Vesilinja - Merkurius (2024)

The third album from this band from Finland.

The band is a sextet with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, piano, organ, keyboards, synths, saxophones, clarinet, flute, sound effects and vocals.

The band returned for a third album.... and hopefully some more albums in the years to come.

Their two first albums had a great mix of old Finnish progressive rock, folk rock and fusion/jazz. It therefore not come as a surprise that the band continues down the same path.

The music on this album is more pastoral than the music on the first two albums. That is the biggest difference between these three albums.

The folk rock and progressive rock vibe and influences are more in the forefront on this album. That in particular on the twenty-three minutes long title track. 

Their Jethro Tull influences is pretty strong on this three quarters of an hour long album too. 

The Finnish vocals is very good and the woodwinds is really cool here. That and the piano and organ gives the album a strong organic sound.

The result is another pretty impressive album from this band and another reason why this band is one of the best, if not the best, progressive rock bands from Finland these days. This album and their firsdt two albums is really something to be enjoyed.

3 points

 

 

Amon Düül - Die Lösung (1989)

The third album from this band from Great Britain.

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

Some guests added percussion, drums, guitars, synths and vocals.

The third album from this splinter group from the German band with the same name. The third album and a new genre again.

Gone is the dream pop and most of the female vocals. It has been replaced by a mix of psych rock, post-punk and krautrock.

The band was helped by members of Ozric Tentacles and Hawkwind on this album. That also explains some of the music here. Robert Calvert is indeed the vocalist on some tracks.

The music is pretty well performed and the vocals is good. 

The quality of the music is decent enough. The songs are simply not good enough to make this more than a decent album. It is an album let down by bad songs. 

2 points

Aliante - Sul Confine (2019)

The second album from this band from Italy.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, moog and piano.

A guest delivered violin on some tracks.

It is coming up to six years since I reviewed their 2017 debut album Forme Libere in # 2 of this blog. I gave it a good rating.

The band has just released their fourth album and I therefore decided to review that album and the remaining two albums before the end of this year. 

The music here is instrumental and melodic symphonic prog. 

Camel springs to mind throughout the whole of this album. There are some cinematic rock here too. 

The tempo is mid-paced and pretty dynamic. The music is organ based throughout these fifty-three minutes worth of music.

The music is not particular exciting. This album has some good themes and pieces. The rest is not really that good.

Fans of instrumental symphonic prog and or Camel should check out this album.

2.5 points

Massois. Gerald - Demain à l'Aube (2024)

The second album from this artist from France.

Gerald Massois did the guitars and vocals here.

He had help from some guests who added drums, percussion, bass, guitars, cello, piano, organ, keyboards and narration. 

His 2018 debut album Le Vol Erratique D'un Papillon was a very good symphonic prog album with it's strong influences from both Ange and Dream Theater. Hence, I wanted a follow up album.

Gerald Massois is following up the debut album with an album inspired by both Ange and Dream Theater. Add in Genesis and Pink Floyd too and you get the drift.

We get seventy minutes worth of classic symphonic prog with French vocals and a lot of influences from both both sides of the British Channel, this narrow piece of water.

The vocals is very good and ditto for the guitars.

There is a lot of soaring, epic melodies here. There is also some more pastoral pieces here too. The variation between the more pastoral and the more epic stuff is very good.

The result is a very good album one one to enjoy if classic melodic prog is what you enjoy. In that case, this is an album for you.

3.5 points

 

 

 

Asfalto - Al Otro Lado (1978)

The third album from this band from Spain.

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

The band more or less broke up after their second album, their real debut album as their debut album was a The Beatles covers album, and the future of the band was in doubts. A member from the Uruguay band Psiglo saved the day as he had fled to Spain from the military dictatorships of first Uruguay and then Argentina. He, Garcia Banegas, was in search for a civilized society.... and a band he could join.

I like Psiglo a lot and his inclusion in Asfalto turned the band around and gave them a new lease of life.

The music on Al Otro Lado is indeed pretty prog rock orientated.

There are still some mainstream rock music here. Some Elton John like rockers and a ballad or two. But there are also some Yes like prog rock pieces of music here. The eleven minutes long title track is a nice piece of Yes inspired progressive rock.

The Spanish vocals is really good and the musicians does a good job indeed. There are some good guitar and organ solos here.

I am positive surprised by this album. It has a lot of prog and a lot of style. The quality is good throughout and this is one of the better 1970s Spanish prog rock albums.

3 points

Tusmørke - Nordisk Krim (2021)

The eight album from this band from Norway.

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

Every time I open up an album from this band, I wonder if the music will be good or hell. Too many albums has been hell up to now.

Their discography has been wildly uneven, in other words.

This time around, we get a double album, eighty-two minutes worth of music.

The music is psych rock with some strong space rock and folk rock influences. There are also an electronica avant-garde piece here who does not do much other than serving as a break so the listener can make some coffee/tea/water. Or go to the toilet. That is the only reason I can see for that electronica bit.

The vocals are all in English despite of the Nowegian album title. The music is pretty mature and there is none of this wild Daevid Allen like stuff you get on some of their other albums. This album gives us some serious sounding music. No humour here.

The vocals is good but some of the material is on the more anonymous side and pretty pedestrian. Despite of that, this is still a good album. Not as good as I wanted it to be, but still a good album. The flutes, organ sound and the folk rock influences are this album's saving grace.

This is an album well worth checking out if Scandinavian psych and folk rock is your thing.

3 points

 

 

 

Soluna - Energia Natural (1977)

 The one and only album from this band from Argentina.

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

Some guests added percussion, accordion, cello, violin and keyboards.

Argentina is a country far away from both USA and Great Britain, the two main markets when it comes to music. It still has a great scene. A scene going back to the early 1970s. 

Soluna is a spin off band of the Argentina prog band Arco Iris. 

Some of the Arco Iris members wanted to do a more folk rock album and the result was this band and album. 

Folk rock it is. There is still a lot of progressive rock on this album too and the music is therefore progressive folk rock. That complete with a lot of Latin rock influences and Argentine folk music influences.

The vocals and the vocal harmonies are in Spanish. Both of them are very good. There are indeed a lot of vocal harmonies on this forty minutes long album. The music is pretty gentle and pastoral.

This is a charming album indeed and somewhere between decent and good. This is an album fans of progressive folk rock and or folk rock should check out.

2.5 points

Sixty Nine - Circle Of The Crayfish (1973)

 

The one and only album from this band from Germany.

The band was a duo with a lineup of gongs, drums, percussion, guitar, synths, organs, keyboards and vocals.

This band was a short lived band who released this album and a live album the following year. None of the albums sold well.

The music here is a mix of ELP like symphonic prog and krautrock. 

There is indeed a lot of krautrock here with all the eccentric electronic sounds. Tangerine Dreams like electronic prog pops up on a track on this three quarters of an hour long album.

The material is a bit uneven in quality. From the rather good Nice/ELP inspired pieces here to the a bit sub-standard avant-garde electronic stuff. 

The music is also a bit all over the placed and unhinged. The band crammed in a lot of various expressions on this album. 

The sound is decent and ditto for the instruments and the vocals. This is a pretty interesting crossover album between symphonic prog and krautrock though. 

In it's own right, this is a decent album and well worth checking out.

2 points

 

Gunerius & Verdensveven - Isolasjon (2024)

The fifth album from this band from Norway.

The band was a trio with a lineup of percussion, bass, guitars, electronics and narration.

This name-your-price Bandcamp album is a bit special. It is four times twenty-two minutes long tracks split into two. Hence tracks a and b. To play this album as the band has intended, you need two audio systems (!!) where you play tracks a as the same time as you play tracks b. And this has to be syncronised down to the hundreds of a second.

Very few has the possibility to do this. That unless you have two big computers in play. But who would be bothered about doing that ? 

The music is in any case avant-garde electronic psych rock. There is some Amon Duul like guitars here and the whole album reminds me a lot about an Amon Duul album. 

The music is pretty decent at times but it really never become more than a half decent album. The music is not particular interesting or exciting.

Those of you who has two audio systems and are bothered about merging up tracks a and b on the systems may be interested. For those of us with one system.... well, it is a name-your-price album. That is it's only saving grace.

1.5 points

 

 

Vesilinja - Myrskyn Keskellä (2022)

The second album from this band from Finland.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, piano, organ, synths, flute, clarinet, saxophones and vocals.

This is the follow up album to their self-titled 2021 debut album. A good debut album, indeed.

This band has taken on board the Finnish prog rock and jazz/fusion sounds and bands from the 1970s and made their own version of this inheritance. Hence the good debut album. 

The band has moved slightly towards progressive rock and folk rock on this album. Jethro Tull, Finnforest and Wigwam is good references. But there are still a lot of references to Tasavallan Presidentti too here. Both through the saxophones and the guitars.

The Finnish male vocals is good and the guitars is very good. The saxophones is adding a lot of textures and colours to the music.

There is a lot of good details on this forty minutes long album. It has a nice, warm Scandinavian sound. 

It is indeed both a well crafted album and a good album. 

This is a band that has taken up the baton from classic bands from Finland and is running with it. The result is this good album.

3 points

 

 

Melting Clock - Altrove (2024)

The second album from this band from Italy.

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

This is the follow up album to their very good 2019 debut album. 

It has taken them five years to release the follow up. A world wide pandemic, which hit Italy very hard, may be the reason for parts of this long break.

The debut album was a classic RPI album. It was true to the good old 1970s RPI sound and ideas. 

Altrove continues down the same path with, again, some superb female vocals from Emanuela Vedana. 

The music is mid-tempo to pastoral. There is a lot of piano and keyboards here. The music has some folk rock and pop influences.... just as the music from the likes of Banco and PFM also had. 

The Italian vocals also gives this three quarters of an hour long album a lot of elegance too.

The music is very beautiful and very good throughout this album.

The result is another very good album from this band who surely must now be regarded as one of the best new RPI bands.

Get this album.

3.5 points

 

 

 

 

Protos - The Infinite Horizon (2024)

The third album from this band from Great Britain.

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

A guest added drums.

This album was recorded and then one of the members of the band, the guitarist Stephen Anscombe, passed on. Rory Didley-Duff, the sole remaining member, released this album in his memory.

As with the two first albums, the music here is a mix of symphonic prog, cinematic rock and neo-classical music.

The music is both elegant and melodic. It has some folk rock influences too. 

The keyboards and electronic generated strings and other sounds is the main instruments here. The guitars are playing more a secondary role on this forty minutes long album.

Despite of this, the music sounds pretty organic and not so dissimilar to ELP and Camel. There is still a lot of Mike Oldfield in their music too.

Fans of these three bands/artists should check out this album and their first two album.

This album is an OK'ish album.

2.5 points

 

 

Wilson. Steven - The Raven That Refused to Sing (2013)

The third album from this artist from Great Britain.

Steven Wilson did the bass, guitars, mellotron, keyboards and vocals on this album.

He got help from some guests who added percussion, drums, bass, chapman stick, guitars, strings, piano, mini-moog, organ, synths, woodwinds and vocals.

Steven Wilson returned after the successful Grace For Drowning album. An album voted as the best album by some magazines that year. 

Art-rock and psych-rock is again the musical expression. Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree looms large on the list of influences.

The songs almost got a hymn feel with a lot of space and oxygene given to each instrument and indeed.... tone.

The music is elegant and the vocals is very good. The music is indeed classy and has some really cool details.

The result is a very good album from this maestro of modern progressive rock. It is an album well worth purchasing for everyone into progressive rock.

3.5 points

Tangerine Dream - Rubycon (1975)

The sixth album from this band from Germany.

The band was a trio with a lineup of gong, guitar, organ, piano, moog, mellotron and synths.

I am again dipping my toes into a genre I find deeply unimpressive. But I have commited myself to review a dozen or so Tangerine Dream albums and I am sticking to the task. So if you love this genre and this band.... look away now.

This album consists of two tracks, Rubycon I and Rubycon II. Both are just under eighteen minutes long.

Part I is surprisingly organic with a lot of things going on at the end of this track. Some of it is really good too.

Part I runs into Part II without a break or stop. The music is not as organic and varied in the beginning. After some drone parts, the music becomes more brighter and lighter at the end.

The final half of Part I is by far the best piece of music here. The rest is decent enough and this makes this album sitting somewhere between decent and good. I am still not won over....

2.5 points

Náttúra - Magic Key (1972)

The one and only album from this band from Iceland.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, organ, piano, moog, flute and vocals.

This album is normally being referred to as the more famous Icelandic band Trubrot's fifth album. Nevertheless, this was released under the Nattura name and it is only right for me to use this name.

I have reviewed a couple of Trubrot albums around twelve years ago in # 1 of this blog. I gave them good ratings.

The music on this forty minutes long album is a mix of most of the popular genres back in 1972. 

The album starts with a lively, jazz inspired rock tune which comes complete with female English vocals. A catchy, quite good song which I guess got good radio airplay back then. That if Icelandic radio broadcasted popular music. The guitar solo on this track is good indeed.

We also get some progressive rock and fusion instrumentals before some male vocals also arrives during this album.

There is a lot of good organ, guitars and moog on this album in addition to the vocals.

The result is a lively, decent album well worth checking out. It is an album not shaming Iceland, to put it like that. 

2 points

National Diet - The Noon Hour (2022)

The debut album from this band from USA.

The band was a duo with a lineup of drums, percussion, theremin, guitars, mandolin, synths and vocals.

A dozen of guests added bass, viola, trumpet and saxophones.

This band consists of members from Mercury Rev and Rainbow Face, two pretty famous bands.

I got this album on it's release but did not have the courage to review it back then as I did not really understand the music here.

I am always a bit sceptical to albums labeled "RIO Avant-Garde". This album is and that is not entirely correct.

Take art-rock and some singer/songwriter rock. Add in some Peter Hamill solo stuff and some grungy psych rock. 

There are some mad, unhinged saxophones and trumpets on a couple of tracks on this three quarters of an hour long album and the rhythms is a bit all over the place. Ditto for the decent vocals.

The music is a bit on the unremarkable side of the spectrum and that does not make for a good listening experience.

Unremarkable is what my main impression is. This is not a bad album at all. It is indeed a decent album who fails to really hit a home run.

2 points

Verge. The - The Verge (2024)

 

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

Norway has seen a lot of new jazz/fusion bands during the last five years. This growth is the result of the now public jazz high schools and universities in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim.

Hence this new noisy rackett.

The Verge attacks the listener from the first second with a full frontal assault of saxophones and guitars. 

Some of the music is pretty atonal. None of the music is particular easy listening. This quartet is not pussy footing around. 

The music is indeed dissonant avant-garde jazz. 

There is method in this madness, this forty minutes long full frontal assault on the listener. The music is indeed good and has a lot of very interesting details.

The result is a good album. An album which is a good addition to the Norwegian scene but who may be a bridge too far into jazzland for a lot of prog rock fans. Nevertheless, check it out.

3 points

 

Vesilinja - Vesilinja (2021)

The debut album from this band from Finland.

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

This band has so far released three albums. The latest one earlier this year. I will review the two remaining albums later this month.

This band were formed to play and then later compose retro-progressive rock.

Hence, the music has a lot of Camel, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator influences here. 

The band is also playing homage to the first Finnish prog and jazz bands from the 1970s on this album. The saxophones is everywhere and reminds me a lot about those pioneers of the Finnish scene.

In short, the music here is a mix of good old early prog and fusion. That with a great deal of folk rock influences.

The Finnish vocals from the two vocalists are good and ditto for the sound. The sound is very warm. Not a bad thing on a cold day in the autumn in my office....

This album is three quarters of an hour long and the quality is good throughout. This is more than an acceptable debut album. Fans of early prog and prog rock from Scandinavia should check out this album.

3 points

Melting Clock - Destinazioni (2019)

The debut album from this band from Italy.

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

Three guests added percussion, cello, violin and flute. 

This is a new band on the Italian scene and they released their second album earlier this year. An album I will review later this week for this blog.

The band was an RPI cover band in their earlier years, covering Genesis and the classic Italian bands songs. Then they started to write their own material. Black Widows Records did a very smart thing by signing them.

The band is fronted by a female vocalist, Emanuela Vedana, who does a great job here and whose vocals is a perfect fit for their music.

Music which is classic RPI with a lot of Genesis and some King Crimson and Yes influences incorporated too.

The music on this one hour long album is very complex at times. It is indeed symphonic with some medium long songs ending with the quarter of an hour closing title track/opus.

The music is also melodic and features the Italian pop and folk rock sensibilities from the 1970s.

There is lots of lots of interesting details here and RPI fans will get their boots full with this album.

The overall quality is also very good and there is no doubts that this album and band is a great addition to the RPI scene. A scene that just continues to deliver. A great scene indeed.

3.5 points

Weather Systems - Ocean Without A Shore (2024)

The debut album from this band from Great Britain.

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

Some guests added male and female vocals.

This band is David Cardoso and Daniel Kavanagh from the now defunkt Anathema. 

The comparissons will be made with the final two Anathema albums and that is a natural assumptions. And that assumption is not far of the mark.

The music is in the same area, art-rock and psych-rock with some Pink Floyd influences and a lot of vocal harmonies. Some of the vocals is also distorted through vocoders.

The vocal harmonies is done with both male and female vocals.

There is also a lot of keyboards and guitar harmonies plus some guitar solos.

The music is mainly floating around and has a big, bold sound.

The sound is good and the music on this one hour long album is good too. 

This is a more than acceptable debut album and I hope we will hear a lot more from this band in the future.

3 points

Amon Düül - Meetings With Menmachines Inglorious Heroes Of The Past (1984)

The second album from this band from Great Britain.

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

The Great Britain splinter group of the two Amon Duul's returned with their second album. 

The first album was improvised krautrock. This, the follow up album is something totally different again.

The music reminds me about the Scottish band Beggar's Opera and their transformation into a dream pop band.

Dream pop with female vocals is what we get here. Power pop is almost a better label as the music has some punk influences. A lot of them, in fact. There is no connection between this album and the debut album.

There are some decent instrumental and male vocals krautrock here too. But most of it is female vocals dominated power pop.

The result is a half-decent album and one best forgotten. 

I am not impressed.

1.5 points

 

 

Aurora Clara - Transformation (2019)

The debut album from this band from Spain.

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

Three guests added congas, percussion, violin and cajon.

This band is a new name to me. They have just released their fourth album and I got that one and their three first albums too. Hence.... I will review them all this autumn and winter.

This band has embraced the gifts given to us by Mahavishnu Orchestra and the other guitar based fusion bands. There is a lot of smoking hot guitars on this album.

The guitarist here Raul Mannola is perhaps not up there among the elite guitarists like for example John McLaughlin... but he still have some impressive guitar solos and licks on this album.

The second big solo instrument here is the flutes. There are some really smoking hot flute solos here from Juan Carlos Aracil.

All of this is backed up by some very good performances by the rest of the band too. 

This one hour long album is indeed a smoking hot fusion album. There are more jazz here than rock, though. That is not a problem but I still just wanted to mention it.

Not everything here is great but there is enough here to put this band on my list of favourite bands from Spain. This is indeed a very good debut album and I hope the three other albums are as good as this one.

A new star in my universe has been born.

3.5 points

Nascita Della Sfera - Per Una Scultura Di Ceschia (1978)

The one and only album from this band/project from Italy.

The band/project was a nine piece big band/project with a lineup of percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, synths, saxophones, flutes, effects and vocals.

I have had this album hanging around on my to-review list for over ten years. I have not been brave enough to review it before now....... That says something about this album.....

This is a concept album based on the work and life of the Italian sculptor Luciano Ceschia. The project's orginator was Carlo Barbieri who composed this album and then invited some guests to record this piece of music.

This piece of music was released as a private pressing LP before being picked up by a record label who later gave it a proper release on CD. Double CD, in fact, taking us to eigthy minutes of music.

The music is very minimalistic folk rock with some electronica and a lot of avant-garde music. 

The music sounds chaotic and is indeed chaotic. The is indeed a chaotic album which does not make much sense.

This album has some historical value and is quite a quaint sounding album. There is not many pieces of flowing music here and the quality is not good at all.

The quality is only half decent and it is almost impossible to listen to this whole eighty minutes long album in one go. I had some really big problems with that. Hence, I have many times given up reviewing this album before I finally made an effort this week and finally got my head around this album.

1.5 points

 

 

 

Narcís Miranda - Els Càtars (2003)

The one and only album from this artist from Spain.

Narcis Miranda did the guitars, piano, synths and vocals.

He had help from four guests who did drums, bass, guitars and backing vocals.

This is a new artist to me and I got this album recommended by some friends from Barcelona in the Catalan region of Spain.

The music here is a mix of rock and Catalan folk rock. Catalan folk music is also well represented on this one hour long album.

There is also a fine mix of rockers and more pastoral ballads on this album.

The vocals are good and the result is a decent enough folk rock influences middle of the road rock album.  

2 points

Bitu - Bitu (2024)

 

The debut album from this one-man-band from Norway.

Bitu is Anders Bitustoyl on bass, guitars, synths, programming, backing vocals and narrations.

He had help from two guests who provided drums, percussion and female vocals.

Anders has worked with a lot of local musicians in the Telemark area before he went his own way with Bitu and this album. A project which is a side project from his dayjob as a musician and song-writer for other artists.

The record label Appollon Records has described the music on this album as instrumental pop. I am not sure what they mean here...

The music here comes across as a mix of folk music, jazz, cinematic rock and electronica.

The music is instrumental with some wailing female vocals and a speach, a piece of narration, at the end of this forty minutes long album. There are some flutes and guitars who sounds very folk music and jazz.

The music sounds like scetches and drawings more than the music sounds like finished pieces of music. There are a lot of ideas here who could have been developed into some far better pieces of music. And I guess Anders will later on go back to some of the music here and develop them into proper songs and/or pieces of music.

These forty minutes is decent enough, barely decent enough but nothing more than that. If this sounds great to you, this album is available as CD, LP and Bandcamp/Amazon download.

2 points

Sleeping Pandora - Solar Island (2023)

The 11th album from this one-man-band from Germany.

Mathias Rosman did all the guitars and electronics here.

This is so far the latest Sleeping Pandora album. 

All the previous ten albums has been pretty similar to each other. Gentle picking on the guitar strings on some space rock and ambient themes. Some albums has had more electronics and use of the echos function than other albums. Some albums has also had better melodies and melody pieces than other albums.

There is not much difference and variations between the ten, make that eleven albums as Solar Island is in the same tradition as the ten first albums.

Eighty minutes of gentle finger picking on the guitar with a lot of echoes and some electronics. The music is ambient space rock too.

The music is decent enough and this album does not deliver any surprises.

If gentle space rock is your thing, these eleven albums is something for you. If you want some more actions and variations, Sleeping Pandora is not something for you.

Solar Island is a decent enough album and just that. Decent.

2 points

Protos - The Noble Pauper's Grave (2007)

The second album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a trio with a lineup of guitar, cello, keyboards and programming.

This album was released twenty-five years after their debut album One Day A New Horizon. The band has just released their new, third album. Hence, this band has some productivity issues......

Their debut album had some symph prog and neo-classical music in the vein of Camel, Mike Oldfield and Steve Hackett.

On the follow up album The Noble Pauper's Grave, the band has scaled back a bit. The music is now largely only neo-classical music.

Mike Oldfield is a big influence on this album and fans of his music should indeed check out this album.

This one hour long album is also very much influenced by old classic English music and some celtic folk rock. 

The music is organic with some programmed flutes and other classical orchestra instruments. There is also some keyboards pretty high in the mix. The sound still has this organic feel. A bit of a chamber orchestra feel and sound.

The music is very pedestrian and not particular good. This album is not a bad album though and it is worth checking out if Mike Oldfield floats your boat.

2 points

Raven Sad - Polar Human Circle (2024)

The fifth album from this band from Italy.

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

Raven Sad is one of those non-RPI bands from Italy I really like. I have given their first four albums good reviews in # 1-3 of this blog and in ProgArchives. So I jumped on the chance to review their brand new album.

The band started out as a psych rock band and then moved on to a more art-rock territory.

The music on this one hour long album is indeed a mix of art-rock and psych rock. There is also some neo-prog influences here.

Good references are Pink Floyd and in particular Marillion. Raven Sad comes across as a crossbreed between these two bands.

The music is both flowing and elegant. The music is in mid-tempo with a lot of both keyboards and guitars. The vocals is good.

There is no real killer track on this album. Nevertheless, this is a good album and well worth checking out if you like Marillion and art-rock.

3 points

 

 

Motorpsycho - Behind The Sun (2014)

The 18th album from this band from Norway.

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

A handful of guests added saw, guitars, violin, viola, piano and mellotron.

You never know what you get when you open up a Motorpsycho album. The band knows how to surprise, and indeed, entertain the listener with their unpredictability.

This time around, we get almost an hour mix of garage rock, psych rock, power pop and space rock. 

Yes, that is the normal Motorpsycho formula and sound. It is a sound and music that is unique to this band. It is their trademark.

There is a lot of noise here, mostly created by guitars and vocals.

The pieces of music here, the melodies, are very quirky. Ditto for the vocals.

Somehow, they are working and this chaos sometimes has some outbreaks of really good melodies and good pieces of music.

The result is a good album and an album well within the Motorpsycho tradition. This is an album you can start with if you have never heard anything from this band before. The music is not pretty, but it works.

3 points

 

 

Triumph - Allied Forces (1981)

The fifth album from this band from Canada.

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

A female vocalist added vocals on one track.

Gil Moore, Mike Leavine and Rik Emmet soldiered on in a career that gave them a couple of platinum albums and some gold records. A couple of songs from this records made it into top twenty on the single charts.

We are again being treated to American hard rock. There are some arena rock influences here too. But most of it is hard rock.

There are some slower stuff here too and some rather catchy songs. The hard rock is also pretty catchy.

The music is hard but it never really transfer into being heavy metal. Something that became a bit of a problem around the emergence of the likes of Iron Maiden and the new heavy metal scene from England.

The music is pretty intelligent and smart. Triumph knew their trade and their audience. They still have a good fanbase. A lot of these fans was not even born when the album was released.

This is a decent album and one hard rock fans should and must check out.

2 points

Mangrove - Beyond Reality (2009)

The third album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

I had some high hopes for this album as the 2005 album Facing The Sunset was a very good symphonic prog album. 

The bombastic opening of this album, Beyond Reality, gave me some really hopes for this album.

The symphonic prog is soon replaced by some pomp rock and that is the genre we get on this seventy minutes long album.

The vocals is OK'ish but never really any good.

The music is a bit too sugary and sweet. It is slow to mid-tempo too.

The album recovers and become rather good at the end with a couple of good pieces of melodies. The middle part of this album is rather decent but never good.

The result is a disappointment and a decent to good album. This album is their weakest album and with a good margin. The rest of their albums are good and this band is a recommended band.

2.5 points

 

 

Mandragore - À Revivre Le Futur... (1990)

The one and only album from this band from France.

The band was a one-man-band where Michel Altmayer (Troll) did the keyboards, electronics and programming.

Michel was a member of the zeuhl band Troll before he started his own record label and released this album. 

The music is a mix of instrumental symphonic prog and cinematic prog. There is a lot of neo-classical music influences here too.

The themes are electronica generated although most of the music has a pretty organic sound. 

The music is both elegant and majestic. It is a pretty sounding three quarters of an hour long album. 

The details and the music is decent enough. Decent but never good or any form for testing the brain and being stimulating. The music is not muzak but it is not far away from that genre.

Nice and decent.... That is this album in a nutshell.

2 points

Old Cecil - A Tale Of Times Before (2024)

The debut album from this one-man-band from Northern Ireland. 

This is Chris from the indie band One Stop Away's solo project and he did the guitars, bass, keyboards, drum programming and the vocals here.

I found this album by trawling through some webpages. As I got fond memories from my time in Northern Ireland and is now living just across the water from this beautiful province, I picked up this album for a review.

This is a concept album about Viking invasions of Northern Ireland and/or the British Isles. 

The music is somewhere between the singer/songwriter tradition, folk rock, neo-prog and psych rock.

Jethro Tull is not a bad comparison here.There is also some pretty good Pink Floyd influences here.

The music is vocals driven. The vocals is a bit dark but also very good. The story on this concept album is well told through the vocals. The guitars are good and the organ produces some very good melody lines at times.

The music has some strange twists and turns which adds a lot of quality to this forty minutes long Bandcamp album.

There are some good melodies and pieces of music here. So much that I regard Chris as a talented storyteller and musician. We want more of the same, in other words.

This is indeed a good debut album and one to check out if mellow prog rock is your thing. 

3 points

 

Sleeping Pandora - Crystal Disc (2022)

The tenth album from this one-man-band from Germany.

Mathias Rosman did all the guitars and electronics here.

Mathias is celebrating his tenth album anniversary with a more space rock themed album.

There has been a lot of synths on the Sleeping Pandora albums. They have been supporting the guitars which is the main instrument throughout these ten albums. That is gentle picking on the guitar strings.

Crystal Disc sees Mathias scaling back on the electronics. He is here going for a largely clean guitar album.

There are some sporadic subtle use electronics here. But most of the music is performed by gentle picking the guitar strings and creating some echoes and reverbs with the pedals.

The pieces of music is also better and the overall quality has improved a lot from the previous albums. It seems like the best ideas and melodies has been saved for this anniversary album.

The result is his best album and a good space rock album. This is the album you should start with when it comes to the eleven Sleeping Pandora albums.

3 points

 

 

Protos - One Day A New Horizon (1982)

The debut album from this band from Great Britain.

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

This band has released three albums and they are all up for reviews in this blog before the end of the year.

The band has just released their third album and that is a good excuse to review their first two albums before I review this year's album.

The music here is a mix of symphonic prog and neo-prog. All of it is instrumental. Their three albums is all instrumental, as far as I gather.

The music is melodic and symphonic. It comes across as a blend of Camel, Mike Oldfield and Steve Hackett. 

The sound is pretty good throughout.

The music is decent enough without really impressing me. This album is like a run-of-the-mill instrumental symphonic prog album and it is bereft of any originality or personality.

This is therefore a decent album but nothing more than that.

2 points

 

 

Donner - The Van Gennep Gap (2024)

The second album from this one-man-band from Norway.

Donner is Jacob Holm-Lupo (White Willow etc etc) on percussion, bass, guitars, synths, samples and electronics.

He had help from some guests who added trumpet, guitars and flute.

I think I got the first Donner album and had a brief listen before I decided a review did not fit this blog. I may have been wrong in that respect and I may dig it out of my record collection later on for a review.

Jacob is mostly known from White Willow. Lately, he has been doing some more ambient projects in addition to being a producer of a lot of albums. 

This album gives us a mix of more electronica ambient music and cinematic rock. Forty minutes of this blend, to be more precise.

There is some tasty trumpets here on the top of some programming and electronic wizardry. 

The tempo is slow to mid-paced and the music is pretty dynamic and varied. There is some pretty good melodies here too.

As a soundscape, this album is working pretty well. The music is really relaxing and nice on the ear. It even have some good details too.

The result is an album somewhere between decent and good. It is an album electronic prog fans should check out.

2.5 points

 

Asfalto - Asfalto (1978)

The second album from this band from Spain.

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

Asfalto was a pretty big band in Spain who released thirteen albums between 1976 and 2017. They may still be around. I intend to review their albums, minus the Beatles covers debut album who has no value, this winter and spring.

I know next to nothing about this band other than they were a band from Spain who deserve more respect and attention. I also got their albums too.

As their debut album was a nasty sounding and cheap The Beatles cover album with Spanish vocals, this album here is really their debut album. 

The music here is rock, classic straight forward rock with Spanish male vocals.

There are some good guitars and the rhythm section does a good job.

The songs are nothing special but you can hear that the band are talented. The band has been let down by the quality of the songs on this album. It is still a decent album and well worth checking out.

2 points

Tusmørke - Leker For Barn, Ritualer For Voksne (2019)

The seventh album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, glockenspiel, bass, guitars, piano, organ, mellotron, clavinet, synths, children choir and vocals.

Huh ? 

The band returned again after their pretty decent 2018 album Fjernsyn I Farver. An album which was substantial improvement on their previous album Bydyra. 

Leker For Barn is basically some male vocals on the top of a children choir performing nursery rhymes and nursery games. All the vocals are in Norwegian.

There is some very short jazzy interludes on this three quarters of an hour long album. But mostly everything here is nursery rhymes performed with a children choir.

The musical qualities here is zero, nill and absolute a waste of time. That unless you are between 2 - 6 years old. Which I am not and I doubt anyone reading these lines are.

This album is in short a big feathered turkey. Avoid at all cost.

1 point

Nan Madol - Feathered Serpent (2015)

The one and only album from this band from Norway.

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

This band was a short lived band from Trondheim most famous for the drummer who also handled the vocals. Something still pretty rare.

The music on this album is hard rock with some prog rock and some stoner rock influences. Tool and Mastodon is two good references.

The music is hard throughout these fifty-five minutes. The tempo is a mix of fast and mid-tempo. There is some muddy guitars along the way. But most of the guitars are clear enough and there is some pretty decent guitar solos here too.

The vocals are good enough for this type of music. The vocals are pretty grungy and beefy.

The music is decent enough throughout this album. It never becomes good and the lack of quality explains why this album is a pretty obscure and forgotten album. It still deserve to be heard, though.

2 points

 

Nadma - Paura (2006)

The second and final album from this band from Italy.

The band was a nine piece big band with a lineup of drums, bass, percussion, guitars, strings, woodwinds and voices.

This album is a live album, recorded in Milan in March 1973.

The band has released a studio album too and that one is from 1973. I cannot really say this live album gave me much appetite for that album so I will not get it or review it.

The music on this seventy minutes long live album is chaotic improvisations and aural assaults on the listeners ears and minds. The sound is poor too.

This album is bordering on being unlistenable. It is bordering on being noise and not music. Well, is it music ? It is a turkey, indeed.

Avoid this abysmal bad album.

1 point

Alphataurus - 2084: Viaggio Nel Nulla (2024)

The fourth album from this band from Italy.

The band is a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, piano, organ, synths, flute and vocals.

This is another band from Italy I thought had released their final album years ago and whose new album came as a big, big surprise.

The band album debuted in 1973 without much commercial success. So they released their second album in 1992 and the third one in 2012. And I thought that was it from this band.

Their first three albums are all good RPI albums. That in the classic RPI style in the vein of Banco and PFM.  

This year's album is a forty minutes long album in the classic RPI vein, complete with male Italian vocals and some good flutes, organs, guitars and synths generated mellotrons.

The sound is both contempory and classic RPI from the 1970s. The vocals is really good.

A couple of better songs is the only missing thing here on this good album. The band's four albums are all good and it is only fair and correct to give this band credit for being a classic RPI band. 

This album makes an RPI fan's heart beat faster.... and better.

3 points

 

 

 

Spidergawd - Spidergawd VII (2023)

The seventh album from this band from Norway.

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

Two guests added saxophone and vocals.

This is so far the latest album as it was released in November last year.

The first five albums was pretty varied as the band was following in the footsteps of Motorpsycho, a band they are still sharing the drummer with.

Spidergawd VI saw the band taking a more heavy hard rock route. This complete with twin guitars.

The band is still on that path. There are some psych and blues influences here as this album is not so full on hard rocking as the Spidergawd VI was.

There are also a drop in the quality of the song writing here. The music on this forty minutes long album is not that good.

The result is an album somewhere between decent and good. This is still a good band and I intent to review their upcoming albums, if the band continues to release music... which they should do.

2.5 points

Mangrove - Facing The Sunset (2005)

The second album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

The band returned again one year after their debut album Touch Wood.

Touch Wood was a pretty good album somewhere between symphonic prog and neo-prog. Pendragon was a good reference on that album.

Facing The Sunset sees the band moving a lot more towards symphonic prog. The songs are around ten minutes or longer. 

The songs are also bold and epic too. In particular the opening title track which is some of the best thing this band has ever written and recorded. It is a great fifteen minutes long epic song.

The rest of the album, the remaining three songs, is good to very good. The closing twenty minutes long epic Hidden Dreams is a good epic.

This one hour long album has some good vocals and some very good guitars. It is altogether a very good album and one of the better post-millenium prog albums from The Netherlands.

Check it out.

3.5 points

Blacksmith Tales - Pathway to Hamlet's Mill (2024)

The second album from this band from Italy.

The band is a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, piano, keyboards, synths and vocals.

The band is back again after a three years long pause. 

I reviewed their 2021 debut album The Dark Presence back in 2021 for # 2 of this blog. That album had a mix of neo-prog, pomp rock and RPI.

The band continues down the same path on this, the follow up album. The music is again a mix of pomp rock, neo-prog and RPI.

Most of the music is bombastic pomp rock with some goth rock influences. There is also plenty of neo-prog here and one RPI song.

The vocals are both male and female. There is one Italian vocals song here and the rest are in English.

Some of the music sounds cheesy and a bit over the top. That RPI song is very good though. More of those on the third album, please..... 

The pomp rock bits are cheesy, bombastic and good. The songs on this forty-five minutes long album is indeed well crafted and therefore good. 

Beware of the cheese... but check out this good album.

3 points

 

 

Wilson. Steven - Grace for Drowning (2011)

The second album from this artist from Great Britain.

Steven Wilson did the gong, percussion, glockenspiel, autoharp, harmonium, bass, guitars, piano, keyboards, synths, programming and vocals.

Numerous guests added drums, bass, guitars, chapman sticks, strings, woodwinds and choir.

Steven Wilson is one of the leading lights in the progressive rocks in the last thirty years. So it did not come as a surprise that he went solo after finishing and closing down Porcupine Tree.

His debut album was pretty good. 

On the two discs, eighty-three minutes long On Grace For Drowning, the music is a mix of art-rock, cinematic rock and alternative rock. 

The music is softly spoken and gentle throughout. It is also elegant and at times beautiful. Melancholic, it is too.

The emphasis is feelings here and not so much technical brilliance. 

The result is a very good album indeed and well worth checking out.

3.5 points

 

 

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (1974)

The fifth album from this band from Germany.

The band was a trio with a lineup of bass, guitar, mellotron, organ, electric piano, keyboards, synths, electronics and flute.

The band continued on with the late Edgar Froese on the helm.

The band is rightly regarded as the forefathers and originators of the electronic prog and electronica genres. Hence my reviews of some of their albums this autumn and winter. Not all of them, though..

We get forty minutes of electronics here where the title track takes half of the album, side A on the LP, I believe. 

The title track is a pretty dynamic piece of music with some mellotron and most of the instruments listed above in full action. 

The second piece of music has a lot of echoes and mellotron. That is bordering to a good piece of music.

The rest of the album is decent enough.

This is not an album that has converted me to become a fan of this electronic prog genre. Nevertheless, this is a decent enough album.

2 points

Needlepoint - Remnants of Light (2024)

The sixth album from this band from Norway.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of glockenspiel, drums, percussion, congas, bass, fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, guitars, clavinet, organ, piano, moog, keyboards, synths, flute and vocals.

Three guests added clarinet and vocals.

This band has got a very good reputation as the leading Canterbury scene band from Norway. 

Their first albums was indeed very influenced by the likes of Caravan etc etc. 

The band has been more on a journey on the last two albums.

There is still a lot of Caravan in their music. There is also some Egg and The Tangent (first albums) in their music. Nevertheless, there is also some more indie-rock and indie-pop here.

The music is still quirky and has got a lot of jazz influences. The music is also pretty naive in it's form and in the vocals.

The vocals is very good and the band does a good job on some not so complicated pieces of music.

The quality of the music is also good throughout these forty minute and the band has therefore lived up to the expectations from me and other admirers.

This is an album and a band well worth checking out.

3 points

 

 

Kanaan & Ævestaden - Langt, Langt Vekk (2024)

The debut album from this co-operation between these two bands from Norway.

This cooperation is a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, kraviklyre, harp, fiddle, kantele, mouth harp, electronics and vocals.

Kanaan is a well known psych rock band who has released seven albums so far. All of them reviewed here. Ævestaden is a folk music trio who has released three albums so far.

So those two bands decided to merge for this album.

The result is........ Weird.

We get a mix of pastoral psalms, hard psych rock and basic folk music here. 

Thankfully, the music does not sound forced or comes across as a carcrash, a crash between widely diverse music styles and genres. Each genres get their space to breathe and where there is synergies, the music is merging the genres. 

There is a lot of musical synergies on this three quarters of an hour long album. 

There is also a lot of very good vocals, male and female, and guitars here. And the pieces of music is good too. So much that I have been turned around from being negative to this album after the first listening session to really liking this album some hours later.

There is something remarkable about this album.... how the two bands avoid stepping on each other toes and how they manages to create a coherent piece of music.... this album which really is one piece of music and not a collection of songs/pieces of music.

I am actually impressed. 

Not everything here is great. Nevertheless, this is a very good album and one to check out. It is probably the most eclectic and genre defying album from Norway this year.

3.5 points

 

Otrere - Odyssey of Agony (2024)

The debut album from this band from Germany.

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

This is a new band on the doom metal scene and they comes from the eastern parts of Germany. 

This is a Bandcamp album, also available on CD and LP.

The music here is doom metal with some goth and black metal influences.

The vocals is both clear and more raspy, black metal'ish vocals.

The music is medium slow without really becoming fast. There is a lot of goth metal here too. There is also some My Dying Bride and early Anathema influences.

The sound is good and the music is pretty decent.

There is a lot of bands now on this doom metal scene and only the future will tell if the band will survive and release any more albums.

2 points

Spidergawd - Spidergawd VI (2021)

The sixth album from this band from Norway.

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

Two guests added saxophone and vocals.

This band's first five albums were pretty varied. Pretty varied takes on the theme "hard rock", that is. From blues influenced hard rock to more psych and Motorpsycho influenced hard rock.

Their music has always been hard, though. So what would Spidergawd VI bring to the table ?

The band has gotten a second guitarist. The result is twin guitars in the vein of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. The vocals is decent although they are the weakest point of the band.

The music is indeed heavy metal influenced. Nevertheless, the music is not heavy metal although the music is at times a bit heavy. 

This is still a take on the good old 1970s genre "hard rock".

These forty minutes is still catchy and has a lot of groove.

The result is a reminder how good hard rock can sound and a good album in itself. 

I like this band.

3 points