Tony Patterson and Brendan Eyre were both born in North East England, and both have a broad musical background. In 2012, they released an album Out Of An Ancient World, which was so well received it won them the Best Newcomer award at the 2012 Classic Rock Society Awards.

After this, they started thinking about a concept album describing their beloved North East England, which resulted in Northlands, an album that tells the tale of someone returning to the North East after so many years. The memories, good and bad, the beauty of the landscape and the unfinished business of the character are the drivers for the music. Without a story line to follow, and an album that is largely instrumental, it is hard to tell what the this character experiences exactly along the way. However, the music invites to sit back, relax and let your own version of the story unfold in your mind.

The opening track Northbound, with it’s 24 minutes and subdivision into 7 separate pieces already is a story in itself. There are some lyrics here, that indicate this is about the trip north, probably entering the North East. The complete epic builds up from a piano piece, a flute, to a choir and then a full orchestra with strings and a horn (I think). The two vocal pieces, Take the Safe Way and I Recall make clear why Tony Patterson once sang in the Genesis tribute band ReGenesis, yet he does not attempt to be a copy of Peter Gabriel here. The vocal harmonies on I recall, accompanied by a haunting keyboard are beautiful. At the end, the piece returns to the intro – had this been the full album we’d be heading south again.

After this one long track, 8 shorter ones follow, some instrumental, some with vocals, and although the basis is always in the beautiful keyboard and piano work of Brendan Eyre, they are quite varied. A Picture in Time for example builds up from a dreamy keyboard piece with female vocals in the background to a fully orchestrated piece with these vocals rising in volume as a less psychedelic Great Gig in the Sky. After that it goes back to the more dreamy keyboard pattern, but with drums and (very well played) bass joining in. This contrasts with the short piano piece And the River Flows (with slightly Peter Gabriel like vocals again), which is followed by a jazzy piece with excellent piano work by Brendan Eyre, A Rainy Day on Dean Street – with some nice saxophone and horn work by Fred Arlington added.

The following Legacy I described in my notes as film music. It starts with a piano that seems to mimic a clock, while a guitar in the background makes the noises of a long train rolling by. This suddenly changes into a dreamy (again!) piano and flute piece, which then powers up by the addition of percussion. The percussion keeps the clock/train pattern alive underneath the other instruments, mainly the flute of John Hackett. The final part of this track is orchestrated to the extend that it would fit under a movie of a flight over the North East English landscape. A sound effect at the end brings back the image of a train disappearing on the horizon.

I Dare to Dream is a mellow piece, with relaxed vocals and an undertone of happiness. The backing vocals are a bit Pink Floyd like, and the piano is in the instrumental lead once again. This is almost a relaxed prelude to So Long the Day, in my opinion the best track of the album, featuring Steve Hackett (John’s brother) on guitar. This track, features Peter Gabriel style vocals, with excursions to Pink Floyd (Roger Waters’ era), excellent bass playing, Hackett’s guitar work, but also a short piece of Spanish guitar, once again the piano and flute. All of this is used to divide the 6.5 minutes long song into short pieces, in Peter Gabriel era Genesis style, without making it a Genesis rip off. I love it, from the first piano note of the intro to the last note of the guitar solo that ends it.

To bring the listener, or at least me, back to his senses the album closes with a short, relaxed piano piece, A Sense of Place – the sound of seagulls at the end.

This album is not perfect, very few are, but it’s definitely a well executed piece of music. Everything fits, and it allows for intent listening, if not requiring it. A bit more vocal guidance through the story would help get the concept clearer, but as I said – dreaming up your own story is a good possibility now. Also a few more excursions from the evenly tempo of the music than just A Rainy Day on Dean Street and So Long the Day would’ve made the album a bit more exiting, perhaps also rockier.

All in all, I had never heard of Tony Patterson and Brendan Eyre before I received this album in the mail and I’m glad I know them now. This is one to cherish and listen again every once in a while, on a quiet evening, with a nice glass of wine and your feet on the table.

In a dark, North American forest, infested with British bass players, live a people of creatures (could we call that a creatle?) called the Morphlux. Their leaders, Pete Trewavas and Eric Blackwood lead them into haunting you – preferably at night, and even more preferably in a very loud, melodic and muscially layered fashion. Once they get to you, you will never, ever be the same…..

What Morphlux are exactly, and why they are so scary is unclear to me, even after hearing the album The Final Breath Before November of Edison’s Children a million times. What I do know, however, is that their leaders, or at least inventors, mentioned above have created a great musical spell around them, over a period of several years. Pete Trewavas, mainly known as bass player for Marillion and Transatlantic, and guitarist Eric Blackwood both are actually multi-instrumentalists. On this album, they take care of all guitars, keyboards, synths, v-oud and something called paraglider guitar…. on this album they are accompanied by Touchstone and DeeExpus drummer Henry Rogers, and on some tracks backing vocals (haunting backing vocals even!) are provided by Wendy Farrell-Pastore, who is also responsible for all the photography on the artwork for both albums of the band..

The albums 15 tracks actually are only three tracks, one of which is a 67-minute epic – Silhouette. The opening track,  Final Breath, starts slowly and builds up to the point where keyboard and bass form a pulsing foundation for a flute, until the vocals come in. On this track, the voice of Eric Blackwood reminds me of David Bowie, one of the many vocal similaraties in his reach. On the second track Light Years, that changes, as Pete takes with a vocal sound that reminds me of some tracks on Fish‘ second album. This track is a somehow catchy tune, based around a repeating pattern, but switches into a more haunting piece at the end (a separate track called Light Years I. the fading). The lyrics of this one introduce Silhouette, the long epic that follows, and consists of 13 tracks on the CD. This epic contains too many different things to go past all the tracks, but after a few listens it becomes clear that at least musically, they form a consistent piece. Some themes return (The Morphlux, Second coming of the Morphlux, The Clock Strikes November) or simply flow over into each other (The Morphlux, I am Haunted). Also, all parts are composed and orchestrated in a similar fashion, making it blend together in a way that is sometimes symphonic, but often also psychedelic in a way that reminds of Pink Floyd, or Eloy. Key elements: the always melodic, but supporting bass of Pete Trewavas, melodic guitar solos by Eric Blackwood, a lot of synths and orchestration, and vocals that range in sound from David Bowie to Fish, but also Wayne Hussey (lead singer of The Mission, for example Eric’s part of Where where You).

It’s hard for me to describe everything on this album in detail, there’s too much to hear to do that. That makes the album not easy to access, but for those into symphonic or psychedelic music, with a soft spot for the backgrounds of the two main members of Edison’s Children, this is an adventure well recommended.

A black, white and red cover of this album shows a drawing of the poison tree, L’Albero del Veleno. This is the debut album Le Radici del Male (The Roots of Evil) of this Italian band. L’Albero del Veleno started out as a duo, with Claudio Miniati  on drums and Nadin Petricelle on piano and keyboards. They were aiming to create instrumentals inspired by horror movie soundtracks of the ’60s and ’70s. To make this work, they recorded some soundtracks that were never released by the Italian director Lucio Fulci. For this, they formed a band with 5 members. Later, they added a sixth and started recording their own music.

Next to the two founders, the band is formed by Lorenzo Picchi (guitar), Andrea Andreucetti (bass), Franseco Catoni (violin) and Marco Brenzini (flute). Not a typical rock ensemble, but one that fits the music of this band – movie soundtracks with an occasional hint of classical music. This 6-piece is responsible for the contenst of Le Radici del Male.

Dove Danzano le Streghe (Where the witches dance) is the opening track of the album. It starts with dark synthesizer sounds accompanied by a flute. They are joined briefly by the violin, leading into a wild witches dance. The support of heavy guitar, pumping bass and pounding drums makes the witches swirl. When things calms down, the keyboards and drums lead us out of the forest, with the violin singing softly.

After this comes …e Resta il Respire (The breath remains). This starts with a keyboard piece in 6/8 accompanied by the flute and violin. A soon as the drums and guitar join, the beat changes and the music becomes dark and haunting. After a slower part in the middle (keys and drums only) it speeds up again into a piece that is equally dark as the witches dance, but very different in nature.

In contrast, Prezenze dal Passato, the third track on the album, is almost a sweet song. Almost classical piece, with only melancholic keyboards and violin.

After this come two much heavier and far from melancholic tracks. Un Altro Giorno die Terrore is nearly metal, with the guitar in charge instead of the keyboards or violin. The combination of flute, violin and guitar on this track works quite well. For this piece, a bonus video is included, in the form of a short horror movie. The music and video fit together nicely, but may give an initial online listener (the video is on Youtube) a wrong impression of the band. When I had a friend listen to it, she immediately thought this was a metal band. 

The second of the two heavy tracks is Due Anima Nella Notte (Two Souls in the Night), that starts with a staccato bass notes, and then slowly builds up into a dragging, haunting piece – with the staccato opening rhythm as a recurring theme.

The climax of the album is entitled Al di La’ Del Sogno… L’Incubo Riaffora. Online material on the band and the album clarifies that this 12 minute piece actually consists of four pieces based of music from movies. All of these by the bands favourite director Lucio Fulci, in cooperation with the composer Fabio Frizzi. This is a real horror movie soundtrack as the band’s founders had in mind, I recommend not playing this on headphones with the lights out on a dark stormy night…

This album needed some time to sink in, but my daily car routes helped in that – I just played it for a week and found the click. For prog fans who love soundtrack like music with a classic edge, or those who like dark, symphonic Italian prog this album is worth checking out.

To some, the story behind this album may not be new, but it’s worth telling again. Ever since he was a young boy, Andy John Bradford, singer/songwriter, wanted to record his own version of the sea shanty Mingulay Boat Song. At some point, he assembled a five piece band, and just did it. With a twist: what started as a single song turned into a complete album. An album that I’ve been playing on and off for a few months now, and that contains some tunes that keep returning to my mind – making me play it again.

It’s hard to explain what makes this album so special and addictive. First of all, Andy John Bradford is not exactly a progressive rock god (or cod, according to some), and those who know him might expect a folky album. Nothing is farther from the truth. Yes, the album does contain two traditionals and one song based on a 20th century English poem, but this is by no means a folk album. By adding the melodic style of electric guitar playing of Colin Tench, and the keyboard layers put underneath by Marco Chiappini, to the acoustic guitar and vocals of Andy himself changes it all into relaxed and quite easily accessible progressive folk rock style. No rock without a rhythm section of course, so Vic Tassone and Stef Flaming are on board to keep everything in marching order.

That starts with the opening track, Mingulay Boatsong, which is actually split in three. The first part is a take on drunken sailor, then a traditional first part of the original song by Andy followed by the full blown Oceans5 version of that shanty. From here on, the vocals and electric guitar play a well executed of challenge-response game, where the guitar takes up gradually more space. The song never looses it’s folk roots though, except when the keyboards and guitar build a noisy interleave near the end, probably marking the rough landing of the rowing boats on Mingulay beach. Rowing boats, released from the blue and yellow ship on the cover, a piece of painstaking handy work by Sonia Mota.

After we arrive on Mingulay, we meet with the Whitby Smugglers, the second traditinal on the album. This one starts with acoustic guitar, with a few electric surprise chords underneath. Eric XaosLord and Brett Lloyd add an additional set of guitars (rhythm and southern rock guitar respectively) to this one, making it into a sort of southern folk rock track – pumped forward by Stef Flamings bass. At some point one of the guitars actually tries to play bag pipe here. Colin Tench has some fun on this one – can you spot the Yellow Submarine? – before the closing note is left to Chiappini’s organ

After this, two tracks follow that are rooted lyrically in folk tradition, describing modern everyday situations, written by Bradford himself. The first, Empty Hands, is a slightly heavier track than the first two, about a homeless woman selling the Big Issue, and being ignored by everyone but the singer.  The 5 o’clock line is similar, in that it describes the story of a man taking the same train every day and meeting his beloved there, traveling alone later, when after she dies. He too gets ignored by the selfish people around him, which is perfectly expressed by the melancholic guitar and keyboard playing. The guitar expresses the hidden anger inside the singer, as well as the troubled mind of the man he sings about, as the song builds up a slightly rockier structure near the end. The closing statement here is for Stef Flamings bass, and a bunch of ducks that ended up in the recording for reasons unclear to all but him.

Invictus – The Captain of my soul, is build up in a well though out manner. The versus are based on a poem by William Ernest Henley, with choruses added by Andy John Bradford. The track starts with acoustic guitar and them some drums/percussion that make it into a song that could’ve been played at the harbour side (replace drums by barrels and you’re there). The keyboards support the vocals further, as folk violins almost. Only halfway, in a very subtle way, the electric guitar joins in, but the power of the song remains with the percussion. Different from the other tracks, a little gem.

Sails off the bay starts with a Spanish guitar intro, and as the lyrics tell the thoughts and dreams of a man, or a boy, wanting to go sailing, the electric guitars of Colin Tench and Stef Flaming gradually help building it up into a powerful folk rock track. That guitar work continues into Dancing with the  Rhythm of the Shore, which starts as a mix of folk guitar with an 80s pop rhythm underneath. That ends quickly, as the vocals get layered in a surprising way, and the verses appear to contain unexpected stops – mimicking the waves breaking on the shore perhaps? A track that is not catchy, and that can either make you return to try and grasp it, or skip it if you get annoyed by it (I choose the former). It is the only track that has a real rock ending, with rolling drums and everything, and a single bass note at the end.

With that, we come to what may have been intended to be the best track on the album. And even if not, it succeeded in becoming that. For 6000 friends, the band is extended with Andres Guazzelli, who took care of orchestration, making everything sound perfectly integrated musically (he’s an expert on film music, and it shows), and Lorelei McBroom (the high vocal from The Great Gig In the Sky) on guest vocals. Again a song that tells of modern frustrations: a man with a 6000 online friends and a woman attending every party she can with her friends, both finding out that none of their friend are real, and there is no real love in their lives. Especially the way Lorelei sings the second verse, the story of the woman, can make ones eyes water – either because of the lyrics, or the wonderful voice.

After that, it is almost impossible to not listen to closing track Fly Away, which starts with acoustic guitar and piano, which only after 4 minutes are joined by the rest of the band, building into a slow, electric folk rock song. The guitar leads, but never too overpowering and leaves room near the end for the keyboards to put down an almost symphonic ending.

I love progressive rock, but I also love good lyrics, and music that expresses emotions other then fun. This album gives me just that – and that is why I keep playing it. I hope the descriptions above have given the reader some insight into this wonderful album, as well as into the mind of this humble reviewer and music lover.