to post another review to Moshville Times. The band is The Sun Explodes and the review is of their latest EP, The Calm, the Storm which will be released on 18 May.

Up until now, I have reviewed bands that I already knew but I had never heard of this band until I was offered the chance to review their work. After one listen, I knew I wanted to hear more. I had to arm wrestle one of the other Moshville crew members for the privilege of reviewing their EP but it was worth it. 

If you read what written, you'll see I am convinced that it is a Concept EP. I've had a bit of correspondence with the band who claim that it is not, but what do they know? They only wrote it. I'm the one who listened!

Comments and constructive criticism welcome either here on on the review at the Moshville site. 

Review: Uriah Heep - Live At Koko

I have just posted my first non-Rush related review at The Moshville Times: Uriah Heep - Live At Koko.

Uriah Heep was one of those bands that, as a teenager, I was aware of but somehow never connected with. I even had a poster of one of their covers on my wall but, until relatively recently, I did not own any of their albums. I got the poster because it was by Roger Dean an artist I came across through the work he did with Yes. I saw the poster in Listen in Renfield Street (now there was a record shop!) and bought it because I thought it looked cool. It was only after it was on my wall that I discovered it was album art for Uriah Heep - Wizards & Demons.

(If you are interested, you can buy it to download as a desktop image from Roger's site.)

But back to Live At Koko... You can read the review for full details but the edited highlight is: I like it! Comments and constructive criticism is welcome either here or on the Moshville Times site.

Back in the saddle again

Just started writing for the Moshville Times, so decided it was well past time to start writing here too.  My first two reviews have been about, guess what, Rush!

• Review: Rush - 2112
• Reveiw: A year of Rush

Head over there and leave a comment. All comments and constructive criticism gratefully received.

Review of the year

Distinct lack of blogging during 2013.

New Year Resolution: try to get back to at least one post a week. 

Proof of the pudding: Review of stuff added to my iPod in 2013

Introduction (by way of an excuse)

First off, not a lot of new albums. This is due to a combination of too little time and more importantly, too little money. As a result, most of the additions are charity shop purchases. But here's what I did add, in the order of addition. 

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy (Remastered)

Very pleased to find this in a charity shop early in January 2013. It's an album that I have never owned, not even on vinyl, but one I always intended to get. I was familiar with most of the songs but it is always good to hear stuff in the order decided when it was first released and in relation to the other stuff on album. It is not my favourite Zeppelin album (my favourite is Led Zeppelin I in case anybody is interested) but well worth having. It has a great track to kicking off with in The Song Remains The Same and a very strong finish in No Quarter and The Ocean.

Miss The Occupier - Keeping Company With Wolves

I have featured Miss The Occupier in this blog before and declared a possible source of bias (I know Roz, the lead singer and bass player). I picked up a copy of this album at the launch gig back in March. the addition of keyboards to their sound is interesting. For me the stand out track is Song For The Miserable which, among other things, gives the lie to Roz's claim to be a vocalist rather than a singer!

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

Another charity shop purchase. Mr Plant's voice still sounds great but Ms Krauss' vocals don't really grab me. Having said that, Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On) is well worth a listen. 

Slash - Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)

Slash is an outstandingly good guitarist with a talent for creating memorable riffs. Myles Kennedy is an awesome vocalist able to bring power and emotion to his performance. What's not to like about this album? My favourite tracks from the previous Slash album, R&Fn'R were Back From Cali and By The Sword, both of which featured Mr Kennedy, so I was pleased when I heard he was the only vocalist on this album. Having all the featured vocalists on R&Fn'R was fun but settling on the one vocalist this time made it feel more consistent. There's not a duff track on the album so picking a favourite is tricky. Anastasia is good, but if pushed, I'd probably choose You're A Lie.

The Temperance Movement - Pride EP

Another band where I have to admit to a personal connection - I kent his faither. By "his faither" I mean I know the lead singer's father, and I also know his wee brother, although I have lost touch with both of them. The lead singer is a chap called Phil Campbell and I've followed him from when he was a solo artist, when he was in a group and then solo again... but the stuff he is doing with the Temperance Movement is just outstanding and, for me, this is the best I've heard from him yet. In particular, Only Friend is stunning. First time I heard it was on the radio. At the time, I didn't know Phil was in the band and I assumed it was a cover of an old Blues song. It was only when Inlooked it up that I discovered who the lead singer was and that they had written it themselves. Their new album is still on my wish list - with a bit of luck, I'll get it for my birthday. :-)

Genesis - Calling All Stations

I would count myself a fan of Genesis, but more the classic Gabriel era Genesis; I lost patience a bit with them when Collins took over vocal duties. I have most of the Genesis albums but don't have all of the ones produced after Gabriel left. In particular, I never bothered getting Calling All Stations because it was panned by one and all. Picked it up in a charity shop though and it's much better than I thought it would be. It is closer to old-style prog Genesis than the immediately preceding pop Genesis - I suspect that's why it didn't do so well when it was released. It's not a great album but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. There are no five star tracks but four out of eleven tracks rated at four star makes it better than many I have in my iTunes collection!

Hayseed Dixie - Let There Be Rockgrass

Hayseed Dixie featured in my When musical worlds collide post in 2009 but it was only last year, when I came across this album in a charity shop, that I finally got around to listening to more than the odd track. They don't disappoint. Perhaps the key to a good musical spoof is that the spoof has to be good. That is, it works best when the people doing the spoof are not just mocking something but are good at what they do and have a love for the music that they are creating and aping. It seems to me that Hayseed Dixie manage that balancing act perfectly. They are clearly good musicians and perform the Bluegrass style songs with skill and passion. But they also seem to love the rock music they are covering while managing to avoid a stifling reverence for it. For me, the standout track is Highway to Hell - I think Bon Scott would have loved it!

That's all for now. It is already a longer post than I intended. I still have a few more albums that I added to my collection in 2013 but I will try and do another post about them soon.

What were the stand our additions to your music collection in 2013?

Rush - Clockwork Angels Tour

It's been far too long since I updated this blog but I cannot let the Rush concert in Glasgow last Thursday go by without comment.

Rush, SECC Glasgow, 30 May 2013,
a photo by DavidDMuir on Flickr.

Let's get the obvious out the way first. it was awesome!

I first saw them in concert in 1978 at the Glasgow Apollo for the Farewell To Kings tour and I often cite that as my favourite gig ever but I think Thursday's concert may well knock the '78 concert off the top spot. Why do I say that? Was it the light show? Was it the back projection? Was it the fireworks? Certainly, the shows have become more spectacular as the years have gone by, and the current show is possibly their most pyrotechnic yet, but explosions alone do not a great show make...

With Rush concerts, it's always been about the musicianship... at least, that's what it's been for me. Every time I see them live, I am astonished at how faithfully the three of them reproduce the sounds from their studio albums in a concert setting. Can I say that again? Three of them. On stage. Live! No studio trickery for support. Just three outstanding musicians working together to produce something that many bands twice their size (and nowadays half their age) would struggle to match! But what made this tour special was, not only did we have at least ninety minutes of the three of them working wonders by triggering samples and playing synthesisers with what ever spare limb wasn't already involved in playing their "main" instrument, we also had about an hour of Rush playing along with a string section. And the Clockwork Angels String Ensemble did what I would have said was impossible; they made Rush sound even better than usual!

The set list is embedded below:

Edit this setlist | More Rush setlists

As you can see, The Clockwork Angels String Ensemble played for most of the second set, which is where Rush played almost the whole of the Clockwork Angels album, but they also played along with Dreamline, Red Sector A and YYZ. Now, YYZ in particular, I have heard them play live umpteen times but I don't think it has ever sounded better than it did last week with the string ensemble rocking it up behind Rush.



Final Thoughts
As I sat in the SECC waiting for the concert to begin feeling stupidly excited, I thought back to my first Rush gig where I felt just as stupidly excited. What is it about Rush that can make a fat fifty year old man feel like a teenager again? What ever it is, long may it continue!

Coheed And Cambira Secret Session

Once again, thanks to Rock Radio, I won the chance to go to a Secret Session. (See Dommin Acoustic Set Review for details of my previous win.) This time, I got the chance to hear Coheed and Cambria.

This is a band I'd heard about but hadn't really heard! (I have read about them in Classic Rock Presents Prog but only heard a couple of tracks on the radio.) This was a mistake because they were excellent and I really need to track down a CD as soon as possible.

The venue seemed much busier than the last time with people packed in and many of them were going on to the gig at the ABC afterwards. The band were crowded onto the tiny stage and although they apologised for not really having rehearsed an acoustic set, they sounded excellent. The guitarist, Travis Stever was impressive and the vocalist, Claudio Sanchez, had a really interesting and distinctive voice. The bass player, Michael Todd, kept things moving along and introduced the songs. I did feel sorry for Chris Pennie, who was squished in at the end doing the best he could with a single snare drum.

As well as being impressive musicians, they seemed to be really good chaps too. For a start, after the session, they stayed for ages signing stuff and posing for pictures. I was even more impressed when I saw them outside the venue later on. Claudio got out the tour bus and was approached by fans. The minder/roadie/person who was with him tried to hurry him away but Claudio stopped and posed for the photos. Very cool! (See the photo taken by my daughter.)

A full report, with videos, has been posted on the Rock Radio site. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Airborne in Concert

There are two bands I've seen in concert who were so loud, my ears were still ringing the following morning. The bands were AC/DC and Motörhead. I can now add a third band to that list: Airbourne. In fact, my ears are still not right more than 24 hours 36 hours after their gig in Glasgow on Tuesday night. I don't think Airbourne were any louder than the other two; I guess it's just that my old ears are taking longer to recover than my teenage ears did.

Airbourne in Concert
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

As teenagers we used to think that ringing ears were the sign of a good concert. Now I realise that ringing ears is the sign of permanently damaged hearing! I suspect that my enjoyment of loud concerts in the past is at least partially responsible for the mild hearing loss I suffer from at the best of times but clearly the day after an Airbourne gig is far from the best of times!

Don't get me wrong. I have stated on a number of occasions that I love noisy guitar music - it's my children who tell me to, "Turn that racket down!" However, I fear that Tuesday night pushed even my ears further than was comfortable and the volume is the one complaint I have from what was otherwise an extraordinarily good concert.

Review: Taking Dawn

In the value for money stakes, there was not one, but two support acts: each with a set lasting about 40 minutes.

The first band up was Taking Dawn - a four piece from Las Vagas. The blurb on the venue website said: "Heavy melodic hooks, guitar solos and great vocals from these Las Vegas hard rockers." And here lies my first complaint about the volume... "melodic"? Who knows? They had an "Everything louder than everything else" approach to volume so that you couldn't really hear any individual instrument. All you could hear was a wall of heavily distorted noise. I'm fairly sure the lead guitarist played solos but I could barely hear a note through the general melee of sound. Note: this was at the start of the evening before half my hearing gave up and went bye-bye!

Having said that, they did exactly what a support act are supposed to do. They worked really hard at rousing the crowd: trying to get people clapping; moving; reacting... I did feel a bit sorry for them though as the venue was barely half full.

Update: I've now posted my Taking Dawn pictures to Flickr.

Review: Black Spiders

The next support act was a bit more to my taste. The Black Spiders pulled the volume back a bit and the sound seemed to be better balanced. They are a five piece band: three guitars, bass and drums. The two "lead" guitarists seemed to share the solo duties fairly evenly between them, the drummer was particularly entertaining and the bass player surprisingly uncoordinated! Oh... and it seems that if you want to be in their gang - you need to have a beard!

The blurb on the venue website said: "Hotly tipped British rockers Black Spiders, who feature ex-Groop Dogdrill member Pete Spiby, claim they sound like ‘Black Sabbath eating Guns N Roses for breakfast’ and have won full support from the UK rock press for their ‘crotch-rodden sleaze rock’." To be honest, I didn't hear too much that I'd identify as Sabbath-ish but I liked what I heard and was pleased to discover some of their stuff on eMusic. (Worth noting that this is another band with black in their name that I like!)

Again, they did what a support band needs to do. They were a lot less flamboyant than Taking Dawn but that's not a bad thing. They got on with their set, made me want to hear more of their music and they got us wound up and ready for Airbourne.

Update: I've now posted my Black Spiders pictures to Flickr.

Review: Aibourne

Now the main event... and Airbourne did not disappoint. They put on a belter of a show. No back projection, pyrotechnics or parading about on bikes for them. Just energy, adrenaline and amplification! They were LOUD but the sound seemed better balanced so you could at least make out the solos.

All four members of the band know exactly what they are doing and pump out good old-fashioned guitar based rock. However, special mention has to go to Joel O’Keeffe, who as front man, vocalist and lead guitarist, worked especially hard for his money. He put on a heck of a show. Not content with leaping about on stage, at one point he leapt off the stage and disappeared into the audience still playing as he went. Everyone was looking around trying to spot where he'd gone, when I noticed the chap beside me pointing. And there he was... standing on the bar in the middle of the crowd, belting out a blinder of a guitar solo. Excellent!

Interestingly, although billed as the No Guts, No Glory Tour, roughly two-thirds of the set came from Runnin' Wild, their first album. I wonder if they felt safer sticking to well-known tracks? Also, they didn't play Get Busy Livin', which has been getting a bit of airplay here on rock radio. Otherwise though, I have no real complains about the set list. Nicely balanced and the crowd pleasing sing-a-longs like Too much, Too Young, Too Fast kept until the end.

Update: I've now posted my Airbourne pictures to Flickr: good quality camera pictures and iPhone pictures.

And finally...

I know I sound like a grumpy old man complaining about the volume but there are two reasons for that. 1) I am a grumpy old man and 2) I am slightly worried that the tinnitus is still with me days after the event. I am hoping that the white noise I'm hearing in my ears will eventually go away but I'm concerned that it seems to be taking its time about it.

That said, I want to finish on a more positive note by commenting on the demographics of the audience. There were a lot of young, long haired lads in the audience as might be expected but there were a good number of fat, baldy old men like me there too. And, although the majority of the audience were male, there were more women there than I remember being at gigs like this when I was a teenager. In fact, the chap next to me (of similar girth and vintage as myself) appeared to be there with his daughter and her friend (they looked about 14 years old). With an audience of dads and daughters; teenage hoodies and ageing hippies; long-haired lads and baldy lardies - the future has to be good for rock music. As Airbourne themselves said in the opening song of the evening:

As long as you're alive and we're alive
Rock 'n' roll will never die...
-- Raise The Flag by Airbourne

Dommin Acoustic Set Review

This is a long overdue review of the secret Dommin acoustic set I saw last week (see Rock Radio Win for details). I've already posted a bit of this response on the Dommin website but thought it was worth cross-posting here and expanding slightly.

Dommin live
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

As I said in the Rock Radio Win post, at first I didn't have any confirmation that I had won, other than hearing my name on the radio. No text. No phone call. Just a name. However, I needn't have worried because, as Billy Rankin said when he announced the winners, Lisa contacted me on Friday to tell me the time and location of the performance. It was to be in The Box in Sauchiehall Street. (I know a joke about Sauchiehall Street... but it's so bad, I probably shouldn't tell it.) I'd never been to The Box before but it turned out to be a wee narrow room with a stage at the entrance end that was just perfect for the type of gig Dommin put on.

When I arrived at the venue, there were about half a dozen people already there and we stood outside in the freezing cold for a while waiting for the doors to open. We didn't have to wait long though before they started to let us in. The problem was my pal Tom had a bit of trouble finding a parking space, so I got to the front, checked my name was on the list, but then had to wait outside for Tom to arrive. I saw pretty much everyone as they went in and, although I was worried that I'd be much older than Dommin's usual audience, that wasn't a problem for this event. (Probably says more about the demographic of Rock Radio listeners than it does about Dommin!) The Rock Radio people have posted some pictures of the event, one of which will give you an idea of the make up of the audience! (I'm the numpty in the t-shirt at the front of that photo.)

Kristofer Dommin wrote a bit on their night in Glasgow on the band's website. He said:

"The audience seemed to really enjoy it. I always feel like the acoustic performances are something special."

Speaking as one of the 30 or so people lucky enough to be invited to the acoustic set, I can confirm that it was indeed "something special"! Clearly he was worried about his voice but as far as I'm concerned he sounded great - perfect for the small venue. I loved the informal nature of it all. For example, Kristofer's reaction when he realised he hadn't plugged in his guitar for the first song, or the banter as Konstantine wrestled with the keyboard before they could start Dark Holiday. Brilliant! And it was great to speak to them afterwards. (Although the lady from Roadrunner was clearly worried that we weren't going to let them get away!)

There was a bloke who was there with a boy of about 14 (father and son I assume - see the Rock Radio photo and draw your own conclusions). My pal Tom pointed out the look on the boy's face as he walked out the venue clutching the signed card - he couldn't have looked more chuffed! Clearly a satisfied fan and the event probably confirmed him as a lifelong supporter of the band.

It was such a great night, it seems petty to make two complaints... but I'm going to do it anyway. :-) First, it was too short and second, it was a shame the bass player and drummer couldn't be there too. It should be clear therefore, since they are my only complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I've posted a few photos from the event on Flickr and Rock Radio had published a few of theirs. (The last four of the Rock Radio photos are mine, - which is brilliant!)

I'm looking forward to the UK release of Dommin's album.Have you checked them out yet?