Memento (The Best Of Maddy Prior) - Maddy Prior

Advantages: Maddy Prior on excellent form
Disadvantages: none

...Arthur the King is an intelligent and thought provoking album. If you were trying to categorise it, it would have to be filed under 'serious Folk'. What we have here is a collection of ten songs exploring the Arthur 'myth'. Nick Holland and Troy Donockley join Prior and between them theyweave a beautiful sound. The quality of the song cycle is remarkably high with Queen & Sovereignty and Once and Future King standing out. As a coda, there are five traditional songs unrelated to the central theme. This album doesn't fall too short of 'must have' status. Prior is in enchanting voice throughout and the subject matter is of almost universal interest. Buy it and rediscover your Celtic roots. It is an album that continues to reinvent Prior as one of the Godmothers of British Folk and makes All Around my Hat sound as if it came from different... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: nice collection of songs
Disadvantages: important tracks are missing

...The first "Best" of Alan Parsons came out at the right time: the group had recorded enough good material on their 6 CD’s, and due to the latest two albums which had been a big commercial success it had become well-known to the audience by chart hits, radio appearances and the upcoming music video. So there was a high number of potential buyers ready to take a closer look at the band. It was evident to provide them with a hit collection. Looking back, it was a perfect moment for this compilation as all the great works of the Project had already been issued – the 4 albums following until they split in 1987 supplied only a few good songs. So this Best-Of had the chance to become and to remain the ultimate Parsons collection. THE MUSIC OF THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Beautiful voice, incredible harmonies, every song tells a story
Disadvantages: None

...formed a band called Equation, appeared at the Holmfirth festival and made an album which gained a fair amount of critical praise and was voted folk album of the year. Kate was also part of the all-female folk band the Poozies (made a great album in 1998 called ‘Infinite Blue’) and narrowly missed fame and fortune by failing an audition for ‘Emmerdale’. Still their loss is our gain. Since then she has pursued a very successful solo career displaying her distinctive writing and a very special storytelling talent on ‘Songs that were Bedtime Stories’ which she followed with the even more successful ‘Hourglass’. Her next album ‘Sleepless’ was brilliant, instrumentally sparse, but that made it even more absorbing with echoes of Maddy Prior, Judith Tabor and the late Sandy... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful