Archive Review: Transatlantic's SMPT:e (2000)

The “progressive rock” label isn’t an albatross that too many bands are quick to hang around their necks these days, which makes the press materials accompanying SMPT:e – a clever acronym representing Roine Stolt, Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy and Pete Trewavas – all the more confusing. Transatlantic has proudly taken up the prog-rock mantle and they don’t care who knows. A literal alt-rock supergroup, composed of various members of Dream Theater, Marillion, and Spock’s Beard, these guys have obviously done their homework, polishing off those old Yes, King Crimson, and ELP records and taking heavy notes. The five songs on SMPT:e may have their roots in 1970s-styled, classically-influenced progressive rock but Transatlantic has brought the genre into the new millennium with some fresh new ideas and more than a few original hooks. Even the cover artwork for SMPT:e resembles one of Roger Dean’s hallucinogenic paintings that used to grace so many prog-rock album covers.

SMPT:e opens with an obviously Yes-inspired thirty-minute track titled “All of the Above” which manages to imprint each of its six suites with a different sound and feel. Mixing elements of classic rock and improvisational jazz with prog-rock roots, “All of the Above” never drags or annoys in spite of its considerable length. Other cuts also manage to breathe new life into the prog-rock corpse: “We All Need Some Light” is a dark-hued, melancholy work while “Mystery Train” is a syncopated, more upbeat number that utilizes the various band member’s voices in creating some nice harmonies. The lone cover on SMPT:e is the appropriately chosen Procol Harum’s “In Held (Twas) In I,” offered here as an extended aural painting, a textured composition complete with zen-like spoken word into. A complex, multi-layered, and ambitious work, Transatlantic’s SMPT:e is a hard album to get a handle on, but one well worth the effort. (Radiant / Metal Blade Records)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine, 2000

New Music Monthly: February 2019 Releases

It may be cold as the dickens outside your window, but the spring thaw could come up quickly in the wake of February’s red-hot slate of new releases guaranteed to tickle your eardrums. Aside from new tunes from talents like Tommy Castro, R. Stevie Moore, Bob Mould, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, and the Long Ryders your auditory canals can feast on archive music from Alex Chilton (two of ‘em!) and U2 among much, much more! 

If you’re interesting in buying an album, just hit the ‘Buy!’ link to get it from Amazon.com...it’s just that damn easy! Your purchase puts valuable ‘store credit’ in the Reverend’s pocket that he’ll use to buy more music to write about in a never-ending loop of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy!

FEBRUARY 1
Beirut - Gallipoli   BUY!
Tommy Castro & the Painkillers - Killin’ It Live   BUY!
Girlpool - What Chaos Is Imaginary   BUY!
Van Duren - Waiting: The Van Duren Story Original Documentary Soundtrack   BUY!
The Specials - Encore   BUY!

FEBRUARY 8
Alex Chilton - From Memphis to New Orleans   BUY!
Alex Chilton - Songs From Robin Hood Land   BUY!
Charlie Faye & the Fayettes - The Whole Shebang   BUY!
Humble Pie - Joint Effort   BUY!
Colin Linden & Luther Dickinson - Amour   BUY!
Marley’s Ghost - Travelin’ Shoes   BUY!
Gurf Morlix - Impossible Blue   BUY!
Bob Mould - Sunshine Rock   BUY!
The Lemonheads - Varshons 2   BUY!
Mercury Rev - Bobby Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited   BUY!
Panda Bear - Buoys   BUY!

FEBRUARY 15
Hayes Carll - What It Is   BUY!
Jon Fratelli - Bright Night Flowers   BUY!
The Long Ryders - Psychedelic Country Soul   BUY!
Millencolin - SOS   BUY!
Tedeschi Trucks Band - Signs   BUY!

FEBRUARY 22
Claypool Lennon Delerium - South of Reality   BUY!
Dream Theater - Distance Over Time  BUY!
R. Stevie Moore - Afterlife   BUY!
Overkill - The Wings of War   BUY!
Rockin’ Johnny & Quiqué Gomez - Dos Hombres Wanted?   BUY!
Luther Russell - Medium Cool   BUY!
U2 - No Line On the Horizon [vinyl reissue]    BUY!
Various Artists - 3x4 (The Bangles, Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate, etc)   BUY!

FEBRUARY 29
Kinetic Element - The Face of Life   BUY!

Album of the Month: The Long Ryders’ Psychedelic Country Soul (Omnivore Recordings), the reunited legendary band’s first studio LP in 32 years. Produced by noted board-wrangler Ed Stasium, who has worked with the Ramones and the Smithereens, among many others, Psychedelic Country Soul is a collection of eleven brand spankin’ new original slabs o’ rockin’ Americana along with an inspired cover of the Tom Petty song “Walls.”

Says Long Ryders’ singer, guitarist, and songwriter Sid Griffin in a press release for the new LP, Psychedelic Country Soul is  “the album we were always trying to make… each flavor which made the band unique is there be it C&W, rock ’n’ roll, troubadour folk music, raw R&B, or out-there psychedelia.” The new album comes in the wake of deluxe three-disc reissue versions of the band’s classic 1980s-era albums State of Our Union and Two-Fisted Tales by the U.K. archival label Cherry Red.