PoS - Road Salt

[DeepestPurple]

This album is a truly bizarre departure for them (I hadn't heard the Linoleum EP before). I'm still undecided, but it's hard to believe it's the same band.

 

[USDHead]

Hey, Liquid Tension...I concur completely with you as regards the sound of DSO vs the sound of RS1. My hurried comment was intended more as a comparison of bewildering array of styles found on DSO and this album. In other words, if you can handle those on DSO you should be able to handle them on RS1.

However, I had forgotten that many of you here have a reverence for early POS that does not enable you to continue the journey easily with Mr Gildenlow. Pity really....

 

[lasercd]

However, I had forgotten that many of you here have a reverence for early POS that does not enable you to continue the journey easily with Mr Gildenlow. Pity really....

I'm not sure I understand this comment. Clearly Daniel has been experimenting over the past 5 years. While I applaud his desire to chart new territory I don't have to like where he's going. Road Salt doesn't mine any musical vein that wasn't done much better 40 years ago by Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, etc. Perhaps as a Brit you don't hear it, but as a Yankee I listen to Road Salt and all I hear is warmed over 70's British blues/hard rock. Would I prefer he make One Hour By The Concrete Lake Pt 2? Probably not but I think he could have stayed within the confines of metal and done something creative.

Your comment reminds me of one of my friends who is a huge Genesis fan. He drank the Kool-Aid in the 70s and never returned. Whatever they (or Phil Collins) did in the 80s was fantastic to him. We used to argue over his rationalizations all the time. To his ears it was Genesis and he couldn't understand why I couldn't go along for the ride. To my ears it wasn't progressive rock and as pop music it wasn't particularly good. In fact we had the same discussion yesterday. He mentioned that Phil Collins is playing in NYC and he's doing Motown hits. I asked why we were even discussing it. Why in the world would I want to hear a white millionaire Brit sing Motown songs? The kat was a great drummer and an integral part of my musical soul but eventually we went down separate musical paths. It happens and it isn't necessarily a pity. I would rather devote my energy to exploring music that is more in line with my ever evolving taste.

 

[USDHead]

No, I haven't been to the lake of Kool-Aid, Ken and had a massive drink.

I am, perhaps, for my 61 years, more broad-minded than many lovers of what is a fantastic range of great music currently available and still arriving. I love discovering great new music by bands and artists of whom I had no knowledge yesterday - and the Laser's Edge is one of the great places to come and discover some of these. Many of the bands discussed here reverentially are ones of which I have little or no knowledge - so I have a way to go.

There is no band for whom I would beat the drum and say that everything they release is great and bands such as Spocks Beard and The Flower Kings, all of whose albums I have thus far will no longer receive an automatic right of admission to my music collection with their new albums because I don't really hear them making anything exciting or new with their recent releases.

I have, I suppose been rather trite in my apparent condemnation of those Edgers who have been unable to "get" what Gildenlow is now doing. Your comment about my British ears may be correct, and would definitely be so if my taste were less eclectic and broad than it is. However, what I have found here is a community whom I had thought to be more open-minded than is possibly the case and I can respect that as it does take a while for a "newbie" to gauge the situation, and if I have maybe offended anybody then I apologise.

I too have an ever-evolving taste, and you ain't going to shake me off but it is also true that I cherish great music from every era back to the mid 60s (which is where I cut my teeth on British r&b (no not what is today called r&b)). You say, Ken, that "Road Salt doesn't mine any musical vein that wasn't done much better 40 years ago by Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, etc." and you are probably right - and in that respect I perhaps understand that here "progressive music" cannot have "retrogressive" tendencies.

Or have I misunderstood this too?

 

[lasercd]

Progressive music can be retro - of course...but it better be damn good. In his book The Music's All That Matters, author Paul Stump made an acute distinction between Progressive rock (with a capital P) and progressive rock (lower case P). Progressive rock is music that is confined to the style created in the 70s. In other words bands that ape ELP, Genesis, Yes, Crimson, etc. On the other hand "progressive rock" is a broad phrase to describe forward thinking music in the rock idiom, which is not fixated on mimicking another band. While the band might build on something created in the past they make it something completely their own.

I think its all good.

 

[USDHead]

Indeed, Ken.

 

[_Gentleman of_the Snow_]

RS1 is growing on me a little bit. I am also noticing some classic PoS peppered throughout, but as a whole, I am definitely disappointed.
I "get" what Gild is going for, it's just not really for my tastes.
When I listen from front to back, I enjoy it... I start to think that it's a pretty great album, but then I think back to PE, RL, or 1 Hour, and I remember how far superior they are.
It's okay, though... I will still buy RS2.

 

[USDHead]

There's an interesting (and to my mind) a well-observed review here:

http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=9223

Paul

 

[_Gentleman of_the Snow_]

A well-written review. I basically agree with all that was said (though I still prefer the older stuff by a long shot).

He feels the same way I do about the song "Sisters"