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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Sha's Feckel

Greatest Hits

Review by Gary Hill

Lots of eras of King Crimson are represented here, but that’s not the only musical reference. In fact, sounds as diverse as Tool to jazz and Rock in Opposition all show up. This is great music that changes from song to sound and often at different points in the same song. It’s surely not for everyone, but those who like this kind of music will really love the disc. It’s adventurous and powerful.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2012  Volume 5 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Build Us A Rocket Then
A noisy build up starts things off here. From there we get a jam that’s got a lot of powerhouse, almost punky jamming built into it. As the horns join it becomes more like jazz or Rock in Opposition. It shifts from there into a more melodic jam that’s reminiscent of Red era King Crimson a bit, but with both modern rock sounds and jazz in the mix. They take this through a number of changes and it’s quite a powerful piece of music. A hard rocking jam later is awesome because it manages to be melodic although it has a lot of oomph. It is again rather like Red era KC. A cool slower section ends it.
Knarrho
There’s an awesome groove that opens this. As it builds out there’s more pure jazz in the mix, but it still has some of that King Crimson vibe in place. That rock element becomes more prevalent later in the piece. It works out from there into a soaring jam that’s definitely got plenty of classic progressive rock built into it. Then a more stripped down arrangement emerges with the guitar leading the way. It’s rather space rock in texture. It turns heavier beyond that with the jazz and Crimson-like tendencies merging nicely in a swirling kind of progression. More hard rocking sounds are heard after that point.
Massive Bereavement
Percussion starts this off and the bass joins, creating a rhythmic, rather sparse and nicely off-kilter arrangement for the early periods of the cut. It works out into some of the most unusual and freeform jamming of the set, combining jazz, Crimson-like music (in this case older, say Wake of Poseidon era Crimson) and RIO. It works to heavier sounds around the four and a half minute mark, but then dissolves to sparse sonic space a couple minutes later. Then it fires out into the hardest rocking, but still quite jazzy music of the whole piece less than a minute further into the number. It continues evolving and changing and works to a killer groove from that point. This is taken through several changes before a fiery exchange ends it in style.
048
A tentative jazzy jam opens this and holds it for over a minute. Then the whole thing shifts to something that’s more like rock meets world and space music. It’s quite dramatic and powerful. The rocking section of the piece builds out from there in a real screaming style, but the wailing saxophone continues to hammer the jazz sounds home. This is a killer jam, plain and simple. It’s arguably the strongest of the set, seeming to combine Miles Davis with Hawkwind, Tool and King Crimson. All one can really utter after this heavy duty jam is “wow!”
 
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