Banks Of Eden

New 2CD/DVD edition.  Includes bonus tracks, the original mix remastered (better this time), a new stereo mix, and hi-res 5.1 and stereo.Perhaps because of the timing, but I always considered this to be their "Foxtrot". "Pawn Hearts" features the epic masterpiece "A Plague Of LIghthouse Keepers" which for lack of a better comparison is the band's "Supper's Ready". This remastered edition comes with extensive liner notes, photos and a host of bonus tracks. Originally conceived as a double album, there were a number of tracks still sitting on the shelf, unreleased. They are: "Theme One" (original mix), "W" (original version), "Angle Of Incidents", "Ponker's Theme", and "Diminutions". Absolutely essential.

Expanded CD/DVD edition. The CD comes with 5 bonus tracks.  The DVD contains a 5.1 surround mix and a ton of documentary/interview footage.Without abandoning the sense of melody and dynamics that remain the Magenta trademark, Metamorphosis sees the band taking a darker, more intense path with powerful, sometimes disturbing subject matter."I think this album is going to surprise a lot of people," says keyboardist Rob Reed "It will challenge many people's preconceptions of what Magenta are, and what we are capable of musically. Most of it was written on guitar, so some of the material is heavier than before, whilst retaining most of the elements of the Magenta sound."The album also marks the band's return to long-form pieces of music, with two 20 minute-plus songs, and a new, richer sound with the addition of strings. "Watch out for some brilliant performances on the record." Reed says. "Christina Booth's vocals are just astonishing, Tim Robinson delivers a virtuoso performance on drums and Chris Fry has pushed the bar even higher than usual with some amazing lead guitar. I have no doubt that this is, by far, our finest album to date."Magenta was formed in 2001, quickly capturing the attention of progressive rock fans around the world with a sound influenced by the icons of the past. Over the years the band has performed at virtually every major progressive rock festival in the world including gigs at Rosfest, BajaProg, and Nearfest. Year after year, the band has received awards from various progressive rock publications. In 2007, the band won two awards from the esteemed British Classic Rock Society including Best Band and Best Female Singer.The album was mastered by Grammy winning engineer Bob Katz. To further enhance the package, Metamorphosis features startling artwork from the noted graphic design house Killustrations.

Import only release features five of their albums cardboard sleeves; Passport (1972), Hand Made (1973), Looking Thru (1973), Cross Collateral (1975) and Infinty Machine (1976). 

"Sometimes, a band faces some adversities that delay the chance to release its hard work to the public. Not many, anyway, can "boast" what progressive rock dinosaurs Spettri have experienced. Founded in the Florence of 1964, the band's self titled and concept debut album was recorded in a single take, in 1972. Sadly, the album was frozen due to the decaying of the desire for this kind of music. That was, until 2011. 40 years later, Black Widow Records gave new life to Spettri, and the band began touring to support the album.What came from it, was the desire to make new music. Flash forward to 2015, 2973 La Nemica dei Ricordi picks up right where Spettri ended. The debut told the story of a protagonist struggling to find an answer to wars and hatred by connecting to the afterlife... only to give in to madness due to the enigmatic replies of the dead. Now, 1001 years later, that same person is still wandering. His new journey, beautifully depicted on the cover artwork, begins with the encounter of a giant ghost ship. Sailing on, the protagonist's destination is nothing but his inner self.Such an outlandish story is accompanied by equally crazy sounding compositions. Heavy Black Sabbath-like riff driven guitar work, haunting Hammond organ lines and piano sections, triumphant saxophone incursions, choirs and fittingly rough vocals make the perfect complement to the band's horror-esque image. Lending a hand are also two special guests. Elisa Montaldo (Il Tempio delle Clessidre), often requested as a keyboardist, is presented here as the lead vocalist for the ballad "Il Delfino Bianco", while Stefano Corsi plays some Celtic harp and harmonica in "L'Approdo". In addition, the album flows excellently in its theatrical nature. Everything leads to 2973 feeling way shorter than its actual length of almost 50 minutes, gaining in replayability.It has to be noted that 2973 does not seem to be made with the objective of being as accessible as possible. The song structures are far from predictable, and the guitar work is far from flashy. Instead, the electric guitar, while not discarding emotional solos, is used mainly to create an atmospheric road of tight riffing, while sax -for which the band has a stand-alone member- and keys often function as the main attraction. Besides, while fitting, the main (really) rough vocals and accent may not appeal to everyone and it is easy to see how the understanding of the language is likely to be a key factor for their appreciation. What also hinders the album a bit is a sense of repetition in the middle, where the title track can sound a little too similar to the latter part of the previous "Onda Di Fuoco". Still, 2973 proves to be a solid and coherent listen from beginning to end, with the gentle sound of the waves opening and closing the journey.Physically speaking, save for the shift to a more progressive songwriting leaving the psychedelic influence (and more prominent guitar playing) behind, nothing has changed since the debut album. Literally, the band decided to use the same instruments used for Spettri when recording 2973, de facto making it sound like the direct continuation of the former. The main difference is the production, this time not as raw and definitely more polished. Everything has been made to sound like it comes from the first half of the 70s, using analogue technologies and so releasing a real AAA LP.Unluckily, the moment of glory for Spettri arrived late. Still, the band does not seem to be worried. As stated in an interview, they want to recover the time they lost and are already setting the foundations for 'Spettri 3', while touring to support 2973. All in all, this album is not 'only' another promising gem for Italian progressive rock in 2015, it is also a testament of how time cannot stop the passion for writing and playing your music, without jumping on trends." - Sputnikmusic.com

"After CYNTHESIS and its amazing second recording, the pertinently titled album, “ReEvolution”, the ultra talented Californian geminis Brothers, Troy & Jasun Tipton (ex ZERO HOUR), are back with another chapter in their instrumental project discography…ABNORMAL THOUGHT PATTERNS and once again the expansion of their genuine style and the maturated development is terrific, the release date is set for late June…The band broad universe is so extended that the term "limitless" seems underrated and non-representative of their extraordinary and unstoppable musical dominion!The young Guitar God Jasun Tipton, owner of a great fat tone, perform in his finest way as you would have expected, fluid, majestic and without effort (“Blindsight”), quite easy to understand why this man is worshiped by Guitar enthusiasts everywhere, but more than ever, it seems that his brother the Bass maestro Troy Tipton takes a even bigger role, while playing his typical two hand tapping licks, also some more ambitious melodic lines and sharing some hallucinating unison amazing arpeggios between Bass & Guitar (“Distortions Of Perception”)!This instrumental trio is apparently becoming a quartet with the recruit guitarist Richard Shardman, still featuring the former ex ZERO HOUR's drums expert Mike Guy (ex DEATH MACHINE), is providing everything, from stripped down ambiance to a flurry Shredding parts (“Delusions”), in a complementary unreal association, a syncronization similar to something that is identical to the special and unique twin brothers spirit/relationship (“Subliminal Perception”).The Bass guitar realm of low frequencies is honored with the superb track “Synesthesia” (An awareness of synesthetic perceptions that varies from person to another with confusion of colors/numbers and shapes, born from a neurological phenomenon that leads involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway to a disinhibited feedback triggered by specific sounds) where Troy is duelling with two other Bass monsters, namely the legendary Fretless player Michael Manring and the criminally undervalued John Onder (remember the great Shrapnel’s releases like “Infra Blue” by Joey Tafffola (???)/”Extreme Measures” by Vitalij Kuprij or 2000’s “Machine” by ARTENSION and even MSG’s “Adventures Of The Imagination”) another patented mix of elusive etheral soft moments that develops before entering again in a frenzy of note under a Neo-Classical style, built in total opposition with the hypnotic middle break in a new age approach!To prove their absolute artistic freedom ABNORMAL THOUGHT PATTERNS dare to break the all instrumental rules by adding some harsh lead vocals performed by the BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME singer Mike Rodgers, in the detuned “Nocturnal Haven”…But at the slot N°6 they offer us another superb rendition of the same theme, but this time in a fully instrumental version with some additional solo spots by Canadian citizen Tim Roth from INTO ETERNITY, however both tracks contains some lava sweeping avalanche by seven strings rising star Jeff Loomis (ARCH ENEMY/ex SANCTURAY/ex NEVERMORE)!While their latest CD “Manipulation Under Anesthesia” was more extreme and ferocious than hell, pushing the intricacy at the maximum with some almost bio-mechanism rhythmic method and improving in the ultra-hi-tech reaches onto stellar and virgin territories: “Altered States Of Consciousness” is a concept album centered around neurobiologic sensations, in coherence it's a more enriched atmospheric disc, more spacey, groovy, layered with organic textures and full of emotional sequence, with still plenty of sudden bursting of agressive triplets-staccatto-trick, but clearly more accessible and not restricted to please a bunch of Guitar-Fretboard geeks, obviously the talent and the technical ability of the virtuoso musicians involved here, is still head and shoulders up above the level of the average new generation of Prog Metallers…The abnormal musical thoughts are welcome!" - Metal Temple

Musician/producer Billy Sherwood has been milking his association with Yes for years. Now he's collaborating with exploitation label Cleopatra Records on a new project. Cashing in all his prog rock street cred in one shot, Sherwood has created a "supergroup" of sorts, although I doubt any of these people were ever in the same room together during the recording of this album. I'll give him credit - its an impressive list of contributors..."The idea of assembling a collection of amazing artists from the progressive rock genre all on one record was an especially exciting concept to me. Inspired, I began writing and recording the 7 songs that would become this album. I then sent those recordings out to some of my friends and musical heroes from bands like King Crimson, XTC, Asia, Gentle Giant, and of course my former band Yes. Soon, I started receiving vocal tracks and guitar and keyboard overdubs from studios all over the world, which I then mixed at my recording studio in Los Angeles. Despite the distances in geography, however, the feeling of the entire production is one of musical and spiritual unity - The Prog Collective! - Billy SherwoodThe biggest super group of Progressive Rock players ever assembled!Features performances by John Wetton (Asia), Tony Levin (King Crimson), Jerry Goodman (Mahavishnu Orchestra), Richard Page (Mr. Mister), Geoff Downes (Yes/Asia), Alan Parsons (Alan Parsons Project), Chris Squire (Yes), Rick Wakeman (Yes), Gary Green (Gentle Giant), Annie Haslam (Renaissance), Steve Hillage (Gong), John Wesley (Porcupine Tree), Tony Kaye (Yes), Colin Moulding (XTC) and more!"