The Tangent
A Place In The Queue

Listening to the third album by Tangent, "A Place in a Queue", released in 2006, it becomes evident that the ghosts of prog bands from the most fertile period of the '70s loom in the imagination of this formation. Formed in 1999 from the ashes of two bands, the Swedish Flower Kings of guitarist and singer Roine Stolt, and the British Parallel Or 90 Degrees, thanks also to the crucial presence of David Jackson (VDGG) and Theo Travis (Gong), the group led by the eclectic Andy Tillison decides to focus on a retro style, strictly tied to the most typical and essential canons of early progressive rock. And going against the grain, playing a risky card from a commercial point of view, it can be said that the experiment was fully successful with the release of their first excellent work "The Music That Died Alone".

A wide use of Hammond, Moog, Mellotron, and wind instruments, entrusted to the excellent Travis, characterizes this monumental 80-minute work, and despite its outdated imprint and long duration, the result is surprisingly fresh and lively, imbued with delicious jazz nuances and Canterburyan flavor ("DIY Surgery"), with more or less blatant references to ELP of "Tarkus" ("Follow The Leaders"), to Jethro Tull of "Stand Up" ("Lost in London") and even winking at disco music with a citation of Suzi Quatro (the curious "The Sun In My Eyes"). Andy Tillison's voice is warm and melodious, perhaps it could be a tad more expressive, but it is on the organ and synth, with mind and heart turned to the great Emerson and Wakeman, that he gives his best, creating complex architectures, accompanied by an excellent and powerful rhythm section and the alternate playing of Theo Travis on sax, flute, and clarinet, sublime in all his experience and immense skill; and finally, by Krister Jonsson's guitar which spices up the sound and prevents the excessive dominance of the keyboards. Every member of the group has their moment to express themselves at their best, there is no space for a single protagonist, no prima donna, and the two suites that open and close the album, "In Earnest" and "A Place In The Queue", both develop in multiple musical passages very different from each other, hinting at the full expressive freedom of Tangent and defining their complex and nostalgic personality. The former, much more catchy and immediately comprehensible, has the merit of not making its 20 minutes feel heavy, flowing smoothly and majestically, while the closing suite is more complicated and requires greater attention and numerous listens before fully grasping its essence and potential. As for the lyrical part, the lyrics have a recurring theme that refers to the album title, but it is not a concept in the strict sense, it does not follow any path, no logical thread connects the tracks.

Tangent can be serenely considered the new heralds of progressive rock, understood in its purest and most traditional sense, a moral slap to those who believed the genre was now definitively deceased. Make no mistake, it's not an easy album, and in all honesty, I do not feel like recommending it to those who are not connoisseurs of the genre, but I am almost certain that if it had been released 35 years ago, it would have been hailed as a masterpiece.

Andy Tillison - organ, piano, moog synthesisers, guitars & principal voice
Sam Baine - piano, synthesiser & voice
Jonas Reingold - Bass
Theo Travis - Saxophones, flutes, clarinet & voice
Guy Manning - acoustic guitars, mandolin & voice
Jaime Salazar - drums
Krister Jonsson - electric guitar