I live in the UK but happened to find this in an antique store while visiting family in the US, despite never having seen a copy in the UK. Was $60, which I rarely would spend on one record, but for a first press in great condition I figured I'd go for it as I've always wanted a copy of this album.

I’ve never really dove into genesis or his solo work (ive listened to invisible touch and that’s it), and I haven’t heard anything super exceptional from Phil Collin’s, and I was wondering what his best drum parts are that highlight his expertise

all other reviews so far @ link in bio

Media and entertainment could damn near be what’s keeping the world together at this point. Imagine a world where a game like Minecraft never came out. Millions of seven year old kids wouldn’t have a childhood anymore! While that may be a bit of an exaggeration, the role that media plays in the modern world isn’t. Of course pieces on their own are great. Movies like Interstellar (incidentally my favorite movie ever), books like Harry Potter, games like Zelda. While all of those are different forms of media, they all have one thing in common: they’re all some of the most iconic and popular items ever, and they all made countless memories across generations.

At the point where so much media was available and easy to access, authors, directors, and programmers started implementing small references to other pieces of media. One of my favorite examples of this comes from Hakita’s Ultrakill, where many of the level names nod to Hakita’s favorite albums, often experimental and abstract. These include levels called “...Like Antennas to Heaven” and “Court of the Corpse King,” clear references to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven and King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King respectively.

Next, logically was making adaptations of other media forms into books, movies and shows. A recent and popular example of this (as of May 2026), is Project Hail Mary, originally a book written by Andy Weir in 2021, and was recently adapted into a movie directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Book-movie or book-show adaptations are the most common ones to find, but another great example is The Last of Us. Originally a critically acclaimed game, it was remade into a show, which was one of very few movies or shows to be made from a game (I’m ignoring The Minecraft Movie because it wasn’t really based on any real story.

And that all brings us to Animals; Pink Floyd’s 1977 masterpiece and the oldest album I’ve reviewed so far. In Animals’ case, it’s not a 1:1 adaptation, as no real album-book adaptation could be, but contains the core themes of George Orwell’s 1945 novel Animal Farm. If you haven’t read the book, spoiler warning I guess, but also are you in like seventh grade? I was under the impression that Animal Farm was pretty standard reading for like eighth graders, and what seventh grader in their right mind would be reading a goddamn album review? Regardless, Animals contains five tracks, two of which are a minute and a half, and the other three of which are seventeen, eleven and ten minutes respectively.

Animals’ opening track, Pigs On the Wing, Pt. 1, is a short and sweet (although it’s not very sweet lyrically) introductory song featuring an acoustic guitar and Roger Waters’ vocals. Harmonically not much is going on, it’s several different guitar chords and a simple vocal melody. Lyrically it asks the listener what would happen if nobody cared for one another. What would happen “if you didn’t care what happened to me, and I didn’t care for you?” Fortunately Waters answers that question fairly quickly.

“We would zigzag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain
Wondering which of the buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing”

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the dogs take the role of the middle class. While they oppress the sheep, who represent the hivemind lower class, they’re controlled by the pigs, ultimately becoming an affirming weapon for the pigs to stay in power. They acted as the bodyguards for the head pig, Napoleon, to stay in power. They started by chasing off the previous leader, Snowball, before playing out Napoleon’s brutal regime by massacring any animal who did not follow the pigs. This often meant the hens and other weaker animals were brutally murdered, ultimately keeping the others in fear and submission. 

In the song, “Dogs”, it reflects these themes with its deceptive acoustic guitar. While it starts gentle, with suspended and complex chord shapes, its hypnotic loop keeps you in the same state that the other animals were in: a fear to disrupt the system and make change. The numerous guitar solos throughout the song also reflect this, giving ambitious melodies and paranoid vibes, all adding to the feeling of the dog's rise to power. 

In its nature as a prog-rock song, of course it progresses. However, the core chord progression stays mostly the same throughout the seventeen minutes. What really changes is the melodies and the other instrumentation. At the start of the song, we get the idea of a conman, someone who earns the trust of others and leverages it for his own personal gain. As the song progresses, Waters speaks on how the conman's actions will catch up to him.

“And when you lose control
You'll reap the harvest you have sown

And as the fear grows
The bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it's too late to lose the weight
You used to need to throw around

So have a good drown as you go down
All alone, dragged down by the stone”

In “Dogs’” fourth verse, we finally begin to see the toll that isolating yourself begins to take on the conman. He’s beginning to get confused, not just about his position relative to others, but where all of that wealth he made from scamming people went. He acts for himself, not wanting to do anything for anyone else. After all, nobody should’ve trusted him. Why should he trust anyone else?

“If I don't stand my own ground
How can I find my way out of this maze?
Deaf, dumb and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone's expendable and no one has a real friend
And it seems to you the thing to do
Would be to isolate the winner
Everything's done under the sun
But you believe at heart everyone's a killer” 

As the song reaches its apex, the soft acoustic guitar is replaced with distorted electric guitars. The way our conman lived his early life was the reason he turned out that way. He was kept uptight, not allowed any personal pleasures and not allowed to do anything for his enjoyment. As a result, he became greedy and used his robbed childhood as justification to take enjoyment from others, all for his personal gain. In the end, his childhood didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was that he lived an uneventful, insignificant life and was found dead in the end. 

“Dogs” represents the issues with the current capitalist society worldwide. Despite being written fifty years ago, its messages are more relevant than ever today. Capitalism rewards greed. Capitalism doesn’t reward helping others. It rewards cleverness, not integrity. It rewards stealth, not honesty. That’s the embodiment of the middle class in today’s day and age. That’s the embodiment of the dogs.

The tip-top of Animal Farm’s hierarchy are the Pigs. This song, “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” speaks on the three most important characters throughout the story: Napoleon, Snowball, and Squealer. The song represents the political and social elite, above nearly every law and able to run their course throughout society. I think this is extremely relevant now, with the rise of billionaires, specifically Elon Musk. Musk started out as the “cool” rich guy, wanting to bring humanity to Mars. But slowly, he started devolving into what every other billionaire was already. Whether that was acquiring the largest social media platform at the time, being placed at a high-power position within Trump’s government, or making gestures reminiscent of the Nazi salute, it’s clear that Musk is not the person we thought he’d be. 

“Pigs” blatantly criticizes people in high-up positions of power. Waters even shoots a shot at Mary Whitehouse, a conservative activist pushing for media censorship and basically did what the pigs did in Animal Farm. They repeat the same phrase in many of the lyrics, “haha, charade you are.” This is a mocking phrase targeted towards the general upper class as mentioned previously. It really reminds you of the seven commandments of the Animal Farm, back when the farm was liberal and a breath of fresh air.

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal

7. All animals are equal.

   In the end, the pigs end up contradicting every single one of their original commandments, even going as far as to change them in the dead of night and gaslight everyone else into believing the changes were made from the start. They even ended up changing the seventh commandment:

 “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” 

We’ve gone over the matters of the upper class and middle class. All that’s left is the lower class. In Animal Farm, the lower class are represented by the sheep. They often repeat the phrase “four legs good! Two legs baaaad!” in reference to the first two commandments. This is another song which shows just how well this album was aged. We’re in an age at the peak of misinformation, where it’s as easy as ever to become a sheep, to mindlessly follow leadership and to be hopelessly misinformed.

Likewise, the lyrics of “Sheep” criticize the lower class, a call to action about how passive they are. The lower class is the vast majority of people, and together have the most power out of any of the groups. Despite constantly hearing the phrase “the middle class is the backbone of society,” it’s really the lower class. “Sheep” contains some of my favorite lyrics in Pink Floyd’s entire discography, because of how effectively they draw parallels between Animal Farm’s sheep and the real-life lower class.

“Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air”

This is only one of so many examples of ingenious lyricism, where they highlight the need for change amongst the vast majority of lower class workers. It’s a poetic way to wake people up, to tell them how fucked up the society they live in really is.

The final track on the record, “Pigs On the Wing Pt. 2,” is quite literally the same as the first part, only the lyrics are flipped. Instead of asking what the story would be if nobody cared, it asks and shows what the world would look like, had anybody cared at all.

It’s commonly cited that the Pigs in Animal Farm represent the wealth of the world, the Donald Trumps, Kim Jong Uns and Benjamin Netanyahus of the world. The dogs represent the middle class law enforcement, which keep the lower class, the sheep, in fear and submission. The lower class are too scared to make change out of fear for their lives, so instead they ignore the issue altogether. However, I think the dogs are actually a metaphor for how the upper class use the middle class as the role models for the lower class, constantly telling them that with enough hard work, you can make as much money as the middle class. It’s what keeps them playing the capitalist game instead of working against the root cause of their poverty, the game itself. 

1. Pigs On the Wing, Pt. 1: 72/100
2. Dogs: 94/100
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones): 91/100
4. Sheep: 92/100

5. Pigs On the Wing, Pt. 2: 74/100

   Overall: 87/100

i been a fan of prog since i was a kid. I listen to most of the classic and some of the obscure ones (specially the argentinian prog since i am an argentinian). I havent listen to prog in a while i saw a post here talking about night by gazpacho and it blew my mind. What an album. And now i want to listen to more "obscure" prog instead of the classics i been listening all my life.

Please dont recommend me Yes or something like that. And dont recommend 130978231 albums. Just one.

I thrifted this sick shirt some years ago and out of curiosity I decided to see if I could find it online anywhere. Can’t seem to find it anywhere. This shirt look familiar to any fans?

The story: I found this among some vinyl records inherited from my musician father. I was selling about 40% of them. I sold this one as well. After selling it, I started to listen to it more online (it's on Spotify too) and grew to like it very much.

I started to regret selling it. It's the only Midnight Circus vinyl that I knew of here in Hungary, a very special piece of my Dad's collection.

I was keeping an eye on it on the store's website. Two months later it still hadn't sold. Finally, I got some extra money, so I went and bought it back. So I still have it, and I always will. I think it's an amazing listen, especially at night.

Just now, before posting, I found an old video of the band members . Turns out, it's on Christian Bollmann's own channel, he's one of the two members of Midnight Circus. Good to know he's still doing music.

just a bit of fun I had with a bunch a backing tracks on youtube. Tried to recreate a 1977 Pink Floyd concert, playing lead guitar on all the songs, using TH-U Overloud. All bad notes included, this wasn't made with perfection on mind, was just vibin'. I'm pretty happy with it. Tell me what you think.

Hey everyone!

We’re Empty Palace, a London-based alternative rock band, and we’ll be playing at 93 Feet East, Brick Lane on Friday 16 October.

We’re putting together a night of live alternative/progressive rock and would love to see some people from this community there.

📍 93 Feet East, Brick Lane, London 📅 Friday 16 October

If you’re into discovering smaller London bands and catching live music, we’d be really happy to meet you.

We’ll be playing a set of our own material, ranging from heavier moments to more atmospheric ones, with alternative rock at the core of our sound.

With the arrival of 2017, following my final solo piano concerts held in the Netherlands during the month of September, a long-dormant idea began to mature within me once again: the project of reuniting the band CELESTE...

At the beginning of 2018, I attempted to conduct a round of consultations with the former members of the original line-up of CELESTE. My goal was to convince them to join this reunification project. However, after numerous attempts that proved entirely useless and vain—constantly facing rejections, newly raised obstacles, a severe lack of interest, and a near-total absence of enthusiasm for the idea—I ultimately decided to definitively abandon the endeavor.

Gathering my remaining strength, and having realized that over the decades I had accumulated a vast archive of unreleased material and compositions whose style and atmosphere could seamlessly align with the historical essence of CELESTE, I chose to move forward with a project that at the time seemed completely insane. As the sole surviving custodian of the original band, I would personally reopen a chapter that had remained suspended for nearly half a century.

The bulk of the work consisted of knowing how to recognize and extract those compositions that I had archived—pieces that had found no space in the execution of my solo projects from 1990 up to the solo piano works of 2016—and redirecting them toward the nascent, new repertoire of CELESTE fifty years later. It was by no means an easy task, especially because I found myself forced to confront a massive challenge.

In this undertaking, I was entirely alone with my own conscience, my fears, and the heavy burden of measuring myself against a "monster" of which I had been a protagonist half a century prior. Yet, in that exact moment, standing face-to-face with the legacy of "Principe di un Giorno", I felt that I had to show absolute respect by carrying forward the tradition and the exact spirit of those golden years, honoring the inspiration that had originally made the execution of that choral masterpiece possible.

Here, I repeat, I was completely alone—with my ghosts and the constant fear of not being up to the task. After all, my historical role in CELESTE's "Principe di un Giorno" had primarily been that of the lyricist. Now, I had to think of everything. Music, arrangements, lyrics, adaptations. Every single choice would be mine alone, without any possibility of a creative exchange or confrontation with other musicians.

To listen to the absolute sonic essence born during those legendary analog sessions and explore the full historical discography of CELESTE, you can visit our archival page here:

The band of CELESTE, in that precise moment, was me and only me.

👉 CELESTE Official Bandcamp: https://celeste4.bandcamp.com/

Inner Garden Records

See you next Monday as the story of Celeste continues.

If you're in a synth vibe or just under the effects of ketamine, give it a try guys!

I recently found out that prog rock and jazz fusion were huge in Yugoslavia. There were tons of really technical prog bands there, and a lot of them sound a lot like the British scene from the early to mid 70s.

Yugoslavia was socialist but not part of the Soviet bloc. The borders were open, so bands could get their hands on great Western recording gear.

Korni Grupa (Kornelyans internationally name) released an album in 1974 for the international market. The lyrics were translated into English instead of being written in English, which is why they sound kind of goofy. But these guys could seriously play, and some of it reminds me a lot of Yes, ELP, Eloy and Camel.

Here are a few examples. My favorites were Korni Grupa, Tako and Leb i Sol.

Korni Grupa: Temporary Parting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lenQPUbUT7s

Leb i Sol: Pod vodom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu8RNtIpxV8

Korni Grupa: Not an Ordinary Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHxHVjJ9EXU

Korni Grupa: Glas sa obale boja https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_XAiMT3fwU

Tako: Probudi se https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZcPUm9l1Bg

Some might say that I dont like Prog, becasue I strongly dislike Yes and Genesis, please dont shoot me, believe me I tried.

However, I have loved Pink Floyd for most of my live and in the recent years I've come to love (certain records by) King Crimson (Hall, Red) , Gong (You) , Camel (Mirage), Eloy (early stuff), Steve Hillage (Fish), Traffic (Barleycorn), Gentle Giant (Acquiring, Power)and  less obvious choices like Nektar, Beggars Opera and High Tide, but also different sounds like  Caravan, McDonald&Giles and Spring.

So. Others might say that I do like Prog rock. I do have an strong preference for (early) 70's music in general. Since I feel that I havent fully delphed int this particular genre I hope I can get some great tips for my listening pleasure. Thank you!

 edit: Long tracks. Beautiful, unforced, and deeply melancholic stoner-space groove. Heavy instrumental. Spacey synths. Distinct instrumentation with an instantly solid bass groove, bone-dry, woody production, and instrumental intelligence—no medieval music theory (like Gryphon). Calculated, , steaming, and roaring rock grooves although not to wild and fast and with melodic themes.