Zonder / Wehrkamp - Tim Bowness - Dreaming Madmen - The Room - Twisted Illusion

Some of the calmer CD's I liked over the past months. Recommended for rainy autumn weekends.

Zonder / Wehrkamp - If It's Real

Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery) and Mark Zonder (Warlord and Fates Warning) are icons in the progmetal world. I saw reviews on this album stating warnings. So this is no progmetal, but plain old AOR in good old eighties fashion. Turns out I play this a lot as a light album on the background. If you liked your eighties Survivor and Night Ranger, you'll love this. A lot of broken hearted songs, to the extent you want to scream to them, get over that b%tch, she doesn't want you. Yet all packed in very decent songs. So if you like high quality light rock you might be as pleasantly surprised as I was.



Tim Bowness - Flowers at the Scene

Tim Bowness is of course the master of melancholy. Famous after his work with Steven Wilson in NoMan his solo efforts are as sad. This album is produced and mixed by NoMan and Steven Wilson and has some interesting guests in among many others: Jim Matheos (Fates Warning), Peter Hammill and Colin Edwin. Actually you hardly notice guests, as this is albout the depressing atmospheres, Tim Bowness knows to put down on music so well. Maybe not for the instable at mind, yet beautiful in all it's sadness.




Dreaming Madmen - Ashes of a Diary

Dreaming Madmen is the band around brothers Mathew & Christopher Aboujaoude. They are Libanese, but based in Austin Texas. Yet their album to me sounds like British progrock. Opener Page One is an instrumental with a heavy nod to their PF cover band Brick Floyd. Hereafter the conceptalbum knows lyrics and the style reminds me of the storytelling that British bands can do so well. Maybe a lighter version of Cosmograf hints at a direction that I mean. A pleasant ride through the life of an elderly man, discovering an old paper with writings of his. Recorded in Deir El Harf, Lebanon it is good to see how progressive music is all over the world.

The Room - Caught by the Machine

I missed the release of this album originally. Strange as their first two albums I hold and like pretty much. Then my friend Brian Mear posted about them as they shall play Mearfest 2020. So I corrected my miss and what a great album it is again. The Room have something own as they are inbetween melodic hardrock and prog with some AOR blended in. Their strenght lays in the quality of the songs and that collection grew again. From uptempo opener Bodies on the Road to closer Bloodstream we have ten melodic gems. Hope to see them in June at Mearfest South.



Twisted Illusion - Excite the Light part II

The second album of a trilogy by the band that spits out albums like there is no tomorrow. Taken the high production it becomes even more amazing how every album is a winner. Apathy Killed the Artist opens fast as we are used to. The epic is called Empathy is Earned and holds Daniel Moran on guest vocals. Matt Jones is a very talented musician, who one day I will see on stage. Meanwhile part III has been announced and crowdfunding target was met very fast again. All this band needs is more exposure, as I believe they might attract many.