Ring Of Gyges - Beyond the Night Sky (2017)

The debut album from this band from Iceland.

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

Some guests added strings, woodwinds and backing vocals.

This band is new to me. The band has not released anything since this Bandcamp and CD album either. The band has also released an EP on Bandcamp I have yet to sink my ears into. That EP was released in 2015, though.

The music on this album is a mix of progressive metal and neo-prog.

The vocals are really good and the band does a good job here.

The music is slightly sugary and too sweet for my taste.

It is though a mystery why this album is so unknown and obscure. Fans of melodic progressive metal would really like this album a lot. If follows this formula and never deviates from it.

The songs are decent to good. Nevertheless, check out this album.

2.5 points

Mother Superior - Lady Madonna (1975)

The one and only album from this British band.

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

This short-lived band was an all-female band and one of the very few of them in that era. I can only remember Runaways from USA. 

Mother Superior had no success though as they were gigging third rate concert venues. This album was released on a small sub label of Polydor....... in Sweden ! A country the band had no connections with whatsoever. But the result was that the band played some gigs over in Sweden too. No success followed. The band broke up.

The music is 1970s hard rock and rock. There is some proggish elements and enough for me to review this very obscure album.

The title track is their version of The Beatles standard Lady Madonna. The cover version is OK but not impressive.

This album is a rather forgettable album which just about scrape into a decent rating. 

This album is rightly very obscure and will forever remain so.

2 points

Fractal Mirror - Beyond Borders (2021)

The fifth album from this Dutch band.

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

A guest provided backing vocals.

I am not so sure if I have ever reviewed one of their albums before.... OK, I have actually reviewed their second album, the 2014 opus Garden Of Ghosts. An album I really liked so it is a bit strange that I have not gone to their other albums....

... Before now. 

Fractal Mirror gives us fifty minutes of good, solid neo-prog.

The music is the typical Dutch neo-prog. That means melodic with a blend of the more melancholic German take on the genre and the more English melodic poppy take on the genre.

This album has a mix of both melancholy and poppy melodies.

The end result is a good album, well worth checking out. I may have to purchase and review their three other remaining albums too....

3 points

Ozric Tentacles - Arborescence (1994)

The 10th album from this British band.

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

The band was now well established in the scene and within themselves. They had found their own style and did not stray much from that style.

The music is still space rock with some ethnic flutes and some ambient stuff.

It is not as intense as Hawkwind but it is still pretty potent space rock.

The music is pretty good and this is Ozric Tentacles on their most average.

Check out this good album.

3 points

Grails - Take Refuge in Clean Living (2008)

The fourth album from this US band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, harspischord, synths, organ, harmonium, piano, tapes, programming, sampler and vocals.

Two guests added horns and strings.

It is difficult for a more conservative prog and fusion head to get a relationship with an album from a band like Grails.

The reason is that the band combines ambient music and post-punk.

That is also the case on this album. It a much more livelier and noisy album than their previous albums. The band has added a lot more contents and textures to their music.

There is also a lot of dissonance on this album. The soundscape is a dissonant soundscape throughout these thirty minutes.

Half an hour in this soundscape is enough as the quality is only decent and just that. I am still not won over by this band.

2 points

 

 

Move. The - Shazam (1970)

The second album from this British band.

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

Some guests added strings and woodwinds.

The Move was the forerunner of both Roy Wood's solo career and Electric Light Orchestra. They released four albums.

I have bypassed their pop/beat debut album. I may review it later on. I will review their final three albums this winter, in the coming two weeks. 

Shazam is the first of the albums where they were expanding into a more proggy and psych setting. One of the songs takes up past ten minutes.

The band is still a beat band.... but with proggy undertones. There is a long piece here with sitar.

The Beatles is still their main influence and they takes what The Beatles did and went their own way. Hence, this band is an important band in the development of progressive rock.

The music is also decent enough. There is not any really good song here. But I fully get why this was a popular band. 

2 points

 

Temple of Switches - Four (2022)

The fourth album from this band from USA.

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

The band got help from some guests who provided bass, male and female vocals.

I have reviewed a couple of their previous albums and the band liked those reviews. Hence, they sent me this album for review.

Their music, the music on this album is a mix of US neo-prog, art rock, laid back jazz and indie rock.

The female vocals adds some warmth to this album. An album who has a lot of variations and incorporate some genres without really merging them on each individual songs.

It is an album of various shots, pictures..... or in this case.... soundscapes.

It is also an album brash and self-confident as the US culture.

The songs are really good and that makes this album really good too. The only thing missing is a killer track or two.

Check out this album and this band.

3 points

 

 

Fermáta - Generation (1981)

The sixth album from this band from Slovakia.

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

Two guests provided harmonica and saxophone.

This band was still trapped behind the Iron Curtain at this point and trapped in a artificial state called CzechSlovakia. A state founded on the old Habsburg empire after world war on, one hundred years ago. They split up two decades ago.

But Generation was recorded and released under an autocrat suppression and this album was not distributed in the west. I am though trying to find out if this was the case.....

Their first five albums are of a very high standard and I was really looking forward to this one too.

We are again getting fusion and jazz of a high standard. 

The music on Generation is not as edgy as on previous albums, though.... But we still get some good guitar solos.

This is another quality release and a good album from this band. A band that deserve a lot more attention.

3 points

Rise of Realism - Mirage (2015)

The one and only album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

This band is totally unknown to me. The album is...... surprise, surprise...... released through Bandcamp.

The fonts in their band name made me think this is a psych band. I was wrong.

Their music is a mix of Americana, neo-prog, rock and a lot of Pink Floyd.

Wailing female vocals and a lot of Roger Waters like vocals and music.

Fans of Roger Waters will find the half an hour of music here pretty interesting.

The quality is somewhere between decent and good. It is an album well worth checking out on the Bandcamp and Spotify platforms.

2.5 points

 

 

 

Morning Sky - Sea Of Dreams (1976)

The one and only album from this US band.

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

This is another obscure album who has been brought to my attention by ProgArchives. A much forgotten album as the band members left the music scene after recording this album.

That does not means this album should not be reviewed.

The music on this album is some sort of mesh between progressive rock, folk rock and laid back jazz.

The good soprano female vocals is backed up by some intense flutes and harmonic. The bass is thundering around on the more jazzy, dynamic pieces on this album.

The music is pretty original and uncommon.

It is a shame that this band gave up the ghost as this is a good album indeed and well worth checking out.

This is one of the few truly obscure albums worthy of more attention.

3 points

Speck - Unkraut (2021)

The debut album from this band from Austria.

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

This is a new band who is using Bandcamp as their platform. A smart choice indeed.

Unkraut.... Well, Austria is not a part of Germany so that may explain the title. The music is not krautrock either.

We are again sent to the outer space in a spaceship captained by this band. 

A thirty-eight minutes long journey in a foreign galaxy.

The space rock is dirty and full of fuzzed out guitars with a thundering bass and beat in the background.

Dirty, dirty space rock is very effective at times and it gives out good vibes and makes both my tap along with the music.

The quality is pretty good too. It is indeed a good album and one to check out if you are a space cadet.

3 points

Oldfield. Mike - Earth Moving (1989)

The 13th album from this British artist.

Mike Oldfield played guitars, synth guitars, synths and computers on this album.

He got help from numerous other musicians on drums, percussion, bass, woodwinds, clavinet, harps, strings and vocals.

Mike Oldfield thought it was a good idea to record and release a pop album with the typical 1980s sound and pop music.

He hired in numerous vocalists to get this album right. The guest musicians gave him this sound. 

The result is an album so mired in the 1980s that it is best served as a museum piece and not a piece of music anyone would listen to in 2022.

The quality of the pop here is absolute abysmal too.

I cannot find anything good to say about this horror of all horrors.

It is a turkey, indeed. 

1 point

 

 

Haken - Visions (2011)

The second album from this British band.

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

A string ensemble added their strings too.

I was not overly impressed by their debut album. I am though reviewing all their albums and I have moved on to their second album.

Gosh, the band sounds like Dream Theater on this album. 

They sounds like a copycat at a lot of places.

This album is seventy-two minutes long and there is also some neo-prog and hard prog with some symphonic prog influences on this album.

The music is still pretty melodic despite of it's muscular nature.

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

This is a good album. But I hope they move out of the dream theater on the next album.....

3 points

 

 

Amarok - The Storm (2019)

The fifth album from this band from Poland.

The band is a one man band with Michal Wojtas doing the programming, synths, piano, vocals and guitars.

Three guests are doing percussion, drums and backing vocals.

I liked their first four albums and was looking forward to hear more from them. I got their brand new one and also picked up this album too so I could review both of them.

We get seventy-two minutes here. That is sixty minutes of mindless ambient music with some meaning but also pretty bad music. 

The last twelve music gives us some pretty bad poppy prog rock.

There is no excuses here. This album is indeed a turkey and it has been send by express mail to my turkey yard so it can enjoy the life with the other turkeys that has crossed my path.

Avoid.

1 point.

Rtdfact - Life is Good (2017)

The one and only album from this Russian - US band.

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

The band was helped out by a symphonic orchestra, flute, saxophones, guitars and vocals.

Jeff Scott Soto and Nad Sylvan was two of those who added their vocals to this album and I guess even they must have scratched their heads in bewilderment when they were listening to this album.

The album was sold to me as a retro 1970s prog album with influences from all the big prog bands from that era.

We get some of that.......... and a lot more. Oh yeah. 

In the middle of the album, a symphonic orchestra with all the instruments takes over for a lot of minutes of this in total forty-two minutes long album.

We get classical music, indeed.

The progressive rock here is good. The classical music is also fairly good.

This album is a very original take on progressive rock with some AOR and classical music thrown into the mixer.

It is a shame that this album has not really got an audience. It really deserve an audience. It is a bit of a shock to the system, but the music is good.

Go on an adventure and check out this album.

3 points

Mozzarella - In Vitro (1980)

The debut album from this band from Equador.

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

This band released two albums before they gave up the ghost and got careers outside the music business.

Their music was basically 1970s rock. 

The sound is 1970s and rather good. The music ranges from ELP'ish symphonic prog to more pop and then hard rock.

Hard rock, or make that hard prog, is the dominant genre on this album.

The music is pretty decent. There are also some turkeys on this album. But the good (Spanish) saves this album's bacon & dignity.

1.5 points

 

Isobar - Isobar II (2021)

The second album from this US band.

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

The band had help from a duo who provided saxes, saxophones and trumpets.

I have not had the chance to sample their debut album. But the band got a label as an eclectic prog band on the basis of that album and that meant I picked up this album for review.

Eclectic prog, it is not.

Take fusion and add some cinematic jazz to the mix. Add a small hint of both King Crimson and Gentle Giant too. Add some Camel symphonic prog too.

There is not much quirkiness on this album, though. There is no vocals on this album too.

The music is not particular interesting and I find it a bit difficult to stay concentrated when listening to this album. 

This is a decent enough album but only that. I am not impressed.

2 points

 

 

Mongol - Doppler 444 (1997)

The one and only album from this band from Japan.

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

This band is mostly totally unknown. But the hard working staff in ProgArchives has included the band and this album in the archives. Hence, it caught my attention. 

The music on this album is fusion with some jazz influences.

Most of this music is cinematic and pretty slick. So slick that it could have been a movie or TV soundtrack.

There are some good guitars solos in this rather slick and stylish music. There are also some typical soundtrack stuff here too.

The music is decent enough. It really does not leave the listener's brain much to work on.

Slick, stylish but without a lot of quality. Hence my not so positive views on this album.

2 points

 

 

Hairless Monk - The Ether Whale (2021)

The fifth album or so from this one man band from USA.

The band is Jacob Willenborg on programming, drums, bass, guitars and synths.

This and his other albums has been released through Bandcamp. 

I normally do not get any good feelings when I spot that my new review project is a Bandcamp one man band album. The result is normally not so good.

Hairless Monk gives us a mix of stoner rock and space rock. Add krautrock too and you get this album.

That normally means a barren landscape without many variations.

That is not the case when it comes to this album. There is many moods and sounds on this album. The music is not very varied, but the variations and the changes of vibes is there. There and pretty much loud and clear.

The music is muddy guitars lead. There is also a lot of bass here with some subtle keyboards too.

The music is good too. This is indeed one of the better one man bands I have encountered and this album should be checked out.

3 points

 

 

Ixthuluh - Yes, We Are A Jazzband (1976)

The debut album from this Austrian band.

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

This band recorded and later released six albums in the 1970s. They were all released back in 2005 on CD. I got their first five albums and will review them this winter.

The band was a jazz band.... mostly.

There is a lot of blues and some Soft Machine'ish jazz too on this album. 

There is also some avant-garde and jam based music on this album. 

I believe some of the music, if not all of the music, was recorded on one take, live in studio. That would explain a lot.

The sound is not good and neither is the music. The album is over seventy minutes long and it feels like a compilation of tapes thrown together. 

The music is decent enough but the way it has been compiled onto one album is not. Hence.....

1.5 points

 

 

Fermáta - Biela Planéta (1981)

The fifth album from this band from Slovakia.

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

Fermata's first four albums has really impressed me and rekindled my interest in fusion and jazz. 

The band mostly operated behind the Iron Curtain in a country called Czechoslovakia. A country made in the aftermath of World War 1 and later split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 

Hence, they and their albums did not get the recognition the likes of Weather Report got. And that is not justice. 

Weather Report, minus Wayne Shorter's woodwinds, is a good reference here. The keyboards and the guitars does the solo stuff here. There is not many solos here. But the music still sounds like a Weather Report album.

This album still has it's own identity though. Very much so. 

The eight compositions are all named after famous explorers. Biela Planet = the white planet in English and I guess it refers to the white, unexplored parts of the planet 150 years ago. All the explorers mentioned here did indeed explore those parts of the planet.

This is indeed a very good album and one fusion and jazz fans should explore. Prog rock fans too, for that matter.

It is time to include Fermata in the list of the alltime great fusion bands.

3.5 points

Runaway Totem - Multiversal Matter (2019)

The 11th album from this Italian band.

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

A guest musician contributed with synths.

Runaway Totem is a band I have had a soft spot for. Their first eight - nine albums was pretty good with a masterpiece also thrown into the mix.

All their first eight albums is worthy an exploration. I have also reviewed them.

Multiversal Matter sees the duo going in all direction. All within the avant-garde genre.

Some of the music is melodic. Most of it is eclectic.

There is not much good music here..... if any.

The ideas and the music is lacking a lot in the quality department. 

This is not an album this band should be remembered for.

2 points

Mold. Colin - Water of Divinity (2007)

 

The debut album from this British artist.

Colin Mold did the drums, guitars, bass, keyboards and vocals himself here.

Colin Mold has released three albums and I did a review of his second album for # 1 of this blog many years ago. That album, The Girl On The Castle Step opus from 2012, is regarded as his best album. It is indeed a very good album.

Colin Mold's music on this album is a mix of symphonic prog, Pink Floyd and the likes of Camel. Add a lot of folk rock too and you get it.

Very elegant music with lots of long guitar solos and some good vocals.

This album is fifty minutes long and it really fills the airwaves with elegance and sugar.

The music is not overly eclectic. It is really melodic and elegant.

This is a good album too, bordering to very good.

This is a more than welcome debut album and one to check out.

3 points

 

 

Embryo - Embryo's Reise (1979)

The 10th album from this German band.

The band was a sextet on this album with a lineup of drums, percussion, tabla, bass, guitars, sitar, piano, organ, keyboards, woodwinds, strings, screams and vocals.

Numerous Indian instruments and percussion also added their sounds to this album.

You never really know what you get with this band. A band who always stretched the envelope. They were mainly a krautrock band but they also sought inspirations from Africa and Asia.

This time, they have more or less made an Indian subcontinent album. Yes, music from India, Nepal and Pakistan. 

There is some krautrock here too with one hard rocking song. But most of this seventy minutes long album is Indian subcontinent percussion dominated.

The result is actually a good album and one of their better albums. An album I will remember this band by and will act as their signature in my album collection.

Check out this good album.

3 points

 

 

Omesthesia - Fas to the Nefas (2021)

The debut album from this band from Spain.

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

This is a brand new band on the scene and their album is a Bandcamp album. 

Their album is a pretty original sounding album too and really something that makes this band stand out from the crowd.

Take some psych from the 1970s, add some post-metal and some eclectic prog. 

The music is pretty dark with some stoner and doom metal influences.

These forty minutes is not particular melodic. The music is pretty dark.... well, make that very dark.... and very eclectic.

The quality is somewhere between decent and good. It is a very promising debut album though and a band I will keep an eye on.

2.5 points

 

 

Moetar - From These Small Seeds (2012)

The debut album from this band from USA.

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

The band has released three albums and I reviewed their second album Entropy Of The Century some years ago. That album was released in 2014. 

The band has got a female vocalist and the music is a mix of US neo-prog, rock, West Coast psych and jazz.

Some of the music is pretty laid back. The music is very arty and the Art Rock label is a good label. There is also a bohemian vibe throughout this album.

The vocals are really good. The instrumentation is pretty standard and the music is really dynamic and rocking.

This is a good album from a good band. Their first two albums, including this one, is really recommended to everyone into US prog.

3 points

Bend The Future - Without Notice (2021)

The second album from this band from France.

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

I really liked their debut album as you can find out in my review of that album earlier this month.

The band has a cool sound and soundscape based on mostly guitars and saxophones. 

The music is somewhere between eclectic prog, Canterbury prog and jazz. Both of their albums is in my view in the Canterbury prog genre. The music is that quirky.

There is a lot of funny and quirky details here.

The music is pretty melodic too and it makes these forty minutes very entertaining. And it also makes the listener hit the repeat button many times over.

There is no real killer piece of music here. Nevertheless, this is a very good album and one to check out.

3.5 points

 

 

Enid. The - Salome (1986)

The 10th album from this British band.

The band was a trio on this album with a lineup of drums, percussion, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

Two guests helped out with their drums.

The Enid was still going strong, ten years after they started out. 

Their music is mostly a crossover between symphonic prog and neo-classical music.

On this album, the band also ventures into a bit of a Depeche Mode like pop music. That is on the beginning of the album and that gives the listener some worries about this really being a The Enid album.

The album then turns back to typical The Enid territory with some mix of neo-classical music and symphonic prog.

The music on this album is not the best music this band has ever come up with. The music is meandering and not good.

This is a decent enough album and just that. I am not impressed.

2 points

Congreso - Aire Puro (1990)

The 10th album from this band from Chile.

The band was a nine piece big band on this album with a lineup of percussion, drums, marimbas, congas, bass, guitars, cello, charango, woodwinds, tarka, flute, piano, synths and vocals.

The band was helped by a handful of guests who provided congas, percussion, narration, voices and vocals.

The band was still going strong and were very active in the scene.

The scene was by now very colourful with some very good bands. 

Congreso went down the crossover route. A crossover between folk rock, fusion, prog rock and pop music. 

The music is pretty melodic, exotic and cool. The Spanish vocals and the Latin-American vibe makes this an interesting album who really gets the attention of those who are not used to this music.

The quality is also good and this album is a good introduction to both this band and the Latin - American prog/folk/jazz scene.

Check it out.

3 points

Dunnery. Francis - Vampires (2016)

The 10th album from this British artist.

Francis Dunnery did the guitars and vocals himself. His four piece band also included drums, bass and keyboards.

Francis Dunnery has cooperated with a lot of progressive rock bands and artists since the end of the 1980s. His debut solo album was released in 1991 and I should get more of his solo albums.

He was also a founding member of The Syn who released some albums at the beginning of this century. That was a psych rock band.

Vampires is a double CD, lasting one hundred minutes.

The music is a mix of rock and neo-prog.

The music is melodic and based on songs. The songs are pretty short and catchy. The final track is a fifteen minutes long opus. 

The music is OK and not particular bad. Some songs are decent and some are good. It is not too taxing on the head as there is not many quirky, good details here. 

It is an OK album but nothing more than that.

2.5 points

Modium. I - L Anno del Contatto (2019)

The debut album from this band from Italy.

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

There is a lot of musicians today in Italy who are looking back to the 1970s and the RPI scene. These good memories creates new bands too.

I Modium is one of these new bands.

The band is not a boyband. The average age must be in the forties. But that still means the guys knows how to play good music.

The music is RPI and RPI with both feet firmly glued to the 1970s scene.

The music is not heavy. Neither is it poppy and overly pastoral either. References are Banco and PFM. The sound is a bit neo-prog and there is a lot of neo-prog in their take on the 1970s. That means some long guitar solos too.

The vocals are OK and the music is good.

This forty minutes long album will please all RPI fans. It is indeed a good album.

3 points

 

 

Möbius Project - Ra Me Nivar (2014)

The one and only album from this Italian band.

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

This band comes from the southern part of Italy, from Salerno to be precise. 

Their music is RPI too.

Let me see...... They comes across as a mix of Osanna, Area, King Crimson and a bit of Banco. 

There are some hard rocking RPI here with some grungy sound and some pretty eclectic prog too. There are also some more pastoral pieces here.

The vocals are in Italian and the vocals are good.

The music is complex and pretty typical for the more eclectic end of the RPI scene. 

The sound is good and there are some long pieces of music on this half an hour long album.

The quality is good throughout this album and this album deserve a bigger audience than it has gotten so far. 

Check out this album.

3 points

Embryo - Zack Glück (1984)

The 12th album from this German band.

The band was a seven piece big band on this album with a lineup of percussion, hackbrett, cymbalon, marimba, tavil, drums, vibes, oud, guitars, violin, saxes, flutes and vocals.

Embryo tended to change genre and styles between each studio albums. The reason was that Embryo was mostly a one-man band and he wanted to explore a lot of different genres.

That also explain why some Embryo albums is a bit difficult to really understand.

Some Embryo albums is also pretty substandard.

This album is a study in some Indian instruments, merged with some Western, krautrock music.

This album is mostly based on rhythms and Eastern soundscapes.

The quality is decent enough but nothing more than that. I have heard far better Embryo album than this one.

2 points

Neograss - Talisman (2021)

The fourth album from this Norwegian band.

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

The band returns after a nine years long break.

I liked their first three albums and the release of this album therefore came as a nice surprise for me at the end of the year. 

The music is a blend of neo-prog, rock and a bit Americana.

The sound is pretty big and fills the speakers very nicely indeed. That is not that often with albums from duos.

The music is a bit too much straight forward rock. But the Americana elements and the prog elements are pretty good and makes the music pretty more interesting.

The vocals are good too.

Most of the music is good so I will give this a good rating. This album has not entirely won me over but I still welcome this duo back to the scene. More albums, please.

3 points

 

 

Dulcimer - Room For Thought (1992)

The third album from this British band.

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

Their debut album was pretty good and I had the joy of reviewing it a week ago or so in this blog. Their albums is hard to find and I have only found this album among their six studio albums. The last one released in 1997.

Dulcimer is/was a pretty obscure acid folk rock band.

The music is pretty much vocals based. 

The music on this album is acid folk with some psych and early 1970s prog influences.

There is some pretty good small details on this forty minutes long album. 

The songs are decent and this album is a good choice if acid folk floats your boat.

2 points

 

 

Ozric Tentacles - Jurassic Shift (1993)

The ninth album from this band from England.

The band was a seven piece big band on this album with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, sampling, flute and programming.

A guest added tambourine.

Ozric Tentacles from the south-coast of England has provided the scene with their space and ambience rock for many decades. 

Hawkwind has been a major inspiration throughout. But Ozric Tentacles has their own sound, music and scene. They got a lot of fans.

I am slowly but surely turning into becoming a follower of this band myself while I am trying to review all their albums. A pleasure more than a task. 

This album gives us a lot of very good spaced melodies from the outer space. A lot of keyboards and guitars are driving the music forward on this fifty minutes long album.

This is so far one of the best Ozric Tentacles albums I have heard. It is indeed a very good album.

3.5 points

Grails - Burning Off Impurities (2007)

The third album from this US band.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, banjo, oud, keyboards, melodica, harpsichord, piano, organ and sampler.

Three guests added horn, harmonica, violin and trumpet.

This is a band whose albums I find difficult to really review as the music is pretty far from my comfort zone. 

But I am cracking on with their albums. All of them, bar one who I reviewed ten years ago for ProgArchives.

This time, we get some ambient music with a lot of Americana influences.

The fifty minutes long album starts pretty dull and nondescript before it takes of and become a lot better at the end with the rather fairly good title-track.

There is even some very heavy music here which is still within the post-metal genre. But the title track is the only fairly good track.

This is a decent enough album with some positives and some negatives. Hence.....

2 points

Bend The Future - Pendellösung (2019)

The debut album from this band from France.

The band was a quartet on this album with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, saxophones and voices.

This band released an album last year and I was just about to publish a review of that album when I discovered that the album was their second album. So I got their debut album too.

A wise choice, indeed.

The music is a mix of cool jazz and cool progressive rock.

There are some really cool saxophones here on the top of some half-acoustic and electric guitars. There are some voices but not real vocals here.

The music is pretty laid-back with some West-Coast influences.

The quality is good throughout these three quarters of an hour and it is obvious that this band is talented.

Check out this band.

3 points

Elizabeth - Elizabeth (1968)

The one and only album from this band from USA.

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

I know absolute nothing about this album and this band. Their Discogs bio is a bit short. This album just showed up in my list of reviews to do.

The band released this album and disappeared again. 

The band is very influenced by The Beatles on this album. That means their more pop stuff as world had yet to see the more The Beatles psych and prog era. 

Add some psych too from various sources and scenes and you get this album. 

There are some whimsical stuff here too. 

The quality of the songs on this thirty-five minutes long album is decent enough. This is by no means a must-have album. It is still a pretty charming album and worth some attention.

2 points

 

 

Conta. Michele - Endless Nights (2019)

 

The debut album from this Italian artist.

Michele Conta does the keyboards and piano here.

He has got support from numerous guests who provides drums, bass, guitars, cello, strings and vocals.

Michele Conta was the keyboardist in Locanda Delle Fate, a legendary RPI band. Their music was pretty light and melodic RPI bordering to pop music.

Endless Nights sees him moving even further towards pop and rock.

There are still a lot of prog here too. But the music is light and piano based.  

There is not much interesting details here and the vocals are OK'ish. 

This album is forty minutes long and parts of it is good and most parts of it is decent.

I am not overly impressed by this album.

2.5 points

 

 

Compagnia Digitale. La - La Compagnia Digitale (1979)

The one and only album from this Italian band.

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

This band had members from Celeste and St Tropez. And that means the result should had been a RPI album.

Nope.

The band took a lot from Steve Hillage. Yes, you can hear some strong influences from his Salmon Song on the title track. There is also a lot of other Steve Hillage influences here too.

The music is space rock with some Canterbury and krautrock influences.

The three tracks, three compositions, are all long and eventful. 

The sound is a bit iffy. But the three compositions is still loud and clear.

Some of the music is rather decent while other parts is rather good.

This is a highly unusual album from Italy who should appeal to a lot of collectors and fans of space rock and prog from Italy. 

2.5 points

Madmess - Rebirth (2021)

The second album from this band from Portugal.

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

The band debuted back in 2019 with their self-titled album. An album I do not have.

The drums, bass and guitars trio setup normally means instrumental rock, hard rock or post-rock/metal. 

In this case, it means a mix of post-rock and hard psych rock. All of it instrumental, off course.

The band has tried and indeed sometimes succeeded in adding a lot of colours into their music. Psych rock from the 1960s is what you also can find here.

Besides of that, there is a lot of shades and lights, the typical post-rock music signatures. 

The music is pretty good throughout these forty-five minutes. 

Fans of psych post-rock should really check out this band.

2.5 points

Dull Knife - Electric Indian (1971)

The one and only album from this band from Germany.

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

This album is one of the many obscure, almost forgotten ones added to the Progarchives. The inclusion has given the album a second life and Progarchives should be praised for that. 

Some albums are obscure because they are pretty poor. Most of the obscure albums, in fact. Nevertheless, they are interesting and fun to review and listen to.

Dull Knife went for hard rock with some psych rock and soul music. Yes..... I am not joking.

The music is not good as it is pretty straight forward hard rocking.

Nevertheless, this is a decent enough album and worth some minutes of your time.

2 points

 

 

Oldfield. Mike - Islands (1987)

The 12th album from this British artist.

Mike Oldfield did the drums, percussion, bass, guitars, synths and keyboards himself.

He had various guests who contributed drums, percussion, vibraphone, bass, woodwinds, flute, synths, keyboards, guitars and vocals.

The vocalists was Anita Hegerland, Bonnie Tyler, Kevin Ayers, Jim Price and Kevin Bacon.

The 1980s was here and Mike Oldfield was as per usual trying to blend in the soundscape he created in the 1970s with the sound of the times. 

We get some good stuff from Mike Oldfields own world..... and then a lot of pop music delivered as songs with various vocalists.

None of the songs are good.

There is still Mike Oldfield's own music away from the songs that I find valuable and good. 

This album is a mixed bag and more decent than good. Nevertheless.....

2.5 points

 

 

Haken - Aquarius (2010)

The debut album from this British band.

The band was a sextet on this album with a lineup of drums, djembe, guitars, bass, tuba, keyboards and vocals.

The band were also supported by some guests who provided harp and woodwinds.

This band is one of the biggest bands in new progressive rock.... and I have not heard a tone of them before I started to listen to this album some days ago for a review of it. I am also going to review the rest of their studio albums this winter.

I tend to listen to more obscure bands from the past instead of the post-2000 bands and albums. Hence my delay in sinking my teeth into the Haken albums.

Heavy prog is the genre here. That means a lot of things. In this case, some djent, some progressive metal, some heavy metal, some symphonic prog and a lot of neo-prog.

The sound is very good and the band knows how to throw in some interesting details. That also include ragtime and some whimsical jazzy bits.

This is their debut album and the songs are not strong enough for a seventy-three minutes long album. The quality is somewhere between decent and good. I am looking forward to continue to listen to their albums.  

2.5 points

Treebeard - Nostalgia (2021)

The third album from this band from Australia.

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

I have not had the chance to hear their first two albums so this is my first meeting with this band.

The cover art-work bears news about some modern, new music. And the art-work is right.

Post-metal is probably the label. In this case, that means some rather melodic, pastoral pieces of music in the post-rock vein combined with lots of stoner rock in the Black Sabbath vein and some more crass, brutal stuff.

The music is not as bleak as I did expect. It is at times pretty lush, in a modern post-rock vein.

We get one hour plus three minutes of music on this album.

There is a lot of variations between gray, white and black on this album. Variations that adds a lot of interest and quality to this album. The vocals are good too.

The quality is good throughout this album and I need to check out their first albums too plus add this band to my follow list. Albums like this gives the post-metal genre a good name.

3 points

Deception Store - Pindaric Flight (2021)

 

The debut album from this Italian band.

I have no idea how many members this band got. The lineup sounds like drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

This album has been released on the normally so reliable Italian progressive record label Ma.Ra.Cash Records. That means quality and that means I started to review this album before I found out more about this album...

.... I did not find any information.

The music is soft indie rock. 

That means forty-five minutes of it. College rock is also another word for this music.

It is not an interesting album at all as the music is lacking in details and good songs. 

Nevertheless, this is a decent enough album. I am not won over.

2 points

Salander - The Fragility of Innocence (2015)

The fourth album from this British duo.

The duo had a lineup of bass, guitars, mellotron, synths, loops, organ, piano and vocals.

They were helped out by two guests who provided drums and vocals.

I gather this is the final Salander album as one of the members of the duo moved to Spain/Portugal and started his own project.

Salander was a duo who released four hit and miss albums. One of the albums, Stendec, was a good album. They deserve to be remembered by their enthusiasm and that album.

This album starts with a narration about Holocaust, the darkest ever chapter in the history of mankind. I think this album is some sort of a concept album of the evil that human beings does to each other.

The music is, very suitable, melancholic neo-prog. It reminds me a lot about neo-prog from Poland. 

The band is not very technical on their instruments and is more reliant on good tunes.

Half of the tunes here is good and the rest of decent. It is not a bad album at all and deserve to be checked out.

2.5 points

 

 

Code 18 - Human Error! (2020)

The debut album from this band from Canada.

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

The band got help on this record from some guests who added drums, bass, guitars and female vocals.

This is a new name to me and the band has yet to release their second album. I got this album sent over as a file to me ages ago and forgot about it.

The music was sold to me as neo-prog.

There is some truth in this... although this is not the full picture.

The music is a mix of progressive metal, neo-prog, a bit symphonic prog and a lot of theatrical rock.

There is a lot of various styles and switching between genres on this one hour long album.

The quality is not good and that makes this a bit of a frustrating album.

This is a decent album but nothing more than that.

2 points

Mind Furniture - An Illustrated Map of the Heart (2021)

The third album from this US band.

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

The band was helped out by numerous guitarists, a flute player and two vocalists.

I did not expect to see another album from this band. Their second album was released fourteen years ago. But here it is...... 

The prog rock has gone and it has been replaced with some pop-rock. Most of it is very poppy and slightly teenybopper. There is some neo-prog details here too but not that many.

I did not expect that.

This album is over seventy minutes long and those x times seventy minutes it has taken me to listen to this album has not been joyful.

It is an album well worth forgetting. A handful of decent songs saves this album from being included in my turkey farm. 

I am not impressed by this album.

1.5 points