Stormfields

You know we’re havin’ good days
And we hope they’re gonna last,
Our future still looks brighter than our past.
We feel no need to worry,
No reason to be sad.
Our memories remind us
Maybe road life’s not so bad.

Thank you, Alex, Geddy & Neil.

It’s been an immense pleasure and privilege to have you in my life for the last 35 of your 40 glorious years as rock’s greatest trio. On behalf of all Rush fans, let me wish you well and say that we are looking forward to more road life memories in 2015!

So, I was talking to Brad Birzer a little while back, and he said he wanted me to listen to some recent “instrumental prog,” and to write about it for Progarchy.  Well, sure!  Why not?

Of course, I knew what Brad meant, but I was still rather struck that particular day by the usage of that word, ‘instrumental.’  I teach social theory and philosophy, and in that context, I’m used to the word ‘instrumental’ meaning “serving as a means toward some end or goal.”  I’m also used to that meaning carrying a rather negative connotation at times, as in “merely instrumental,” meaning valuable only so far as it it a means to an end.  I guess it was that sort of connotation that especially hit me when Brad used it, even though he certainly did not mean it that way.  (I’m pretty sure his main agenda was to get me to listen to stuff…

If you haven’t already bought IQ’s recently-released “The Road Of Bones” here’s a public service announcement:

MAKE SURE YOU GET THE BONUS DISC TOO!

CD1 is absolutely stonking (that’s British for ‘good’,) and while most ‘bonus’ discs are rarely a bonus (instead usually filled with oddities and detritus) IQ has actually released something that’s absolutely the opposite.

I consider the The Road Of Bones bonus disc (bones disc? – hur hur!) to be absolutely essential listening. It’s difficult for me to understand why this wasn’t released as a double album – there’s so much top-notch material on these 2 CDs!

For GBP4 on top of the single CD (which is selling at GBP10) you get the bonus disc too. You won’t regret it!

Get it here.

“Executive Summary”

Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!

Indeed, what music they make!

The highest accolade I…

As a reviewer it is sometimes difficult to stand back from an album that you are reviewing and be objective, not let your personal feelings, or things that are happening in your own life colour your perception of the album, and make the review all about you, and not about the album. Sometimes however the parallels between the album and experiences you have had or are going through make this difficult, and it seems that with every track the artist has seen into your soul and written songs all about you. This is where I come into Elbows new long player, the Take off and Landing of Everything. For the uninitiated Elbow are a Lancashire based quintet of Guy Garvey, Mark Potter, Craig Potter, Richard Jupp and Pete Turner, and have been working as Elbow since 1997. The Take off and Landing of Everything is their 6th studio album, and…

It was a beautiful spring day.

At least so it seemed. The calendar said it was still February, so officially were still in winter. But Winter 1981 in Lexington, KY, was unseasonably warm.

On that fateful afternoon, I met up with my friend Greg Sims at the end of the school day. We hopped into his Chevy Monza (or, ‘The Monza-rati’ as we called it) and he drove me over to the K-Mart on New Circle Road. I went in, quickly located a copy of the new Rush album, Moving Pictures, made my purchase, and headed back out to the car. Greg gave me a ride home, and then took off, as he had to work while I had the night off from my job.

 I don’t remember the exact day it was when I made this purchase, but it likely was the same day the…

The boys were most stylish in 1987.

The first Rush album I bought was A Farewell To Kings – it was a cutout*, and I had heard they were a pretty good progressive rock trio. Geddy’s vocals turned me off initially, but Neil’s lyrics were very intriguing. The next album I acquired was Permanent Waves, because “Spirit of Radio” was all over the radio, and Geddy’s voice had mellowed a bit. That album remained in permanent rotation on my dorm room’s turntable for months, and I still listen to it often. Moving Pictures upped the ante even more, and Rush were becoming one of my all-time favorite bands. However, to my ears Signals was a letdown – the pervasive whoosh of synthesizers seemed to overwhelm Alex’s guitars, and the melodies weren’t as memorable as those in Moving Pictures. So I skipped Grace Under Pressure, convinced that Rush’s…

Time has come to finally disclose my new project… it will be a collaboration between my favorite female singer Anneke van Giersbergen and me! Expect an epic concept double album, a combination of ‘classical meets metal’ and ‘acoustic folk’. More details later!

A progarchist take: God bless the Dutch.  Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having finally turned the corner on a brutal, 11-day (and counting) cold, I feel up to getting back to my blogging routine. First up: a followup to last month’s post, “Why So Little Decentralization?”

To review, that post posed a puzzle (a problem for political scientists to ponder, you might say). The puzzle is this: developing countries are far more centralized than developed countries. That is so despite the fact that some developing countries are much larger and more diverse than developed countries, and many of them have now been democratic for quite some time. Furthermore, if decentralization were simply a relict of post-medieval state-building (some might venture that sort of claim about Switzerland, for instance), then the fact that developing countries have lower state capacity and a more recent independence than almost all developed countries deepens the puzzle.

I went through two explanations that do not actually explain the…

[Hillsdale College, Convocation Address, April 16, 2009]
Bradley Birzer

President Arnn, colleagues, students, and guests, I thank you profoundly for asking me to speak.

Darkness
Today is Easter Thursday, 2009, and we have passed beyond, at least in this Christian liturgical season, the time of great darkness, the time known as Tenebrae, the hours after 3pm on Good Friday, the moment when the world shook with the absence of grace.  The extinguishing of light, candle by candle; the stripping of the altar; the beating of the books; the departure from the chapel in a deafening silence.

Still, if we look at the state of the world, the state of our republic, the state of western and American culture, we still seem to be lingering in Tenebrae, the darkness absent of grace.  Hovering, circling, peering into the abyss, too timid to jump in, not strong enough to walk away.  Easter Day…

[A review of Glass Hammer, ODE TO ECHO (Sound Resources, 2014).  Please excuse any typos.  I composed this on my ipad while waiting for a very, very delayed flight at the Detroit airport.]

For Glass Hammer, ODE TO ECHO means two things. First, and vitally, it’s a reference to a story of antiquity by Heroicus and dealing with the greatest of warriors, Achilles. Second, it’s a tribute to two decades of success as a band.

In every way, this album is packed with brilliance, beauty, and treats around every corner.

One of the most noticeable features of Glass Hammer’s latest, ODE TO ECHO, is its sheer diversity of styles and moods. Having four lead vocalists and three backup ones adds significantly to this, and it provides a wonderful listening experience. Over the course of eight songs, Babb and Schendel provide a journey into the fantastic and mythic. One could never…