Review by Oleg Trukhanovich

The live Caravan is definitely a different beast than the studio Caravan. The band are at the peak of their powers, with virtuoso musicianship and they play all of their best tracks up to this point. In this sense the album works as a type of best of Caravan, and in many cases the live versions here are better than the studio tracks. In any case this is a dynamic performance with energy and full on commitment.

"Cunning Stunts" is another superb Canterbury prog release from CARAVAN mixing all the right elements throughout. Vocals are picture perfect with great harmonies and thoughtful backing vocals. It is simply very nice album to listen to and enjoy.

McLaughlin, Di Meola and De Lucia, all three amazing and classic artists of music, prove a grand trio of enormous quality, since this ‘Friday Night’ marvelous album is an all-time classic, an exciting masterpiece and an essential thrill of superb music and craft. Absolutely recommended, even doubtlessly masterliness.

Excellent last Fish's album with Marillion... And a great follow up to the masterpiece Misplaced Childhood. The lyrics (and concept...) of the album is darker, and so is the music, making a marvellous mixture of neo-progressive hymns and touching ambiental passages. So this is a really recommended album for every Marillion, neo-prog or music's fan...

Running the gamut from straight-ahead to balls-out fusion, ‘Five Peace Band Live’ is a rare opportunity to hear two masters create something that references both of their careers but combines to create something with its own distinct personality.

It's about time we had a live recording of the best incarnation of RTF. From start to finish, this pair of CDs just blazes with stellar virtuosity. The sound is remarkably clear, and the selections cover all of the best RTF albums, from Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy through Romantic Warrior. I would be hard-pressed to find highlights on these disks, as to me, the entire album is highlights.

This extraordinary recording foreshadows Rosenwinkel’s now legendary fourth album The Next Step, released in 2001. A recording will never quite catch the drama of a truly great live performance, but Next Step Band Live at Smalls 1996 gets about as close to that dramatic fire as you could hope for. Both dyed-in-the-wool Rosenwinkel aficionados and those new to his work will appreciate an engaging and enveloping set that transports the listener back to a particular time for jazz in New York and to a legendary club on a Tuesday night – for what was clearly a magical evening.

It's a very well balanced and a very cohesive work. "David Gilmour" is, in my humble opinion, an album that, despite remaining in the area of Pink Floyd's music, also explores other musical areas but only if they were very close to that area. So, "David Gilmour" is a very good album and if you like the inimitable guitar sound of David Gilmour, especially on Pink Floyd's album "Animals", the resemblance is obvious, you mustn't miss this album, for any kind of reason. It should please Pink Floyd's fans. It boasts strong songs, great guitar work and Gilmour's ever-charming vocals.

Freedom reigns supreme on Universal Syncopations, bassist Miroslav Vitous’ 2003 release. For his first disc in seven years, he assembled a dream team of pianist Chick Corea, drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist Jan Garbarek, and guitarist John McLaughlin. He provided the musicians with maps that infused the sessions with an open and expansive mindset. The maps contained the tunes’ harmonies, melodies, and motifs. The rest was left open to interpretation.

A quintessentially ECM aesthetic is very much at work on this solid effort. This is an ambitious project and deserves repeated listening in order to fully appreciate all the work that Vitous has invested in making this album.

"Acquiring the Taste" sounds like the moment when the group truly begins to sketch an identity that would later make it a clear outlier within progressive rock. The level of musicianship achieved is impressive not only because of the evident technical skill, which is never showy, but also because of the inventiveness. There is an almost handcrafted care in the way ideas fit together, with everything sounding as if each element was designed to occupy exactly that space and no more. The melodies avoid the obvious, and the chosen paths rarely follow the most comfortable route, while the band's approach to progressive rock already hints at something less predictable and more challenging, both for the musicians themselves and for the listener. The arrangements reveal a restless band that always seems to suggest it might turn left when everything points to the right. The performances match this proposal with precision and personality, without ever sounding cold or mechanical. In fact, there is a constant sense of anticipation, along with a subtle premonition that Gentle Giant has not yet shown everything it has in store, but is already making it clear that from this point on, nothing will be simple or ordinary. It is an album full of ambition without fanfare, ideas in constant fermentation, and a band that seems unwilling to repeat formulas. You can feel that this record does not exist in isolation. It works almost like a quiet premonition, the first firm step in a complex journey that would be anything but predictable.

'Fool's Mate' benefits from having the other Van Der Graaf Generator members along for the ride, as well as the incomparable Robert Fripp. All are clearly heard exerting their musical personalities, but within the framework of curiously short songs. As usual, Hammill takes center stage with his songwriting and captivating voice. This is a perfectly enjoyable record from start to finish. I liked it at first spin. One of Peter Hammill's finest, happiest and most easily approachable.

Every track on this album is great, and there's no filler anywhere to be heard. Speaking instruments, the album is fine in this category as well. Guitar, Piano, Organ, are all here and are all played very well. Of course Van Der Graafs own Guy Evans does all the drum work, and we get old member Nic Potter playing bass. Top it off with some great violin work and we have a winning formula. This masterpiece is highly recommended.

Very accessible, but not addictive. The songs have full of decent instruments who are well played. The keyboards are honest, the drums do the job, LAKE sings properly. It's just that the progressive complex patterns are no more present. It's more a complex pop album. "Canario" is a very good symphonic complex song.

This album really shows that it was made with a lot of care, and it really took to ELP a long time to record it. It is a very ambitious album. It's different to their previous studio albums from 1970 to 1973. Overall, this may seem somewhat disjointed, with the variety of styles. But I consider it an excellent album. I still love it for the crazy variety and the talent of these amazing musicians.

The sound is amazingly good, so that it makes a very dynamic album full of life. The keyboards are very colorful and melodic. There are many saloon ambiance piano parts, and the keyboards often sound like brass arrangements. The drums are rather complex and varied. There are some acoustic guitar parts, excellent percussions and very good lead vocals.

This is the first album by the band to start heading in the psychedelic direction. It shows great instrumentation from everyone in the band, excellent production, and no bad songs what so ever. I consider this to be the most important album by the band for starting to go in that psychedelic direction. Its possible we would not have prog without this record in my opinion. Masterpiece, essential in any classic rock collection, and maybe any prog collection.

"For Girls..." is an excellent Caravan effort that tends to be a bit overlooked due to the relevance of previous albums such as "In the land of Grey and Pink" and "If I Could Do It Again", but in my opinion, this one should not be overlooked at all, but be labelled as an excellent piece of prog rock.

It's definately an album of it's time, which might turn some people off, but if you can look past that and just immerse yourself inside the music, I'm sure you'll come out thinking it's wonderful, whimsical, clever, but very challenging. A true classic and only their second album, more wonderment lay ahead!

So overall Waterloo Lily is a different, yet excellent treat by this new, not-that-different, incarnation from Caravan. Anyone who is fond of jazzy-inclined good music, I highly recommend you this.