Opinion
I thought it might be fun to place all my music, book and tech type reviews under one banner. Hence OPINION. Use the main menu to find specific sections you might be interested in.
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John Lees’ Barclay James Harvest – Relativity (2025)
BJH, AKA John Lees’ Barclay James Harvest, have been promising a new studio album for a few years now and it is finally here. Released via Cherry Red Records on an assortment of formats, I opted for the bog standard version. Some early reviews kind of give the impression that…
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Kev Rowland – The Progressive Underground Vol 5
Kev Rowland has recently published the fifth book in one of the most epic book series of all time! Here we are at, wait for it, Volume 5 of the Progressive Underground. This time, the book covers Kevin’s writings from 2014 to 2018. it includes all his reviews, in alphabetical…
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Mixing With Pink Noise? Is The Ear Ache Worthwhile?
For those of you who dabble in the world of DAWs, you may have heard of a technique that is alleged to get you up and running with a pretty well balanced mix with minimal effort. It is called the Pink Noise technique. Essentially, you load all your tracks into…
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Arturia DIST-OPAMP-21
Some of the guitar on the new album was played using Arturia’s Dist OPAMP-21 plugin. This is a recreation of the Sansamp TECH-21 or whatever it’s called from years gone by. The unit in question was the guitar players go to back in the olden days. As Arturia say: Dist…
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Avenged Sevenfold – Life is But a Dream… (2023)
Well, here is something quite incredible. Probably the best progressive rock record I’ve heard all year. Now, I know little about this band other than the occasional thing they have played on Planet Rock radio. Never really grabbed me, though: just seemed like typical modern day metal to me. But…
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The Tangent – Songs from the Hard Shoulder (2022)
This is the latest album from this UK based progressive rock band and is one of the best in their catalgoue. As usual, we are treated to some very long songs, political commentary, social commentary and all manner of musical styles – often within the same song! Andy Tillison has…
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Pure Reason Revolution – Above Cirrus (2022)
First album in a couple of years from this most interesting of bands. Always had a soft spot for them since hearing the Bright Ambassadors of Morning and buying it on CD Single! Anyway, they are back in 2022 with a rather excellent new album. No mean departure from them…
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Scheming Streaming
I keep getting asked why I don’t subscribe to Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music etc. The answer is simple . . . . . I’d rather own what I listen to. Furthermore, at least 40% of what I have in my music library is not even available on the streaming services.…
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James LaBrie – Beautiful Shade of Grey (2022)
This is the 4th solo album from the current Dream Theater vocalist and, I must say, by far his best. I was not too keen on his previous works, but he has nailed the heavy acoustic rock thing on this album! Apart from one slight misstep (see main review), just…