“Into the Morning” with the Progressive Sounds of Riverside – Shrine of New Generation Slaves

When my son Andrew told me a several years ago that I should listen to more prog rock, one of the  bands I listened to was Riverside from Warsaw, Poland and I really enjoyed their music. Yesterday I  put their 2013 release Shrine of New Generation Slaves on the iPhone and listened briefly and I listened again today and boy I think I like their music more than before!! Here’s some quick background from ProgArchives: Despite not being the biggest progressive rock powerhouse of Europe, Poland have certainly sprouted great and interesting progressive bands since the heyday of progressive rock, being the biggest…

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Hi Ho Hi Ho! It’s off to Work I Go! With the Progressive Rock Sounds of Royal Hunt

So tonight the soundtrack for the whole 30 minute ride to work and back at Target will be from the Danish progressive rock band, Royal Hunt, Show Me How To Live. the band’s 2011 release. Based upon what I’ve heard so far, I don’t think it will be too long before I try to hunt down their latest release….A Life to Die For! Some background for you and me!! Royal Hunt is a progressive metal band based in Denmark, founded in 1989 by keyboardist Andre Andersen. The band is known for creating melodic music with a progressive and symphonic flair. They made…

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The Musical Safari finds Gandalf’s Fist – Neo Prog from the UK!

Today, well actually yesterday, the Musical Safari flew across the pond and landed in Cumbria, UK   Cumbria is one of the most sparsely populated counties in the United Kingdom, with 73.4 people per km2 (190/sq mi). Cumbria, the third largest ceremonial county in England by area, is bounded to the north by the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders, to the west by the Irish Sea, to the south by Lancashire, to the southeast by North Yorkshire, and to the east by County Durham and Northumberland (Pardon the social studies teacher rearing his head) In Cumbria, I discovered two guys who over the last few years have become good friends and…

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Life’s Soundtrack – Another encouraging run aided by Thought Chamber’s Angular Perceptions

So I am considering a new rule that all run soundtracks should be progressive rock albums! Well maybe not each run, but at least the tempo runs! I was going to run last night, but I spent most of the day trudging around farm fields and woods in Mansfield Township looking for wetland flags and when I came home I just didn’t feel up to it. I went back to the same site today and finished up, but I was able to move the truck a little closer to where I needed to locate the wetland flags and as a…

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Life’s Soundtrack – 2013 Prog Rock From Finland’s Lars Eric Mattsson!

So this morning I was checking the new progressive rock album released in September. What usually catches my attention is the country of origin of the artist. There were several bands from Italy, as well as The Netherlands, the UK, the US and one from Finland Lars Eric Mattson When I saw that Lion Music released the album, I thought, hey, I know that company! They released another album that I listened to recently, Marcus Jidell’s Pictures from a Time Traveller. When I went back to their website, there was Lars Eric, looking at me from right above Marcus… When…

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Life’s Soundtrack – Another Strong Run with Prog Rock from Sweden’s Cloudscape!

Cloudscape – Progressive Metal – Sweden So while I’m not where I want to be yet, tonight’s run was the first time in a long while that I felt strong through the whole run. The four miles seemed to fly by pretty quickly!! The splits went like this: Mile 1 – 10:01, 2- 10:17, 3, 10:15, 4 10:20 not bad at all! Early in the month, the last two miles were like a 1 minute or so per mile slower than the first two miles. Overall, I was about 1:38 faster than the last time I ran this course!! The…

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Life’s Soundtrack (that could have been) – Pictures from a Time Traveler – Marcus Jidell

Evergrey  and Dragonforce are two of my son Andrew’s favorite bands and over the last few years they have been in my music library. Music from both bands often becomes my running music, Dragonforce by choice and Evergrey by happenstance. Many times a track from Evergre4y will come on when the iPod is on random shuffle.When that happens, I usually catch myself thinking this sounds good, then after checking  who the and is, and I discover it’s Evergrey!!  Now the question you may be asking about now is – why are you telling me this?? .The answer lies in the…

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Life’s Soundtrack A Good Slow Run with Katatonia!

So I ran again last night. I was going to go Sunday but the temperature topped out close to 90 degrees. The forecast for Monday had the high at 81, which is more in my comfort zone,so I waited. Before I ran I created a new loop course that was around four miles and took of with Runmeter marking the miles and Katatonia, a progressive metal band in my ears. Overall the first three miles weren’t too bad then my heart rate. started going up, so I cut my pace back to keep it under 170! While the run seemed…

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Climbing the “Cosmic Distance Ladder” with Sound of Contact!

So the other day, I wrote that Andrew told me that, along with The Winery Dogs, I should listen to Sound of Contact, and not to read about the band until after I listen. So I did as instructed and about mid-way through the album, the band started to remind me of Genesis. After listening , and enjoying the album I went to read about the band and I found out the reason that they sounded a like Genesis was their drummer…. his name is Simon Collins, yup he’s Phil’s son!!Collins has released three solo albums but he always wanted…

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Beware of the Winery Dogs…. Good rockin’ headed your way!

So two of my all-time favorite power trios, (guitar, bass and drums) are Cream (Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton) and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Hendrix, Noel Redding(bass) and Mitch Mitchell (drums)). Saturday, Andrew told me to be on the look out for a new power trio, The Winery Dogs, composed of the ubiquitous drummer from Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy, guitarist Richie Kotzen, and bass player Billy Sheehan from Mr. Big. He says the advance press from the youtube videos that are on-line is pretty good! The Winery Dogs’ self-produced album is set for release on on Jul 23rd on Loud…

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