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Old 05-16-2007, 10:31 PM
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Rick and Roll Rick and Roll is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Baltimore suburbs
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Show 130 - Progressive Diversity

This week's show features full CD's by three quite different artists, with a bit of Steve Unruh thrown in. Just another excuse to play some of my new purchases. A few more weeks....and..well...new purchases!

Rare Blend - Stops Along The Way (2006)

Illegal Aliens
Wuhan Incident
Mystic Jam
Cole Train
Feast of the Warrior Kings
Splat!
Miles To Go
Intermission
Off To Arizona
Grand Central Station
Dinner At koko's
Destiny's Eyes
Heading Home

Tight fusion by the band from Cleveland, Ohio. Their fourth CD, over a twelve-year span, they get better and better. I've seen them twice, both times at tiny yet awesome Orion Studios in Baltimore. Nice people too, even though our cities have this football thing going on.

Rare for Rare Blend is vocals, but there are two vocal songs, which keyboardist Bobbi Holt handles very well. Her interplay with guitarist Vic Samalot is excellent. Bassist Jeff Scott writes a few songs and drummer Vince Broncaccio handles the rhythm and does the artwork on the cover. Three of the songs are studio improvs.

Anton Roolaart - Dreamer (2007)

Dreamer
On To the Afterglow
Dreamer
Scary Monsters
Color of Your World
Mid Summer's Day
Manon
The Spider

You read it correctly, two o's and two a's. Anton is Dutch, but lives in New Jersey. That's ok, I moved from Bel Air to Dundalk in Maryland (inside joke, but same effect as Holland to Jersey).

I met Anton at Rosfest. We'd probably seen each other before, but he was kind enough to introduce himself. He is also the founder and program director of ProgRockRadio, on the web of course. He's been wanting to get this CD on Aural Moon, and I told him I'd take care of getting it to Jim, the hardest man to catch (I had trouble catching Jim and he was in the row in front of me!).

The music is very tasteful. Anton is capable of a blistering solo, but prefers here to keep it tame. A bit Neo but arranged more interesting. Rich Berends of Mastermind fame drums on 4 of the tracks, also toning down his usual smoking percussion. Very nice CD.

Steve Unruh, from "Song to the Sky" (2005)

I've been wearing out the title cut on the show, it's wonderful. And the opener, "1 A.M. On A Tuesday" is also great. But I only had time for two cuts, the quiet "Daydream", and the very interesting "Lotus Victorius".

Violent Silence (2002)

Squeal Point
Dead Cities
The Way of the Exploding Fist
Curtains
Tunnel Vision
The Sound of Dying
War Ant
Shoot It In The Head
They Are Only People Like Us
Grey Fluid Earth

After tracking their 2005 "Kinetic" CD here, I've been wanting for a while to hear and purchase their debut record. And it's as good as Kinetic. One less keyboardist on this, so that makes keys, bass, drums, and a lead singer. No guitar. If I told you that I'm playing a Swedish band with no guitar, you may think it was a quiet, happy CD. Not so!

Lyrically, anything but happy. Good song titles for metal, the words are dark yet very real and honest. Drummer Johan Hedman handles the lyric writing duties... that sounds like another band I know... Johan's been a good chatting friend.

Hannes Ljunghall does a great job carrying the compositions on his keys. Phillip Bastin on bass and Bruno Edling on vox comprises the rest of Violent Silence.

I'm humbled to assist the band in any way I can, I think these guys have a fresh sound that just further expands progressive music, if that's possible.

Last edited by Rick and Roll : 05-16-2007 at 10:34 PM.