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Waterloo - 1971 - "First Battle"
Wheatstone Bridge - 2004 - "Demo"
Whiplash - 1996 - "Cult of One"
Windchase - 1977 - "Symphinity"
Wishbone Ash - 1974 - "There's the Rub"
Waterloo (Belgium) - 1971/2000 - "First Battle"
(73 min, Musea)
Formed in 1969, Waterloo was the first progressive band to come out of Belgium. The only album of theirs, released on LP back in 1971, had been a rarity until Musea reissued it on CD along with seven bonus tracks that had never been released before in the last year of the last millenium. Despite the fact that most of the album's songs are quite short (3 to 4 minutes), almost all of them contain a lot of unbelievably diverse and interesting instrumental arrangements. What's the main thing, instrumental parts are always rich and tense, even if they are at times shadowed by the vocals (which is typical only for serious Prog-performers). Musically, "First Battle" represents quite an original, moderately complex Art-Rock, which could have become a real classic of the genre if only the band's flautist hadn't been so much influenced by the playing of one Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.
Wheatstone Bridge (USA) - 2004 - "Demo"
(20 min)
Wheatstone Bridge is a trio represented by John Taylor (bass and vocals), David Wilson (guitars) and Ernie Planeck (drums). John's youthful passion of imitating Geddy Lee was not in vein for him and the band as well, as the traces of Rush's influences are present on each of the three songs here and are especially obvious on the opening track. Thankfully, the band possesses the whole arsenal of original ideas, which allows them to avoid a completely derivative sound. Largely instrumental, the music is a fusion of Rush-like Prog-Metal and highly original guitar Art-Rock with plenty of excellent passages and solos of acoustic guitar and is more intricate than that on most, if not all, of the albums by Rush. The second and third songs feature a little vocals, but then, they find elements of Cathedral and Techno Metal, so in places, they sound really harsh, which immediately makes the structures that they consists of clearly distinguishable from those in Rush. Generally, these two are much more diverse and interesting than the first track, though I would have been really satisfied if only Wheatstone Bridge had gotten rid of any influences on their first full-fledged album.
Whiplash (USA/Italy) - 1996 - "Cult of One"
This is a quintet from New Jersey of five descendants of Italian expatriates (ironically, their "guest-keyboardman" is also Italian). After six years of absolute silence this once just a typical thrash-band is back with their best album. "Cult of One", a much more mature work, contains eight quite different pieces: from doomy, full of various themes within, compositions based on the "Sabbathian" riffs, to fast and diverse true prog-metal songs with good keyboards (including the sole instrumental), in the second half of the album. Excellent playing and singing of that work is highly recommended to all lovers of "heavy-prog" with elements of doom-metal.
Windchase (Australia) - 1977 - "Symphinity"
(47 min, "Musea")
Two masterminds of the well-known Australian Prog-band Sebastian Hardie (guitarist Mario Millo and keyboardist Toivo Pilt) came together to form another band (actually, "Windchase" is the title of the second and most successful album of their old band), which, according to Mario, should have more symphonic arrangements than those in Sebastian Hardie. Really, the only Windchase album "Symphinity" has a strong symphonic feel the album throughout (there is practically an equal number of songs and instrumental pieces on it), though, compositionally, this one looks like a logical continuation of Sebastian Hardie's development. In other words, musically "Symphinty" represents a very interesting, original, lushly orchestrated, moderately complex Classic Progressive Rock, which is generally typical for most of the best albums of the genre released in the second half of the 1970s.
Wishbone Ash (UK) - 1974 - "There's the Rub"
This legendary British band in the middle of the 70s played a real Progressive Hard Rock, and the album "There's the Rub" is their hour of triumph on that direction, no doubt. Featured two lead-guitarists, Wishbone Ash almost never used keyboards, however their music was rich, innovative and somewhere even exotic. Formed in the end of the '60s, as well as the majority of the Hard Rock bands, these guys quickly found their own unique style - guitar based melodic Hard Rock with a quite complex (yet fine) arrangements. Unlike the other albums, "There's the Rub" is the only fully progressive work of the band. There's no a "simple" songs: each composition, including all-instrumental (it's the last and best track here), contains some varied themes and arrangements, brilliant interplays between both guitarists, supported by an excellent rhythm-section and clear vocals by Martin Turner. This gem-album is a really great stage for Prog-novices to the more complex and intricate works within the frame of the Progressive Rock.