THE TANGENT
Pyramids, Stars And Other Stories INSIDEOUT
Three-LP live compendium documents durable outfit.
A triplelive album from Andy Tillison’s hardy prog perennials, this is every bit as exuberant, melodramatic and committed as might be expected. The Tangent have, in their 20-year existence, been both unselfconscious exponents of prog and affectionately knowing commentators on the genre. The easiest thing is to pick out clear reference points, but the most enjoyable is to just go with their flow, letting Tillison’s streams of fantasy and sociology lend detail to the galloping surges or floaty lulls. The 2004 German concert, Pyramids And Stars, features in full, including the singer’s links in fluent German. With Roine Stolt and Jonas Reingold among the players, it’s highly involving, especially on the peaks and valleys of The Canterbury Sequence. The other shows are from 2011 and, with the band’s current line-up, 2017. If it sometimes seems like the group didn’t know they were being recorded, that’s because they didn’t.