Sunday 1 November 2020

Kev Rowland's 'The Progressive Underground: Volume 3' reviewed by iO Pages


Kev Rowland's 'The Progressive Underground: Volume 3' has been reviewed in the latest issue of the iconic Dutch magazine iO Pages.

 A book that will be quickly referred to as a bible" was written in a review for Record Collector. It is just one of the reactions to the first two volumes of The Progressive Underground, books written by journalist Kev Rowland. Between 1991 and 2006, Kev was a reviewer for Feedback magazine, specializing in progressive rock. In these books his reviews from that period are bundled. This is the third and last part. Volume 2 ended with the S for Syzygy. The thread is picked up again with the album Voices by T. There are forewords by Stephen Paine of the band Legend and Artur Chachlowski. On the back of the book we read beautiful words from Gary Chandler (Jadis) and John Dexter Jones (Jump). The stunning artwork is again by Martin Springett. Besides the reviews of the letters T through Z, this book also contains the reviews of DVDs, concerts plus a series of interviews. I find these books so very recognizable. When I read what Kev has discussed, I had to think back several times to the time when many of the same titles ended up on the (at the time still largely physical) desks of SI Music Magazine and iO Pages. The releases on the SI Music label are also regularly released. It evoked beautiful memories for me. Rowland writes relaxed, entertaining and with a lot of knowledge of the music in question. He goes into more detail on some bands and artists, for example Twelfth Night. The interviews are also very enjoyable to read, including several with Nick Barrett, stories by Neal and Alan Morse, the latter from just after Neal's departure from Spock's Beard and a great story about Woolly Wolstenholme (Barclay James Harvest). These cool interviews mark the end of a series of books that are particularly easy to read and enjoy as well as offer a cool image of the time. It still itches to do something like that also. 


©2020-Paul Rijkens, Dutch progressive rockmagazine iO Pages





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