Azure - Fym (2024)

The third album from this band from Great Britain.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of bass, guitars, mandolin, theremin, keyboards, grand piano and vocals.

Some guests added drums, congas and woodwinds.

I reviewed their first two albums in the # 2 of this blog back in July 2021 and I gave them a good rating. Both of them. They are both good, solid heavy prog albums with some strong symphonic and neo-prog influences.

The band is back again this year with the third album. An eighty minutes long album.

The music sounds like a rock opera. That means music with a mix of symphonic prog, neo-prog and heavy prog. Hence the band has moved slightly away from the brand of prog rock they played on their first two albums.

The music also sounds like musicals and the vocals and music is pretty theatrical. 

The vocals is good and the band does a good job on some good songs. There is a lot of dramatic, good guitar solos here.

The result is a good album and one that will win the band a lot of new fans, I guess. Check out this album.

3 points

Sangre De Muerdago - O Camiño Das Mans Valeiras (2015)

The third album from this one-man-band from Spain.

Pablo C. Ursusson does the drums, shaker, hurdy gurdy, guitars and vocals.

Three guests added drums, harp, viola, guitars, dulcimer, flutes, backing vocals and female vocals.

Their debut album has some very lush folk rock/music. The band, make that Pablo, went for a bareboned, stripped down sound on their second album... and the result was a pretty poor album. So I wondered what Pablo would come up with on the follow up album. And where is the progressive rock in their sound as this band is on ProgArchives. 

Pablo has returned to most of the colours and lush sound he introduced on the debut album. There are a lot of male and female vocal harmonies here. The flutes is also very good here. Ditto for the acoustic guitars.

The progressive rock aspect is not particular present here and the band is more a mix of a lush folk music and folk rock band on this three quarters of an hour long album. 

That said, the music is decent enough and this is quite an enjoyable album. Melodic and enjoyable. This is album is an improvement on the two first albums.

2 points

King's X - Ogre Tones (2005)

The 11th album from this band from USA.

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

The band returned again with a new album. 

The music on their previous albums has not lived up to the expectations created by their first four albums. Four great albums. The band got lost in various attempts of becoming commercial acceptable after poor sales figures of their best albums. 

The band got lost, in other words.

Ogre Tones sees the band trying to return back to some of the basics from their first four albums. The music is mostly hard. Nevertheless, you still find some The Beatles and Rush harmonies here. There are also some Jimi Hendrix, without the heavenly guitars, and Led Zeppelin here.

This album is therefore an improvement on the previous three albums.

That said, the quality of the songs are still found wanting. A bit found wanting. This album is still a step in the right direction and a good album. My faith in this band is being restored....

3 points

Gaung - Opus Contra Naturam (2017)

The debut album (?) from this one-man-band from Indonesia.

Gaung is Rama Saputra on bass, guitars, cello and synths.

He was helped out by Rendy Pandita on drums, synths and vocals.

Indonesia has always had and still has a good music scene. A scene made pretty popular through the excellent Moonjune Records. 

Gaung on the other hand has released this album through the small Bandcamp based Indonesian record label Orange Cliff Records. A record label who has released a lot of albums.

Rama Saputra is serving up a mix of stoner rock, psych rock and progressive rock in this album. Mostly psych and stoner rock, though. There are also some harsh guitar based jazz influences here.

The music is pretty decent throughout without really impressing. There is no local folk music or local colours involved here. 

The music is pretty harsh at times. Harsh but not dissonant.

The result is an hour long decent album and one to check out if stoner, jazz and psych rock is a combination that floats the boat for you.

2 points

 

Gatto Marte - Leolombrico (2003)

The fifth album from this band from Italy.

The band was a sextet on this album with a lineup of drums, percussion, double bass, violin, piano and bassoon.

I reviewed their final three albums some ten years ago for # 1 of this blog. I gave them decent to good ratings. 

The music the band is playing is hardly any rock music. The music is a mix of RIO avant-garde neo-classical music spiced up with some jazz influences.

It is not the normal fare served up for this reviewer, in other words. 

Some of the music here is also a bit dissonant and has got some unusual melody and rhythm patterns. 

The music sounds cool and is quite interesting. RIO and avant-garde fans rates this band highly and I can understand why.

The quality of the music is somewhere between decent and good. Check it out if avant-garde music is your thing.

2.5 points