'Tis the Season to Celebrate All Things Prog

Season's Greetings fellow progheads!  I am absolutely dumbfounded with how fast the sands of  2019 fell through the hourglass.  This is the time of year the Concert Closet takes a look back at everything discovered these past 12 months, thanks you my faithful followers for coming back week after week, and posts some holiday music to keep it festive.

Before I begin with words...I think a joyful musical opening from Jon Anderson is appropriate; a perfect Christmas singing voice if there ever was one...

                             

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, and I certainly appreciate all of you who do, you know I am not one to post a best of, top releases of, favorite albums of, or any other subjective list that arbitrarily ranks 2019 prog music releases.  I started this blog more years ago than I can believe to help promote the new and up and coming prog bands and artists looking to stake out their acreage in the prog garden.  I also enjoy those that have been around the Concert Closet a while, managing to somehow stay low under the radar.  So to that end I prefer to shine a brighter light across all the wonderful music the prog garden has to offer and let you the listener decide.

However; a slight twist this year as I take a look back at the music that filled the Concert Closet these past 12 months and look ahead to what 2020 has in store...so much good prog and so little time...

I opened 2019 with a review of Kaleidoreal, a hard charging eclectic group from Sweden.  This is the type of band that challenges the naysayers who claim prog is dying a slow miserable death.  If you truly are a proghead then you live for the next incarnation of the genre..."Prog Yet to Come" if I am allowed to paraphrase another Christmas classic...

What followed was some fun music; Shineback, Kinetic Element, The Inner Road, The Steve Bonino Project, and Sproingg to name but a few.  These are bands and musicians that truly enjoy their craft, don't take themselves too seriously, and yet are able to bring quality prog to the listener.

Of course the prog garden also has those that are quite meticulous; Lonely Robot, Deep Energy Orchestra, Abstract Aprils, and Coma Rossi come to mind.  Serious in craft but not so much that emotion and feeling are lost in translation.

Still others fall somewhere on either side of the prog garden divide; Crocodile, Sir Chronicles, Oceanica, Machines Dream, Pattern-Seeking Animals, Apostles of Chaos, Nad Sylvan, and The Emerald Dawn take up acreage here.  Prog that can get under your skin, flow over your consciousness, or just relax you after a long day.

And so we reach another break in the deluge of words for a second holiday treat for the ears...Trans Siberian Orchestra is masterful at taking timeless classics and bringing them into the modern world...enjoy...


                       

As 2019 draws the curtain for the final time I want to first thank all of you for immersing yourself in my world.  Progressive music is so much more than a respite from reality--it's an alternate universe that allows the listener to get lost in a world of sound that fills the mind and spirit with a soothing balm...

One last holiday clip, an updated version of a personal fave.  It just isn't Christmas without King Crimson and some Frippertronics...
 
                   

As 2020 draws closer, I hope to bring you more new bands, new releases, and (hopefully) interviews with some of the up and coming prog musicians of today.  Look for new music from Seconds Before Landing, Scarlet INside, Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate, Different Light, Happy Graveyard Orchestra, and more.

So celebrate the holiday season however you choose.  Relish the time with family and friends, and please come back when the curtain rises on the continued search for all things prog 2020...

Happy Holidays...until next time...