Autumn Breeze - Going to Jamaica (2016)

The fourth and final album from this band from Sweden.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, flute, saxophones and vocals.

A guest added a guitar solo on the final track.

This is the follow up album to the good 2015 album The Molotov Rippentrop Pact album. A rock opera about the second world war, no less. I posted a review of this album earlier this month.

Autumn Breeze is an interesting band in the history of Swedish symphonic prog and their prog rock scene in general. Their 1979 debut album Hostbris was an influential album in the scene and one every fan of the Swedish prog scene should have. The two following albums were good too.

Then the band went to Jamaica and totally lost the plot. 

This forty minutes long album gives us a mix of cheap, very cheap reggae and Swedish showband pop music. The latter one is among the worst genre of music ever invented. There is a lot of that on this album.

The music here is far, far remote from what the band did on their first three albums. 

This album is in short a turkey.

1 point

The Aurora Observatory - Fabric of Reality (2015)

The second and final album from this band from USA.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, samples and vocals.

Their 2010 debut album Failure Of Imagination was a decent blend of indie rock, eclectic prog and post punk.

Five years had gone and the band returned again after loosing their drummer (r.i.p) in a car accident back in 2012. 

The music is again a mix of post punk and indie rock. The prog elements has largely gone by now.

The music is both hard and heavy. Most of it, that is. There are also some more mid-tempo indie rock here too. 

The vocals are muscular and a bit screamo when required by the music.

This album is clocking in at just under thirty-five minutes and it is indeed packing a punch. The music is decent enough but this band will not go down as one of the great bands from USA, I am afraid.

2 points

Days Between Stations - Perpetual Motion Machines (2024)

The fourth album from this band from USA.

The band was a duo with a lineup of guitars, keyboards and backing vocals.

Two guests added drums and lead vocals.

The band's debut album was released in 2007, the second one in 2013 and their third one in 2020. You will find reviews of both the debut and their third album somewhere else in this blog. I will add a review of their second album later this winter.

The band has been operating somewhere between Marillion and Pink Floyd on the two albums I have so far reviewed. Then add some cinematic rock too and you get the drift.

This time, the band has actually written a movie score and the soundtrack is this album. That means most of this album is instrumental cinematic rock.

The final piece of music on this thirty-five minutes long album is a song with vocals. That mid-tempo song has a blend of Marillion and Pink Floyd. Mostly Marillion, it has to be said. It is a good song which adds a lot of quality to some decent instrumental music. 

The result is somewhere between a decent and a good album. This is by far not their finest hour and I hope they one day will return again with another, better album.

2.5 points

 

 

 

Isbjörg - Irisdescent (2019)

The debut album from this band from Denmark.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, piano and vocals.

This band released their second album last year and I got both their albums for review. The review of their second album will be posted later this month.

This is an unrepentant neo-prog band. 

This is neo-prog with some art-rock and heavy prog elements. Add in some psych rock too.

Take a mix of Genesis, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Gentle Giant and Yes. Then you get this album.

The band uses piano where others would have used keyboards. That is a major difference between this band and other neo-prog bands.

The music on this album fifty minutes long album is pretty epic, lively, hard and melodic. It also got some interesting details. 

The vocals is very good throughout and there is a lot of very good piece of music on these nine tracks. None of them are long but this album should still be regarded as one unit instead of nine songs.

Their music also sounds very fresh and this album is indeed very refreshing. So much that this indeed a very good album indeed. This is a highly talented band with a great future ahead of them..... I hope.

3.5 points

Ekos - Otra Dimension (2017)

The second album from this band from Mexico.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

The band returned again after a five years long break from the studio. 

Their 2012 debut album Luz Interna was a pretty good psych rock album as you can read from my review of this album earlier this year/month.

The music is again psych rock. Slow to mid-tempo psych rock, that is.

The final Pink Floyd albums comes to mind here. Ekos has just stripped down the music and their music does not have as many instruments as on a fully blown Pink Floyd song/album.

Ekos also brings us male Spanish vocals too. 

As mentioned above, the music on this fifty minutes long album is pretty slow. It is also complex too. It is also at times pretty epic too. In particular at the end after the slow start of the album.

The music starts slow and very ambient like. Then it grows in intensity throughout the album before it really get into full bloom at the end. That is a pretty neat way of mixing and mastering an album. 

The band has yet to full master the art of song writing. Nevertheless, this album really grows on the listener and it is indeed a good album. It is also a rewarding listening too.

3 points

Kronstad 23 - Jobber Overtid (2024)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

The band was a trio with a lineup of percussion, bass, guitars, organ, electric piano and moog.

Several guests added drums, percussion, cornet and saxophones.

Norway has established some jazz academies in the last twenty years. The result is that the jazz and fusion scene has grown a lot in the last years and is perhaps the most vital jazz and fusion scene in the world at the moment.

The result is also a lot of new bands. Some of them only releasing one album as a part of the musicians exams. Some bands and indeed artists has gone on to releasing many albums. 

I sincerely hope Kronstad 23 will join the list of the bands with more than one album. 

The music here is playful and intricate jazz with some fusion influences. I am not an expert on jazz. But the half-acoustic guitars and their interplays with the organ and woodwinds is really good and very enjoyable. 

We get fifty minutes of intricate mid-tempo jazz here. The music is not particular melodic. There is a lot of very interesting details and riffs inbetween some rather quirky, short pieces of melodic harmonies. 

The result is a pretty good album which should also interest the prog rock scene. Check it out.

3 points

Asfalto - Cronophobia (1984)

The seventh album from this band from Spain.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

This is the follow up album to the album released the year before. A pretty decent melodic rock album.

The band has for some reasons left the melodic rock scene behind and gone on a full frontal hard rock attack.

We are not talking about heavy metal here though. The music is hard, but not heavy. It is also very lively and fast. Some of the music reminds me about Triumph and that Canadian band is indeed a good reference.

The Spanish vocals is good throughout. The sound is good too.

There are a couple of good pieces here. Most of the music on this forty minutes long album is decent enough.

Those into hard rock should check out this album.

2 points

 

 

Electric Moon - Lunatics Revenge (2011)

The second album from this band from Germany.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, organ and vocals.

This band was a side project of Sula Bassana, a band still releasing albums. 

Their very good debut album Lunatics was released in 2010 and I reviewed it for # 1 back in January 2013, exactly twelve years and two days ago. I was meant to review their other four albums too but I never came around to do that.

Twelve years later... and I will complete my reviews of their four albums this month. 

The music here is space rock. Outer space rock driven by long guitar themes and solos. There are some vocals here. The vocals works more like an additional instrument than vocals.

The organ is supporting and supplementing the guitars throughout. The bass and drums has the customary dirty space rock sound and is really driving the music forward.

The sound on this fifty minutes long, four pieces of music, is the usual space rock sound. There are a lot of good ideas throughout this album. 

The result is a good album and one space rock fans should check out. This album has now been re-released together with the debut album as one album and that is very good value for your money. 

3 points

Autumn Breeze - The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact (2015)

The third album from this band from Sweden.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, samples, computers and vocals.

One guest delivered guitar solos on two tracks.

I have reviewed their first two albums in # 1 and # 2 of this blog. Two good Swedish symphonic prog albums released in 1979 and 2010. The band has released two more albums, altogether four albums, and I have both up for reviews this month. 

This album is..... a rock opera about world war II. A rock opera about one of the biggest manmade disasters ever to happen to us humans (and animals). A five years long world war which included genocides and the loss of seventy million lives. Lives lost on the most violent way possible.

The Molotov Rippentrop Pact was a pact signed in 1939 between two of the most despicable, evil men ever been alive, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Molotov and Rippentrop, the foreign ministers of Sovietunion and Nazi Germany signed it and gave it's name to this horrible pact where Poland was partitioned up by these two evil empires and Sovietunion was given the four countries around the Baltic sea; Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Litauen. A most despicable act, this pact.

So this Swedish band made a rock opera about it. It is a bit surprising that this is more or less the only rock opera about world war II. Maybe it is still too fresh in people's memories. I am pretty sure we will see a lot more rock operas about this theme in the next years and decades.

The music here is all over the place. From Swedish symphonic prog to folk rock, whimsical eclectic prog, vaudeville rock to fusion and chamber rock/RIO/Avant-garde prog.

There is indeed a lot of avant-garde prog here. There are also some catchy, quirky songs here.

 This rock opera is one hour long and it is surprisingly good. This is indeed a very weird album and one of the weirdest albums I have ever reviewed. It is still a good album. Barely a good album but the audacity of the band to go for a project like this elevates this to a good album status. 

Get this album.

3 points

Aurora Observatory. The - Failure Of Imagination (2010)

The debut album from this band from USA.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, loops and vocals.

Three guests added guitars and vocals.

This band released two albums between 2010 and 2015. They lost their drumer in a car accident in 2012 too and is now no longer active. I will review their second album in some days time.

The music on this one hour long album is a mix of post-punk, indie rock and eclectic prog. 

The music is hard and noisy throughout with lots of hard drumming, bass and guitars. 

The pieces of music here has some weird melodies and rhythm patterns. 

The vocals is decent enough. Some of it is screaming vocals too.

The result is decent enough. I am not entirely won over but those into weird post punk should check out this album.

2 points

Believe - The Wyrding Way (2024)

The seventh album from this band from Poland.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, violin, keyboards and vocals.

Believe is one of the veteran bands in the progressive rock scene in Poland. They released their first album in 2006 and I believe I have reviewed all their albums.

This is also a band I really like. The band has on some album set the standard for the Polish neo-prog scene.

The music on this one hour long album is mostly neo-prog with some strong art-rock influences.

The music is really elegant throughout. Some of the music is pretty melancholic but not as melancholic as on earlier releases. The violin is here but not as well used as on previous albums.

The vibe is more upbeat this time. The vocals is very good.

The music is at times very good. But most of this album is a bit lacking in quality and identity. This is therefore a good, nice album but not their finest hour.

3 points

Eatliz - All of It (2014)

The third and final album from this band from Israel.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, synths bass and vocals.

A handful of guests added drums, percussion, bass, synths bass, keyboards, programming and vocals.

This is the final album from this band, released during the summer of 2014. The band then split up.

The band had got a new vocalist, Sivan Abelson now being the new vocalist.

Female vocals, her vocals, is still dominating the music here. Music somewhere between dream pop and indie rock.

Sivan's great vocals are more controlled and not so dominating. That leaves plenty of space to some half-acoustic guitars and other instruments. It also lets the pieces of music here live a bit more freely.

There are some good pieces here and some not so good pieces on this three quarters of an hour long album. This is their best album and a good end of their career. This is an album well worth checking out too.

2.5 points

Drifting Sun - Veil (2024)

The eight album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, mandolin, keyboards and vocals.

A dozen of guests were adding violin and vocals.

The band continued on with their mix of neo-prog, art-rock and symphonic prog.

Eight songs... the longest one is clocking in at twelve minutes. Then we get some shorter ones too. We get altogether almost fifthy minutes of music here.

The music is both melodic and epic. The opening track has a nice nod towards Yes. It is indeed a lot of nods towards Yes, the Drama era, on this album. The usual Genesis and Marillion influences are still retained on this album.

The music is also very elegant. The songs are short but this album should still be regarded as one fifty minutes long piece of music. It is that symphonic and complex. 

The vocals is good and the band does a really good job.

This is another good album from this band. A bit underrated band who deserve a lot more praise and attention.

3 points

 

 

Astral Bazaar - Hypnosis of the 12th Degree (2024)

The third album from this band from Finland.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, saxophone and vocals.

This band has gained themselves quite a fanbase over the last years. I have reviewed their first two albums for # 1 and # 2 of this blog and really liked them.

The music here is space rock with some pop and indie rock sensibilities.

The space rock is melodic and pretty fluffy and light. Lots of vocals here too. Some good half-acoustic guitars too.

The saxophone adds some weirdness to the music too.

There is a lot of surf rock here too. 

The sound is sparse and there is no walls of sound here on this forty minutes long album.  

The result is a pretty good album... make that a good album indeed. Space rock fans should check out this album.

3 points

 

 

Ekos - Luz Interna (2012)

The debut album from this band from Mexico.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

This band, not to be confused with the Italian band with the same name, has released three albums. The last one in 2020. All three of them are up for review this month in this blog.

...Starting with the debut album.

The music here is clearly psych rock. There is also some post-rock influences here but the main theme is psych rock.

That is one hour worth of psych rock too.

There are some really good keyboards and guitars here. The Spanish vocals is good too and the rhythm section does a good job on the handfull of five to ten minutes long songs. The final track is a twenty minutes long epic.  

The sound is really good here and there vibe is good.

 The music is pretty good throughout this album. The album suffers a bit from some weak, anonymous songs. That is my only gripe with this album. It is an acceptable debut album and I am really looking forward to dive into their remaining two albums. 

2.5 points

 

 

Tangerine Dream - Force Majeure (1979)

The 10th album from this band from Germany.

The band was now a duo with a lineup of bass, guitars, keyboards, synths and electronics.

Two guests added drums, percussion and cello.

The album is the follow up to the vocals and full band album Cyclone from 1979. An album hated by the fans and critics. Still is. 

So Edgar Froese got the message and vocalist was ejected from the band. Wisely so, too. 

There are still some organic music left here. Guitar solos and some cello, just to mention the most important stuff here.

This album is forty minutes long and has got three pieces of music. The opening eighteen minutes long title track is quite majestic and epic. It has, as the rest of the album, a good blend of electronica and some more organic stuff like for example the guitar solos and the cello. It is a good title track and the best piece of music on this album.

The two others are a bit shorter but still good pieces of music.

If any albums will convert me to become a fan of this band and genre, this is the type of album. It is indeed a good album and one worth checking out.

3 points

Semkina. Marjana - Sirin (2024)

The debut album from this artist from Great Britain.

Marjana Semkina does the vocals and some acoustic guitars here.

She got help from numerous guests who has added percussion, drums, bass, guitars, strings, dulcimer, keyboards, piano, synths, vocals and drum programming.

Marjana Semkina was the vocalist in the brilliant band Iamthemorning before she fled to London, Great Britain where she now lives. She now regard herself as a London based artist, according to Bandcamp.

Marjana continues on from what she did in Iamthemorning. This means dream pop with a lot of art-rock influences and some progressive rock influences.

The music is based around her excellent strong and good vocals. There is little interplays between her vocals on this three quarters of an hour long album. 

The strings and the piano is good. The musicians does a great job on some rather limited pieces of music.

The vocals and some good music here makes this a good album indeed. This album is a logical followup to the Iamthemorning albums and a good debut album in it's own right.

3 points

 

Pineapple Thief. The - It Leads to This (2024)

The 16th studio album from this band from Great Britain.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

One guest added guitars and backing vocals.

I have reviewed some of their albums in # 2 of this blog. Not all of them but enough to rate this band pretty high. I have still prioritised less known albums and bands.

The music on this forty minutes long album is art-rock.

There are a lot of Steven Wilson and Marillion references here. In particular Steven Wilson and The Pineapple Thief sounds like him if he had not gone electronica and pop on his last two albums.

The music is pretty catchy and melodic. It has a lot of good themes and hooks. 

The music is also very elegant at times and to the point as there is not many, if any, wasted minutes on this album.

The musicianship and vocals is top notch. There is a lot of interesting details here too.

There are some good and some very good songs here. On balance, this is therefore a very good album and well worth checking out. 

3.5 points

Positive Wave - Metsälapsi (2024)

The second album from this band from Finland.

The band is a sextet with a lineup of chimes, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, piano, mouth harp and vocals.

Some guests added violin, trumpet, saxophones and flute.

I reviewed their 2010 self-titled album in ProgArchives and gave it a very good rating. You can read it here.  I hoped back then that we would see a lot more records from this band. That did not happen and that is a great shame as the band had something extra to offer the scene.

14 years has gone and the band returned with the same vocalist, Susan Karttunen, and a lot of the original band. 

The music is a mix of folk rock, Canterbury prog and jazz. It also still retains the 1970s feel and sound.

The music is both quirky and slightly eclectic. It is still melodic and has got some very good vocals.

The vibe is good and there is a lot of interesting details. The freshness from their debut album and some of the ability to write very good songs has been lost, though. The vocals is very good, though.

I hope the band will soon release another album as this band is too talented just to disappear from the face of the earth.

3 points

Holy Lamb - Minefield Promenade (2024)

The sixth album from this band from Latvia. 

 
Holy Lamb is a quintet band with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, kokle, keyboards and vocals. 

A handful of guests added trumpet, saxophone, piccolo, flute and vocals.

I reviewed their fifth album Gyrosophy (2015) exactly eight years ago for # 1 of this blog. I have also reviewed most of their other albums in the same edition of this blog. I gave all those albums a good rating as I really like their albums.

The band's music was back then a mix of symphonic prog and neo-prog.   

That too is the case on Minefield Promenade. The album title may reflect the insecure situation Latvia now finds themselves in with their neighbours Russia, a country who has already invaded and mined another neighbour... Ukraine.

The music on this three quarters of an hour long album is pretty hard. It is also symphonic too. The band has moved a bit towards progressive metal, the Dream Theater territory.

The music still retains the neo-prog and symphonic prog hallmarks and identities. 

The music is still pretty melodic despite of its complexity and epic heaviness. 

The vocals is good and the guitarists does a great job with severeral great guitar solos. Not all music here is good. But on balance, this is a good album and one well worth checking out.

3 points

Kopilott - III (2024)

The third album from this band from Spain.

The band is a duo with a lineup of electronics, computers and some guitars.

This is their second album from last year. II was released at the beginning of last year and their debut album arrived two years ago. Both of them reviewed last year in this blog.

Their debut album was a pretty well developed standard space rock album. That one was followed up by II which was a minimalistic space rock album based on mostly computers.

III sees the duo continue down the same path as on II. There is a lot of samples here and some more weirdo, almost neo-classical music pieces of music here.

The guitars are a bit extreme metal sounding at times. Those are combined with some spaced out electronica sounds.

The result is this fifty minutes long Bandcamp album.

The music here is decent enough and should appeal to space rock and electronica fans. Those who likes their music quirky and slightly eclectic.

This is an album well worth checking out.

2 points

Myth of Logic - Light at the End (2024)

The third album from this band from USA.

The band is a one-man-band with Scott G Davis doing the bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals and programmed drums. 

I reviewed their...sorry... his first two albums one year ago in this blog and I gave them both pretty good ratings.

The music is again a mix of symphonic prog and neo-prog. ELP meets Spock's Beard, Kansas and Yes.

This album is just under seventy-four minutes long and it is keyboards based with some guitars and vocals playing a more supporting role. 

The music is big and bold. Typical US prog in other words. The music is also epic with some good details and melodies throughout.

The vocals is pretty good here. Ditto for the keyboards.

This is a long album and it is difficult to maintain the standards throughout. Scott has done that and this is another good album from him under this band name.

Check out this album if US symph and neo is your thing.

3 points

 

 

Signori Della Galassia. I - Qualcosa Si Crea,... (1978)

The one and only album from this band from Italy.

The band was an eight piece big band with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, strings, keyboards and vocals.

In my quest to get as big as possible collection of RPI, symphonic prog albums from Italy, I sometimes get album that is from Italy, from the 1970s but who is missing that RPI boat by many country miles.

This band, I suspect studio project, is one of those misses.

The music here is pop music, Italian slow pop music. In France, the music here would be called chanson. Which this music really is.

 We get over forty minutes of chanson with some folk music influences.

There are some decent songs here. Most of this album is pretty terrible, although a bit fluffy charming too. The musicians and the vocalists does a good job... but most of the music is pretty dire. 

Don't repeat my mistake by getting this album.

1.5 points

Sideless - Choose The Way (2022)

The debut album from this band from Italy.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

A handful of guests added flute and vocals.

This band released a handful of songs on Bandcamp before they released this album through the same Bandcamp site. To my knowledge, this is their one and only album so far.

The band tried to blend progressive rock, neo-prog to be more precise, and heavy metal on this album. Heavy metal with some strong djent influences, that is.

There is a lot more metal here than prog rock, it has to be said.

The vocals is only barely acceptable decent. The music is not particular interesting.

The music on this fifty-five minutes long album is too much run-of-the-mill to be really interesting. 

This is a decent enough album but nothing more than.

2 points

Stratospheerius - Impostor (2024)

The fourth album from this band from USA.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, violin, viola, cello, keyboards and vocals.

Numerous guests added guitars, sitar, cello, piano, flute, narrations, vocals and drum programming.

It seems like Joe Deninzon has now made his ownership of the band known and is on this album regarding the band as his backing band. Joe does the lead vocals here and the violins. 

Besides of this change and the wholesale change of the band members, the music is pretty similar to what we got on the first three albums.

Take Kansas like US symphonic prog, add some Jean Luc Ponty like fusion, pomp rock, some US 1970s hard rock  and some US arena rock. Yes, this album has the big and bold US sound throughout this album.

Their version of King Crimson's Frame By Frame is a good cover who does not add anything new to this song from their Discipline album.

The music on this fifty minutes long album is in other words melodic and there is a lot of violins, mostly electric violins here. The vocals is good and there is a lot of good songs here.

Not everything here is good. But on balance, this is a good album and one everyone into US symph prog and pomp rock should check out.

3 points

 

 

 

Eatliz - Teasing Nature (2010)

The second album from this band from Israel.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars and female vocals.

Their 2008 debut album Violently Delicate was a decent debut album. The band returned two years later with this album. This album was released through Bandcamp and as a CD on their own label.

The music is again a mix of power pop and indie rock. There are some jazz influences here too.

The music is very much, as on the debut album, dominated by Lee Triffon's vocals. Her vocals is what carries this album.

The music on this three quarters of an hour long album is mid-tempo and pretty melodic. It has some nice details.

The songs are not up to par though and this is therefore another decent album from this band. It indie rock is your thing.....

2 points

 

 

 

Drifting Sun - Safe Asylum (2016)

The fourth album from this band from Great Britain.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

A handful of guests are adding cello, violin, viola and flute. 

The band continued on again after their not so bad Trip The Life Fantastic album from the year before. That album, reviewed in # 1 of these blogs, was a slight improvement on the rather lacklustre On The Rebound album from 1999. So the band had taken a long break.

The music is still pretty much a blend of art-rock and neo-prog.

Melodic and a bit sombre music is what we get on Safe Asylum. 

This one hour long album has some melancholic stuff indeed and some good vocals.

The songs are not bad at all. The band's output is getting better, more and more mature.

This is a pretty good album and one well worth checking out.

2.5 points

 

Merging Cluster - Peak of Ephemeral Light (2024)

The debut album from this band from Italy.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

This is another new band from Italy.

The band released a self-titled EP back in 2014. An EP that did not give them any attention. After putting the band on ice, and the vocalist doing some Raven Sad albums, the band returned to record some new songs and to incorporate some of the songs from the EP into this, their debut album.

The music here can best described as a mix of art-rock and neo-prog. Add some RPI and psych rock influences too and you get the drift.

Gabriele Marconcini's English vocals is very good and in the vein of Fish from Marillion. Hence also in the vein of Peter Gabriel and the vocalist in The Watch. The vocals sounds pretty much like Geoff Tate from Queensryche on the couple of first songs here. The music here has some similarities with their album Operation Mindcrime, an album who again also deserve some attention.

The music is mid-tempo and muscular throughout these seventy minutes. Seventy minutes which I guess covers many years of songs, now finally released. 

The guitars are powerful here and the keyboards sometimes sounds like a strings orchestra. There is also some organ and piano from the keyboards. The rhythm section cannot be faulted at all.

The melodies range between great and good here. There is a lot of very interesting details here. 

The result is a very good album which should be of great interest to all neo-prog and RPI fans. Even psych rock fans should find something to like here.

Italy has again produced a great band and a very good album. It is always nice to get surprises like this album.

3.5 points

Bodin. Tomas - I A M (2005)

The fourth album from this artist from Sweden.

Tomas Bodin did the keyboards here.

He had help from a handful of guests who added drums, bass, guitars and vocals.

The previous album, Sonic Boulevard from 2003, was a good album and made me a lot more interested in this album. Interest I need to maintain as I am reviewing all his ten albums this winter. 

I A M is a trio of twenty minutes long pieces of music. All of them are loosely falling into the symphonic prog label. Scandinavian symphonic prog, that is. The Flower Kings, his dayjob, is still looming large just over the horizont. 

There are also some soul and musicals influences here. Not to mention wailing vocals and psych rock in the vein of Pink Floyd, the Momentary Lapse... era. 

The vocals here are good and the keyboards sound very good.

This is another good album from Tomas and one The Flower Kings and Kaipa fans should check out. 

3 points

 

 

 

Borknagar - Quintessence (2000)

The fourth album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, synths and vocals.

The band returned again for their fourth album. This comes with a new drummer as Asgeir from Spiral Arcitects had joined the band.

This album broke the band as a more mainstream extreme metal band instead of being just a black metal band. It put the band on the map.

The reason for their break through is mainly the song Colossus which is a song which comes across as a mix of a black metal and a more prog metal song.

The music here is still symphonic black metal with some progressive metal influences. The music is harder and less melodic than what Dimmu Borgir did at the same time. It is less progressive than Enslaved and Opeth.

There are some synths here which is adding to the massive, bold sound on this album. The vocals are in the black metal mould. Rasping, hoarse vocals. There are also some short pieces of clear vocals here too.

There are a few good pieces of music here and some substandard pieces.

This is a pretty good album, well worth checking out if you can deal with the massive sound and the vocals.

2.5 points

PRP - Red Bending Nights (2024)

The second album from this band from Finland.

The band is a duo with a lineup of bass, guitars, keyboards, synths, vocals, drums and percussion programming.

PRP stands for (The) Petteri & Rami Project. Which is the two first names of the musicans here.

Their 2021 debut album was a pretty good blend of heavy prog and art-rock. I reviewed it on the first day of this year, see the review.

Most of the heavy prog has been left out of this, their new album. It has been replaced by some neo-prog and some weird art-rock. There is even some jazz influences here. The vibe is also dark and gloomy.

Marillion is now a good reference for this album. There is still some Porcupine Tree hanging around in their sound on this fifty minutes long album.

The vocals are good and half of this album is good. The instruments are capable played. 

The result is a good album and an improvement on their debut album. I hope we will hear more from this band.

3 points

Pajjama - Womb (2017)

The second and final album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards, programming and voices.

Their 2014 debut album Karakasa was a decent enough album.

The music there was electronica with some avant-garde elements. 

The music continues on the same path on the barely half an hour long Womb. The music is electronica with some eclectic prog and avant-garde rock elements.

There are some disturbing male vocals, make that voices, on some of these pieces of music.

The music is based on keyboards and synths. It is a bit atonal at times. It also has a lot of repetitions and some weird melody pieces.

The result is another decent album from this band. The album is well short but still worth checking out as either a cassette or a digital download.

2 points

 

Opeth - The Last Will and Testament (2024)

The 14th album from this band from Sweden.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, flute and vocals.

Three guests provided spoken words. Ian Anderson was one of this trio. 

Opeth is one of the best bands in both the prog and the metal scene these days. It is a band who are a crossover between extreme metal, progressive metal and symphonic prog. Every new album from them is received with intense interest from these two scenes.

The music on this fifty minutes long album sounds like a rock opera... which it probably is. Not only that.. the music has a lot in common with the heavy, meaty Wagner operas. There is a lot of Wagnerian over the music here.

The mix of growls, operatic and clean vocals also adds a lot of Wagner operas to this album.

The music is both heavy, muscular, epic and very complex. Hence the opera connotations. 

The musicianship is top notch. There are some very good guitar solos here too. The vocals too is superb.

The music is not immediate and does not feel great after the first ten listening sessions. But it really grows on the listener and I get the feeling that this album will, when the dust has settled and people has become used to it, be regarded as one of the great Opeth albums.

It is indeed a great album and one of the best albums from last year, 2024. 

4 points

 

 

Wilson. Steven - The Harmony Codex (2023)

The eight and so far latest album from this artist from Great Britain.

Steven Wilson did percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, sampler, programming and vocals here.

He got help from numerous guests who added drums, bass, guitars, violin, chapmann stick, organ, piano, mellotron, keyboards, synths, programming, woodwinds, voices and vocals.

Steven Wilson is one of the biggest profiles in today's prog scene... and surely one of the biggest profiles in the history of prog rock. That is both stating the facts and a compliment. 

The previous album The Future Bites (2021) saw him strike out in another direction than progressive rock. 

The Harmony Codex is not as big diversion from progressive rock than The Future Bites was. 

The music on this just over one hour long album is a mix of electronica, cinematic rock, psych rock and some more ambient meditations.

Parts of this album, the best parts of this album, sounds like the final two Pink Floyd albums. Floating psych rock, in other words. 

Other parts of this album is pretty pedestrian and rather uninteresting.

This album still has Steven Wilson's and some Porcupine Tree DNAs all over it. It sounds modern. But it is still not a good album. It is just not there.

Steven Wilson is said to be releasing a prog rock album this winter. I am looking forward to that album.

2.5 points

 

 

Stratospheerius - Guilty of Innocence (2017)

The third album from this band from USA.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, mandolin, electric violin and vocals.

Numerous guests added drums, guitars, cello, violin, viola, keyboards and vocals. Alex Skolnick from Testament is among the guests here.

The band returned after a five years long break. The previous album The New World was released in 2012 and I reviewed it for # 1 of this blog the same year. I have also reviewed their 2007 debut album Headspace some days ago, on the last day of 2024. 

I liked both albums. A review of their new album, released last year, will be posted before the end of this month.

The music on the fifty minutes long Guilty Of Innocence is a bit all over the place. From bluegrass inspired americana to funk, jazz, fusion, eclectic prog to more hard rock. Add in some pieces of neo-classical music and you get my drift. 

There is even a Muse cover here. 

The music is really, really intense at times. It is like a Mahavishnu Orchestra album, only three times faster. 

The violins from Joe Deninzon is the dominating instrument here as this is his band, his vision. They are a bit too overpowering here and the album comes across as a violin hero album. 

There are some good stuff here. But half of this album is decent or worse. 

There are simply not enough pieces of good music here. Nevertheless, check out this band.

2.5 points

 

Lethe. Il - Il Cavaliere Inesistente (2024)

The second album from this band from Italy.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, flute and vocals.

Two guests added extra male and female vocals.

This is a band I thought I would never hear from again after their 1993 debut album Nymphae. An album I in April 2017 gave a good rating in # 2 of this blog.

But the band resurfaced again with this seventy minutes long album.

We are again deep into RPI territory. The music is very melodic RPI with Italian vocals. Good vocals, btw. The flutes is, besides of the vocals, the dominant instrument here. 

On Nymphae, the band sounded like a mix of Jethro Tull and ELP. Now, the band sounds like... well, a bit proggy pop/rock where there is no longer any similarities with ELP and Jethro Tull.

The music is a bit pedestrian and not particular exciting or even interesting.

There are three good songs here. The rest is decent enough. Hence, this album is not as good as their debut album. RPI fans would rightly so get this album. I am not won over by this album.

2.5 points

Motorpsycho - The Crucible (2019)

The 22nd album from this band from Norway.

The band was a trio with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, piano, mellotron and vocals.

A handful of guests added reeds, electronics and vocals.

This is the second album in a trilogy of albums, it is claimed by their fans. The album art-work comes from the same painter.  

The music here is not particular different from their previous album The Tower. 

Take psych rock, add some garage rock, art-rock and space rock. The result is this three pieces of music, forty minutes long album.

Some of the music here is also pretty epic with undertones of symphonic prog. 

In a weird way... the music is pretty melodic. It is also fascinating and compelling listening, their music.

That also goes for this good album. An album with a lot of good details and melodies. It is another reason why I last year, due to the reviews of their twenty-two first albums, starting to become a convert to their music. This is indeed a great band.

3 points

Eatliz - Violently Delicate (2008)

The debut album from this band from Israel.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars and female vocals.

This band released three albums between 2008 and 2014. They are up for review this month in this blog. 

I am off course starting with their debut album, this album.

The music on this fifty minutes long album is a mix of dream pop, indie rock and eclectic prog. 

Their sound is very much dominated by the vocals from Lee Triffon. Her vocals is very good and it is all over the album.

Their music is both melodic, eclectic and quirky. The songs are far from being straight forward. The drummer is also very busy throughout this album.

There are some avant-garde dissonant pieces here too. Not long ones but they gives this album an edge.

The result is a decent enough album without any really good songs. It is an album worth checking out, though. It is still available from their Bandcamp page.

2 points

PRP - No Pristine Rubbery Perception (2021)

The debut album from this band from Finland.

The band is a duo with a lineup of bass, guitars, keyboards, synths, vocals, drums and percussion programming.

PRP stands for (The) Petteri & Rami Project. Which is the two first names of the musicans here.

The band released their second album in 2024 and I will review it sometimes before the end of this month.

The music on this almost forty minutes long album is a mix of art-rock and heavy prog.  

Take a blend of Porcupine Tree and Rush. Add some sprinklings of psych rock and the Hogarth era Marillion too and you get my drift.

The music is pretty melodic with some sprinklings of retro organs and electric guitars.

The music is pretty good. There are some decent stuff here and some good stuff here.

This is a more than acceptable debut album and I am looking forward to getting the chance to listen to their new album.

2.5 points

 

 

Pajjama - Karakasa (2014)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards and computers.

This is a another Norwegian band who has flown under my radar until I discovered them half a year ago. Says everything about the big Norwegian fusion, prog and art-rock scene these days. 

The band released two albums before they gave up the ghost. I will review the second album later this month. Both albums released as cassette albums through a cassette record label in USA. My memories of cassettes is not good. Bad memories, indeed.

The music is a blend of electronica (mostly), cinematic rock and some jazz and art-rock.

There are quite a considerable amount of organic instruments here inbetween the electronica computers. 

The music is a bit pedestrian and does not offer up a lot of good stuff. The music is eclectic, but not particular interesting.

The result is a decent enough album and one to check out of eclectic electronica keeps you warm at night.

2 points

 

 

Tesuji - Mirage (2024)

The debut album from this band from France.

The band is a duo with a lineup of bass, guitars, keyboards, drums programming and vocals.

Two guests added vocals.

This duo comes from Antibes, a place just between Cannes and Nice on the French Rivera. A very sunny part of France/Europe. 

There is a lot of sunshine in their music too. Which is good and well in my cold office on the first day of the year.

To be more precise... The music is a pretty muscular blend of art-rock and harder prog. A blend of Marillion, Porcupine Tree and Rush.

The good vocals has a heavy French accent. Something that comes across as charming and adds a lot of sun and lights to this album.

The two musicians is doing a good job with some solid piano and guitars playing here.

The overall quality on these fifty minutes of music is good. 

This is a name-your-price Bandcamp album and an album everyone into art-rock and prog should download. It is a bit of a charming album.

3 points

 

 

 

Wilson. Steven - The Future Bites (2021)

The seventh album from this artist from Great Britain.

Steven Wilson did percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, samples, synths, programming and vocals.

Numerous guests added drums, percussion, chapman stick, keyboards, synths, orchestra, narrations and vocals.

Hmmmm..... It seems like I am reviewing a very controversial album during the last hours of 2024. It is rain and storm outside.... so why not do something useful. 

Steven Wilson is an art-rock and progressive rock artist. This album is a forty minutes long pop-rock album.

ELO's final albums springs to mind. And I cannot understand why Steven hired Elton John to read out shopping list in the middle of a song here. A cheap gimmick, indeed.

There are some electronica here too. They are this time a bit of a saving grace on some pretty substandard songs. At least there is some quality here.

The result is a decent album. His by far worst album but still a decent album and one who deserve to be forgotten.

2 points

Stratospheerius - Headspace (2007)

The debut album from this band from USA.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, mandolin, violin and vocals.

The band was started by the jazz violinist Joe Deninzon who released some solo albums with the likes of Alex Skolnick from Testament. Jazz albums, not thrash metal albums.... 

After a live album together with Alex in 2006, an album released as a solo album, Joe formed Stratospheerius and the band has so far released four albums. The latest one was released earlier this year, in 2024.

I reviewed their second album, the 2012 album The New World back in September 2012 for # 1 of this blog and liked it a lot. Then I found their new album and their debut and their third album too. This trio of albums will be reviewed this winter, starting with this review.

The music here is a mix of funk, jazz, americana and progressive rock.

There is a lot of Jean Luc Ponty in Joe's violin and the jazzy and funky parts of this three quarters of an hour long album. A lot of really complex, fast music.

The band slows the music down inbetween the faster music and they then does a mix of old classical progressive rock and americana.

The vocals are good and the band, with Joe being the star, is doing a superb job.

The result is a good album and an album who deserve some more attention as a result of the release of a new album. This is indeed a very good band.

3 points

 

 

El Poder de la Infancia - El Poder de la Infancia (2024)

The debut studio album from this band from Argentina.

The band is a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, kazoos, piano, keyboards, synths and sampling/programming.

Some guests added strings, woodwinds, organ and vocals.

This band was formed at the audiovisual art school in Santa Fe, Argentina. They first released two live albums, of improvised music, before they went into studio, got their music more structured and then released this album earlier this year.

It has taken some months before the rest of the world got to know about this album. It is now in Progarchives and that inspired me to get this album.

The band members are studying audiovisual art as in for example movies. The music here does include a lot of cinematic rock. But also add in jazz, Latin-rock, post-rock and art-rock. There is also some chamber rock/RIO here too.

Most of the music on this three quarters of an hour long album is instrumental. There is some voices and some sampled voices here. 

The half-acoustic guitars are very cool. So is the rest of the instruments. The vibe is laid back and relaxed. The sound is great and could not have been better.

There are some good stuff here and some less good stuff here. Altogether, this is an acceptable debut album and one to check out.

2.5 points

 

 

 

Asfalto - Mas Que Una Intencion (1983)

The sixth album from this band from Spain.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

A couple of guests added woodwinds too.

The band played on into the 1980s. 

The music here is melodic rock with a few harder rock songs and a couple of ballads. The usual fare anno the 1980s when it comes to the music scene. 

..Actually, the sound and music here sounds even contemporary today. It is called classic rock these days. And rightfully so.

The vocals are in Spanish and they are good. Good male vocals. There are some local Spanish folk rock influences here too. Latin rock, we can label their music.

The result is a decent enough album. I fully understand why this band is so revered in Spain. Their music deserve an audience outside Spain too.

2 points

 

 

Drifting Sun - On the Rebound (1999)

The second album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

I am this winter reviewing the few remaining Drifting Sun albums I have yet to review plus their new album. I have reviewed some others of their albums in both # 1 and # 2 of this blog. Some reviews are around ten years old. I never really got around to be more systematic back in those days. Hence the chaos...

The music here is good old neo-prog from the 1980s and early 1990s. 

There are also some art-rock and commercial 1990s rock in their sound. Some Rush influences too.

The vocals are pretty good.

The music are a bit fast to mid-tempo.

The band does a decent job on some pretty substandard music. One hour and five minutes of music which is rather forgetable and anonyme.

This is probably their least impressive album among the eight albums they have released.

2 points

 

 

Aurora Lunare - Terzo Luogo (2023)

The second and latest album from this band from Italy.

The band was a quartet on this album with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, ukulele, piano, synths and vocals.

Some guests added bouzouki, flute and vocals.

I reviewed their 2013 self-titled debut album back in April 2014 for # 1 of this blog and gave it a great rating, four points. That is because it is indeed a great album and one of the best post-millenium RPI albums.

It has taken ten years for the band to return again. That is too long !!!

We are again being treated to classic RPI with Italian vocals and good guitars.

References are in particular Le Orme again. There is also a lot of Banco and PFM references here. Add Museo Rosenbach too and you get the picture.

The music is clever and quirky. It has a great RPI feel. The vocals is great. What is missing is some more great music on this far too short album.... thirty-four minutes long.

The result is a very good album which compliments the debut album. RPI fans should have both their albums.

3.5 points

 

 

 

 

Asia Minor - Points of Libration (2020)

The third album from this band from France.

The band was a quintet on this album with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, flute and vocals.

This album came as a surprise to the scene as nobody had expected a new Asia Minor album, forty years after the release of their first two albums. Their debut album was released in 1979 and the follow up album in 1980. 

Both their two first albums are regarded as semi-classics in the symphonic prog scene. It is indeed two albums fans of this genre must have. 

How did the band follow up those two albums ?

The music on this album is a mix of Camel like symphonic prog, add in Anthony Phillips too here, and Jethro Tull like folk rock. There is indeed some folk music from Turkey here and indeed some local language vocals too. Asia Minor is what in the old days what we called the Middle East, Turkey included.

The music is really elegant throughout these fifty minutes. It has a cool, Eastern vibe too. And the music is indeed mainly symphonic prog.

The vocals is very good and the flutes gives this album a good vibe. Ditto for the guitars.

The music is also really good and this album is a good follow up to their two semi-classic first albums. It is an album that does not disgrace this band's good reputation.

3 points

 

 

Montobbio. Mauro - Scattered Memories (2024)

The debut album from this artist from Italy.

Mauro Montobbio did the bass, guitars, guitar synths, keyboards and drum programming here.

He got help from numerous guests who added drums, bass, piano, organ, keyboards, flute, saxophone and vocals.

Mauro played in the Italian bands Narrow Pass and Eris Pluvia plus added a track to the first Rome Progject album before he started to write and record this album. An album guested by Nick Magnus and many of the musicians Mauro has worked with in the RPI scene.

The music on this album is a crossover between musicals and symphonic prog. 

It is mostly a symphonic prog but some of the vocals, female vocals, takes the music well into musicals and rock opera territory.

There are also some RPI is the music here.

Most of the vocals are in English and that is a bit of a disappointment. The one song here in Italian is very good and the Italian language would have suited the music here better than the English vocals, good as they are.

The music is sweet, mellow and mid-tempo. The sound is very good.

The result is a very good one hour long album. An album which should be on a lot of top ten lists for this year.

3.5 points

Triumph - Edge Of Excess (1992)

The tenth and final album from this band from Canada.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, synths and vocals.

Two guests added guitars.

The band ended their career as a recording band with this album. They later re-emerged as a live band with their original lineup on the many rock festivals around this world after the millenium.

Rik Emmet left Triumph after their last, their ninth album and they had got a session musician to fill in for him. Gil Moore was now the only vocalist in the band, taking over from Rik Emmet's vocals too.

The band tried to follow the crowds and they went fully heavy metal here. US heavy metal. Some hard rock was retained but this is mostly a heavy metal album.

The songs are not particular good....even decent. The life had gone out of the band and I can totally understand why they called it a day after this album, the worst album of their career.

It has been nice to review all their albums, something I have wanted for many decades. I still rate Triumph as the good hard rock band they were. Fans of classic hard rock should check out their first albums.

1.5 points