Various Artists - "The PRC Sampler: Not Your Mother's Progressive Rock Collection" Review

Artist/ Band: Various Artists
Title: The PRC Sampler: Not Your Mother's Progressive Rock Collection
Label: System Tree
Year of Release: 2002
Offical Artist/ Band Link

Additional web links

The Review:

The PRC Sampler, subtitled as "Not Your Mother's Progressive Rock Collection", contains 13 tracks from the following bands/artists; Easter Island, Rockenfield/Speer, Trap, Ken Watson, French TV, Man In Space, Ian Naismith, Velvet Chain, Exploding Monsters, Visual Cliff, Lennart Stahle, Matthew Walker and Systems Theory. The original release date for this compilation was in 2002. I was honored that the creators of the sampler thought of ProgNaut for reviewing it.

Of all the bands on this compilation, I’m only familiar with Easter Island, Exploding Monsters, Visual Cliff and Systems Theory. I’ve even reviewed albums by Exploding Monsters and Systems Theory (see links below). As for the rest of the bands on this compilation, it has been an amazing ear opening experience especially the contributions by Rockenfield/Speer's - “Coyote“ (Scott Rockenfield of Queensryche fame joins guitarist Paul Speers on this aural journey), Velvet Chain - “Angel Theme“ (according to the liner notes this was the original theme to the TV show Angel but lost out at the last minute), Exploding Monsters - “Sixth Extinction“ (excellent electronic and has an almost soundtrack feel), and Visual Cliff - “The Endless Generation (Psalm 49)” (on the hard rocking side of the instrumental progressive rock spectrum).

For more information on this sampler, please check out their site (The Official PRC link above) or the PRC MySpace page. On both pages there’s the liner notes that explains in detail about each band/artists song contribution. This is worth your time to seek out this compilation, especially if you’re connoisseur of progressive music.

Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on August 24th, 2010

Tracks:

01. Entropy - Easter Island

02. Coyote - Rockenfield/Speer

03. Argonaut - Trap

04. Gollide - Part 1 - Ken Watson

05. That Thing On The Wall - French TV

06. One Deep Breath - Man In Space

07. Bhagwan Dass - Ian Naismith

08. Angel Theme - Velvet Chain

09. Sixth Extinction - Exploding Monsters

10. The Endless Generation (Psalm 49) - Visual Cliff

11. The First Day Was For Real - Lennart Stahle

12. Explorations - Matthew Walker

13. Red Sun Fading - Systems Theory