Gibraltar Encyclopedia Of Progressive Rock

[Nicky007]

Have you guys heard of this online encyclopedia:

http://www.gepr.net

Quite interesting - and zany. I of course checked up whether they had Arena, else I would have forgotten about them. But fortunately they do:

http://www.gepr.net/arfram.html

They start with a list of all official A-albums, which makes sense. Then comes a group picture from 1995, with all the members name's and their resp. instruments, with John Carson on vocals, which might not be so up-to-date.

Then a short description: "An English neo-prog group formed by Mick Pointer (founder of Marillion) and Clive Nolan (keyboard player of Pendragon). In this band you will found all the archetypes of Neo-Prog."

Hm, I say. First off, apart from the typo, I consider Arena much more than a neo-prog group. They're fully up-to-date and cutting edge, with e.g. very heavy pieces like Witch Hunt and The March Of Time, real electronic rockers like Confrontation, and a lot more. So much for facile pigeonholing.

Then: "British progressive band. Songs (all composed by Clive Nolan and Mick Pointer) are a mix of Marillion in their "Grendel" period, Strangers On A Train, Pallas and IQ."

The first sentence is OK. The "all composed by CN and MP" is quite correct as re the early comps, but the recent A-albums have really been group efforts; that's one of the things that make them so great. The "mix of ..." is really weird. OK, there are clear connections to Marillion, Pallas and IQ (who knows Stranger On A Train? why mention them?), but Arena are far, far more than a dumbass "mix" of these groups. Man, are these lexicographers smoking too much pot?

The nicest is the roundup by Paul Charbonneau: "Fans of the style won't believe their ears!"

That one I can subscribe to.

Nicky.

[bluepony]

Updated 3/9/06

That must be a joke...

[JJ II]

recent A-albums have really been group efforts

Not entirely true. John Mitchell has contributed to every album since he joined and Jowitt contributed to The Visitor.
Ian and Rob never had a writing-partnership.

It sounds as if they describe the first album, by the way. No mention of John Mitchell (world famous by now for his work with dozens of others) and even John Jowitt gets just a short mentioning by only one of the contributors.

I'd say: time to give it an update. Something like "after their well-received concept-album The Visitor, with haunting floydian solos by new fretboard-hero John Mitchell (of John Wetton-band, Kino, It Bites, The Urbane) the band slowly added more of a darker and aggressive element to their sound. Intruducing singer singer Rob Sowden on the atmospheric Immortal, Arena steadily developed away from their earlier Marillionesque sound, resulting in the acclaimed Contagion concept-album and the sharp-edged Pepper's Ghost."

or something like that.