Nightingale Express (BLOW OUT PRICE!)

What would you call a power trio that veers seamlessly between shredding peaks, jazzy moods, and fat funky grooves? Mörglbl of course! Often compared to Primus meeting Steve Vai, Mörglbl hits like a heavyweight jab and makes you laugh while you bleed! Mörglbl is the punch you don't see coming! Packaged in a limited edition digipak, "Jazz For The Deaf" is the fourth album from the world-renowned French jazz metal trio. This band with the unusual name is led by virtuoso guitarist Christophe Godin. Virtuoso bassist Ivan Rougny is complemented by the double bass of new drummer Aurelien Ouzoulias. With the release of "Jazz For The Deaf", Mörglbl has created an album with cross genre appeal. Fans of shred and fusion Gods like Allan Holdsworth, Steve Vai or Freak Kitchen's Mattias Eklundh will find much to sink their teeth into. After entertaining crowds around the world, Mörglbl performed at Nearfest in 2008. It was the first time in the 10 year history of the festival that an opening act received two encores. This amazing performance sparked a flurry of interest from other festivals, culminating with Mörglbl receiving an invitation to appear at Progday 2009 in Chapel HIll, NC on 9/5/09.

After a 10 year absence Enchant are back.  The band started in 1993 making them one of the earliest prog metal band.  Actually they are sort of an interesting band in that they seem to exist in both the prog rock and prog metal realms.  Some metal fans think of them as a bit lightweight and some prog rock fans think they are too heavy!  One thing is for sure they are wildly successful.  This is definitely prog but it never loses sight of the melody.  Fronted by the great Ted Leonard (who is now doing double duty with Spock's Beard) this one is a no-brainer - whether you are metal or prog head.  "irst impressions are the similarities to Spock’s Beard. Hardly surprising since Ted Leonard has been singing with them since 2011. He’s been with Enchant longer; their first CD came out in 1993. And familiarity doesn’t breed contempt here, fortunately.Bay area progressive rockers, they steer a straight course composing guitar-structured songs that they extemporise over. Guitarist Douglas A Ott is also the band’s main producer, with The Great Divide having been recorded at his own studio, but if in the past the band’s followed his direction they’re now more involved after a ten year gap working on other projects. Also, while integral, Ott doesn’t dominate Enchant’s sound but flows in and out adding a hard rock bias to their generic musical flavouring. Drummer/percussionist Sean Flanegan and bassist Ed Platt have the solidity of early Kansas and musically there are some pretty snazzy and often too brief keyboard solos from Bill Jenkins.A rolling cyclical bass line forms the basis of opening number ‘Circles’ with Leonard pondering life going round well, like a circle – while the lyrics aren’t profound they feel right and though this isn’t a concept album, despite the band stating otherwise, there are common themes concerning the human condition in a loosely existential manner. Mainly straight verse and choruses ‘Circles’ breaks out into more complicated time signatures before an acoustic comes to the fore, vocals return, an electric guitar take over and it concludes with a nicely warm keyboard solo. ‘Within An Inch’ follows with a steady rock backbeat over which Ott’s playing echoes Camel’s Andy Latimer interrupted briefly by some John Ellis punk-styled sirening. ‘The Great Divide’ follows suit in a more epic manner, the arrangement akin to Genesis in their golden period.Enchant don’t play with the fairies, despite what their name suggests. If anything they’re two steps removed from an AOR sound leaning in towards early Asia with some latter day Beatles thrown in, and a less grandiose take on Spock’s Beard. One might refer to them as technically proficient rather than emotionally overwrought, meaning there is a heartfelt flavour to their songs, and they tend to grow on you.The subdued opening to ‘Life In A Shadow’ throws a brief curveball echoing the Canterbury sound of Hatfield & The North before a heavy chorded chorus takes this into a rocking tune with soulful harmonies. ‘Deserve To Feel’ pours on the technical drumming and dribbling triplet bass figures with some flashy pyrotechnics predominantly on guitar but with keen keyboard flourishes, moving into a more intricate musical score as Jenkins and Ott trade inspired lines towards its conclusion. Likewise, ‘Here And Now’ builds reflectively moving towards emotional drama.Finely composed, played well, Enchant’s The Great Divide might not have you falling under its spell, but you may well be surprised how you find yourself being drawn to playing it." - The Midland Rocks

Heavy dark and a touch of evil is how I like my prog served up and October Equus ladles it up just perfectly. They are a new instrumental quartet from Spain drawing on a myriad of influences. You can hear echoes of classic 70s prog, particuarly in the keyboard work which reminds of Il Balletto Di Bronzo. Guitarist Angel Ontalva plays with real gravity that draws from King Crimson and Present without sounding like either Fripp or Trigeaux. Other clear influences are Goblin, Univers Zero and Shylock. The opener "Lupus In Fabula" even reminded me a bit of Anglagard. I reveled in the creepiness of it all. Obviously we'll be hearing a lot from these guys in the future. Highly recommended.

Released in 1973 on the obscure Canadian Periwinkle label, Jackal's "Awake" album has become a highly sought after album by collector's of heavy psychedelic/progressive rock. Original copies have sold for as much as $300! After an exhaustive five year search we have finally located the original master tapes.Drawing inspiration from Deep Purple, Jackal incorporates dazzling guitar/organ interplay evoking Blackmore and Lord at their heaviest. The complexity of their music took them far beyond the basic hard rock sounds of many of their peers. Perhaps with a few lucky breaks the band could have gone on to bigger and better things. All that's left of their legacy is this sole collector's item.

"At Vance have been around since 1998, and since then they have started have released 8 albums and 2 compilations, and they are now about to release “Facing Your Enemy”.The current line up consist of guitarist and original founding member Olaf Lenk, vocalist Rick Altzi, bassist “Wolfman” Black and Drummer Alex Landenburg.“Heaven Is Calling” kicks off this album, the galloping beat accompanied by technical guitar riffs and powerful vocals lead the listener into the album and gives just a small idea as to what the rest of the album will be like.“Facing Your Enemy”, the title track on this album, starts with an almost industrial feel before the guitars then begin their chorus and the vocals kick in and a truly powerful song is born. A power ballad that makes you want to raise your glass to the sky and sing along. You can see why they chose this song as the title track.“Eyes Of A Stranger” jumps into gear with opening riffs reminiscent of “Suicide Solution” by Ozzy Osbourne, before heading straight to their roots that is power metal, reminding you of fellow bands Primal Fear and Angels Of Babylon. This song leads perfectly into “Fear No Evil” which slows the pace but includes strong vocal lead choruses.“Live and Learn” explodes through the speakers, once again with a heavy Ozzy sounding opening riff, a voice pierces through the guitars and another great song takes hold. “Don’t Dream” and “Seeing Me Crying” are the two slowest songs on the album and lulls the listener into a false sense of security because when “Saviour” kicks in with traditional power metal the listener is rocked to the foundation.“Tokyo” takes you away on a helicopter ride, with synth, panpipes and a tale of falling in love with a Japanese girl. This is certainly a love song with a difference. An AOR sounding song that still fits in perfectly on this album. We are then met with “March of the Dwarf” which is the only instrumental on this album, but shows off the talents of the guitarist, bassist and the drummer.At Vance don’t stay away from power metal for long when “Fame and Fortune” bursts into life. We are then sadly come to the last song on the album “Things I Never Needed”. It is a definite contrast to anything else on this album. A slow, acoustic song it really does show the versatility of these talented musicians.It’s not hard to see why this band is still around and still going strong, and I for one cannot wait to see what their next album has in store." - Planet Mosh

After the great international success of his last album "La quarta vittima" Fabio Zuffanti returns with a live in studio album. The album is the report of a tour that led to Fabio and his band around Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada. It summarizes twenty years of career of growing success and offers a kind of "best of" of his solo repertoire and than that of his bands Finisterre, la Maschera Di Cera and Höstsonaten.Zuffanti says: "During the concerts for "La quarta vittima Tour 2014" I wanted to realize a live album. Unfortunately, for a number of technical problems, we did not succeed but I told myself I had to do something to stop at least one of the gigs of this extraordinary band. In the absence of new concerts the best thing was to record an album "live in studio" with some of the songs that we played during the tour taken from "La quarta vittima" and other writing for Finisterre, Maschera Di Cera and Hostsonaten that I still feel very close to me.So, one day the whole group went to Hilary Audio Recording Studio and began playing live as we were in concert, unfortunately without an audience but with the same passion and intensity as ever. This is to close this period, say goodbye to our guitarist Matteo that leaves us to devote himself to the study of film music in Spain, thank our audience and prepare for the next steps."TRACKLISTIn LimineRainsuiteOrizzonte Degli EventiUna Sera D'InvernoLa Quarta VittimaNon Posso Parlare Più ForteLa Notte TrasparenteThe players:Martin Grice. Sax, fluteMatteo Nahum. GuitarGiovanni Pastorino. KeyboardsPaolo “Paolo” Tixi. DrumsFabio Zuffanti. Bass, bass pedals, vocals