Metal Reviews

Bat I and II are all time rock classics. Dramatic, pompous and completely original, no other band has ever really replicated the Broadway-come-hard rock mastery of those two records. Steinman and 'loaf together are a match made in heaven, err, hell, as it were.

Brilliant! Thank you for that rich description and for continuing to contribute regularly to these barren lands, Joshua.

When the next generation of jazz giants were in cribs, or rather yet, unborn, there was Mr. Parker.

Ian Anderson's charismatic voice and his value as a prototype witty Englishman, never ceases to to be spontaneous, and artistic, even, when he is not singing, it's musical, and even then, only, when he is making a speech, still stimulating. The music itself, speaks voluminously of a band, in complete union, and utter confidence, playing at a heart beat's constancy, and a remastered edition, to be reckoned with, done by the ever-present, Steven Wilson.

At the heights of his composition powers, with high melodicism and an abstract sense of structure, this recording is an unusually short release, which harnesses just over half an hour of jazz idealism, setting an atypically high standard for whatever else which was to come, rarely achieved, or even achievable, by the many musicians, who said an awful themselves, but could not say it, with such eloquence, and which such simplicity, with such accurateness, yet with such weight and consequence.

First expositions to this classic work in pop/sync/rock. It can't all be hard-swinging jazz and skull-fracturing heaviness.

Camel's debut was like another greater band's third release, which is to say, a group of musicians at the pinnacle of ingenuity, and craftmanship, in approaches to melodic hard rock. But Camel's several primary outputs, were of such high musical caliber, that is truly hard to underestimate, their contribution to the broader genre of progressive rock of 1970's.

Musique extraordinaire.

Country music is not known for its creative risk-taking, but Willie's 1975 classic dared to challenge the old formula in a big way. Sparsely arranged, conceptually ambitious (by country standards) and widely misunderstood by industry execs at the time, it has become the brightest jewel is Nelson's half century of work. A true watershed moment in the genre. Will miss the red headed stranger when the heavens call him home. A true American original.

Speaking of 'sparsely arranged,' I was just playing John Lee Hooker, last week. However, the gentile man, was a bluesman.

For my money, this is Waylon's high water mark for albums. A chance meeting with journeyman songwriter Billy Joe Shaver led to Jennings recording a collection of Shaver's original songs that have since become outlaw standards. The fact that Shaver challenged Jennings to a fight if he didn't listen to more of his stuff only adds to its legend. As perfect a record as you can get in the genre.

And one wonders, if, at the heights of the imaginative man, he does not take the moon, for the sun?