Year in review: 2012!

2011 was a great year for new music, but 2012 has trumped it in almost every respect. It goes without saying that top 10 lists are highly personal and unscientific, so I...erm, won’t say it (unless I have already, of course...). Anyway, there are obviously loads of potentially fabulous albums I haven’t heard at all, and others I haven’t heard enough to pass final judgement on, but the below all made an impact and, as with all great albums, continue to reveal more of themselves with each subsequent listen. If two or three (or more) are on your own personal lists you could do far worse than check out the rest (as you clearly have taste – well done!).

Top 10 Albums of 2012

10: Ten – Heresy and Creed: Long-time followers of Ten seem to agree that this doesn’t match the band’s first three albums for quality, but if that’s the case those albums must be pretty special indeed. Personally I rate this one slightly higher than last year’s Stormwarning, which I also enjoyed immensely. Choice cut: The Lights Go Down.

09: Martin Page – A Temper of Peace: The definite winner of the ‘under the radar’ award for the year, I only discovered that this album was out after randomly checking Page’s Wikipedia entry (strangely enough the same way I found out about 2008’s In the Temple of the Muse, the only difference being that this time I was two weeks, rather than two years, behind the times!).  Page pulls off the conceit of performing every instrument himself better than most (although I’d always rather have Jimmy Copley on drums than a machine, take note for the next one please Mr Page!!) and uses this as an excuse to take a few stylistic left-turns (notably on The Washing of the Heart and Soulprint) with great success. Fans of his previous albums will undoubtedly enjoy this just as much as, differences aside, it is another first-rate adult-contemporary album from a much overlooked artist. Choice cut: When the Harvest is in.

08: Ian Anderson – Thick as a Brick 2: What could have been the worst idea in the world – a belated follow-up to 1972’s classic original Brick -  turned out to be an inspired reflection on the various paths a single person could have followed to reach middle-age. A ‘mature’ work, but with plenty of style and wit to it. See my review of the album and tour for more on this one. Choice cut: Thick as a Brick 2. ;-)

07: The Reasoning – Adventures in Neverland: A band I’d foolishly ignored prior to their support set for Marillion in September (see the top 5 support acts list below), this was one of my pleasant surprises for the year. I have no idea how it stacks up against their earlier efforts, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Choice cut: No Friend of Mine.

06: Robert Lamm – Living Proof: Who needs a new Chicago album (okay, I still do...) when keyboardist/vocalist Lamm is creating solo works as immense as this? The only album that I’ve devoted a full review to this year – months later and I stand by every word. Choice cut: I Confess.

05: Asia – XXX: When the supergroup reconvened with its original line-up for their 25^th anniversary in 2007 nobody believed they’d get past that tour, yet here they are, celebrating another anniversary with their third post-reformation studio album (one more than they managed on the first pass) and easily their best since their debut (well I still love Astra and several of the John Payne albums, but I’m talking the (full) original line-up here). It builds on the success of 2010’s Omega, but is trimmed of the filler that dominated the final third of that album. If you haven’t paid much attention to Asia since 1982, it’s high time you gave them another listen. Long term devotees will be well-pleased indeed. Choice cut: Bury Me in Willow.

04: Anathema – Weather Systems: I was first exposed to Anathema at last year’s High Voltage festival – and as you can tell from my review I came away from it with some curiousity intact, but no burning desire to investigate further. But this album generated such a buzz that it was impossible to ignore and I’m glad I ultimately gave in and bought it – it’s as powerful, emotional and beautiful as it’s many advocates proclaimed. So another band with a back-catalogue worth exploring (although not as far back as their death-metal days methinks!). Choice cut: The Beginning and the End.

03: Magnum – On the 13^th Day: Having provided 2011’s album of the year with The Visitation my almost-favourite band struck gold yet again this year – and returned to the UK top 50 for the first time in 20 years to boot. This time around the songs are slightly more concise (some would say commercial) but all contain the hallmarks of classic Magnum at their best – and they’ve been back at their best now for four albums in a row. In any other year this would also have made it to the top spot on my list, but the two above it were just too good. Choice cut: Dance of the Black Tattoo.

02: Rush – Clockwork Angels: Rush are undeniably a great band, but I’ve never quite fully embraced them as I have with my other favourites, perhaps because they often appear slightly removed emotionally from their material. That isn’t the case with this, their first ‘proper’ concept album (with a concept so sprawling it’s needed a full novelisation to let the story be fully realised), which like the Ian Anderson album is striking for its maturity – the sentiment behind Wish Them Well being only one example of a song that (sadly) couldn’t be conceived by a younger band. Despite being set on a different world the album plays on universal themes of hope, disappointment and redemption and is immensely relatable as a result. Choice cut: The Garden.

01: Marillion – Sounds That Can’t Be Made: Just because Marillion are my favourite band of all time does not make their appearance at #1 here a fait accompli by any means, but they’ve outdone themselves with this one. The title track is simply the best thing I’ve heard all year, and is definitely on the list of 50 Marillion songs that *might* be my very favourite – along with almost every other track on this album, from the tour de force opener that is Gaza to the elegiac, heartstring-tugging The Sky Above the Rain. They took their time with this one and the result is simply superb and not to be missed. The deluxe edition is also a thing of beauty and well worth owning whether you are a die-hard Marillion fan or not. Choice cut: Sounds That Can’t Be Made.

5 other great songs from 2012:

Europe – Bag of Bones

Flying Colors – Everything Changes

Steve Hogarth/Richard Barbieri – Only Love Will Make You Free

Tyketto – Faithless

Dante Fox – Who Stole the Innocence?

The top 10 gigs of 2012:

2012 wasn’t the greatest gig year for me, a combination of health issues for most of the year, and a lack of gigs in London due to the Olympics meant that things really only picked up in the last few months. Nevertheless I still managed to attend a healthy number of brilliant gigs, of which the below stood out:

10. Ian Anderson (Hammersmith Apollo, 27 April)

09. Darren Hayes (Brighton Dome, 29 September)

08. The Reasoning/Touchstone (The Garage, 12 October)

07. Flying Colors (Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 21 September)

06. h Natural (Cargo, 18 December)

05. Europe (Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 01 December)

04. Firefest Friday - Lionville, Dante Fox, Ten, Tyketto (Rock City, Nottingham, 19 October) REVIEW

03. Paul Simon (Hard Rock Calling, Hyde Park, 15 July)

02. Magnum (Bristol, 18 November) REVIEW

01: Marillion (Sheffield, 14 September) REVIEW

The top 5 support acts of 2012:

(headliners in brackets)

05. DeeExpus (Marillion, London)

04. Trillium (Magnum, London)

03. Mr. So & So (Marillion, Sheffield)

02. Chris Ryder (h Natural, London)

01. The Reasoning (Marillion, Cardiff)

5 albums from 2011 that I listened to more in 2012:

There are always albums that you don’t get around to listening to properly the moment they come out- or just come out too late in the year to be compared fairly with everything that’s come before (this year Jimi Jamison, Neal Morse and Lionville are such cases for me), so these are albums that gave me more pleasure this year than last -  only one of them featured in my 2011 round-up.

05.Alice Cooper – Welcome 2 My Nightmare

04.Work of Art – In Progress

03.Fergie Frederiksen – Happiness is the Road

02.Edison’s Children – In the Last Waking Moments...

01. Serpentine – Living and Dying in High Definition

Plenty of proof then for the doubters that good music is in as healthy a state as ever – you may need to work a little harder to discover it than the days when they simply played it on the radio – but it is there. 2013 is another year that has a very tough act to follow, but with new releases in the next few months from the likes of Steve Lukather, Heaven’s Basement and Steven Wilson I suspect it will do okay...so happy new year and ROCK ON!

Album + Gig Review: Ian Anderson - Thick as a Brick 1 and 2

It’s not often sequels are attempted in rock music, and it’s even less often that they are worthy successors to their classic originals – but Ian Anderson’s belated follow-up to Jethro Tull’s classic Thick as a Brick (cunningly titled Thick as a Brick 2, or TAAB2 for the perennial texters amongst us) is a delightful exception on both counts. Of course, although it’s a direct sequel, it follows a very different path to the first. As a quick refresher for those who don’t know these things by heart, the original album is a single track (divided into two parts, a hangover from the days when vinyl was king), based on the epic poem of the same name as written by the (fictional)  8-year old Gerald ‘Little Milton’ Bostock. The sequel’s lyrics do not derive from an imagined later work by Bostock, but are instead comprised of musings on various paths Bostock’s life may have taken (‘What-if’’s, maybes and might-have-beens’) in the forty intervening years (we’re told he is now 50, so there has been a bit of fudging of his precise age along the way –– somehow I’m slightly bothered by this, even though he isn’t real – may need to get my head examined if further distress should ensue from this trivial matter…). 

As the original album had not been performed in full since the accompanying 1972 tour, and said tour had become the stuff of moderate legend, the announcement that it would be given the special anniversary treatment was greeted with enthusiasm by many, even if they were confused as to why Anderson would be performing it as a solo artist. Cynics would say that the decision not to tour under the Tull name is a cheap ploy aimed squarely at getting Mr Anderson a larger cut of the proceeds – well, that’s as maybe, but by distancing it from the band it has also allowed him to present it in a different manner to what might have otherwise been expected – particularly the addition of Ryan O’Donnell on ‘theatrics’ as well as handling a fair-sized chunk of the vocals, would have seemed out of keeping within the context of a Jethro Tull performance . It’s no secret that Anderson’s voice is not what it once was (neither’s mine though, and I’m only half his age, so what can you do?) but it was astonishing to hear O’Donnell sing parts of the first TAAB and sound uncannily like Anderson in his younger days. As the new album is all sung in Anderson’s ‘new’ voice, the shared vocals didn’t seem quite as necessary for the second half of the show, but it did provide consistency and it has to be said that the dishing out of lines to O’Donnell was clearly thoroughly thought through (try typing that ten times quickly while drunk…). It’s not as if Anderson was coasting either, he still sang plenty himself, and ably juggled guitar and flute right throughout both sets. Indeed, while O’Donnell and the other supporting musicians (particularly keyboardist John O'Hara) were exemplary, Anderson was still the undisputed star of the show throughout (not least during his on-screen appearances as Bostock’s psychiatrist or St. Cleves resident ‘Tufty’, inviting us to ‘an evening of progressive rock music…mustn’t call it ‘pop’!’ which opened the first and second halves of the show, respectively). 

While I knew Thick as a Brick from radio, live performances and the 3 minutes that appears on The Very Best of Jethro Tull I only acquired the full album a few weeks before the release of the sequel, so unlike many, I’m sure, I was by and large equally familiar with both albums. When the tickets were released many months ago we were promised other ‘Jethro Tull classics’ and there was no mention of the sequel – however there didn’t seem to be anybody in the audience who was too bothered about the change of plans (though there’s bound to be the odd chancer threatening to take the promoter to trading standards); indeed the applause during the second half of the show was positive proof to the contrary, this wasn’t a crowd sat impatiently suffering through new material while awaiting ‘the hits’.

If you happen to be anywhere near the subsequent dates of the tour then you should definitely get yourselves a ticket; either way the album (both of them, in fact) come highly recommended. Sadly the packaging of the sequel is a bit of a disappointment compared to the intricate original (which it apes) - even the CD reissue, which is significantly cut-down from the original LP, boasts far more detail within its sleeve – including the lyrics. Albums being released without printed lyrics in this day and age is a particular bugbear of mine – if you’re generally a digital listener you might as well go straight for the (legal!) download, really. Packaging quibbles aside, this is a superb effort and essential listening for all Anderson, Tull and prog fans and seeing it performed live, in full, is the icing on  apretty massive cake. (9/10 for both albums AND gig)

2011 Summer of Gigs #12: High Voltage Festival - Day 2

fter a highly enjoyable Saturday at the second High Voltage festival, I was looking forward to a Sunday packed full of great bands and (by and large) I was not disappointed…

 

Heavens’ Basement were a very late (and equally welcome) addition to the Sunday line-up. They had first come onto my radar last May when they opened for the Michael Schenker Group, and been, without question, the best support act I had ever seen. All chances to see them since had been thwarted by clashes of various kinds, so I was delighted to finally catch them again. In the interim they have undergone significant changes in personnel, stripping back from 5 to 4 members, and with a new permanent lead vocalist in the form of Aaron Buchanan. I was a little wary initially, as I’d seen rumblings online and a brief and mostly negative review in Classic Rock AOR, that suggested this had resulted in the band moving away from their melodic hard rock leanings, but was happy to discover that such reports were grossly exaggerated, and they had the crowd – mostly unfamiliar with them, I would say – on side straight away. Buchanan is an exceptional frontman with a superb voice and fits the band like a glove; I have no doubt at all that this line-up is built to last, and HB remain the great hope of British hard rock to me. Copies of their new EP Unbreakable appeared to be being snapped up left, right and centre (If you weren’t there, or missed out on one, you can get it from their website for a fiver; it’s also on itunes, if that’s your bag) and the new songs fitted in perfectly well alongside earlier material such as epic closer, Executioner’s Day (Yes, ‘day’, not ‘song’ as you may have read in a certain aforementioned review…) and personal favourite, Can’t Let Go (that chorus will not get out of your head, I guarantee it!) Expect to see these guys higher up the bill in a year or two’s time…here’s hoping my run of bad luck ends soon and I’ll be able to make their acoustic gig in October (although it’s not currently looking that likely – ah well!) (9/10)

Heaven's Basement's Aaron Buchanan

Perhaps I should have hung around the main stage a bit longer, as St Jude also received very positive notices from those in attendance, while things on the Prog stage were not a patch on the day before, at this point in the day. I only caught the tail-end of The Enid’s set, so can’t really comment on them, but Curved Air then became the first (and, indeed, only) band of the weekend to fail the ‘sun test’ (i.e. ‘Are you worth standing in the hot summer sun to listen to? – bear in mind that standing in the hot summer sun is about my least favourite thing to do in the world…). Their opening instrumental was promising, but then their lead singer emerged and started warbling awfully, so I was forced to run away (okay, running’s also on the list of things I don’t really do, but you get the idea…). Anyway, this worked out quite well in the end, as it meant I happened to pass the Planet Rock tent just as they were blasting out Magnum’s Midnight Kings. Which was nice. (I’m not going to give a rating for this clutch of bands, but will add, for the sake of balance, that loads of people have mentioned Curved Air as a highlight. Nutters).

This had me back at the main stage in plenty of time for Michael Schenker (or Michael ‘Stinker’, as my spell-check insists he should be called…), here performing as a solo artist, albeit with a group (just not the Michael Schenker Group – clear? Thought so…) and partially using his set to promote upcoming 'solo' album, Temple of Rock. Playing recent material at a classic rock festival setting can turn people off you pretty quickly, and airing unreleased material has the potential to be a suicidal ploy, but Schenker limited it to two new tracks (both of which were excellent, by the way, so I’ll certainly be picking the album up on release in September – so target achieved I guess) and filled the rest of the set with the odd MSG track, and favourites from The Scorpions (Rock You Like a Hurricane  - superb!) and UFO (Rock Bottom, Doctor Doctor) complete with various special guests from the ‘old days’, including bassist Pete Way (which led to a shocked comment of, ‘Christ, he’s still alive!!!’ from a chap behind me!). Quite simply the audience lapped up every second of it. (9/10)

Danny Bowes of Thunder

The same can be said (and then some) for Thunder, who disbanded in 2009, and ostensibly reformed for High Voltage as a strict one-off (time will tell, or perhaps it has already?).  I really only know them as ‘Harry’s old band’ (Harry James being Magnum’s current drummer, and in and out of that band a bit in the past due to his co-existing Thunder duties), but on the basis of this performance I dare say I’ll be wanting to acquire their entire back-catalogue as soon as I can. Danny Bowes voice is amazing, so not to have heard it before is a pretty shocking oversight on my part. Obviously I didn’t know any of the songs (with the exception of a cracking cover of Gimme Some Lovin’) but you can certainly add me to the long list of folk who want the band to reform more permanently (with the proviso that ‘we’ can keep Harry in Magnum too though, please…) The only downside was the sound cutting out a few times during the opening track, Backstreet Symphony, the only serious sound problem I noticed during the festival (There have been complaints about sound on the main stage, and indeed, being close to the stage at the start of Heaven’s Basement’s set, I quickly decided to head further back a bit, and the overwhelming bass drum evaporated and was replaced by clear lead vocals – but great sound at the front of a stage is a pretty rare thing, so I was just grateful it was present at the prog stage…)(10/10)

From there it was a quick (by my standards at least…) dash back to progland for Spock’s Beard, who despite being a tad on the sloppy side at times (and being difficult to see due to the sun’s position – sorry, get some sunglasses, you say? But I’d only need them once a year, doesn’t seem worth the bother…) put on a compelling performance. The bulk of their set, while perfectly enjoyable in itself, was completely overshadowed by the final number (and a bit) where they were rejoined by ex-bandleader Neal Morse. Even if most of us had anticipated that something along these lines would happen from the instant the acts were announced, it was still a euphoric and exciting (and possibly historic?) moment to witness and the crowd went suitably spastic as a result. (9/10)

Sunday prog stage headliners Jethro Tull were my #1 must-see act of the festival. Despite internet reports of Ian Anderson’s voice being past its best in recent years he sounded perfectly decent to these ears, but it was his popping-eyed, gasp-spluttered flute excesses that really marked him out as the most entertaining figure to grace the stage.  As with BJH the day before, Tull had a classic album celebrating its 40^th anniversary year, so alongside the likes of Living in the Past, Thick as a Brick (NOT the whole thing, sadly) and a wee bit of Bach with Bouree, large chunks of Aqualung were present in the setlist. This included relatively obscure cuts such as Mother Goose and Hymn 43 alongside the essential title track, which proved a fitting climax to the day’s prog, but was then beaten into submission by the encore – Locomotive Breath, which featured Black Country Communion’s Joe Bonamassa on ‘special guest’ duties (quite a running theme on Sunday). Having missed Bonamassa’s solo set last year, and not being able to see him with his own band this time around (having had the need to eat and see all of Tull’s set) this was an unexpected treat and would have marked the perfect conclusion to the weekend, except there was still the main stage headline act to check out… (10/10)

Jethro Tull, with Ian Anderson, centre

Dream Theater (Yes, they’re American, hence they don’t know how to spell their own band name…), like Heaven’s Basement at the other end of the day, had a new lineup with something to prove (with band-founder Mike Portnoy replaced on drums by another drumming Mike, Mangini) and in that respect their set worked. Certainly the air-drumming fan next to me thoroughly approved of the band’s new addition, and his playing was pretty spectacular (Mangini’s that is!). Unfortunately, DT have always seemed far less than the sum of their considerable parts, having superior musicianship by the boatload, but lacking memorable songs or, dare I say it, much in the way of emotional resonance. Technical brilliance alone can only impress for so long before it becomes tedious. With Portnoy gone this is even more evident than it had been in the past. As I was half-expecting something along these lines I was determined to give them a fair hearing, so stayed for 45 minutes (which is longer than many of the other full sets I attended, and infinitely longer than I managed to cope with ELP’s headlining set last year, so not bad, all told) before calling it a night. During that time only Peruvian Skies stood out, but the fact that it was also the only song I was familiar with shouldn’t have been a contributing factor – for large chunks of the weekend I was hearing music for the first time and almost all of it more than held my attention. It really shouldn’t be possible for such a talented band to be horrifically dull, but somehow they manage it. (6/10)

That mild disappointment aside though, the weekend fulfilled the promise of last year’s event, despite being a little less spectacularly brilliant overall, and brought 2011’s ‘summer of gigs’ to a fitting close. See you next year – even if the blimmin’ Olympics look set to upset either the location or the dates (or possibly both) of HV3… (overall festival rating: 9/10)

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And finally…the High Voltage 2011 awards…

 

Best lead vocalist: Danny Bowes (Thunder)

Best guitarist: Michael Schenker

Best drummer: Harry James (Thunder) – Runner-up: Chris Rivers (Heaven’s Basement)

Best multi-instrumentalist: Geoffrey Richardson (Caravan)

Best showman: Michael Monroe

Best expected guest-appearance: Neal Morse (with Spock’s Beard)

Best unexpected guest appearance: Joe Bonamassa (with Jethro Tull)

Best bandleader: Neal Morse – Runner-up: Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull)

Best revised line-up: Heaven’s Basement

Best stage headliner: Jethro Tull

Band I’m most gutted about missing entirely: Black Country Communion

Best 2011 festival: High Voltage!