From: borella@cs.ucdavis.edu (Mike Borella)
Newsgroups: alt.music.progressive
Subject: Music of the 90's
Date: 28 Jul 1992 00:44:47 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


SERIOUS OPINIONS FOLLOW (as if it isn't obvious) :-)




When talking about progressive bands of the nineties, everyone starts
with Djam Karet (from Los Angeles, USA).  While many people seem to
like them a lot and claim them are the best new progressive band I
have to differ.  Yes, they are talented and original.  Their musicianship
is superb, and its hard to pin down their influences.  However, their
writing is poor at times.  They tend to get caught up in feedback and
harmonics or repeating the same patterns over and over with minimal variation.
At other times they are quite good.  I like Reflections From the Firepool
and No Commercial Potential best from the ones I've heard.

Episode is another Californian band.  They have two tapes out, with Edge
of the Sky being the better by far.  While too heavily based on Yes and
lacking good vocals, they are quite talented and I tend to listen to them
often.  They supposedly have a 70 minute CD coming out in the near future
but I haven't heard much about it.

Tiemko is a pretty good band from France.  I haven't heard their latest,
Parade, yet but I do like 1990's Ocean.  If you're interested in knowing
more about them, I have a review coming in the next Gibraltar or I could
post a copy.

Nuova Era from Italy is a very good band.  They are heavily influenced
by the 70's Italian acts but they remain worthwhile.  Their writing is
very subtle.  I didn't like them much at first but they've grown on me.
Their vocalist is my current favorite (I think that prog rock vocalists
are weak in general) and the band even delves into occasional counterpoint.

Kalaban and Now are two more US bands.  I haven't heard the first though
a couple of friends haven't been too impressed with them.  Now is ok, nothing
special.  

A band that's getting a lot of great reviews now is Men of Lake but I wasn't
impressed with what little I've heard.  They've recaptured the 70's feel
in a unique way with heavy hammond keys and mellotron.  I heard a couple
of songs cruising along in a friends car so I didn't get a close listen.  
It seemed that the keyboardist wasn't doing much excpet hitting chords.  I
could be totally wrong though.

Eris Pluvia is another I haven't heard much of but have been stirring things 
up recently.  They have a new one out on Musea.  

Minimum Vital has two CDs out on Musea and are a modern French band.  They're
pretty good except for their drummer.  And I can't say I liked Sarabandes all
that much.  Maybe the previous CD is better.

Avoid Overdrive and the Belgian Now.  They are both pretty bad.

Dream Theater's latest release is good at some parts, terrible at others.  
Proceed with caution.  

Of course Ozric Tentacles is the biggest progressive act right now and may
even become popular in the manstream at this rate (which would probably
be bad in the long run).  Erpland, Pungent Effulgent and Live Underslunky
are all excellent.  Just about everyone would like their style of Hawkwind/Gong
psychadelia with an ethnic twist.

Oh yeah, as an afterthought there's Aragon from Australia who's really only
for Marillion and Genesis fans that don't mind clones, and the US band
Animator who tries to sound so much like a mix of Rush, Yes and Genesis
that they fall almost completely flat.  

Bascially, when looking for new music, avoid anybody from the 70s.  I can't
think of one band or musician who has stayed "good" all those years.  It's
time to start over.  Here are the bands to do it with, in the order I like
them:

Ozric Tentacles
Nuova Era
Tiemko
Episode
Djam Karet
Dream Theater


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