Van Halen – Long Version Trailer from Van Halen on Vimeo.

Can the best Van Halen frontman bring it like he did in the early 1980s? Just reading that sentence over, the likelihood seems very low. Tickets are expected to be $60+. David Lee Roth left the band in 1985 and Sammy Hagar became the face and voice of the band, with Eddie and Alex. Eddie’s son Wolfgang, 20, will play on bass.

Personal lists are always far more interesting – if a top albums list tells you more about the listers than anything else, where an individual reviewer is coming from is far more useful that what demographic a magazine is aimed at. Anyway, here’s my top ten albums of 2010 – make up your own mind as to what it says about me.

10: Rhapsody of Fire – The Frozen Tears of Angels

More Dungeons and Dragons operatic pomp-metal from the Italian quintet, again featuring narration from Sir Christopher Lee and a corny plot featuring a Dark Lord called “Necron.” All good fun in a cheesy sort of way, even if it doesn’t really break any new ground for the band. Twenty-sided dice not included.

9: Parade – The Fabric

Parade is the brainchild of Fish guitarist and former Mostly Autumn keyboard player Chris Johnson, with the collaboration of Anne-Marie Helder, Gavin Griffiths, Patrick Berry and Simon Snaize. It took me a few listens for this one to click. On the surface it’s an indie-sounding album with its sparse chiming guitars and clattering drums but listen more closely and there’s some real musical depth there.

8: Anathema – We’re Here Because We’re Here

The former doom-metallers return after a lengthy absence and drop just about all traces of metal from their sound in favour of atmospheric soundscapes. It’s a musical journey that works far far better as one continuous listen than as a collection of individual songs.

7: Pure Reason Revolution – Hammer and Anvil

PRR describe their third album as “Disco-prog”, meaning they’ve put electronic dance, prog and metal into a blender. At times atmospheric, at times sounding like The Prodigy at their most mental, it puts the progressive back into prog.

6: The Reasoning – Adverse Camber

The Cardiff band’s third album continues in a similar prog-metal vein as 2008′s Dark Angel, albeit with Rachel Cohen handling the majority of the lead vocals. A solid piece of work with some great songs, even if it doesn’t (for me at least) quite reach the heights of their first two albums.

5: Black Country Communion

The combination of Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian is in danger of giving supergroups a good name with this album of classic 70s-style hard rock. Hughes, despite his age, is in fine form vocally, Bonamassa shows he can do hard rock as well as blues, and Jason Bonham is in the same league as his famous father. Sherinian really only has a supporting role given that cast, but still delivers some great Hammond playing. The best album Led Zeppelin never recorded in the 70s? Maybe.

4: Therion – Sitra Ahra

Not quite as bonkers as their last album Gothic Kabballah, this one is the slightly more accessible side of Therion’s choral metal. It’s still filled with complex multi-part vocal arrangements using multiple classically-trained singers, which when combined with twin lead guitars makes for a very rich sound indeed.

3: Karnataka – The Gathering Light

Five years in the making, the second incarnation of Karnataka finally deliver an album of old-school symphonic prog on a truly epic scale. Features heartfelt female vocals from the now-departed Lisa Fury and some fantastic guitar playing from Enrico Pinna, as well as guest appearances from Troy Donockley on Uilleann pipes, and Hugh McDowell, formerly of ELO, on cello.

2: Panic Room – Satellite

Compared with its complex, multilayered predecessor, Panic Room’s second album is made up of simpler, more direct songs. The very different musical backgrounds of the five members combine in an alchemical mix which results in far more than the sum of the parts. Elements of hard rock, prog, pop, folk and jazz contribute to a sound that defies easy pigeonholing, with some very thought provoking lyrics from Anne-Marie Helder.

1: Mostly Autumn – Go Well Diamond Heart

OK, so you all know I’m a huge fan of this band. But this is the first time for several years that they’ve come up with my album of the year. It’s an immensely varied album containing atmospheric celtic moments, belting hard rockers, shimmering four-minute pop songs, and soaring ballads. They’ve managed to take the spirit of 70s classic rock and made it sound relevant for the 21st century with great songwriting, singing and musicianship. And they’ve done it straight after the departure of a much-loved lead singer, too.

This was the first time Mostly Autumn had played in Wales for more than three years, and they were met by an enthusiastic crowd. The band did not let them down. This was a powerful, impassioned set by a band who were clearly enjoying every moment on stage. Bryan Josh was on fire on guitar, playing as well as I’ve ever heard him play. Olivia Sparnenn was on equally fine form vocally, emotive one moment, and soaringly powerful the next. Gavin Griffiths kicked up an absolute storm on drums, giving the set a great energy level, and hats off to Anne-Marie Helder, who, as well as singing superb harmony vocals, still managed to play keys and even flute on a couple of songs despite still having her right arm in a cast because of broken wrist!

I’ve been critical of Mostly Autumn in the past for being rather conservative with their tour setlists, playing too little recent material in favour of established standards. This time they’ve more or less torn up the old setlist, at least by their standards. Of the two and a half hour set, more than half came from the new album, almost the whole of the first disk plus half the second bonus disk. Add to that the fact that they’ve retained “Slow Down” from Bryan Josh’s solo album, and the former Breathing Space epic “Questioning Eyes” and the oldies were very much in the minority.

Pretty much all of the new material comes over extremely well live, and went down well with an audience, the majority of whom were probably hearing these songs for the first time. Songs like the opener “Deep in Borrowdale” and “Something Better” rocked hard. “Coming Back to Life” and “Forever Young” soared, and perhaps the high spot of the entire evening was the emotional rendition of “When The War Is Over” a very appropriate song for Remembrance Sunday.

They finished, as they always do, with “Heroes Never Die” this time with a completely new instrumental beginning, arranged because of the absence of Anne-Marie’s flute at the beginning of the tour. A superb gig, enchanting new and old fans alike, and well rewarding those who’ve stayed loyal to the new lineup.

There are quite a few more shows coming up including the showcase of York Grand Opera House on Dec. 4. (Tickets) And I can’t wait for that one.

By the end of the gig it was clear to me that what happened back in May wasn’t a fluke; While I know I’m a big Mostly Autumn fan and therefore more than a little biased, I still believe Wishbone Ash, despite their higher profile and name recognition, are simply not in the same league as a live band as was their support in May.

I’ve seen other veteran bands from Wishbone Ash’s era, most notably Uriah Heep and Blue Oyster Cult who, like Wishbone Ash have just one or two original members left. Those bands can still put on a great show, even now. But sadly the current incarnation of Wishbone Ash falls well short of that.

The biggest single flaw in their sound is that Andy Powell is not a particularly great lead singer. His voice isn’t well suited to the more melodic material from their classic ’70s albums. “Argus” songs such as “Throw Down The Sword” and “Warrior” were fine instrumentally, but Andy Powell’s voice sounded strained reaching for the higher notes. This probably explains why the setlist relied rather too heavily on somewhat generic blues-rock material at the expense of many of their classic songs – for example, they didn’t play “The King Will Come.”

That probably sounds unduly harsh – I did still enjoy the gig. At their best, the band could still entertain, and seemed a little more spirited than at Shepherds Bush. We still got some of the lovely twin-guitar harmonies, even if those guitars seldom really cut loose with the sort of stunning soloing of their 70s live albums.

But having seen the Martin Turner Wishbone Ash at High Voltage in August, where it was clear Martin Turner has still got it vocally, I just wish Andy Powell and Martin Turner would bury the hatchet and get back together again.

So when Swedish symphonic metal band Therion came to Shepherd’s Bush Empire for a rare UK appearance the chance to see them live on Halloween night was too good to miss. I’ve only heard a couple of their albums, the recent double album “Gothic Kaballah” and a superb earlier live album “Live in Midgard.” The albums are huge in scope, with multiple singers, choirs, and many guest musicians. I wondered how music of this complexity would translate live.

Before Therion there was not one but two supporting acts. I always make a point of getting there in time to see the support; you never know when you’re going to see a great band you might otherwise never have heard of, and you can always retreat to the bar if they turn out to be rubbish. Tonight both supports were good.

Openers Loch Vostok were an entertaining progressive-tinged metal band with a hairy frontman I could imagine crewing a Viking longship ready to loot and pillage some innocent Northumbrian village. Second support was Norway’s, Leprous. With a name like that I expected grunty death metal – in fact the band, fronted by a dreadlocked keyboard player, were nothing of the sort, fairly melodic, a bit bonkers but great fun. Both bands are well worth checking out.

Having never seen Therion live before, I wasn’t at all sure what to expect. The show began with just four instrumentalists on stage, progressively joined by two male and two female vocalists, both opera-trained sopranos, until there were eight people on stage.

The music they played can only be described as epic, and hugely melodic. While they’re not touring with the full choir that sings on the most recent album, the combination of four powerful lead vocalists still made for a immensely rich sound, whether it was alternating leads or four-part harmonies. While the focus was on the elaborate vocal arrangements, with the twin guitars of Christofer Johnsson and Christian Vidal the metal side of things wasn’t neglected either. One guitar solo in particular was simply jaw-dropping. The only thing I didn’t like was their reliance on programmed keys; I’d much rather they’d employed a flesh-and-blood keyboard player alongside the guitars and vocals. Saying that, one of the female singers did play keys for a couple of songs. We also had vocalist Thomas Vikström playing flute on a couple of songs. I really wasn’t expecting to hear any flute at this gig.

I recognised relatively few of the songs they played, I’m guessing songs from the new album Sitra Ahra, which I’ve yet to hear, featured very heavily. But it didn’t seem to matter. Their whole two-hour set was hugely enjoyable, and I can see this is going to be a band I’ll be seeing again next time they come to these shores.

Panic Room are a Swansea-based progressive rock band that emerged from the ashes of the original lineup of the celtic/progressive band Karnataka, with Karnataka’s backing vocalist Anne-Marie Helder taking on the role of lead singer.  They have so far recorded two studio albums, and made their live debut at the beginning of 2008.

The Robin 2 is one of Britain’s premier rock clubs, with a gig diary that reads like a who’s who of classic rock, prog and blues.  With great lighting and acoustics they always attract decent-sized crowds, even on a Sunday night. Tonight the venue gave us one of the best sound mixes I’ve ever heard for Panic Room.  Like many bands they’re often only as good as the soundman lets them be, and tonight he did them proud. Everyone was loud and clear, especially Paul Davies who’s shredding lead guitar has sometimes got buried in the mix in the past.

When I saw Panic Room at The Cambridge Rock Festival back in August I thought they’d raised their game for a showcase festival set. Seeing them again at a regular gig made it clear to me that the festival performance was no one-off. What’s happened is the propulsive playing of new bass player Yatim Halimi has raised the live energy of the band to a whole new level.

If you’ve only ever encountered Anne-Marie Helder playing a supporting role with Mostly Autumn, or much earlier with Karnataka, seeing her front her own band is a revelation. As a vocalist she’s easily in the same league as the lead singers of those bands, with a voice of huge power, range and emotional depth. And as a frontwoman she simply dominates the stage.

The setlist consisted of pretty much the whole of their second album Satellite, including a couple of songs from the bonus EP included with the limited edition, about half the first album, plus their cover of ELP’s “Bitches Crystal,” a song they’d recorded for a Classic Rock Presents cover disk that never saw the light of day due to party-pooping corporate lawyers. They’ve dropped the sprawling epics from the first album in favour of shorter, punchier songs, hard rockers like “Electra City” and “5th Amendment”, the gentle acoustic “Sunshine,” and the plain bonkers “I Am A Cat,” a paean to mad cat ladies everywhere.

The high spot was a truly monstrous “Dark Star” with it’s Hammer House of Horror organ riff from Jon Edwards, underpinned by a powerful bass groove from Yatim. They finished with a soaring rendition of the second album’s title track, in which Yatim got a round of applause for the bass solo.  When was the last time you saw that happen outside of a jazz gig?

Their ninth studio album sees York rock band Mostly Autumn reach something of a crossroads. Not only is this their first album since the departure of their original lead singer Heather Findlay, but the past two albums, while they certainly had their moments, both met with a decidedly mixed reaction from many fans. This time the band, now reduced to a seven-piece with former backing singer Olivia Sparnenn taking on the role of female lead singer, really have something to prove.

The album they’ve delivered exceeds all expectations.

Opener “For All We Shared” starts with a beautifully atmospheric celtic-style introduction featuring Troy Donockley’s Uilleann pipes leading into the acoustic opening verse sung by Bryan Josh before building into a superb mid-tempo rocker with Olivia taking over the lead. This combination of progressive rock atmospherics, semi-acoustic folk-rock, and hard rock guitars is quintessential Mostly Autumn. They follow up with a “Violet Skies”, also sung by Olivia, a shimmering but catchy four-minute pop song which would make a great single, then with the absolutely belting hard rocker “Deep in Borrowdale”.

The rest of the album is equally varied. The title track, dedicated to Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, is quite harrowing if you know anything of the back story. He’s a Mostly Autumn fan critically wounded while serving in Afghanistan. “Back to Life” is a superb rock ballad which builds and builds, and the album closes with the soaring “And When The War Is Over” again featuring Troy’s pipes, and to my ears is has the same feel as some of Roger Waters’ solo material, musically if not lyrically. The album is so varied it’s difficult to pigeonhole with any genre label, but “progressive rock” in the original sense of the word is surely as good a label as any. Bar one clunky lyric, the quality is consistently high; at a few seconds under 50 minutes in length, there really isn’t any filler at all.

The production is quite raw; rather than the polished approach of earlier albums this one has a very “live” feel to it, especially Bryan Josh’s guitar sound. One thing that’s very noticeable is the number of times he really cuts loose on lead guitar. On the last album, “Glass Shadows” I felt his playing was too mannered and restrained, with relatively little lead guitar; this time around he plays a blistering solo on almost every song, and plays as well if not better than he’s ever played before.

Fans of her former band Breathing Space will of course be aware of Olivia Sparnenn’s talents as a singer. While her predecessor is inevitably going to be a really hard act to follow, Olivia acquits herself superbly. Her singing continues to develop; while she’s clearly not trying to sound like Heather (which would have been a mistake), she’s not singing in the quite same way she did with her previous band either. There are certainly moments where she uses her power and range to great effect, such as the closing section of “Deep in Borrowdale” where she demonstrates the voice that can allegedly shatter wineglasses.

And it’s also great to hear Iain Jennings back on keys. While it seems ages ago that he rejoined the band for the tour promoting “Glass Shadows” in 2008, this is actually the first Mostly Autumn studio album he’s played on since 2005′s “Storms Over Still Waters”. It’s also worth noting that while Gavin Griffiths has also toured with the band extensively in recent years, it’s the first time he’s played drums for them in the studio.

The limited edition, available only direct from Mostly Autumn Records while stock last, contains a second bonus disk with eight more tracks. This is a very diverse collection of songs, but most of then cannot be described as left-overs; the best songs are as good as anything on the first disk. High points are the atmospheric “Ice”, co-written by Iain Jennings, “Hats Off” dedicated to the late Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, and Olivia Sparnenn’s soaring “Forever Young”, very reminiscent of her work with Breathing Space.

If you’re looking for a band who take the spirit of 70s classic rock and make it sound relevant for the 21st century, and love great songwriting, singing and musicianship, I can very strongly recommend this album.

Parade is a project put together by York-based singer-songwriter and musician Chris Johnson, who has played at various points with Fish and Mostly Autumn, as well as fronting a number of local York bands over the years. The band also involves vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Anne-Marie Helder and drummer Gavin Griffiths, both members of the current Panic Room and Mostly Autumn lineups. It’s completed with two of Chris’ long-term York associates, Patrick Berry on bass and Chris Farrel on lead guitar, the latter of whom replaced Parade’s original guitarist Simon Snaize.

Their one album to date, The Fabric on the surface sounded like indie with its sparse chiming guitars and clattering drums. Repeated listens reveal some real musical depth, especially with the multi-layered vocal harmonies. With its depth and sonic experimentalism it still (to me) falls within the broad spectrum of progressive rock while managing to avoid all the musical clichés of the genre.

The Stereo is a cozy little venue with a capacity of just a hundred or so. located just outside the medieval city walls, Support was local band In Spades Inc, who played us forty minutes of competent hard rock. By the time Parade took the stage, the venue was pretty much full, if not quite sold out, with quite a few familiar faces in the crowd.

Their setlist naturally drew very heavily from The Fabric; in fact I think they played the entire album. The five-piece band managed to translate the multi-layered arrangements from the record extremely well in a live setting, albeit with a lot more energy, with Gavin giving it some serious welly on the drums at times. Of the non-Fabric songs, the semi-acoustic country and western arrangement of one of Chris’ solo songs, “The Luckiest Man Alive”, featuring Patrick on stand-up double bass, was an unexpected highlight of the evening.

Compared with her lead role in Panic Room the previous weekend, Anne-Marie Helder is content to play a supporting role, playing keys and singing harmony lines, leaving the spotlight for Chris.  Although when she does take the lead, such as the wordless eastern-sounding closing section of “High Life”, the result is mesmerising.

After a powerful rendition of the album closer, “Ending”, which left me wondering how on earth two vocalists could reproduce those rich vocal harmonies live, they encored with a brand new number, “Monochrome”, before ending the evening with a muscular version of “Science and Machinery”, a song Chris originally performed with Mostly Autumn back in 2007. I thought it sounded out of place in MA’s set. Here, enhanced by Chris Farrel’s E-Bow, it fitted Parade’s set perfectly.

Heart has never been one of my favorite bands; their music stops inspiring me about halfway through a second song.

Red Velvet Car is somewhat different. The band’s first release in six years will for sure make those who heart them happy. And it has more than the usual amount of great moments. Still, half the CD is like a re-arrangement of the deck chairs on, if not the Titanic, the Lusitania (louder bangs).

Nancy Wilson’s screaming intro on “WTF” is one of those anticipated booms: “How much talking does it take to talk about your bad mistake.”. It echoes the rubbed-raw anger in “Black on Black 2″ from their wildly overlooked, Desire Walks On release. Later, too in WTF is the great refrain “One bridge to cross, one bridge to burn.” The guitars here chop down on their notes without “warmbling” carelessly. Warmbling BTW and FWIW is what I use for those who to evoke a warm emotion but stumble or stutter over the attempt.

And it’s the second best track off Red Velvet Car. The video for it – included on the iTunes release – reminds anyone of the grand grit of these gently vicious ladies of rock.

Heart is one of those bands that has become background to the American experience. They’re not quite as well known as Aerosmith or Tom Petty, but sit with a poker-playing group when one of their songs starts and you’ll get a lot of knowing, “Oh yeah, that one” and someone there will surprise you when they tell you how many albums they’ve really released. (For the record – geddit? – Heart has 13 studio albums and about 20 other incarnations, including a Greatest Hits album less than five years after their famiosity began.)

Thirty-four years on from their first album, Dreamboat Annie the Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy, still show tremendous energy for their craft and their songwriting, though not strong on imagination when it comes to the music itself; true of most long-lived bands.

“Hey You” because it’s simple is the best song of the CD’s 12 tracks. It begins and ends with a folk sound – a voice, an acoustic guitar and a thumping beat. Some songs, like haircuts, don’t need the extra layers to succeed.

“Queen City” again has an intro that raises hope in all boats. Yet, it’s also one of the handful of songs in Heart history where the lyrics just don’t seem to be going anywhere. There’s a pirate chant and an apparent sea-worthiness test.

“Sunflower,” with just the right mix of emotion, tune and simplicity, has everlasting violins that you hear long after the song ends. “Death Valley” brings a country guitar twang, as Nancy wonders aloud about how things could so quickly turn to hell driving through. It’s different and the twang definitely works with the setting – but yeah, I start losing interest and my mind wanders.

“Wheels” has an instantaneously memorable riff, similar to “Barracuda’s driving, rumbling fret frieze. But the rest of the song could be Heart at anytime in their career. “Saffrona’s Mark” (cool title!) has the same sound – I call it Earnest Rock. instead of relying on lyrics and playing well, it tries to push itself ahead based solely on energy in the voice. When the beat behind it is mid-paced, it just doesn’t inspire anything. “Closer To the Sun,” “Sand,” and “Sunflower” fall and fail in the same way, too.

“In The Cool” is a ballad easy to get lost in, again, because of its simplicity. You know, less is more? It’s ends the deluxe version of the CD, and makes me wish for – more

The Songs (Deluxe version)
There You Go
WTF
Red Velvet Car
Queen City
Hey You
Wheels
Saffronia’s Mark
Death Valley
Sunflower
Sand
Closer to the Sun
In The Cool

At the beginning of the year Heather Findlay shocked the progressive rock world by announcing that she was leaving Mostly Autumn after more than a decade to embark on a solo career. The band announced that no way could she be allowed to leave without a proper goodbye. So she would be making one last farewell appearance with the band, at The Assembly in Leamington Spa on Good Friday. Shortly afterwards came the announcement that the show would be recorded for a DVD release.

This is that DVD.

Beginning with the now familiar opening hard rocker “Fading Colours”, the first disk shows a tight, professional performance, typical of their shows throughout last year captured on the two excellent “Live 2009″ CDs. But the second half of the show ratchets up the emotional intensity by several notches, and by the end it’s actually quite draining to watch. This is a band really putting their heart and soul into the music, and some of the band are close to tears by the end. As are many of the audience.

The setlist is pretty much the same as the band were playing towards the end of last year, a greatest hits set skewed slightly in favour of Heather’s songs; all-time favourites like “Shrinking Violet”, “Evergreen”, “Passengers” and “Carpe Diem” as well as recent songs like the powerful Stevie Nicks influenced “Unoriginal Sin.” The DVD includes the entire two and a half hour show, completely unedited, with all the song introductions, and the emotional farewells at the end.

While the band’s performance is absolutely “as it happened”, they’ve clearly taken a great deal of care in the mixing, mastering and video editing, and that time and effort has paid off. Audio and video quality are both excellent; every instrument and voice of the eight-piece band can be heard clearly, including Anne-Marie Helder’s flute and Olivia Sparnenn’s backing vocals, and the camerawork is excellent given the limitations of the venue’s stage lighting. The video editing is absolutely superb, and really manages to capture what it’s like to be in the front row at a Mostly Autumn gig. Closeups of band members naturally favour Heather, and to a lesser extent Bryan Josh. Anne-Marie gets a fair bit of camera time during the flute solos, although you only get occasional glimpses of one or two of the band.

As someone who was there, this DVD not only succeeds in capturing the atmosphere of that emotional night, but shows what a class act Mostly Autumn can be on stage, and of course, shows what a great singer and charismatic frontwoman they had in Heather Findlay. I look forward to her solo career with great interest.

Just eight days later, Mostly Autumn took to the stage again in Gloucester, with former backing vocalist Olivia Sparnenn taking over as the band’s new lead singer. But that’s another story.

The DVD is available from Mostly Autumn Records