Vitskär Süden - Vessel (2024)

The third album from this band from USA.

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

I have yet to sample their debut album but I reviewed their second album, the 2022 album The Faceless King back in November 2022. A pretty interesting album, it is. Hence, I decided to follow this band and see what they could come up with in the future.

The future back then was albums like Vessel. 

The band has removed the stoner rock and doom metal elements from their sound. Their music is now a mix of post-rock and melancholic art-rock and psych-rock. There are also some influences from the likes of Radiohead on this album and in their new sound.

The mood is somber throughout this forty minutes long album. Most of the music is proper songs too.

The vocals is good and the musicians does a good job.

The songs and the music is also good and the result is a good album. An album well worth checking out.

3 points

Magician's Red - Endless Yearning (2024)

The second album from this band from Finland.

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

Two guests added bassoon and guitars.

I really like their 2022 debut album Threshold and gave it a good rating in my review in January last year.

I am therefore pleased to see them return again with a new album.

Their music is a mix of pomp rock and symphonic prog. Add some art-rock too and you get it.

The music is really elegant with some good vocals and vocal harmonies. The instruments is adding a lot of layers to their music and the album has got the best possible production (and budget).  

The songs are all good to very good too. There are some breathtaking instrumental parts here too on this one hour long album.

The result is an upgrade on their debut album and a very good album indeed. This is a band well worth checking out, indeed.

3.5 points

Machine And The Synergetic Nuts - Leap Second Neutral (2005)

The second and final album from this band from Japan.

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

Two guests added guitars and percussion.

The jazz, fusion and zeuhl from Japan tends to be both wild and ferocious. This band's two albums confirms this. 

...Although the band has slightly slowed down from the violent onslaught of fast jazz their debut album gave us. An album not for the faint hearted and you can read my review somewhere else in this blog.

The jazz here had got some fusion and some zeuhl influences. The addition of guitars, included distorted guitars, has given their music a new dimention. 

The music on this one hour long album is still fast. It still have some nuances where the band sometimes slows down and adds some good melody lines.

The result is still a good album and one to check out. It is a crying shame that we only got two albums from this band. Both albums should be checked out.

3 points

Apairys - Ni l'espace, Ni Le Temps (2024)

The second album from this band from France.

The band is a duo on this album with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars and keyboards.

A guest deliver vocals on some tracks.

This band was formed when the two French band Maldoror and Saens split up many years ago. Two very good bands and their albums is highly recommended. 

Apairys debut album Vers La Lumiere was released in 2019 and I reviewed it in February 2020 for # 2 of this blog. I gave that album a very good rating.

Five years later and the band has returned again with an album which is clearly very inspired by the French symphonic prog scene from the 1970s. Both Ange and Mona Lisa is good references here. Magnesis a good reference from this day and age.

Pastoral symphonic prog is what we get on this seventy minutes long album in other words. The vocals are in French and they are very good. 

The music is on average very good too. The keyboards has a good retro-sound and the guitars are good too.

This is a very good album from a very good band. It comes highly recommended.

3.5 points

Abacus - Destiny (2010)

The sixth album from this band from Germany.

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

I have yet to be impressed by this band. A band who by now have moved on from progressive rock to rock.

German pomp rock/pop, that is. With English lyrics and a lot of the 1980s sounds and football terraces vocals.

The production and sound is slick and has this 1980s sound and approach.

The songs on this almost one hour long album is commercial and pretty heavy at times. Heavy as in pomp rock/pop.

The result is pretty dire with only a few good songs and pieces of music.

This is not an album worth checking out if progressive rock floats your boat.

1.5 points

 

 

Simon Says - Ceinwen (1995)

The debut album from this band from Sweden.

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

Two guests added keyboards and vocals.

This band is widely regarded one of the bands from the second wave of Swedish symphonic prog. 

The band released three albums and they are all up for reviews this summer in this blog.

This album is one hour long. The music is a mix of neo-prog and symphonic prog. 

Some parts of the album has this Swedish symphonic prog sound in the vein of Kaipa and The Flower Kings. The rest is more in the British neo-prog tradition.

The vocals is good and the band does a good job too. The sound is a bit thin and should have been more beefy.

Some parts of this album is very good and other parts are decent. This one hour of music is a bit uneven when it comes to quality.

The average says this is a good album. Barely a good album. It is an acceptable debut album but I hope the two remaining albums is far better than this album.

3 points

Ghost Mantra - Starchitecture (2022)

The second album from this band from Italy.

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

The band released their debut album around ten years ago and it took them eight years to follow up that album with their second album.

The music here is a mix of djent, progressive metal and hard rock.

There are some melodic stuff here too. But most of the music on this one hour long album is pretty meaty, muscular hard.

The vocals are sometimes very melodic and sometimes harsh. The vocalist is talented and I guess he is involved in some other bands too.

The music is decent enough without really being good. 

Those into harder rock should check out this album. It is not really an album for me, though.

2 points

 

 

Ghost. The - When You're Dead One Second (1970)

The one and only album from this band from Great Britain.

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

This band was founded by Paul Eastman, a cousin of Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath. The Ghost was supposed to be an occult folk rock band in the same vein as Black Sabbath was an occult hard blues band.

We get folk rock here with some psych and prog rock influences. Acid folk is a label I would put on most of the songs on this album. Occult ? Not something I have noted.....

The vocals are both male and female. The female vocalist Shirley Kent delivers some very good vocals and these are the highlights of this album.

The songs are fairly decent and there are a lof instruments here. In other words, this is not a bare-bones folk rock album. It is more a crossover between a psych rock and a folk rock album. It even has some good guitar solos.

The result is a decent album indeed. Some has labeled it as a cult album and/or as a semi classic album. That may be so as this is one of the more remarkable folk rock albums from England.

Check it out.

2 points

 

 

Finnskogen - Flora (2024)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

The band is from the south of Norway but has taken their name from an area at the border with Sweden. The name is direct translated to "The forest of people from Finland". Norway and Sweden had a large population of people fleeing the famines of Finland between the 16th and the 18th century. I have written a novel about one of these families.

Flora is more like an EP, clocking in at twenty-nine minutes, and it is a Bandcamp release too.

The music is psych rock. Psych rock with some post-rock and a lot of prog rock influences. Camel springs to mind in the beginning before early Pink Floyd takes over.

The vocals, synths and guitars are good. Ditto for the other two instruments.

The music is pastoral to mid-tempo. It is softly spoken, indeed.

The songs are decent enough and I hope we hear more, as in longer albums, from this band. This is a debut EP they can be pleased with.

2 points

Machine And The Synergetic Nuts - Machine And The Synergetic Nuts (2003)

The debut album from this band from Japan.

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

This band released two albums before they disbanded. I got both of them for reviews.

The band offers up three quarters of an hour worth of some wild and fast jazz and fusion. 

The music is a mix of fusion and jazz. 

The music has the untamed wild flow which has made the Japanese zeuhl scene so special. And there are indeed some zeuhl in their music. The occasional use of piano as a rhythm instrument with the saxophone and some more melodic piano on the top is pretty typical for that scene.

The tempo and speed is fast throughout. 

The music is pretty good too. It is an unusual fusion/jazz album but still well worth checking out. It is not music for everyone or even the faint hearted, though.

3 points

Khiasma - Malstrom (2024)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

This is a new band and they have promoted their album as a hard rock album. 

That is not the whole story, though..... 

The lyrics and vocals are in Norwegian, their native language. They are pretty good and fits the music. Some of the vocals are screaming and not for everyone. The bass is thundering and the guitars are lively.

The music is a mix of post-punk, post-metal, a bit psych, folk-rock and hard rock.

Most of all, this album reminds me about the first Thule album. The one released under the name Ultima Thule before they changed their name to just Thule and became a prog/art rock band.

There is an undertone of melancholy throughout this album. That adds a lot of quality to this album. An album who some may mistake for being a rock'n'roll party album. It is not. 

There is no progressive rock here and it normally not an album I would touch. The band asked me for a review and as I have discovered as an author myself... it is not easy to get any reviews these days. 

I would still rate this as a decent album. It is an album mostly meant for the Norwegian market and more as an introduction to this band as a live-act. I suspect they are better live than on this record.

 2 points

 

 

 

 

Runemagick - Darkness Death Doom (2003)

The sixth album from this band from Sweden.

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

This is their third album for Aftermath Music and one the label promoted well. That includes some promotion material to myself. My copy also camed with a bonus album named The Pentagram which included some avant-garde soundbites. I will ignore that album in this review.

The band was starting to slow down their onslaughts of death metal. The music became more doom metal orientated.

The music is mainly classic death metal with some pretty good melodic guitars solos included. 

The guitars are pretty good here. The death metal is pretty good too. The music is pretty brutal, but also controlled and a bit restained.

The result is an album somewhere between decent and good. It is an album well worth checking out if death metal is your thing.

2.5 points

After Crying - De Profundis (1996)

The fourth album from this band from Hungary.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, cello, synths, keyboards, flute, trumpet, spoken words and vocals.

Numerous guests added woodwinds, strings, poem recitation and Gregorian chants.

There are some albums who straddle the eclectic prog, symphonic prog and neo-classical music genres. This album is one of those albums. Not surprisingly, it comes from this band from Hungary. 

Their first three albums gave us some really leftfield eclectic albums. It is being topped in eclectic excesses by this album, De Profundis.

This album is seventy-five minutes long. Not much of this album is rock and progressive rock orientated. Most of it is eclectic classical singing and neo-classical music. There are indeed also some avant-garde new age music here too.

It is really hard to penetrate this album and to really get something meaningful from it. Some of the music here is decent and some is good.

This album is for those who really revel in eclectic music and who want something different from the European and Anglo-American music. This album is also one for those who want a challenge. Due to it being so eclectic, I would regard this album as a cult album too. Check it out.

2.5 points

Necromandus - Necromandus (2017)

The second album from this band from Great Britain.

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

The band album debuted in 1973 with an album called Orexis Of Death (later to be released on CD in 1999). I reviewed that album in November 2011 for ProgArchives and you can find my review there. I have also reviewed their live album for ProgArchives.

I did not expect to find another album from this band. But I recently found it. I have fond memories of Orexis Of Death and therefore got their follow up album.

The band has actually reformed and were active for a short while. That included a visit to a studio and this album. An album I suspect was released some years after it was recorded.

Orexis Of Death sounded like a progressive rock version of the first three Black Sabbath albums. Where that band sold zillions of album, Orexis Of Death flopped. 

Their second album still has some 'Sabbath influences. The music is mostly straight forward hard rock from the 1970s.

The vocals is good and the band does a good job on some substandard songs. The quality of the song writing is sorely lacking. This is still a decent album and hard rock fans should check out this album.

2 points

Genre - Commercial Success (1978)

The one and only album from this band from USA.

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

This album sold nothing and remained an obscure album until someone re-discovered it and gave it some digital distribution. It is now regarded as a hidden gem from the US fusion and jazz scene. It has still to see a proper re-release though. Hopefully, this will soon happens.

The music is pretty fast and technical fusion. Fusion with a lot of funk and jazz influences.

The guitarist is very inspired by Jimi Hendrix. The rest of the band sounds like Return To Forever. 

The result is like Return To Forever with a guitarist. The balance between the keyboards and the guitars are really good and both deliver some good solos. Some of the guitar solos are done by a half-acoustic guitar.

The sound is really good. The four musicians does a very good job. The eight compositions are really good here too.

The result is a good album and indeed a hidden gem in the scene. One who deserve a re-release.

3 points

Absolute Elsewhere - Playground (2024)

The second album from tis band from Great Britain.

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

I reviewed their semi-classic 1976 debut album In Search Of Ancient Gods ten years ago and did not like it at all. A plodding New Age album. I am in a minority of one here as everyone else really likes this album.

Their second album was released almost fifty years later. 

The music this time around is totally different. It is a mix of boyband pop, west-coast rock and quirky psych rock. Add in some funk and fusion too and you get the drift. 

The mix is a bit bewildering and this album would not be to everyone's taste.

It is still a decent enough album with some good vocals and some good musicianship. Some of the music is slightly cheesy but still a decent enough album.

2 points

Myriad - Specter Fate & Fable (2012)

The second and final album from this band from USA.

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

Their 2004 debut album Natural Elements, reviewed earlier this month, was a mix of US neo-prog, hard rock and progressive metal.

The band continued down the same path eight years later on their second album.

The sound is pretty poor and ditto for the mix. The vocals is good though.

The band was never good song writers and that is also the case on this album. The songs are decent enough but not more than that.

Both their albums are well worth a visit as  they are not too bad. 

This is a decent album from a largely forgotten decent band.

2 points

 

 

My Dying Bride - A Mortal Binding (2024)

The 15th album from this band from Great Britain.

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

The band returned again with their new album. 

After the rather lacklustre 2020 album Ghost Of Orion, I was fearing the worst. The vocals on that album is pretty bad.

A Mortal Binding sees the vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe employing both some guttural growls and clean vocals. A lot of guttural growls, in fact. More than usual.

This one hour long album is dark throughout and far more darker than the usual fare from the band.

It is indeed the band returning to their roots. That just with some more mature, progressive compositions. 

The result is pleasing for an old fan like myself and indeed a good album in it's own right. I have to admit this band has again entered the list of my alltime favourite five bands.

Check out this album.

3 points

Sykofant - Sykofant (2024)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

This band has caused quite a sensation in their short lifespan. I will get onto why that is so...

Their music is a mix of 1970s hard rock, psych rock and this day and age heavy prog rock. Obvious references are Led Zeppelin, Porcupine Tree and King Crimson. Add some early Pink Floyd too.

The music is pretty hard. It is also pretty quirky and not at least... eclectic. This is not straight forward melodic hard rock.

There are even some ambient stuff here and that is strangely enough adding quality to this album as the music really needed this short breathing space.

The vocals are very good and the band knows what they are doing. The overall quality of the music is very good and this album deserve the praise it has already got in other magazines and blogs. 

It will be very interesting to follow this band in the future. I think they are not yet at their best. 

3.5 points

 

 

Motorpsycho - Let Them Eat Cake (2000)

The eight album from this band from Norway.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, violin, mandolin, clavinette, piano, organ, keyboards, minimoog and vocals.

Numerous guests added woodwinds, strings, piano and organ.

You never really know what this band comes up with on each album. Their basis is some form of psych rock. And from this basis, the band strikes out in all directions.

In the case of this forty minutes long album, we are talking late 1950s and early 1960s pop music. 

The music is sugar sweet at times. It is more developed and slightly more psych rock than what The Beatles did on their first two albums. It is pretty similar to what they did on Rubber Soul and onwards.

The music sugary melodic and slightly cheesy throughout.

It is a funny album but it is still a bit short on quality. 

The result is an album somewhere between decent and good. But it is still an interesting album from a very interesting band.

2.5 points

Ruphus - Let Your Light Shine (1976)

The third album from this band from Norway.

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

A guest, Terje Rypdal, added arp synths.

A new album from this band and a new genre/style to explore.

The band has jumped over to the fusion genre on this album. 

The album is really jazz orientated throughout. From Gudny Aspaas jazzy delivery of the voices and sometimes words in the vocals, to the guitars and the keyboards.

This is indeed a jazzy album. This from a band who were a Yes and 'Tull hybrid on their first two albums. The band knows how to confuse their fans. Those still around on this album, that is.

The band and vocalist does a good job and the music is really good. Which serves as a reminder that the musicians in Ruphus was among the elite in Norwegian music back then. 

Ditto for the songs writers too as the music is good throughout. 

This is another good album from this band. A band I would rate as one of the best prog rock bands from Norway based on their first three albums. There are three more albums to review.....

3 points

Hjemlengsel - Hjemlengsel (2010)

The debut ep from this band from Norway.

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

A handful of guests added accordion, cello, stylophone, piano and vocals.

I reviewed their brand new album, their debut album, Nimmermeer some weeks ago and promised to also review their debut EP, this EP, too in due time.

Which I am doing now.

Nimmermeer, their new album, has a blend of funeral doom, melancholic post-rock and progressive rock. Their EP, recorded and released fourteen years ago, is largely within the same genre. There is not much progressive rock here though. There are a lot of folk music hymns influenced funeral doom metal here. That is what the music is.

There is a lot of guitars here. The sporadic other instruments adds some variations to this twenty odd minutes, three songs long EP.

The sound is good and the overall quality is decent. This is an EP well worth checking out if a mix of melancholic rock and funeral doom is your thing.

2 points

Giardino degli Specchi. Il - Oltremare (2018)

The debut album from this band from Italy.

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

I reviewed their second and most recent album, the 2022 album Monstrum back in December 2022 for this blog and quite liked that album. So I wanted to go back to their debut album too and review it. Which I have now done, very much delayed.

The music is melodic instrumental post-rock.

There is a lot of ebbs and flows here.  

The music is very nice on the ear but does not have that much of an own identity. This album is a reminder how effective and nice post-rock can be. How relaxing on the ear and mind after a busy day. 

And I have to admit I like this album better than their new album. This is indeed a good album and one post-rock fans should pick up.

3 points

Lahmana - On Embracing a Blank Space (2024)

The debut album from this band from Austria.

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

Lahmana is one of these power trios who has released instrumental prog/post-rock/post-metal/psych rock albums this decade. There is lots of these albums on Bandcamp.

This album too has been released through Bandcamp with a taster on Youtube. Hence this review.

The music here is a mix of post-rock, psych rock and symphonic progressive rock.

A bit Camel mixed in with Sigur Ros. 

The music is pretty decent throughout these thirty minutes. It is a bit bland and the band is not really offering much to the table and the scene similar bands has already given to the scene. 

Those who likes instrumental guitars driven music should check out this album.

2 points

Myriad - Natural Elements (2004)

The debut album from this band from USA.

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

This band released two albums before they disbanded. The second album is up for review next week or so.

Their music is a mix of US neo-prog, hard rock and progressive metal. 

There are some Dream Theater, Rush and Genesis influences here.

The music is not particular heavy. It is mid-tempo and quite melodic.

The vocals are fairly good. The band does their best. The sound is the typical 1990s progressive metal sound.

The music is decent enough without really being good or impressive. 

This is not a bad album and it is well worth checking out.

2 points 

My Dying Bride - The Ghost of Orion (2020)

The 14th album from this band from Great Britain.

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

The band had taken a five years long break after the previous album Feel The Misery. This due to the vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe having to deal with his cancer sick daughter. Thankfully, she survived. The band also changed the drummer and the guitarist during this period and recorded this album as a quintet.

There are some really personal, haunting lyrics on this album dealing with cancer and parent's very worst fear of losing a child to this disease. Lyrics that enhances this album.

The music is also much more polished on this album than on previous albums. That goes for the vocals too as there are only some sporadic harsh vocals here. The vocals is plainly not fitting this band.

The darkness in their sound is therefore in short supply. Their music works best when there is balance between light and darkness. 

The sound and music is therefore far too polished to make this a classic My Dying Bride album or even an album you want to include among their better albums. 

The result is an album somewhere between decent and good. I am not won over.

2.5 points

Ohpen Ahrms - Lying Beside You (2024)

The debut album from this band from USA.

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

Three guests added bass, flute, vocals and saxophones.

The album was released some weeks ago through Bandcamp. 

The music here is hard rock with a industrial, grungy punk inspired post-metal sound. 

The sound is distorted and the basis for some rather basic hard rock songs. The punk influences comes thick and fast.

The vocals are decent enough. The sound is here by intent and it gives the band it's own identity. 

The music is decent enough but I am the first one to admit that the music is not something a proghead would enjoy. It has too much punk influences for that.

This is a decent enough album and worth checking out.

2 points

Sangre De Muerdago - Deixademe Morrer No Bosque (2013)

The second album from this band from Spain.

The band is a one-man-band with Pablo Ursusson on bodhran, tin whistle, acoustic guitars, hurdy gurdy and vocals.

He got help from a handful of guests who added classic guitars, violin, cello and vocals.

The self-titled debut album from 2010 were full of pretty lush folk music from the Galician region in Spain. Some would also label the music as neofolk.

Pablo very much continues down the same route on this album, the follow up album. 

The difference is that the music here is much more naked than on the debut album. It is acoustic and the songs are pretty much naked to the bone.

The melodies are decent enough. But this album still feels like a step in the wrong direction based on the hopes the debut album gave us.

This one hour long album is still a half decent album but nothing more than that. 

1.5 points

King's X - Black Like Sunday (2003)

The tenth album from this band from USA.

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

The band had moved from the extreme metal label Metal Blade to the more prog rock orientated record label Inside Out. If I am not much mistaken, Inside Out is based in Germany.

The band was in a decline by now. Both commercially and in their creative outputs.

The album starts very promisingly with the title track which is a good song. It is by far the best song here and it is in the good old King's X tradition. Just like the fans want this band to be.

The rest of the album is a mishmash of old 1950-60s pop, beat and whimsical songs. It is a creative failure and this is the least representative album this band has ever done. 

Only the title track and some sporadic good ideas saves this band from being at total disaster. It is still an album well worth bypassing and by a large geographical margin.

2 points

Prucel - Easy Pieces (1975)

The one and only album from this band from Norway.

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

The band was formed in the Oslo region, played the two most legendary festivals there, released this album and then split up. The musicians has been active in other bands after the split up.

This album is just under half an hour long and the music is west coast pop/rock with some prog rock influences. Middle of the road, MOR, is also a fitting label here.

The music is both guitars and piano dominated. There are some mellotron here too. 

The vocals is good. The musicians does their best on some songs who are too anonyme too really shine brightly. The music feels too dated too.

The music is not too bad though and this is a decent album. Check it out of soft prog and west coast pop/rock is your thing.

2 points

Garden Wall - Assurdo (2011)

 

 

 

The eight and final album from this band from Italy.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of electronic percussion, drums, bass, guitars, e bow, keyboards, synths, samples and vocals.

Numerous guests added percussions, drums, strings, guitars, bass, woodwinds, keyboards, synths and vocals.

I have yet to hear any of their previous seven albums. The band album debuted back in 1993 and is listed as a progressive metal band everywhere. 

That is not the case on this album. A seventy minutes long album.

The music is a chaotic mix of avant-garde soundscapes and metalcore.

This album is pure chaos and the music is both poor and makes no sense. This album is a turkey, in other words.

1 point

Le Orme - Il Leone e la Bandiera (2024)

The 23th album from this band from Italy.

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

The band is back again from the rather disappointing last year's album titled And Friends. 

The band is back with original music this time and in a band format.

The music is classic 1970s RPI. It comes complete with some very good Italian vocals and the usual Le Orme's take on ELP like symphonic prog. 

As in their best days, there is indeed a lot of ELP influences here. But most of all, this forty-five minutes long album, which also include two live versions of songs already on this album, is a great reminder how good this band was in the 1970s. 

The sound is lush, warm and great. The music is very good, despite of those two live tracks. Le Orme is back and back with a vengeances. I did not expect this to happen and this is the biggest nice surprise of the year.

3.5 points

Sunface - Cloud Castles (2024)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

Their 2016 debut album Observatory created a lot of attention in the stoner rock crowd and got a lot of very good reviews. This also in this blog as it is a good album.

The music on that album was a mix of melodic psych rock, space rock and stoner rock.

Eight years later and the band returns again with a new album. The music is this time mostly more of the same. However....

The music is much more distorted this time with the vocals put in the back of the mix, behind a wall of bass and guitars.

There are also some indie rock influences here. The Charlatans is a band that springs to mind. The music is also a lot darker this time around.

This album is not Observatory part 2. The band has moved to a more darker sound and artistic expression. The quality is still good though and this is an album well worth checking out.

3 points

Semiramis - La Fine Non Esiste (2024)

The second album from this band from Italy.

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

The band released their debut album more than fifty years ago and nobody expected to hear a single more tone from this band again. At least, not a brand new studio album. 

The drummer and vibraphonist Paolo Faenza is the only original member left and he has been joined by five young musicians in today's version of this band.

Another remarkable thing here is that the band has updated the sound from the debut album and then written and recorded six new songs, forty minutes of music in the same vein as the debut album.

That means some quite heavy and lively RPI. The music here is harder than most other RPI albums. Due to the much more muscular and clearer production and sound on this album, the music here sounds harder than the debut album. And that album was a very hard RPI album.

The new and clear sound has also added a lot to these songs. The vocals are also good and that helps a lot.

The music is pretty hard but also very much RPI. That means lush instrumentation and vocals. The music is also quirky too. There is a lot of strange twists and turns on this album.

This is indeed a remarkable comeback and a remarkable album. It is also a very good album and one to check out. It is one of the highlights among the RPI albums released this year. 

3.5 points

Bird Race - A New Species (2024)

The third album from this band from Great Britain.

This is a one-man-band run by Steve Satori who does all the drums, bass, guitars, vocals and keyboards. 

A female vocalist added some vocals.

Steve Satori has under this name released three albums through Bandcamp. I reviewed the first two albums last month and this is my review of their brand new album. I am sure more albums will follow in the coming years.

The music is a mix of Roxy Music like quirky art-rock and more melodic art-rock. Add in some pop and some neo-prog and Canterbury psych too. There is also some fusion here, although there is less fusion on this album than on the previous two albums.

Some of the material here is leaning towards neo-prog. 

The instrumentation is lush too. The vocals are very good. 

This album is clocking in at one hour and it is Steve's best album so far. It is indeed a very good album.

Fans of quirky art-rock and progressive rock should check out this album.

3.5 points

 

 

Abacus - Fire Behind Bars (2001)

The fifth album from this band from Germany.

The band was a seven pieces big band with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, drum programming and vocals.

This one hour long album was released in 2001 by Musea. The sound is so 1970s that it is believed the album and the eight tracks was recorded in the 1970s or early 1980s. 

Yes, we are back in the 1970s here and in that scene. To be more precise... the music is a mix of AOR and some soul influenced rock. 

But in the middle of this AOR and soul influenced rock, we get a bit slab of ELP like symphonic prog.

The AOR and the soul influenced rock is really poor fare. The ELP like symphonic prog is borderline good throughout. But there is not enough of that.

The result is pretty poor album. It is a half decent album thanx to the saving grace.... the ELP like stuff. It is still an album well worth avoiding at all costs.

1.5 points

My Dying Bride - Feel The Misery (2015)

The 13th album from this band from Great Britain.

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

This sextet returned again with a new album of doom and gloom.

This band has their own style, own genre and their own niche in the music world. For those unfamiliar with this genre.... it is symphonic funeral doom metal. 

There is a lot of death metal grunts on this album. The music is pretty symphonic at places. The tempo varies between slow and mid-tempo.

The band has reconnected with how they were on their first two albums and has upgraded that sound with these new songs recorded twenty-five years after their debut album. This is therefore a pretty crushing heavy album. Heavy but also melodic and somber. 

The quality of the music is very good throughout this album. This is indeed a very good album and one that I would recommend to their fans and those who wonder what this band is all about. 

3.5 points

Minas - Rigid Adherence (2021)

The fourth album from this band from Norway.

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

The band operated under the name Minas Tirith during their first three albums and EPs. I have reviewed their albums and EPs and rate this band highly. Minas Tirith was and still is Norway's answer to King's X. Very popular among the musicians but unknown to the general music lovers. A great shame !

The band reunited in 2015, minus one member, and shortened their name to Minas. This is an self-released album through Bandcamp.

The music on this album is slightly quirky progressive metal with some grunge influences. There are some clear hints of the good old Minas Tirith here but they are not many.

Most of the music is straight forward songs.

The quality is decent enough. I would still go for the first three Minas Tirith albums and the EP instead of this album if you want something from this band. Minas is just a shadow of what Minas Tirith was in their days.

2 points

 

 

Kamikaze Scotsmen - Modern Day Gardening (2016)

The one and only album from this band from Hungary.

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

Having moved to Scotland thirty years ago, their band name caught my attention and I got their EPs and this album.

The band has released some EPs through Bandcamp before they released this album. This album too was released through Bandcamp.

The music is a mix of experimental pop/rock, art rock and psych rock. There is also some post rock influences here.

The music on this fifty minutes long album is mid-tempo and quite lively. It is also quite melodic.

The vocals and the guitars are pretty good.

The problem with this album is the lack of good songs. There is also a lot of band doing the same type of music and the only one thing that makes this band different is the band name. A funny band name who does not translate to good music. 

This album is a name-your-price album and well worth a download.

2 points

Laughing Stock - Shelter (2024)

The seventh album from this band from Norway.

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

Two guests, including Tim Bowness, added vocals and trumpet.

The band started out as a symphonic and eclectic prog band back in 2018. Their first albums was really good and established the band in the elite division of Norwegian progressive rock bands.

Their last album saw the band move to the art-rock genre. It was very Marillion inspired and had some post-rock influences.

The fifty minutes long Shelter album sees the band also branch out to the English alternative pop/rock scene. The Marillion influences is still here. You can also add XTC to list of influences.... and indeed Tim Bowness and the No-Man band. 

This album will probably appeal more to those scenes than the progressive rock scene. A genre this band has left behind with their two latest albums.

The quality of this album is still pretty good and this album is indeed an improvement on last year's album. If melodic alternative rock/pop is your thing, you will really enjoy this good album.

3 points

Sunface - Observatory (2016)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

This band has just released their second album and were kind enough to send me a copy of it. I already got this, their debut album though and wanted to review that before I review their new album next week.

Their music is a mix of stoner rock, space rock and psych rock. 

The music is pretty melodic in the sense that it has a lot of space rock themes throughout. There are some good vocals here too. 

There is a lot of Motorpsycho references in their music. Sunface is more stoner rock than Motorpsycho and their music is a lot more melodic and uncomplicated. It is not as garage as Motorpsycho either.

The guitars are dirty though and the use of some half-acoustic guitars adds a lot of colours to the compositions on this half an hour long album.

The music is medium hard and it has a lot of good themes. 

The result is a good album and one to check out if these three genres, space, psych and stoner, is something for you.

3 points

Semiramis - Dedicato A Frazz (1973)

The debut album from this band from Italy.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of bells, drums, percussion, vibraphone, bass, guitars, organ, electric piano, harpsichord, synths and vocals.

This band has just released their second album, which I have purchased and will review next week. I thought I had reviewed their debut album, this one, a decade ago as it is a semi-classic in the RPI scene. I was wrong and it must have slipped under my radar although I purchased it thirteen years ago.

...Dusting it off for this review...

The album is clocking in at thirty-seven minutes and it really throws a punch.

The music is classic RPI with a mix of pastoral symphonic prog in the Genesis vein and some really harder and more eclectic stuff in the vein of Van Der Graaf Generator and King Crimson. There is also a lot of Yes influences here.

The music is very hard and harsh at times with some almost unhinged guitar solos. The vocals are good though and ditto for the guitars and the guitar solos.

This is a typical early 1970s RPI album and indeed.... a semi-classic in the scene.

It is also a good album indeed. Check it out.

3 points

Frank Never Dies - Red Moon Rising (2024)

The second album from this band from Italy.

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

This band album debuted back in 2020 with the Behind The Paradox album. An album I have not got and which I maybe will get and review later this year.

Their music is a mix of psych rock, post rock, space rock and Arthur Brown like hard rock. 

This forty minutes long album is full of contrasts and conflicting ideas. From some beautiful post rock influenced space rock to the more harsh vocals driven hard rock. The latter one being the weakness of this album and a downer.

The rest of the album has some really melodic, beautiful tasty music. 

This album is two-faced and has got an ugly face too. Nevertheless, the best parts is really good. This album is an nearly-there album and one to check out.

2.5 points