Since the dawn of time debate has raged as to the answer to that eternal question. Which is better? Pre or post-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd?

Many have attempted to find the answer only to fall by the wayside, their search for the truth let down by ill-preparation. Head Full of Snow will do no such thing. Instead we will weigh up the pros and cons of each era with the pivotal album remaining off-limits (for the record, a decent enough album but, in my opinion, one that’s outrageously overrated). This way there should be no fear of falling on our collective swords, long before the battle has been won.
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Uncategorized, band, feature, prog rock, psychedelic rock

Steve Swindells’ 1974 album Messages is as far removed from the grinding, out of this world spaciness of Hawkwind reincarnation The Hawklords – with whom he played keyboards – as it’s possible to get.

For the most part it’s a straightforward rock album that incorporates some of the flourishes associated with prog rock, retaining a steadily pleasant ambience right up until the final track ‘Messages from Heaven’, which beams us skyward into the more HFoS-friendly stratospheres of space-flavoured progressive rock and leaves all that went before it back on planet Earth, struggling for elevation.

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classic rock, prog rock

If you were to head over to AMG and look up their review of Mark Fry’s Dreaming With Alice, you would find the rather iniquitous quote “… reminiscent of Donovan’s forays into that area, though not as interesting.”

How wrong could they be? Dreaming With Alice, released only in Italy in 1972, possesses a certain magic that more than exonerates the cult that has built up around it over the years. As far as obscure acid folk rarities go, this is a stone-cold classic.

In fact, the only fault that can be found in it is the fact it was released in 1972, whereas it sounds as though it were recorded at the tail-end of the 1960s. The fact that music had moved on so much in the intervening years possibly accounts for the fact it could only secure an Italian release. Of course, nearly forty years on, when it was recorded is an irrelevance.

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acid-folk, album reviews, folk rock, psych-folk

Not one for the feint-hearted when it comes to all things jazzy, 1969′s ‘Igginbottom’s Wrench (apostrophe included) was the first recording of progressive-jazz journeyman Allan Holdsworth, and though still within the realms of prog rock, it skirts closer to the borders of jazz-fusion.

Well to the ears of this fully paid-up member of the jazz-philistine club it does.

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album reviews, prog rock

In 1977, ten years on from ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale‘, Procol Harum delivered what was to be their last album for 14 years. Only lead vocalist, pianist and songwriter Gary Brooker remained from that original ‘AWSoP’ line-up, along with the lyricist Keith Reid (BJ Wilson joining on drums after the hit was recorded).

Something Magic is a fitting end to what began in 1967, seeing Procol Harum return to form following the vaguely disappointing Procol’s Ninth, with a triumphant decisive blast of the progressive, symphonic rock they had made their own over the course of a decade.

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album reviews, prog rock

In 1975, the question among a great many of those circumnavigating the spheres of post-psychedelic, progressive rock fandom, might well have been: “is Procol Harum still relevant?”

Unlike other bands that had blossomed out of late-1960s psychedelic Britain, only to fall dramatically by the wayside, Procol Harum had left the paisley shirts behind and continued to produce strong albums, clocking up number eight with the previous year’s Exotic Birds and Fruit. Even if, through all this, the spectre of the perennial ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ conspired to deny them wholesale global success.

This, the aptly titled Procol’s Ninth, arrived with a new production team and a straightforward, no-frills album cover, signalling a change in – if not the direction that Procol Harum were taking – the sound they were producing.

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album reviews, classic rock, prog rock

“Is it on, Tommy?”

So begins Procol Harum’s seventh studio album, Exotic Birds and Fruit. Words that give way to the 1974 opener ‘Nothing But the Truth’, a belter of a tune whose intent, and indeed top billing, is to address any concerns that seven years into the band’s lifespan, Procol Harum had become a spent force.

Firing on all cylinders, ‘Nothing But the Truth’ also kicks off Salvo’s final batch of reissues from the original Procol run, with Procol’s Ninth and Something Magic also seeing the light of day in digitally remastered, lushly packaged editions.

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album reviews, prog rock

Jethro Tull’s 1969 album Stand Up was the follow up to the inconsistent debut, This Was, and the first to feature Birmingham-born mainstay Martin Lancelot Barre on guitar.

It was also the album that signposted the path down which Jethro Tull (or the mighty Tull, dependant on personal opinion) were headed, largely doing away with the blues influence of the previous release and drifting, via the road of progressive rock, into more folkish pastures.

The change came about following the departure of Mick Abrahams, who’d left following creative differences between him and Tull’s main man Ian Anderson, over musical direction. When replacement and future Black Sabbath axeman Toni Iommi failed to work out it was left to Martin Barre to take up the mantle, which he did, remaining to this day.

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album reviews, folk rock, prog rock

In the world of cinema, remakes are usually dismissed as a sign of the lack of creativity within the film industry moneymaking machine. The same can’t be said for music. If an artist covers another’s tune it’s called a tribute, and, dependant upon the song and diversity of the arrangement or “reinterpretation”, sometimes hailed as a “work of genius”.

So what if you’re a record label and all you do is release modern re-recordings of psychedelic, prog rock and acid-folk tunes from the late 60s and 70s? Well Fruits de Mer Records is one such label (possibly the only such label), and like the bumblebee with its disproportionate bodyweight to wingspan ratio, it shouldn’t work, but somehow does.

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feature, prog rock, psychedelic rock