Oh, no, sorry, I'm thinking of time. Time waits for no man. Easy mistake to make, you can see how I got that confused. Time, reviews, both inevitable, both accessible from your PC or web-enabled device... you get the idea. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm fine!
We have some reviews, is the point. This week's Trunk is mostly just going to be a whole bundle of them.
Let's start with the latest - The Euphoric. It may not be out until next month, but the preorder's live now. The band also recently released their second music video, an uncanny 3D-rendered odyssey set to the fabulous "1991". You may have missed it, but don't worry, you can catch it right here - you don't even need to leave this page!
And, if you've been on the fence about preordering, you're in luck, because we've a veritable bumper crop of reviews for The Euphoric...
- We kick things off with Lee Davidson of Prog Metal Madness, who praises a "beautifully written and paced album" that "takes no prisoners" - a very strong start!
- Progradar's Jez Denton notes that the band are "happy to confound, confuse and surprise in composition and performance".
- A lovely video review from Classic Album Review on Youtube concludes that The Euphoric is "worth hearing again and again, repeatedly" - well, that's our hope, too.
- Real Gone warns that you should "be prepared to work hard to reap the best rewards", but those rewards are "the best Fierce/Dead record to date". Definitely worth the effort.
- And Scraggly Bones doesn't like cake but he does like The Euphoric. Make of that what you will.
But it's not just The Euphoric that's been reviewed of late! Oh no! That's right, we have more reviews!
- Roger Trenwith at The Progressive Aspect gave us his take on Mothertongue's Where the Moonlight Snows just yesterday, promising something that'll "put a spring in your step and the zazz in your pizzazz". (Be advised: BEM is not responsible for your pizzazz. Please zazz responsibly.)
- Another one for Mothertongue from Phil Weller at Manchester Rocks, who reckons the new album has both "greater cohesion" and "greater longevity" than Unsongs before it.
- Progradar gave us two other reviews besides The Euphoric - one for Fractal Mirror's Close to Vapour, also by Jez Denton, who "urge(s) you to search this album out"...
- ... and one for Reformat's The Singularity, by none other than former D-Ream keyboard player Professor Brian C- nah, only joking, it's the inimitable Jez Denton again, calling the album "a sonically challenging journey into the unknown and exciting".
And, last but not least, a couple of print reviews from the latest PROG Magazine, one for Mothertongue and one for Reformat. If you're having trouble reading them, click through for the full-sized versions - but we do recommend grabbing a copy of the magazine too.
Tim Smith, vocalist of the Cardiacs, is currently fundraising for rehabilitative care following his cardiac arrest and stroke in 2008, and, to contribute to the cause, we've a strange gem of a piece for you. Back in 1999, the brothers Godfrey - Simon (of BEM's Tinyfish, Shineback, and Valdez) and Jem (of Frost*) - produced an experimental instrumental album of twelve tracks, six tracks each responding to the same list of six abstract questions. Long thought lost to a catastrophic hard drive failure, it was recently rediscovered in one piece by Simon, and they've put it up for sale for just £5, with all proceeds to be donated directly to Tim Smith's JustGiving.
So, if you've enjoyed Simon and Jem's work, or you'd like to give your support to a musical legend in need, we highly recommend that you pick up Six Questions, Twelve Answers from the webstore. Great music from great musicians for a great cause.
That's all we have for this week! The Trunk will now return to its scheduled radio silence for another two weeks while our author's mind turns to old-timey people with funny names like Simon Fish - but we'll be back very, very soon.
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