There are lessons Walker’s learned from the negative stereotypes of progressive rock as well: no unbroken swells of looming instrumental tension, no demanding intellectual concepts. With that Genesis line in mind, suddenly Course in Fable’s adventurous chord changes, winding song structures, splashes of inspired intricate instrumental runs and fills earn an approving ‘ahh, I see what you’re doing here’ quality. It’s a genre with a definitional expiration.Ĭourse in Fable presents a vision of how progressive rock can contribute to music past its initial decades. Copy that sound and you betray the progressive ethos, stray too far and no one recognizes it as progressive rock anyway. For a genre that loudly defined itself as a new era for music, it ended up being closely associated with the specific sounds of its early progenitors. But yet, ask any group of music lovers for their favorite albums and you’ll see the same 70s prog classics reappear.
Why are there so many prog fans, but so few new breakout prog albums? Emulate the sound too closely and you’re ‘nu-prog’, a niche among niches, hidden to the undevoted. But still, the Genesis plug kept feeling more relevant as I listened. Course in Fable is not a progressive rock album. Second: this is obviously Walker being cheeky and wasn’t something I originally wanted to put too much weight on. I’m never touring again unless it’s opening for Genesis.” Ah ha!įirst off: hell yeah. This leaves one more important influence, given away by Ryley Walker’s provided artist biography: “I live in NYC. While there’s a seemingly straight trajectory between these two albums, the growth between them is best informed by the two instrumental albums he snuck in the three-year interim: Little Common Twist with jazz drummer Charles Rumback, which is an impressive tour of every texture and mood you can squeeze out of majority acoustic guitar and drums and Deep Fried Grandeur made from krautrock-flavored live jamming with Japanese psych-rock band Kikagaku Moyo (released only two months ago). His newest album, Course in Fable, showcases both, expanding on a sound familiar to anyone who heard his 2018 release Deafman Glance. We could split hairs noting that, maybe, the vocal parts are slightly lacking in shade, but nothing can really shatter the mellow Midwestern dream conjured by this album.Ryley Walker has deftly weaved together dual reputations as a singer/songwriter and prolifically-collaborating guitarist. Walker’s new sound, informed by blues, jazz and psychedelia, holds up his typical fingerpicking, adding to it piano, harp, double bass and clarinet to a compelling outcome. Set aside all of ‘Primrose Green’’s whimsy strains, Walker has finally blossomed into the mature and talented songwriter he is today, putting together eight almost flawless tracks of solid and structured folk, alternating soft acoustic moments like ‘Funny Thing She Said’ to strong and powerful electric ballads like ‘Sullen Mind’. Soon after re-settling in Chicago, though, the young songwriter began writing new material, under ex-Wilco multi-instrumentalist LeRoy Bach’s production, which ended up being the core of ‘Golden Sings That Have Been Sung’, Walker’s third LP.
After an acclaimed breakthrough with ‘Primrose Green’ and ten months spent on the road last year, Ryley Walker headed back home to the Midwest with a bunch of songs to work on.
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