Still Alive – Tiger Moth Tales
Introduction…
Pete Jones is back with a new Tiger Moth Tales mini-album and this is the 5th studio release in the discography of the project to date. It was also not intended either has Jones had already been working and recording new material at Fieldgate Studios for his new album in the project which for various reasons beyond control was not ready for release yet. You could say that the album we have here came out of the desperation brought on by the effect the Coronavirus leaving many musicians out of work by not being able to get out there and play live. What we are getting here is a bit of an unexpected surprise and the material for it came out of the blue and was written very quickly.
There is no doubt the Coronavirus has had a massive effect on many musicians and its already forced Jones to put out loads of live albums in the form of a Digital Download on Bandcamp this year and we also saw the first physical Tiger Moth Tales live album A Visit To Zoetermeer Live released earlier in the year back in February. Who knows we might even get to see another studio album from this GREAT! project of his get released by the end of the year and 2020 has been a very testing year for us all so far?
Still Alive contains material that was inspired by the current events of the Coronavirus and it reflects different moods of his own alternating feelings that can be from visions of a doomed world and a growing tone of madness to a desire to see the positives and the spirit of endurance and survival as he put in his own words. The album also comes with a live bonus DVD that captures a session from the Tiger Moth Tales band, filmed live in front of an intimate audience at the fabulous Rockfield Studios in 2018. The question is does it live up to the standards you would expect from Tiger Moth Tales? Before I go into that let’s take a look at the packaging and artwork as usual.
The Packaging & Artwork…
The CD & DVD comes in a very well-presented cardboard Di-Cut Gatefold Digisleeve that has slip pockets on the inside to hold both discs as you can see in the picture above. It does not come with a booklet and all the linear production notes and credits have been printed on the back and inside of the Digisleeve. It also contains the lyrics to the self-titled album track (only) and a bit of formative information. However, it does tend to cater more for the DVD regarding the linear production notes and credits and it’s lacking quite a bit of information on the new mini-album including all the instrumentation that Pete Jones played on the album and the artwork and sleeve design credits.
I pre-ordered my copy on the 13th July from White knight Records for £12.75 which includes £1.75 postage & packaging. This is the cheapest way to obtain the album I find although when it comes to new releases White knight Records are not always on the ball and you will be dead lucky to get it on the day of the release. I actually had to go chasing my copy and finally got it 17 days after it’s released date which is why this review is late. The only way you can really be assured of getting the album on its release date is to buy the Digital Download instead.
Artwork.
Like I mentioned both the artwork and design for the album appear to be missing from the linear production notes and credits and as far as I can make out the artwork for the cover of the album is a modified version of a stockpile photo that was originally done by Kitsana Baitoey of Thailand, The original photo had been noodled around with by Baitoey herself as you can see by the picture below, and it’s fairly obvious that someone else has noodled around with it to get the album cover we have here.
Kitsana Baitoey’s original bit of noodling of a half alive and half dead tree standing at the crossroads is a concept of how climate change has changed and was done to save the environment. I rather think another nice bit of noodling as been done here that fits in very well with the albums title and the present situation that is bestowed upon us by the Coronavirus as you can see below.
I have no idea if the original photo was purchased because it is licensed under copyright protection and sold as a stockpile photo. But through my own personal experience of noodling around with photos and images that can be found on the world wide web. You can very easily avoid copyright protection laws by doing your own bit of noodling and adding other images to it to change the look of the original photo or image just like what has been done here. Although I myself do tend to avoid using copyrighted photos and images to be on the safe side, especially ones that are watermarked and are for sale.
The Album In Review…
Still Alive by Tiger Moth Tales was released on the 1st of August 2020. The mini-album itself contains 6 tracks spread over an overall running time of 32 minutes, 7 seconds which is quite short but easy enough to digest and what they call these days a mini album or even an EP to which this release was also branded as. Although back in the ’60s and ’70s it was certainly nothing unusual for an albums worth of material to have a playing time of around 30 – 40 minutes and since the birth of CD in the ’80s things have perhaps gotten out of hand.
As mentioned earlier this album sort of came out of the blue and was quickly put together at Pete Jones’s home and is the work of a one-man operation regarding the writing, recording and all the vocals and instrumentation upon it.
There is no doubt that Jones was taking advantage of the lockdown situation and Still Alive is very much a mini-album that contains material that was written to portray the present situation of the lockdown. In many respects, I can also see why this particular album has been branded as an EP simply because the main core of the album is most certainly the albums self-titled track and it’s been bookended to start and finish that way.
Oddly enough even though we have a good 32 minutes here it actually works more like an EP than an album and it all seems to be over in no time at all. It’s very unusual for myself not to see anything done over this time slot as an album and even Jean Michel Jarre’s debut album Oxygène was only 30 minutes and it works as an album. An EP to me is about twice as long as a vinyl single and contains 3 or 4 tracks at the most and in general, they are around 12 – 14 minutes long and that is exactly the feeling I get every time I play this new release. I also get the feeling that very little was written for it even though that might not be the case.
Throughout the 50 years, I have spent listening to music I cannot recall ever coming across something like this where 30 minutes’ worth of material does not feel like an album and I have albums that were even a couple of minutes under that time slot that I would call albums and not an EP. I am even struggling to call this a mini-album and it has to be the most bizarre thing I have ever come across.
However, what is not bizarre is the material we have on Still Alive and it’s not out of place with his project of Tiger Moth Tales either. Pete Jones has always had the knack of bordering across a wide range of styles and will often write songs that can be both serious, light-hearted and humorous and will throw in the odd bit of prog along the way and all those qualities reflect on this new release. It also has some prog-rock influences from other artists thrown in for good measure which I will go into more detail later on in the album track section of my review. But for now, let’s take a look at the free DVD that comes with it.
It might very well have been that Jones himself thought that there was not enough material to make Still Alive into a full album that he threw in a live DVD to make up for the price that was charged for the physical package. But I am going to be perfectly honest and I can honestly say that the inclusion of the live DVD definitely feels like you are getting something more extra for your money and I personally see it has a really GREAT! bonus item to have.
To be honest, I was over the moon when he released the live album A Visit to Zoetermeer back in February this year and that was his first official physical live release in which the live CD was also accompanied by a DVD of the same performance. I myself much prefer to sit and watch a live concert than just listen to it on vinyl or CD and in this day and age its more of the norm for many artists to put out live concerts on DVD & Blu Ray and I have a good few hundred of them that I can still immensely enjoy watching over and over.
The DVD captures the Tiger Moth Tales band playing live at the fabulous or perhaps more famous Rockfield Studios back in 2018. It’s pretty much the same bunch of musicians from another band he plays with namely Red Bazar who supported Jones at Zoetermeer back in January 2019 and the only real difference is that it was filmed in front of a small intermediate audience in a recording studio rather than a live venue.
Funny enough I also have the band Frost* playing live at Rockfield Studios back in 2013 (as you can see in the picture below) and this is another really excellent and enjoyable CD & DVD package to have. However, there is a major difference between the two live concerts that were filmed live in the studio.
The Rockford Files
The differences between A Visit To Rockfield and The Rockford Files is that the Tiger Moth Tales band really have been captured live and it has not been tarted up like the so-called live performance that Frost* did at the same studio. It’s blatantly obvious that The Rockford Files is more or less a studio recording and not so much of a live recording at all and it was in fact produced and filmed by Rob Reed of Magenta.
The Rockfield studios itself has a ton of history and is one of the most successful recording studios outside London and is situated just outside the village of Rockfield, Monmouthshire, in Wales. It was set up by Kingsley and Charles Ward in the early ’60s and was more established as a studio around 1963. Over the past 57′ years it’s been running as a recording studio there have been literally thousands of well-known artists who have made their classic albums and records here over the last 6 decades.
Rockfield Studios
The list of artists and bands that recorded at the studio is way too vast for me to mention them and most of the biggest names in the world of pop, rock, and many other genres have recorded here and even Queen’s smash hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” was made here. However, I did find this short promotional video presentation on the Tube well fascinating and inciteful and it’s well worthy of taking a look at.
I have no idea what month in 2018 that Jones and the band played at the legendary Rockfield Studios but it must have been earlier on in the year and well before the release of his 4th studio album Story Tellers Part Two in October of the same year. I shall give my review of the live concert later on but first, let’s take a look at the DVD itself.
The DVD…
As you can see the DVD’s menu is pretty basic and very much the same one-page menu system we saw on the live at Zoetermeer DVD. There is no separate menu for the couple of bonus tracks and those tracks will automatically play after the live concert. But overall, it very easy to navigate your way around and simply choose to play all 10 tracks or pick a specific track you want to play.
Picture & Editing Quality.
The 8 tracks of the live concert on the DVD were filmed at Rockfield Studios by Andrew Lawson as part of the Quiet Room Sessions back in 2018 and also edited by him. He’s done quite a good overall job of it. However, the actual picture quality has nowhere near the pristine job that the Dutch filmmaker John Vis did for the A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD to which was captured by high-quality HD Cameras and even the DVD had the exact same pristine sharp quality appearance of a Blu Ray.
The first of the couple of bonus videos “Still Alive” was filmed at various locations by Mark Wardle. It also contains various selfie videos sent in by the fans and was edited by Chris Jones (no relation to Pete). Both have done a very good job here. The final bonus video “Hygge” was filmed at Fieldgate Studios in Penarth, Wales by Andrew Lawson. He may have also of done the video editing has this is a solo piano performance, unlike the video of the same song that was filmed by Andrew Lawson and directed and edited by Robert Reed that was included on the A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD.
But it would not surprise me in the least if Rob Reed also Directed & Edited this video as well because you can see a TOP JOB! was done on it. But then again it could also be down to the lighting and the fact that it was filmed in a different studio. Overall, I would say that both of the bonus videos do have more of a quality HD look about them than the actual concert itself.
Sound Quality.
The sound quality on the DVD is pretty much the same quality that we had on the A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD. It’s a very basic format they have used and it would have been better if they included a lossless format such as LPCM for example rather than a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo 48K 448kbps soundtrack. However, it’s quite good and you may have to turn it up a bit to get the best out of it through speakers and it’s perhaps more a headphone mix, and headphones may give you a better result.
Musicians & Credits…
All Music Written, Recorded & Produced by Peter Jones. Recorded at Peter Jones home studio sometime in the summer of 2020. Album Cover Artwork Noodled by somebody. DVD Concert Video Filmed & Edited by Andrew Lawson at Rockfield Studios Wales in early 2018. “Still Alive” Bonus Video Filmed by Mark Wardle, Edited by Chris Jones in the summer of 2020. “Hygge” Bonus Video Filmed & Edited by Andrew Lawson at Fieldgate Studios Wales 2018.
Musicians.
Peter Jones: Vocals – Piano – Keyboards – Electric & Acoustic Guitars – Irish Whistle – Melodica – Percussion – Drum Programming.
Still Alive Tracks In Review…
Much of the material that is found on Still Alive reflects different moods and was inspired by Jones own alternating feelings from visions of a doomed world and a growing tone of madness to a desire to see the positives and the spirit of endurance and survival. The project itself started with the albums self-titled track which was originally based on a suggestion from his friend Mark Wardle who suggested the idea that he should write a song for the village where they live concerning these times that have been bestowed upon us from the effects of the Coronavirus.
In many ways, the mini-album kind of works like a concept though I would not say everything is entirely fitting to it in that way although the biggest majority of the material does sort of tie in with all the madness. In many respects, another reason as to why this works more like an EP is really down to how different the material sits and fits with each other and it does not quite gel quite like an album, even the track placement will sound out of place. So, let’s now delve a bit deeper as I take you through the individual tracks.
Track 1. Still Alive.
There is no doubt that the opening self-titled song reflects upon the present concerning times created by the situation that has been bestowed upon us by the Coronavirus. It also takes in the heritage of our forefathers and how history as shown us the way to fight and survive. Jones has very much taken on the songwriter’s role and this is very much a very skilful well-written song and excellent piece of song writing. Lyrically it’s up there with the best of songwriters and I would even go as far as saying that he has excelled himself when he wrote this heartfelt meaningful song.
Even musically this is very different from anything he’s done before and here he is very much stepping into the Celtic folk realm and folk side of things. Although when it comes to this man’s talented skills on multiple instruments nothing surprises me and Jones is the sort of person who could quite easily sit at a piano and play you the same song in an array of different styles. Besides the use of his guitar and keyboards, he also utilises both the Irish Whistle and Melodica into the song and both the vocals and the harmonies work extremely well as you can see in the official video that was made for the song.
Like I mentioned earlier “Still Alive” is very much the core and central focal point of the whole mini-album and effectively could easily be the “A” side of a single or EP with the rest of the material being perhaps a bit more minuscule in relation to its strength. Though that is not to say the rest of the tracks are all “B” Sides and do not have their own strengths. However, I would say that this is the standout track on the album and is my personal favourite which is very much why it merits the albums TOP SPOT AWARD!
Track 2. The Mighty Fallen.
I have to admit before hearing this next track the title we have here gave me the vision of it being something more adventurous and likened to some of the material that he wrote for both Story Tellers albums. I would also say that the title we have here would have very much suited some of those whimsical children’s stories that were written for those albums. I would even go as far as to say that I was a bit disappointed when I first heard this was an instrumental piece and I am still not convinced the title could have been put to better use.
The one thing that immediately struck me when I did hear this piece for the first time was that it sounded very blatantly out of place following the previous song. But once you’ve spun the album a few times you do get used to it. The other thing I felt was that it seemed way too long and it is the longest track on the album weighing in at 7 minutes, 27 seconds. Though that might be down to the last couple of minutes where it does tend to drag on a bit over the same ground but that sort of disappears after you’ve played the album a few times as well.
The one thing I should point out though is that this piece is far from “minuscule” and it is a very well-constructed piece of work and no doubt for many it may even be their favourite track on the album. I would also say that it’s a very TASTY! piece of work and features some excellent keyboard and electric and bass guitar work from Jones. It also has a bit of funk thrown in and it’s perhaps a bit familiar with some of the material Jeff Beck does on his albums although the guitar work may also run along the lines of Gary Moore and Snowy White sort of thing.
Overall, I think “The Mighty Fallen” is a really GREAT! track and one that will go down well at his live shows in the future. I would also say that it’s good to have another guitar instrumental like this and I suppose in some ways it runs along with the same sort of vane we got with “The First Lament” from his debut album with its bluesy guitar style. However, unlike that particular instrumental piece “The Mighty Fallen” does not quite have the same bite and it does feel out of place on an album like this.
Track 3. Golden.
This is a heartfelt song that runs along with the same sort of lines with its presentation and style like we got with “Matchgirl” from Story Tellers Part Two released back in 2018. The same sort of animated video was also put to it has you can see here with the video that Chris Fry (Magenta) posted on his Youtube channel. The song has been edited down to half it’s length to fit the video however it still very much has the same vibes.
The video no doubt fits very well with the songs lyrical content which pertains to the sadness and struggles life can bestow upon us and how there are also some golden moments we can look back upon. You could say that Jones does have the same blood as Elton John & Tim Rice and even Phil Collins running through his veins when it comes to writing this sort of material for animated films such as The Lion King, Tarzan, and other sorts. He’s a big softie at heart and a caring soul.
There are not a lot of words upon this mini-album and you could say that in some respects that both “Still Alive” and “Golden” are the only two real songs on the album in that they contain most of the lyrical content. This is very much another fine piece of song writing although its light-heartedness might not sit that well with PROGSTERS! and it might be the other madness that is to follow that will be more appealing to their taste.
However, this song could easily be seen as another single or even be a very fitting “B”-Side for the opening track and as much as I am more of a prog-rocker myself. Music for my ears has always been about how well it’s written, played, and presented and this song has all of those qualities and is another GREAT! song.
Track 4. Lean Into Madness.
This is the shortest track on the album and its title has a sort of early Spock’s Beard ring about it. It also contains very strong Frost* and Steve Hackett influences along this path of madness and it’s a very effective GREAT! piece of work that has come out of the madness that is now bestowed upon with the present situation of the lockdown. I would also say that it’s most PROGMATIC! track on the album.
Track 5. Whistle Along.
Well I don’t think any album would be complete without there being a touch of humour somewhere along the way and that is something Jones does have plenty of and this is quite a magical merry-go-round ride into the madness and another excellent piece of work. This is very much a keyboard-driven track and its been very cleverly put together along with some banters along the way with his voice adding to the fun of it all.
I am even hearing some quirky moog sounds that remind me of the sounds that Rick Wakeman used around 1979/80 on albums like Rhapsodies and Rock n’ Roll Prophet. Plus, a lot of his own influences and the same kind of madness he injected into “The Isle Of Witches” from his debut album Cocoon. I also love the way he ends it all off in a sort of Spike Milligan humorous explosive way and it really is a GREAT! track.
Track 6. Still Alive (Reprise)
The album closes off very well with a reprise of the opening track of the album and this is very much a shorter alternative version that is more stripped back and a few different words have been added to it. It’s also perhaps a bit more subtle and laidback and along with the acoustic guitar we get an accordion and maybe even a touch of a harmonium sounds played on his keyboard along with his melodica and some subtle percussion that rounds it all off in a military fashion right at the end that ties in with lyrics. It then leaves us with the peaceful and pleasant sound of the countryside.
A Visit To Rockfield Live Concert In Review…
Musicians:
Peter Jones: Vocals – Keyboards – Guitar.
Andy Wilson: Guitars.
Mick Wilson: Bass – Backing Vocals – Vocoder – Clarinet.
Paul Comerie: Drums.
Well, I have already touched on some of the aspects of the live DVD that comes in this package earlier and I thought it only fair to give it a brief review. As with any live performance, there is going to be something a bit different regardless of how many times they have played the same songs.
I don’t think there is a musician in this world who is capable of playing any song twice and giving it the exact same performance and that is why that when musicians work in a studio they can often do many takes to get what they consider to be the best and what they want out of it. A live performance is an entirely different ball game and the room and margin for error are vast and not every performance is played to perfection and perfection may never be achieved.
What you are getting on this DVD is a genuine live performance, unlike the Frost* DVD I mentioned earlier, and although it might not have been captured as well as Jon Vis and his camera crew did of the same band on the A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD. It’s filmed very close up and has been very well edited with the different camera angles to capture the individual musicians at the right time.
There are still some magical moments I can take away with from watching this live concert performed in Rockfield Studios. The other notable thing is that the setlist is also different and this was very much recorded before his 4th studio album Story Tellers Part Two was even conceived and it only features material from his 1st and 3rd studio albums Cocoon and In The Depths Of Winter.
The concert itself is quite short and has an overall running time of 68 minutes, 8 seconds. It’s perhaps a bit strange that Jones decided to only play 3 of the songs from In The Depths Of Winter which would have been his latest album at the time. However, I am certainly not complaining, and Cocoon as always been my personal favourite album of his and you get quite a big chunk of it here and the 5 pieces you do get are mostly classics from that album. It would, however, have been nice if he included something from his second album Story Tellers Part One, and “The Piper” would of went down a treat at this concert.
The band kicks off the show with two or you could even say three of the tracks from his debut album and they are the first and last tracks from that particular album. The “Overture” is up first and I am so glad he decided to do this one because this instrumental piece does incorporate some of the melody lines from other tracks along the Cocoon album and that is how cleverly Jones very well structured that album and it is by far the most PROGMATIC! album he has ever done still today.
This is then followed by the two-part song “Don’t Let Go, Feels Alright” and here you do get the full blown-up version and not just the “Feels Alright” section like you got on A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD. This performance for me surprisingly is one of the standout moments of the live concert and it even brought tears of joy welling down my eyes in particular on the first section of the song.
There is a reason why I said “surprisingly” and that is really down to how I hear this two-part song originally on the studio album. It does come across like a couple of pop songs stitched together and it is perhaps one of the least PROGMATIC! tracks on the album.
The difference between listening to a live concert and watching a live concert is like night and day and with how close up this concert was filmed you can very much see all the progression that has been put into the musical side of things. Having watched this performance of the song you would literally think twice about calling it a couple of pop songs stitched together and this is one of the magical moments I can really take from this live concert.
There are moments when playing live can shed more light onto something you might not have thought was particularly that interesting or grabbed your attention hearing the studio version. This can be said when either listening or watching a live performance of some songs and quite often a live performance may help to shed a bit more light on the matter to help you appreciate it a bit more.
The next 3 songs that Jones and the band roll out are all from his 3rd album In The Depths Of Winter which happens to be my least favourite album and still the one I stay clear from the most and take it from me I have heard it enough times to give my own opinion of it and it’s not like I have not tried to give it the light of day so to speak. With the studio album, I find the tracks are too long, overcooked, badly placed, and run along the same ground quite too often. There is not enough variety to spice it up and I find it extremely hard to stick on and listen to its entirety without having to turn it off.
I am not saying that the album does not contain some fine progression and some fine moments. But it’s mostly the same sort of progression Tony Banks used on the Genesis album …and Then There Were Three which does not really speak a lot to me and can be too tedious. I would even say that there was a lot more variety on that Genesis album too and I also may have been very generous in giving the In The Depths Of Winter album when I reviewed it a 6 out of 10 rating.
Though I will say hearing the songs from that album played live in some ways does let me appreciate them a bit more, although that might be down to the fact that I have not got to listen to a whole album’s worth of them. Even though we have 3 of them strung together here I certainly would not say that they represent any form of a highlight of the show but I was pleased to see “The Tears of Frigga” here and that was my personal highlight out of the 3 tracks from that album.
Though that’s not to take anything away from the other couple of songs and it was nice to see the bassist Mick Wilson accompany Jones on the piano with the clarinet on “Migration” and the “The Ballad of Longshanks John” is perhaps one of the better tracks on the album and they did another fine performance here though I did perhaps enjoy it a bit more on the A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD.
It’s time for a jolly good bit of fun next and it’s back to the Cocoon album for the final 3 songs and “The Merry Vicar” will always be one of the highlights for me no matter how mad it might appear and come across. I love the progression in this song and even though many of the silly songs that Jones does on his Story Tellers albums have a certain variety of madness about them. They do tend to have bags of diversity and progression and quite a touch of genius about them in my book. They also give you plenty of variety which is something that is certainly lacking on his 3rd studio album. Yes, it’s audience participation time folks although judging by this small intermediate audience I don’t think they were aware of it and were a bit reluctant to join in 😁
Tiger Moth Tales CLASSICS! are coming out of the woodwork for the final part of the show and no doubt both the next couple of songs are classics. Next up we have another really GREAT! performance of “Tigers In The Butter” no doubt just like it perhaps stole the show on the A Visit to Zoetermeer Live DVD it’s very much another highlight with this fine performance. You will also notice how Andy Wilson shreds the guitar a bit differently at the end of what he did later at Zoetermeer and its GREAT! see both him and Jones in action on the guitars.
Like many of Tiger Moth Tales live shows the best is saved to last and “A Visit To Chigwick” has always been my personal favourite song of all of them. Once again Andy Wilson supports Jones on the guitar here only it’s acoustic and he does a splendid job of it. I honestly cannot take anything away from all the musicians and even the drummer Paul Comerie puts in a solid performance on many of the songs throughout the show. I love some of his pattern play too. No doubt the song was the perfect choice to round off what can only have been a really GREAT! night.
Summary…
To sum up Still Alive by Tiger Moth Tales. I would say it’s hard to put it up against his other albums for any sort of comparison because of how the material works in which it does feel more like an EP with its self-titled track being the central focus point. The way that most of the tracks tailspin into one another does give you the impression that Jones was teeing with the idea of some sort of a concept album though I am not sure it really works that way at all.
The material does not really GEL! like an album and in some respects some of the tracks may have been suited for other albums in the future or as bonus tracks for reissues or remasters of his earlier albums and I could even see this as more of an add on more than anything else. What I will say though is that it’s certainly not lacking in variety and there might be a bit too much of it for all the tracks to really Gel with one another and sit like they would on an album.
But of course, all of the observations I have just outlined in the first couple of paragraphs are really of myself trying to make this work as an album when the fact of the matter is that it has been branded as an EP and if you look at it has an EP none of those things will ever matter. Personally, I cannot fault one single track out of the 6 you get on this EP and every one of them is very much true to Peter Jones formidable style and fit in with the material that he has always written so well for his Tiger Moth Tales project. This really answers my original question that I posed at the end of my introduction regarding it living up to the standards you would expect from Tiger Moth Tales.
Conclusion…
In conclusion, I would say that the rather well extended Stay Alive EP holds most of its strength within the well-written songs “Stay Alive“. “Golden” and “Stay Alive (Reprise)” and those are perhaps the highlights of this EP. However, I would also say that those were the least PROGMATIC! tracks on the album especially in relation to both “Lean Into Madness” and “Whistle Along” and those tracks might not be quite up to par with some of the more PROGMATIC! classic tracks that Jones has written in the past, but I do feel they could also be amongst the highlights for the PROGSTERS! including myself. I cannot exclude “The Mighty Fallen” either.
In many respects, what you are getting here is the seriousness, the quirkiness, the humorous, the bizarreness, and all the madness all thrown into one magical melting pot and it all adds up to a very TASTY! recipe and one I can certainly enjoy listening to over and over just as I am sure others might as well.
The other thing you are getting here is a live concert on DVD and that in itself adds GREAT! value to the physical package and the fact that you can also watch it makes it more worthwhile getting over the Digital Download. Both the Physical and Digital releases can be found here: https://tigermothtales.bandcamp.com/album/still-alive-a-visit-to-rockfield-2 priced at £11 and £7 respectively and they both include the EP and Live Concert and I highly recommend you check it out.
This Is Just Another Reason To Survive…
The EP Track Listing is as follows:
01. Still Alive. 5:06.
02. The Mighty Fallen. 7:27.
03. Golden. 5:58.
04. Lean Into Madness. 2:56.
05. Whistle Along. 7:21.
06. Still Alive (Reprise). 3:19.
The DVD Track Listing is as follows:
01. Overture. 4:20.
02. Don’t Let Go, Feels Alright. 11:43.
03. The Tears of Frigga. 6:43.
04. Migration. 3:04.
05. The Ballad of Longshanks John. 3:26.
06. The Merry Vicar. 7:32.
07. Tigers in the Butter. 14:09.
08. A Visit to Chigwick. 9:11.
Lee’s overall Complete Value Rating…
The Packaging Rating Score. 8/10
The Price Point Rating Score. 10/10
The Bonus Live DVD Rating Score. 8/10
The EP Rating Score. 8/10
Lee Speaks About... 