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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Bullfrog Bullfrog Review by Gary Hill The first disc I reviewed from these guys I decided didn’t really fit under the progressive rock banner. It had elements, but was closer to classic hard rock. Well, this one comes in just the other side of the equation. Sure, there are nods to things like Nazareth and Deep Purple here, but it’s also got plenty of pure progressive rock. However you slice it, though, this is a great disc. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2013 Volume 4 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review

Movin' On Starting with a rather lush, proggy introduction, this cut works out from there into a rocker that’s pretty straightforward. There’s a mellow drop back to a pretty ballad approach, though.

Bad Game The riff that opens this makes me think of Nazareth. In a lot of ways this song calls to mind that outfit, but the layers of sound over the top lend some prog to this. The keyboard bits are the most obvious prog element here.

I Came From the Sky Now, this rocker does a great job of combining that classic hard rock sound with more proggy elements. It’s a killer riff driven jam that just plain grooves.

I'm Coming Home Here is the transition more towards pure progressive rock. This starts off feeling like Deep Purple. As it builds out there are hard rocking elements combined with more definite prog. This has some powerful vocal arrangements and some killer instrumental interplay. It’s a great piece of music that just really works. There are some cool shifts and changes and it rocks.

Get Away The first extended cut of the disc, this one measures a little over ten and a half minutes in length. It builds out with a healthy helping of that hard classic rock with prog element. It is more on the mellower ballad side at first, growing organically from there. Some parts of this make me think of a merging of Vanilla Fudge with Deep Purple, but it moves way beyond that, too. This is really quite an awesome jam with a lot of varying movements and sounds built into it. Some of the keyboard sounds here are purely classic and there are couple great space rock jams in there. In fact, there is a section later that calls to mind Pink Floyd quite a bit.

Desert Man This cut comes in at a little over eleven and a half minutes. It starts off with some serious space and builds out gradually from there. Some spoken vocals (in Italian, I think) come over the top. Eventually the vocals shift to English and more sung. We’re taken out to a funky jam later in the piece. Somehow, at times I’m reminded a bit of War on this thing. It turns out into a real hard rocking and inspired jam that’s got equal parts progressive rock and southern rock jam band sounds.

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