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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Bröselmaschine Live at Rockpalast Review by Gary Hill This band dates back all the way to the 1960s. This recording is from 2021. That's one heck of a long run, and, as far as I know, they are still at it. There are some amazing pieces of music here. Everything is at least somewhat prog, and most of it is decidedly so. I really love the vocals of Stella Tonon. If you like progressive rock that includes blues, jazz, psychedelia and more, you are in for a treat. This live album really delivers. This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2023 Volume 4 More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2023.

Track by Track Review

Bliss Drums get us going here. Eventually the rest of the instruments join in a tasty prog jam. They take us through a number of changes. There are some Celtic styled moments later on the track. This also includes a killer bass solo.

Elegy Keyboards get us underway on the second track. Percussion rises up to join. Vocals come in over the top of that arrangement with a lot of emotion and expression. This gets into more of bluesy rocking sound later in the piece. It's a killer tune that has so many varied elements (including more of those Celtic leanings) working together to create something unique.

Oriental Mind I really like the rhythmic, psychedelic dramatic arrangement of this as it gets going. This is such an intriguing and effective piece of music. It has plenty of world music sound along with a lot of other cool proggy things. This is art music of the highest order, but it still manages to convey emotion and power. It works out into some driving world-music infused rocking later. This is definitely one of the standouts of the performance. Given how strong everything here is, that says a lot.

I'd Rather Go Blind More of a power-ballad, this has a lot more mainstream rock and blues in the mix. It's very effective, but also more grounded than the music we've heard to this point. There is some scorching hot guitar soloing built into this.

Black Is The Colour While overall this is another straight-ahead rocker, this does have more proggy stuff at points. The instrumental section mid-track particularly shows off that side of the sound with lots of keyboard soloing.

Indian Camel There is some cool guitar soloing as this gets going. From there we get some Indian music in charge of it all. It builds outward upon that basis, becoming quite a cool psychedelic meets prog arrangement with that world sound still well placed in the bedrock of the music. There are some familiar melodies that creep in at times. This wanders toward Iron Butterfly at points, too. This extended instrumental is so strong. In fact, I'd consider it another highlight of the performance.

Fall Into The Sky More purely proggy, there is a definite jazz-angle at play here, too. I really dig the jazzy piano solo later on this number. They build it out to more soaring and powerful prog rock with that as the launch pad. This is quite a powerful piece.

Sole Rider While this still has proggy angles as it gets going, it's really built on a jazzy, bluesy groove that is so cool. This turns more toward trippy, prog jam band type stuff further down the road. There is a definite space rock sort of angle at play.

Pajaro A mellower, quirky number at the start, this still has plenty of progressive rock built into it. The lyrics are not in English. It turns more rocking later along the road, getting quite potent as it does. Sitar brings something cool, and this works out to some pretty trippy stuff as it continues driving forward. It drops to a mellower mode near the end for the final vocals of the song.

Children of the Revolution Harder rocking, but also decidedly proggy, this is a real powerhouse.

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