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You can add my thanks to those of Tomcat and Johnny H, both of whose sentiments I echo. To all tapers, Spacebandit et al., thank you so much – some great recordings and some great shows – at least those that I've heard and judging by the reports. As Johnny H said, the evolution in the Tower tracks is evident thoughout. Surprisingly, as it's one of my least favourite tracks on the album, The Cuckoo has really come alive for me, I just love the outro and the way that's developed. And that's just for starters! Sixteen minutes of brilliant Dream Home at Bielefeld; a re-energised IE; and Ship of Fools taking a slightly different tack. I've also really been enjoying Trgiggerman from the recordings – seriously in your face driving energy. And to top it all the glorious Lux Aeterna. I'm ready for The Crucible.
I'll be in the middle of a month-long trip in the Indian Himalayas when it drops. I have a feeling The Crucible is going to make for some interesting background music. Cannot (but will have to) wait!
:MPD:
Some lyrics from the opening section – incomplete and with a little guesswork, of course, but the Erlangen recording is pretty clear so I'm confident of quite a lot of this:
We die alone
We're sentient then we're gone[?]
Numbers[?] […] on a great storm
It ends today
Take the pain away
There's nothing left for anyone to say
The end is great[?] an emptiness
That allows our grief to coalesce
And makes the sorrow harder to […]
In our lives we sweat and toil
Then shuffle off this mortal coil
And leave our rotten[?] flesh beneath the soil
When we go, we are released
Our disagreements all a piece [?]
We're memories just floating on a breeze
And hopefully [?] our souls are all at peace
And in the quiet section towards the end:
Eternal light
Clean and blue and bright
To guide our way, and help us through the night
It ends today
Take the pain away
There's nothing left for anyone to say
I guess the only thing we have to go on in terms of 'context of the album' is the Bob LeBad statement that came out a month or so bacck, which stated, among other things: "The band challenged their compositional skills and pushed the envelope the whole way, and even came up with engaged and fitting lyrical themes in the ancient greek tradition: war, death, politics and octopi."
@supernaut – Barleycorn also has connection to traditional English folk via Traffic.
I saw Musical Box a few years back, performing The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway at Hammersmith Odeon. It is a much-maligned truism of the state of prog in the UK that tribute bands such as this (and even smaller ones) can draw bigger crowds than current bands writing and performing their own music. A sad state of affairs.
You hit a very proud (as in projecting from a surface) nail on the head – Motorpsycho are indeed open to and draw on everything without making it sound dated, immitative or tired, while at the same time infusing it with pure motorpsychodelia. I admire that to … a lot
@otherdemon – Thanks
Be sure to wave at the cameras 
@otherdemon – do you know how this stream works? Do we just have to open the link and it will run? Or is there something more to do to get access?
@otherdemon РYeah, maybe. Or maybe I was just high on being at my first MP gig and other stuff. It's all so subjective. At Roadburn this year one of my friend's said he found the improvisatory noodling at the beginning of Un Chien was dreadful, just screechy and pointless. He was up in the balcony. I was on the floor, dead centre, about ten rows back and to me it was glorious. He said there were no bass tones or rhythm to ground it. I was shocked. I asked, did you not hear Bent's three repeated bass notes [like in the Roadworks K̦ln recording] giving the whole thing form, direction and grounding? No, he replied. Oh well. You never really know.
@supernaut – at least we agreed on some things
And thanks for prompting me to go back and listen to some old (and not so old) Rush again. It's been a while. And sometimes you discover things aren't what you thought they were. @otherdemon and supernaut – They opened with ASFE in London – my first ever MP gig, and I exploded. I thought it was a perfect opener, full of mad energy that just made me want to relive my punk youth and start pogoing! Not so easy at 55.
I couldn't so easily imagine it in the middle of a set though.
Peart can play that stuff ok (as you say, it's not one or the other), I just don't see it as his forte. There are a lot of drummers who can't do what he can (or as well as he can), but can do amazing groove till the cows come home. It's just a matter of some drummers being better at one thing than another – like some guitarists are great shredders but not as good as others at playing great rhythm. No criticism from my side of Peart, Geb or Tomas – I think all three are great, but they each have their own style and areas of expertise, which in some areas overlap and others don't. Compare Peart with Bruford – Peart could never play the way Bruford does on, say, Starless and Bruford could never play the way Peart does on, say, Tom Sawyer. And even if they could, why would they want to?
EDIT: So I just listened to both For What It's Worth and Mr Soul from the Feedback album. The first, apart from Alex's lead contributions, leaves me pretty cold. It certainly has none of the soul of the original (and that includes Peart's drumming), though it's a competent enough cover. The second was a little more engaging but again the drumming feels much like a run-through. Doesn't stop Peart being one of my all-time favourite drummers by some distance. The funny thing is, his groove does come through during, for example, the mid-section of Jacob's Ladder, where the patterns are more complex but he uses them to drive the song forward like very few else do. Subdivisions might be another example – he's pushing the groove, but not with simple beats, even though it's a straighforward song. He's playing all around the beat but still keeping it on point, and that's part of where his brilliance lies for me. Than again I might be dreaming
