Category Archives: Live Reviews

Concert reviews, with a very strong emphasis on the UK progressive rock scene.

Mostly Autumn – The Ghost Moon Orchestra Launch Party

Saturday May 12th saw two hundred of Mostly Autumn’s hardcore fans gather at The Post Office Social Club in their home town of York for the launch party of their new album “The Ghost Moon Orchestra”. A lot of familiar faces present, many of whom I hadn’t seen for ages. Previous album launches, such as the Heart Full of Sky launch at The Astoria in 2007 had taken the form of a high profile showcase gig. This one, in more intimate surroundings had a rather different format.

Things started with a short live set from the band. Well, most of the band, since they played as a semi-acoustic five-piece minus Andy Smith and Gavin Griffiths. Bryan Josh played acoustic guitar throughout, but Iain Jennings play more than just piano parts on keys, and Liam Davison did some electric lead parts. Anne-Marie Helder doubled up on flute and percussion (is there no instrument she cannot play?). The set consisted entirely of stripped-down reworkings of existing material with no completely new numbers, drawing very heavily from “Passengers” including a great flute-heavy “Pass the Clock”. Other highlights were “Second Hand” from “Glass Shadows” with some very atmospheric lead guitar from Liam, and Livvy’s oldie “Rain Song”, played as a trio with piano and flute. It had been the band’s original intention to play the bonus disk “A Weather For Poets” in their entirety, including some new songs. Unfortunately several of the band were ill in the days immediately before the gig, and there wasn’t enough time to rehearse them. Still, it was interesting to hear fresh takes of those older numbers.

The second part of the evening was a playback of the album through the PA, at something approaching concert volumes, with various members of the band scattered among the audience. It’s difficult to judge an album properly on just two listens, especially for a band of Mostly Autumn’s musical scope. So this shouldn’t be taken as a proper review, which will have to wait until I’ve got hold of the CD when it ships in a few weeks time. Rather it’s my immediate first impressions.

The album starts with a very dynamic and very immediate opening number that reminds me of European symphonic metal bands like Sonata Arctica or Nightwish, and things continue in that vein. There are a couple of Deep Purple sounding songs awash with Hammond organ. There are one or two quieter moments, with a bit of Anne-Marie’s flute, and yet again there’s some Uilleann pipes, presumably from Troy Donockley.

But the overall feel is something heavier and more contemporary-sounding than anything they’ve done before. I wouldn’t have used the word “metal” to describe anything Mostly Autumn have done in the past. This is an album which, if properly marketed, could win over a significant crossover fanbase from the metal community.

Livvy’s vocals are amazing; there is a lot of material that makes full use of her power and range, and sounds utterly unlike anything Heather would have sung. If Go Well Diamond Heart emphasised Bryan’s guitar, this one’s far more about Livvy’s vocals. There are performances here in the same league as the likes of Within Temptation’s Sharon Den Adel.

This is the sound of a very different and re-invented Mostly Autumn. While I liked a lot of “Go Well Diamond Heart” and reviewed it favourably at the time, hearing the new one makes you realise how much the band had been playing it safe for their first album with a new lead singer. Now they’re showing what they can really do. Not only can I not wait until I get the CD so I can hear it again, but I can’t wait to see it all performed live when the band tour in September.

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Tinyfish/DeeExpus, The Peel, 27th April 2012

It was a bit of a last-minute decision to go to this gig, following the cancellation of the Cambridge Rock Festival’s Springfest due to the weather. I may not have been the only one. With the huge crowd milling around outside when I arrived, it was one of the best-attended gigs I’ve seen at The Peel. A lot of the south-east’s prog glitterati were there; several of Touchstone and Crimson Sky, guitar-loop maestro Matt Stevens, and even the drummer from Praying Mantis. As well as what seemed like half of Twitter.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Tinyfish live. Last time was the now-infamous CRS Octoberfest way back in 2009. They proceeded to play an enthusiastic set of highly melodic song-orientated progressive rock interspersed with their distinctive spoken-word interludes from poet and “audience-frightener” Rob Ramsay. The latter reminded me a lot of “Fact and Fiction” era Twelfth Night. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but it is something that makes them distinctive, and Rob Ramsey has the dramatic presence to make it work. They drew heavily from their most recent album “The Big Red Spark”, from which the title track was a particular highlight.

I loved the band’s laid-back unpretentious style, exemplified by Leon Camfield’s line about his drumming being “like a clown ambling through a minefield”. Unusually for a prog band Tinyfish don’t have a keyboard player, relying on a mixture of programming and strange guitar effects whenever unguitarlike sounds are required. The folk-style fiddle sound coming from Jim Sanders’ guitar at the end was particularly effective. A nice set, and I’d have liked to have heard them play for longer.

DeeExpus are another band I haven’t encountered for some time; the last time I saw them live was again in 2009, supporting Touchstone at The Wesley Centre in Maltby. The band started out as a studio-based project from multi-instrumentalist Andy Ditchfield and singer Tony Wright. Now they’re a six-piece, who in the manner typical of the prog scene at this level includes people who are also members of numerous other bands.

They played heavy neo-prog that reminded me a lot of Grey Lady Down a few weeks before. Unfortunately they suffered from a rather muddy sound, with the vocals in particular not coming through clearly. I was told afterwards that the sound was actually better in the bar. There was much shredding from new guitarist Michael McCrystal, who sported an impressive 1980s-style perm and gave the impression he’d escaped from Mike Varney’s Shrapnel Records. Credo/Landmarq keyboard player Mike Varty, standing in on a temporary basis for Marillion’s Mark Kelly, indulged in some very 80s-Marillion style solos. Henry Rogers, now also in Touchstone contributed some very powerful drumming. The downside was that all the undoubted instrumental prowess didn’t quite compensate for material that was a bit ordinary in places, and I found my attention wandering at times. To be fair the poor sound didn’t help them in that regard. Still, the set picked up towards the end, and did come to a strong finish with the last couple of numbers.

The whole evening felt close to a double headliner rather than traditional band-with-support. The number of Tinyfish t-shirts in evidence and way the crowd had thinned out noticeably by the time DeeExpus came on stage suggested that a lot of the audience had really come to see to see the support. While the headliners had their moments, for my money Tinyfish were the band of the night.

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More Reviews

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There haven’t been as many reviews on this site lately, because I’ve been writing instead for Trebuchet Magazine, which has a much higher profile that this blog.

My most recent live reviews over there have been The Esoteric Antenna showcase at The Borderline featuring The Reasoning, Sanguine Hum, Panic Room and headliners Tin Spirits, and before that, Touchstone supported by Heather Findlay & Chris Johnson at The Duchess in York.

I’m also reviewing albums that Trebuchet have received for review from record labels; the last of mine is of “Oro: Opus Primum” by doom-sludge merchants Ufomammut.

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Crimson Sky, Reading, 31st March 2012

Saturday 31st of March saw Reading’s Prog event of the year; a showcase gig featuring Crimson Sky marking the début of their new vocalist Jane Setter, co-headlining with Grey Lady Down, with support from John Mitchell of It Bites/Arena/*Frost fame. It took place in South Street Arts Centre, a lovely little venue five minutes from the centre of Reading.

Despite the competition the same night from Touchstone at the Peel and (because prog fans travel) Magenta up in Wath in South Yorkshire, there was still an appreciable-sized crowd. To emphasise that this was an event, not just a regular gig, we had a Master of Ceremonies in the form of Tinyfish’s Rob Ramsey, who certainly dressed for the occasion.

John Mitchell was originally billed to appear solo, but a couple of days before the gig it turned into a duo of him and keyboard player John Beck, making it half of It Bites. The pair of them put in an impressive performance combining recent It Bites tunes with some well-chosen covers; their take on Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes The Flood” was spine-tingling.

Grey Lady Down were a 1990s band, one of the acts on the independent Cyclops label. Recently reformed after a ten year hiatus, and expanded to a six-piece with twin guitars, they played a tight, powerful and quite heavy set. Highlights were the hard-rocking opener “And Finally”, and the intense “Paper Chains (the Crime Part 3)”, both from their 1997 album “Fear”. Even if their brand of 80s-style neo-prog wasn’t stunning original, they did deliver a passionate performance with some strong material. It’s nice to see them back.

Crimson Sky’s appearance was their first since a very poorly-attended gig in Swindon more than a year ago. That was the one and only live appearance of the short-lived lineup with Janey Summer on vocals, replacement for Holly Thody who’d appeared on their one album to date, “Misunderstood”. Tonight was the first live appearance by an all-new incarnation of the band, with Jane Setter taking up the microphone as their third lead singer.

Crimson Sky fall within the broad spectrum of progressive rock, but while they have the traditional 5-piece prog lineup of vocals-guitar-keys-bass-drums they’re not a generic neo-prog band. They’re not averse to the occasional classically-derived flourish or widdly keyboard solo but there’s also something of a spiky 80s new-wave edge on quite a few songs, and their sound has a lot more space in the mix compared with GLD’s wall-of-sound approach. The dominant instrumental sound is Martin Leamon’s guitar playing, whether it’s indie-style jangle, metallic riffage or fluid jazz-flavoured solos. Much of the time he’s soloing throughout the song behind the vocal rather than playing straightforward chord progressions.

I’d seen Jane Setter fronting a local prog covers band (yes, there are such things!) a few times in the Reading area, and this gig is clearly a significant step up to a bigger stage. She not only has a great voice, but combines it with a strong stage presence. With much of the set taken from “Misunderstood” she rose to the challenge of taking another singer’s material and making it hers without changing the songs out of all recognition, something that’s easier said that done. Her style is a little more classic rock than Holly’s somewhat punky approach, which suits some songs better than others. But if one or two songs didn’t quite come off, there were many more that she completely owned.

They ended their enthusiastic performance with an encore of the epic “Misunderstood III”. It’s clear that Crimson Sky are back. The smiles of the faces of all the band throughout the gig really said it all.

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Also Eden/Leatherat, The 12 Bar, Swindon

Double-headline gigs tend to divide options. The common criticism I hear is that you get less than a full set’s worth from whichever of the two bands you’d come to see, and with an ill-matched pair of bands there is always the risk that whole thing doesn’t quite come off. But when it does work you can end up with a great evening’s worth of music. The gig at Swindon’s 12 Bar Club saw Also Eden, a band I’d seen at the Cambridge Rock Festival sharing the bill with Leatherat, a band unknown to me, both bands playing 75 minute sets.

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Also Eden represents a triumph over adversity. Shortly after joining the band as replacement for their original singer Huw Lloyd-Jones in 2010, frontman Rich Harding was involved in a serious motorbike accident, and there were doubts whether he’d live, let alone be able to sing or walk again. By 2011 he was back on stage while still on crutches, and the band recorded and released “Think of the Children”, his first full-length album with the band.

Also Eden’s sound has many of the trappings of a typical neo-prog band with lengthy multi-part songs and that overdriven chorused lead guitar sound that’s as much a signature of prog as jangle is to 80s indie. But what sets them apart from many of their more derivative competitors is the passion and intensity of the delivery. With Rich Harding having fronted Marillion tribute bands there’s more than a hint of Fish-era Marillion, but I could also hear strong echoes of that band’s contemporaries Twelfth Night. This was very apparent in some of Harding’s politically-charged lyrics from their most recent album, from which the band drew the majority of the set. While perhaps not the most polished performance I’ve seen them do, it was nevertheless a good show. This is a band who I think ought to be destined for bigger and better things in the coming years.

Leatherat turned out to be a very different sort of band. With a mandolin-wielding frontman bearing more than a passing resemblance to Gilmi the Dwarf from “Lord of the Rings”, the five-piece played high energy electric folk rock, with electric violin as the principle lead instrument. Like Also Eden before them, the combination of a charismatic frontman and an intense performance made for a great live band. Although I had to miss the last couple of songs due to having to catch the last train home, what I did see was highly entertaining, and I’d certainly like to catch this band again.

As double-headline gigs go, this was one of the good ones, with the two contrasting but complementary bands that made a great combination. The two bands play together again at The Fleece and Firkin in Bristol on 12th April. Be there!

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Karnataka, Colston Hall, Bristol

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New review of mine on Trebuchet Magazine of Karnataka at Colston Hall in Bristol. Photos in the review are mine, but the embedded videos of an earlier lineup of the band were not my choice – I’m blaming the editor for that one!

I’ve uploaded a few more photos from the gig. They’re not my best, since the lighting could be described as “challenging”. Was using my f1.4 50mm virtually the whole time.

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Magenta – Bilston Robin 2, 20th November 2011

Welsh progressive rock band Magenta have established a strong reputation over past decade, with five studio albums to their name. They don’t play live often, but they’re well worth catching on the rare occasions when they do. The Sunday night show at Bilston Robin 2 was only their fourth full-band appearance of the year, following on from a successful appearance at the Summers End festival back in October.

The Robin 2 in Bilston is one of Britain’s premier classic rock, progressive rock and blues venues outside the capital. Tucked away in the heart of the Black Country they always put a lot of work into promoting their gigs, so even for a Sunday night there was a good-sized crowd.

Support came from former Pallas vocalist Alan Reed, fronting a semi-acoustic four-piece band. They managed to sound very proggy at times for a band without electric guitars, although their bassist doubled up on electric cello on a couple of songs. Their set mixed songs from Alan’s recent EP “Dancing with Ghosts” with a couple of Pallas oldies, and he warned us they might have to eat one of the band if they didn’t sell enough CDs. His spirited and impassioned performance made me wonder quite what Pallas were thinking when they sacked him. Especially when compared with their own somewhat lacklustre set without him at High Voltage in August.

Magenta are now officially a trio, consisting of composer and multi-instrumentalist Rob Reed, vocalist Christina Booth, and lead guitarist Chris Fry. For live work, Rob plays keys, and they’ve borrowed Godsticks’ excellent rhythm section to expand to a five-piece.

They were incredibly tight for a band who perform live so infrequently, such that it was hard to believe they’d played together live so few times this year. This was full-blown symphonic prog, with swirling keyboards, complex multi-part song structures and dense arrangements. But it was also all-out rock at the same time, a huge level of energy and intensity throughout their lengthy set.

The set spanned their entire career, going from the dark and intense 20 minute epic title track of “Metamorphosis” to selections from their more streamlined and accessible new album “Chameleon”, to older material such as the lengthy medley from their first album “Revolutions”. Magenta may be one of those bands who wear their influences on their sleeves, but unlike some lesser bands they put enough ideas of their own to become far more than a derivative pastiche. Occasionally they will throw in a few bars of something recognisable from 70s Yes or Genesis, but all of these are, as the band once stated, quite deliberate.

The diminutive Christina Booth showed just why she frequently wins awards for best female vocalist, singing with a lot of power and precision and making full use of her impressive vocal range. Chris Fry reeled off some amazing solos. At times his sound is reminiscent of Yes’ Steve Howe, but much of the time his sound is all his own; avoiding the sometimes clichéd Steve Hackett-meets-Dave Gilmour of too many neo-prog guitarists. And you’d never know that the rhythm section were just hired hands given the rhythmic complexity of the music.

Despite the infrequency of their live appearances, they’re every bit as great a live band as any of their peers in the female-fronted progressive rock scene. Quite when they’ll hit the road again is anyone’s guess, but on the strength of this show, they’re definitely not a band to miss.

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Heather Findlay Band – Fibbers, York, 18th November 2011

Heather Findlay made début as a solo artist with a full band with a couple of festival appearances back in August. After an acoustic support slot for Touchstone in October, she came to Fibbers in her home town of York as the second date of her much-anticipated first tour as a headline act.

The venue was packed. Her former band Mostly Autumn were playing their annual home town showcase at The Grand Opera House the following night, which encouraged many fans to make a weekend of it and take in both shows. And it was nice to see her former Mostly Autumn band-mates Bryan Josh, Olivia Sparnenn, Anne-Marie Helder and Angela Gordon in the audience.

Support came from Shadow of the Sun, the new project featuring Dylan Thompson, formerly of The Reasoning, on lead guitar. They played a tight high-energy hard rock set which showed a lot of promise for the future. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more of these guys in the coming months.

The atmosphere was electric with anticipation by the time Heather and her band hit the stage and launched into the title track of “The Phoenix Suite”. This was Heather in full-on rock mode. The full band shows delivered a very different experience to the acoustic sets with Chris Johnson supporting Touchstone, even though a lot of songs were common to both.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, the lengthy and varied set proved Heather still has all that magic from her time in Mostly Autumn. She’s assembled a very talented band. Alongside multi-instrumentalist Chris Johnson, Dave Kilminster’s guitar playing is a great example of restrained virtuosity, acting as a foil for Heather’s lead vocal without overplaying, and Steve Vantsis and Alex Cromarty make for a powerful rhythm section. The end result felt far more like a band than a solo artist backed by anonymous session musicians. Having the best sound mix I’d heard at any gig at Fibbers since refurbishment didn’t hurt either.

On the songs from The Phoenix Suite the band kept close to the original arrangements, although all the songs benefited greatly from a thicker guitar sound, with “Seven” particularly memorable. The only significant change was Dave Kilminster’s playing the sort of melodic and expressive solo on “Mona Lisa” that I’d loved to have heard on the original record.

The rest of the set consisted of Heather’s older songs, many of them radically reworked. Rather than play all of the obvious standards like “Evergreen”, they took us on a tour of less well-known highlights from her songbook, drawing heavily from Mostly Autumn’s “Heart Full of Sky” and “Glass Shadows”, including many songs seldom, or in some cases never before played live.

Without the walls of keys, there was a lot more space in the arrangements, with Dave Kilminster’s guitar taking flute and clarinet lines in songs like “Caught in a Fold” and “Blue Light”. An acoustic interlude with upright bass, mandolin and ukelele(!) featured a surprisingly funky take on Odin Dragonfly’s “This Game” and a great version of Mostly Autumn’s “Unoriginal Sin”. In contrast, Odin Dragonfly’s “Magpie” turned into a full-on rock number complete with a shredding solo at the end.

The encores began just Heather accompanied by Chris on piano, with a medley of “Broken”, a few bars of “Carpe Diem” leading into “Bitterness Burnt” and a deeply moving “Paper Angels”, which saw the band return for the closing section. They left us with what had become one of Heather’s signature songs, a mesmerising “Shrinking Violet”.

Playing a full-length headline set with only a five song EP’s worth of new material was always going to be a bit of a risk, but the completely fresh takes on the older songs made for a great gig. Significantly, they played a set made up largely from Mostly Autumn songs without sounding much like Mostly Autumn at all. It’s a show unlikely to be repeated once Heather has written and recorded more new songs, so catch it while you can at the last two dates on the tour, at The Borderline on the 26th, and The Robin in Bilston the following night.

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Opeth – Brixton Academy, 13th Nov 2011

Sweden’s Opeth have come a long way in the past twenty years. Starting out playing death metal with growling vocals on the heaviest songs, their ambitious music mixed light and shade from the beginning. Recent albums “Ghost Reveries” and “Watershed” showed an increasingly strong 70s British progressive rock influence with Mellotron and classic 70s keyboard sounds. This year’s impressive “Heritage” took things far further in that direction with an album that was far more prog-rock than death metal. So there was a lot of anticipation when they came to London’s Brixton Academy. At a far bigger venue than they were playing a few years ago, the huge snaking queue outside the building was testament to their growing fanbase.

Support act, fellow Swedes Pain of Salvation impressed a lot, with a tight and energetic set mixing metal and hard rock with echoes of music as diverse as the quirky 70s proggers Gentle Giant to moments from Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks. They’ve been going quite a few years with several albums to their name, and it showed.

From the opening serpentine guitar riff of “The Devil’s Orchard” onwards, Opeth’s set drew very heavily from “Heritage”, eschewing the death metal side of their music entirely in favour of their progressive rock leanings and mellower material. There wasn’t a single cookie monster grunt to be heard all evening. They still reached back to earlier in their career with the atmospheric “Face of Melinda” from the 1999 album “Still Life”. A early highlight was an excellent “Porcelain Heart”, which even the lengthy and unnecessary drum solo towards the beginning of the song failed to ruin.

A three-song semi-acoustic interlude went back to some of their very early work, including “Credence” from “My Arms Your Hearse” (Is there a more Goth album title than that?), alongside the obscure “Throat of Winter” from a recent video game soundtrack.

I love Mikael Åkerfeldt’s completely deadpan manner between songs, with self-deprecating quips engaging with the audience while avoiding most of the typical rock frontman clichés. Although he did get the audience chanting Dio’s name to introduce the deliberate Rainbow tribute “Slither” featuring guitarist Fredrik Åkesson’s Blackmoresque solo.

A powerful “A Fair Judgement” and a thunderous rendition of “Hex Omega” from “Watershed” ended the main set. After the predictable encore ritual which Åkerfeldt proceeded to ridicule when they came back, they launched into what he announced as ‘some Swedish folk music’, in other words, the epic “Folklore”, undoubted highlight of “Heritage”, the incredible closing section a good candidate for one of the most exciting pieces of music I’ve heard all year.

The one big downside was the amount of chatter; I really don’t understand why people pay good money for a gig, only to talk all the way through the headline act. The somewhat muted sound didn’t help. Opeth have always gone for clarity rather than volume, but when you’re hearing between-song chants of “Turn it up”, perhaps this was a gig which I felt might have benefited from upping the volume a notch, if only to down out the talkers.

While it lacked the intensity and intimacy of many smaller club gigs, big corporate venues are the price you pay when a band you’ve followed for years have finally hit the big time. Although it seemed a few dyed-in-the-wool death metal fans weren’t so happy with Opeth’s recent direction, and I heard one dismissing the gig using Anglo-Saxon language on the way out. But for me, seeing five thousand people attending an out-and-out progressive rock show and the vast majority enjoying every minute was a joy to behold.

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Chantel McGregor, The 100 Club, London

I first saw Chantel McGregor very low down on the bill at the Cambridge Rock Festival back in 2010, when she wowed the crowd with a blues-based set featuring some amazing guitar pyrotechnics, and left me wonder how someone so young could learn to play guitar like that. Her début album, “Like No Other”, released earlier this year, showed she could stretch beyond blues to hard rock and even pure pop. Now in the middle of an extensive club tour taking in venues throughout the UK, she came to London’s legendary 100 Club on Thursday night.

Fronting a classic power-trio with Richard Richie on bass, and Martin Rushworth on drums, Chantel cuts a diminutive figure on stage. But one thing I immediately noticed is now much more stage presence she has compared with a year ago. She’s not just playing dazzling guitar, although there’s never any shortage of that, but she’s now putting on a highly entertaining show too.

Her two hour set covered all the varied styles from her album, her take on some classic blues standards, and even extended to a prog interlude with a very heavy take on the closing “Worm” section of Yes’ “Starship Trooper”. Her guitar playing was as superb as I’d come to expect; the extended workout on Robin Trower’s “Dreams” was utterly mesmerising, and some spectacular one-handed playing reminded me of the late Randy California. Despite her obvious technical skill, there’s more than enough fire, soul and passion in her playing too. But it wasn’t all shredding guitar. The acoustic interlude that including her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” was beautiful, and certainly had something of an Odin Dragonfly feel about it.

Chantel is now far more than just a virtuoso guitarist, and far more than just a blues artist. The original material shows the work of a talented singer-songwriter who can write and perform in a host of diverse musical styles. And seeing her on stage it’s clear she’s rapidly developing into a confident and charismatic live performer too, a big smile on her face, exchanging between-song banter with the crowd all evening making for a great atmosphere, and rising above a few niggling technical problems to deliver an electrifying show.

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