Coming Through  (2002,  56.47)  *** Godzilla vs. King Ghidarah The Farther He Goes, The Farther He Falls Slipping Down Highway Roller Free Fall Coming Through Close Enough The Imperial

Current availability:

• InsideOut (Germany)

Ryo Okumoto is, of course, best known these days for his membership of Spock's Beard, whom he joined in time to play material from their debut, The Light, on stage, before becoming a full-blown member. What is probably less well known is that he's been playing since the late '70s (he was born in 1959), even contributing Mellotron to Kitaro's In Person Digital live album, from 1980. He moved to L.A. in the early '80s, and now has a CV as long as your arm, playing sessions with the likes of Phil Collins and Roberta Flack.

Coming Through isn't his first solo album, although it's the first since he became known to the prog world at large, and it's no particular surprise that it sounds a lot like, er, a solo album from a member of Spock's Beard. Opener Godzilla Vs. King Ghidarah (killer title) starts well before descending into Jazz Hell, while the next few tracks all fall into the general 'flashy hard rock' category, with touches of the 'Beard here and there. The title track is a full-on cheeso ballad, unsurprisingly co-written with ex-'Bearder Neal Morse, although so is the album's best track, the lengthy Spock's-alike Close Enough, while closer The Imperial is a solo keyboard piece that finishes things off nicely. Inconsistency seems to be the name of the game here, I'm afraid, which is why the album doesn't get a higher rating, despite the high quality of a couple of tracks.

After perusing the second disc's 'making of' documentary, and various pics, both in the booklet and on Ryo's website, I think it's safe to say that all the 'Mellotron' on the album is sampled, though I'd like to be proven wrong. As far as the album's pseudo-'Tron work goes, there's faint choirs near the beginning of Free Fall, held too long for the real thing, a nice flute part and some strings on the title track and more of everything on Close Enough and The Imperial. So why didn't Ryo hire in a real machine? Who knows? Budget? Inconvenience? Couldn't be arsed? I believe he's subsequently bought an M400, and has definitely used it (or one, anyway) on Spock's recent, Morseless albums.

So; the proverbial mixed bag, with a couple of really good tracks, several so-so's, one fusion nightmare and a crummy ballad. A decent amount of fake 'Tron neither helps nor hinders the album overall, so it's really down to how badly you want to hear an otherwise unavailable 'Beard epic.

Official site

Opeth  (Sweden)

	Damnation  (2003,  43.03)  **** Windowpane In My Time of Need Death Whispered a Lullaby Closure Hope Leaves To Rid the Disease Ending Credits Weakness
	Ghost Reveries  (2005;  66.51)  **** Ghost of Perdition The Baying of the Hounds Beneath the Mire Atonement Reverie/Harlequin Forest Hours of Wealth The Grand Conjuration Isolation Years

Current availability:

• Damnation: Music for Nations
• Ghost Reveries: Roadrunner

More from Jim Rigberg. Jim originally wrote this review while we were under the impression the 'Tron was real; his amendments are italicised.

I confess that I am not exactly up on the death/black metal scene in general, let alone the Swedish death/black metal scene that spawned Opeth, in particular. Accordingly, I cannot attest to how innovative Opeth truly is. However, lots of writers familiar with this genre have singled out Opeth as being on the cutting-edge, not merely of death/black metal, but of rock/metal, period. For this writer, at least, the one thing that piqued my curiosity was that Opeth are often cited as being huge progressive rock fans - particularly Genesis, Pink Floyd and King Crimson - and that their music actually exhibits these influences prominently. Well, I took a plunge and purchased Blackwater Park (music - ****/'death metal' type singing - negative*) - named after a German prog-band so obscure that Thompson probably hasn't even heard of them (Ed. correct!).

The music on Blackwater Park is, to say the least, very interesting. The 'metal' portions of the songs are quite violent - the sonic assault created on the opening track sounds like air being sucked out of a room - but, as promised, these sections often seamlessly settle into beautifully melodic, haunting - even pastoral - 'soft' sections. The level of musicianship is top-notch; the sinister harmonies guitarists Michael Arkfeldt and Peter Lindgren generate owe as much to the likes of Ceacescu and Sibelius as to anything else. Unfortunately, all too often, Arkfeldt - who has a very nice voice when he wants to - engages in the ridiculous croaking that makes death-metal such as acquired taste. Meaning, I'm not buying any more of Opeth's 'standard' releases.

Last year, however, Opeth released Damnation. Nary a shred of shred is to be found on Damnation. Instead, Damnation is Opeth's brooding prog-rock meisterwerk. It is uniformly excellent; the haunted melodies scattered throughout the 'soft' sections of Blackwater Park (and, undoubtedly, Opeth's other releases) - which all sound like they could be hammered into damn good songs in their own right - are brought to the fore and allowed to breathe. While gentle, with subtle jazzy hints here and there, the music remains powerful - highly evocative of the frozen wasteland that I imagine much of Sweden (sorry Swedish readers) to be. One warning, though - do not listen to this if you are feeling suicidal.

Perhaps part of Damnation's charm is that it was produced by Mr. Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson. Indeed, at times, Damnation sounds like the Tree with a different singer. Most importantly (from our perspective here, at least), is that Mr.Wilson was good enough to feature his trusty 'Tron on five of the release's eight tracks. The choir in the middle of Closure is nice, but fairly subtle. However, on the other four 'Tron tracks, the strings burst right out at you. Particularly strong is the descending string line in To Rid The Disease, which creates a pretty good idea of how Genesis would have sounded if all the members of the band were clinically depressed.

Anyway, this a great CD/album. Hopefully, it marks a departure point for Opeth; more prog (hell, even more prog-metal), less death vocals. Definitely for Floyd/Porcupine Tree and 'Tron fans.

Okay. I was fooled. Thompson has it on excellent authority that the 'Mellotron' on this CD is sampled. What a shame seeing as Steven Wilson produced this and has a real one he could have used. On the other hand, I must say that the samples are very good; of particular note are the upfront Strings in To Rid The Disease. Hopefully, Opeth will continue moving in the direction Damnation has taken them and will use a real tape-replay machine next time round so as not to make nattering morons out of certain naïve reviewers.

Sad to say, it turns out they didn't, so this has been moved across from the 'regular' reviews, too...

I believe Ghost Reveries is Opeth's eighth album, and possibly the first to showcase their new fusion of styles effectively, mixing their earlier death metal side with more progressive sensibilities, although calling this 'progressive metal' is to do it a grave disservice. I suppose this could be considered the culmination of the experiments they began on Deliverance and Damnation, moving away from their roots into more interesting areas. Hours Of Wealth displays this fusion at its best, opening with a picked clean electric guitar part bolstered by 'Mellotron' flutes, sounding unlike anything else I've heard, and absolutely nothing like Dream Theater et al, which is to be applauded. OK, so Mikael Åkerfeldt insists on getting some 'cookie monster' vocals in here and there, but they shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the album even if, like me, you consider them a little silly.

Per Wiberg from Spiritual Beggars plays keys on the album, and I presume it was him playing with the band when I caught them at a festival in Sweden earlier this year. He's credited with 'Mellotrons, organs, grand & electric pianos', with Åkerfeldt on 'additional Mellotrons', and although they're fakes, it's fair to say that there's a good bit of 'Tron' action scattered across the album. Plenty of strings, with choirs and flutes in places, with a particularly effective string part at the beginning of Beneath The Mire and the previously-mentioned flutes on Hours Of Wealth. No other especial highlights, just a fair bit of sample-replay alongside Wiberg's other keyboard work.

So; a good, genre-busting album from a band who have become more 'progressive' without losing their core audience. Like its predecessor, this is well worth hearing. Buy.

Official site

Martin Orford  (UK)

The Old Road  (2008,  58.01)  **** Grand Designs Power and Speed Ray of Hope Take it to the Sun Prelude The Old Road Out in the Darkness The Time and the Season Endgame

Current availability:

• Giant Electric Pea

In 2007, after nearly thirty years in one form or another, Martin Orford left the band he'd co-founded, IQ. He'd started work on his second solo album, The Old Road, two years earlier, (his first is 2000's Classical Music & Popular Songs) so you couldn't really call it a 'post-split' album, and he seems to be on good terms with his ex-colleagues anyway, so no conspiracy theories, thanks. Martin's gone through his address book and got all of his mates on here, so although the album's slightly inconsistent in places, the resulting variety is quite welcome. Various members of IQ, Spock's Beard, Jadis and Gryphon all chip in, as does John Wetton and several others, although the whole thing's tied together by Martin's distinctive writing style

Grand Designs opens with a huge instrumental burst that is IQ to a T, albeit with Martin's vocals, followed by the instrumental Power And Speed, something he could only rarely get away with in IQ. Although a couple of tracks veer slightly too close to the 'commercial' (I use the term loosely) side of his writing, there isn't, in truth, a bad track here. Martin's sleevenotes say:

...Which is about as unequivocal a declaration as you're likely to find anywhere. In fact, not since the second Gentle Giant album have I read such an uncompromising sleevenote. Ironically, theirs said the exact opposite, but that was another age... Martin uses sampled Mellotron on a handful of tracks, à la his last IQ album, Dark Matter, with strings and choir here and there, never overused, never out of place. Real (credited) Moog Taurus here and there, too, often alongside the samplotron. A combination that never fails...

So; if you're an IQ fan and want more, or if you're an old-school progger (pre-'80s, that is) and you're prepared to wade through the tracks you won't be so keen on (Out In The Darkness, Endgame), you really can't go too far wrong here. Martin was talking recently about 'giving up music', although that seems to have fallen by the wayside. all I can say is, don't you dare, Mr. Orford - more of this stuff, please.

'I don't have a website and I don't particularly want one. MySpace: Certainly not. I just don't get it'. Way to go, Martin.

Outer Limits  (Japan)

	Stromatolite  (2007,  52.07)  ***½
	Cosmic Velocity Consensus Lullaby Algo_rhythm.c Caprice Spiral Motion Pangea Organ Small Works No. 4	Constellation Lunatic Game

Twenty years on from Outer Limits' last studio album proper, the band reform and release 2007's Stromatolite (a geological term, in case you were wondering). And it... sounds like an updated version of Outer Limits; four of their six members from two decades earlier are present and correct, not least violinist Takashi Kawaguchi, who provides so much of the band's identity. His solo piece, Caprice, proves his competence, but his violin and viola work are the main reason this album stands out from the pack. Overall, the band's take on the Japanese prog sound flirts with cheesiness, notably in the synth brass used on Pangea and Constellation, although good taste prevails throughout keyboard player Shusei Tsukamoto's pipe organ solo, Organ Small Works No. 4 (stop laughing).

Tsukamoto is credited with 'keyboards, Mellotron, pipeorgan', but the nearest anything here comes to sounding like a Mellotron are brief flute and string parts that barely even sound like 'Tron samples, although the flutes on Constellation just about pass muster. I could be proven wrong here, but I think it's pretty unlikely; the only relief is that it doesn't sound like the bloody M-Tron. So; would I have bought this album if I'd known the 'Mellotron' credit was false? Probably not, to be honest, although it's not a bad record. It's very typically Japanese, but reasonably good at what it does.

Official site