Ozul - Provenance (2023)

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

Ozul is Paulo Chavarria on guitars, electronics and vocals.

Paulo is originally from Costa Rica, Latin-America but he has settled in Bergen, Norway. Two albums has so far been released and I will review the new album sometimes later this week.

The music is a modern mix of art-rock, psych rock and heavy prog. Porcupine Tree and Marillion is two very good references here. Pink Floyd is a minor influence.

The music is more melancholic than hard. It still has an edge but the edge is not that sharp. There is a lot of pop sensibilities here too.

The vocals is very good. There is some multi-layered vocals on this album too and they are very good. The music is not complicated but it still has some good details.

The music is still pretty muscular and is heavy at times. This is adding variations and gravitas to the songs.

The album is clocking in at three quarters of an hour and the music is good throughout. 

This is an album well worth checking out and a good edition to the impressive Norwegian prog and art-rock scene.

3 points

Vientos Moderados del Este - Un Manual de Signos y Síntomas (2024)

The debut album from this band from Spain.

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

I became aware of this band when they introduced themselves in ProgArchives, the new bands submission forum. So I got their album and put it on the list of albums to be reviews. A many weeks long waiting list.

Their music is a mix of psych rock, art rock, heavy prog and symphonic prog. All of this with a cool breeze of Latin rock. This is a genre we have got from both Spain and South-America.

The vocals are in Spanish and they are very good. They adds a lot of colours and quality to this album. Ditto for the organs here which sounds both vintage and very good. 

The guitars are also cool. They are both chugging and adding some Spanish flavours in the vein of Al De Meola at the same time.

This close to one hour long album has one long epic clocking in at seventeen minutes and that epic closes the album. It is a very good epic.

The rest of the songs are also very good and this album is adding a lot of colours to my record collection and the progressive rock scene. The band is talking about a second album and I cannot wait....

In the meantime......Check out this album.

3.5 points

 

 

Spidergawd - Spidergawd III (2016)

The third album from this band from Norway.

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

This is quite an interesting band. Their debut album was very explosive hard rock while their second album was a more garage and psych rock inspired vintage hard rock album.

The band includes members from Motorpsycho and that is evident in their music. Hard psych rock is what we get on this half an hour long album.

The music both hard, melodic and slightly weird too. The garage rock inspirations are evident.

The vocals is pretty good. The guitars are dirty and vintage psych rock like.

This is vintage psych rock and it is pretty good too. The album is too short for my liking.

The result is a decent to good album which should have been longer and is lacking a bit in the songwriting skills. I like this band.

2.5 points

Tusmørke - Hinsides (2017)

The fourth album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of glockenspiel, drums, percussion, organ, grand piano, mellotron, keyboards, synths, electronics, flute and vocals.

Three guests added congas, hurdy gurdy, flute, crumhorn, narration and vocals.

I reviewed their first three albums years ago for # 1 and # 2 of this blog many years ago. I will now review the remaining albums this autumn and winter for this blog.

Tusmørke is a strange band and a pretty important band in the Norwegian prog rock scene. 

Their music is not traditional progressive rock. It is more on the fringes of progressive rock.

Take a bit of both Daevid Allen and Frank Zappa's weirdness and add a lot of psych rock and folk rock. This where you find this album. There are also some Canterbury prog on this album, as in Gong. 

The music is weird and so is the Norwegian lyrics. Lyrics not many will understand as Norwegian is only understood by five million lost souls.... myself included. The vocals is good, though.

The quality of the music is somewhere between decent and good. I hope their other albums is better than this one, let me put it like that.

2.5 points

Gruppo Autonomo Suonatori - Omnia Sunt Communia (2021)

The one and only album from this band from Italy.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, bouzouki, mandolin, guitars, piano, synths, electric piano, flute, saxophones and vocals.

This band is also called G.A.S and has been around for two decades before they released this album through Black Widows Records in Italy.

That does not means this band is a heavy occult metal band, the normal fare from this record label. This album is an unusual album from this record label.

The music here is a mix of folk rock and old RPI.

The music is heavy at times and reminds me a bit about Biglietto Per l'Inferno. But the music is much more sunny and lighter than that band. Some Angelo Branduardi influences also shines through.

This album is fifty minutes long and it really offers a glimpse into the good old RPI days.

Most of the music is very good indeed and this album is a revelation. I flew under my radar back in 2021 but it is one of the best RPI albums from that year. I need a better radar....

Check out this very good album.

3.5 points

Gambit - Abyssal (2013)

The second album from this band from France.

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

To my regret, I have been unable to get a copy of their 2009 debut album Machiavelique. So this is my only review of a Gambit album. That is a shame.

Their music is neo-prog. Neo-prog with French vocals and some symphonic prog influences.

Three good references are Gens De La Lune, Magnesis and Ange.  

The music is both melodic and pretty complex at the same time. The French vocals is very good. The rest of the band does a good job too on this fifty minutes long album.

The organ sound is really good and adds a lot of 1970s references and sound. The songs are all very good.

This album fits nicely into anyone's collection of French neo-prog and symphonic prog albums.

This is indeed a good album and it is a crying shame that this band never released another album. 

3.5 points

Methexis - Potential Deltas (2024)

The fourth album from this band from Greece.

The band is a one-man-band with Nikitas Kissonas playing all the instruments, that means guitars, electronics and vocals.

I really liked the first two Methexis albums and gave them both good ratings in May 2016 in # 1 of this blog. I have by accident bypassed the third album Topos from 2018.

So I was happy when this album showed up in my inbox. 

Potenitial Deltas gives us three quarters of an hour with some Frank Zappa like ditties and sillyness. The final minutes of the album is a pointless ambient dirge.

The contrasts between the good and the bad music on this album is pretty huge and I have been struggling with this album. The vocals is good though and ditto for the more jazzy bits. There is not enough of the jazzy bits though.

Frank Zappa fans will like this album a lot. It is a decent album in it's own right too. I am not won over.

2 points

 

 

 

 

Trk Project - Sounds from the Past (2018)

The second album from this band from Poland.

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

The full name of this band is The Ryszard Kramarski Project but most blogs shortens it to Trk Project. This band is a side project of Framauro and Millenium.

After reviewing their last two albums, I decided to get hold of the rest of their albums too. I reviewed their 2017 debut album Music Inspired By The Little Prince some days ago and gave it a decent to good rating. Reviews of their third and fourth albums will be published in some weeks time, before the end of the year.

The rather operatic vocals from Karolina Leszko continues on also on this album. She gives their music a bit of a musicals feel. 

The music is still a mix of neo-prog and art-rock. Add in some folk rock influences, Mostly Autumn influences too and you get their music. Music with a bit of a melancholic take on neo-prog too. 

The music is complex, epic and melodic. It is also good and the band hit their stride on this album. An underrated band/project. Check out this album.

3 points

Tristan Park - Looking Homeward (1998)

The third and final album from this band from USA.

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

This band's first two albums has not exactly impressed me. Their mix of pomp rock, commercial rock and neo-prog has this US sound and is very melodic. The problem is the band's lack of ability to write good, even decent songs.

This one hour long album continues in the same vein as the first two albums.

The vocals is decent although it sounds strained and limited. There are some good guitar solos and hooks here. The keyboards is somewhere in the mix, neither adding quality or making this album worse than it is. The sound is not particular good and this album tends to loose the attention of the listener halfway through the album.

The band comes up very short when it comes to writing songs. The quality is not there. The band is also a bit undecided about writing prog songs or commercial rock songs. 

The result is a decent album from a band who, for some good reasons, never got their commercial breakthrough.  

2 points

 

Haze - The Water's Edge (2024)

The eight album from this band from Great Britain.

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

A handful of guests added fiddle, flute, saxophone and vocals.

Haze was one of those first generation neo-prog bands who never got the breakthrough the likes of Marillion got. Nevertheless, Haze has been releasing albums since 1984. That is forty years ago.

The Water's Edge continues in the same vein as their previous album Back To The Bones from 2020.

This means a blend of neo-prog and folk rock.  

There is also some good old 1970s hard rock in their music. Not much but still enough to add some colours and quality to this one hour long album.

One hour and five minutes to be more precise. The vocals is good and the band does a good job. The organ sound adds some vintage hard rock and prog rock to this album. 

The songs are also good and this is a good, enjoyable album which will enhance this band's already good reputation and may win them some new fans. 

3 points

 

 

Spooky Tooth - Witness (1973)

The sixth album from this band from Great Britain.

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

The band had released another album the same year called You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw and that album was an artistic disaster with it's mishmash of most genres. The songs there was poor and so was the choice of a female vocalist.

So, back to the drawing room, then. And back to the studio for another album. 

The music on Witness sees the return to blues rock again. There are also some more folk rock here as the music is firmly rooted in the British rock scene anno 1973. 

Mike Harrison is thankfully back on the vocals too and his vocals is good. 

The songs are rather uncomplicated rock and blues rock songs. The sound is good and the quality is decent enough.

This album is an improvement on their previous album, the above mentioned album. It is an album well worth checking out.

2 points

 

 

Tangerine Dream - Alpha Centauri (1971)

The second album from this band from Germany.

The band was a trio with a lineup of percussion, bass, organ, harp piano and electronics.

Two guests added flute and synths.

I am quite dreading this progressive electronic genre. I have still decided to review around ten to fifteen albums from this band in the coming months as they are the masters and legends of this genre. 

Their debut album was a positive surprise to me and there was quite some stuff I liked there. So onwards to Alpha Centauri then.....

The music on this forty minutes long album (the 2011 version is one hour long but not reviewed here) starts out as slow but steady cosmic space rock. This is like floating in the air, thousands of miles from this earth. 

A nice opening where the flute is adding some dynamic melodies too. 

The final half of the album, the title track,  is more an ambient piece of music which falls a bit short. It still has it's moments but not many enough of them.

The result is another positive surprise and a decent album. Tangerine Dream is perhaps about to change my views on this genre.....

2 points

 

 

 

Gideons Mob - Space Cadet Supernova (2020)

The second and final album from this band from USA.

The band is a one-man-band run by Brian Urso who plays keyboards and guitars in addition to his vocals.

The self-titled debut album from 2019 was horrendous bad and one of the worst albums I have ever heard. Mostly due to the sound. It sounded like it had been recorded from under his bed in his bedroom. The music and the musical abilities was also very, very poor.

No expectations to the second album, then...

The sound is slightly improved. Is sounds like the album has been recorded in his living room this time. Or perhaps from his kitchen. Or his bedroom. Or in a bike shed. 

One thing is for sure... this album has never seen the inside of a studio. Not even the worst studio in town. The sound is that bad.

The songs are sligthly better this time and there are some samples on this psych rock album. Yes, it is now audible what genre Brian Urso has tried this time. Which is a mix of space rock and psych rock. This with some guitars. Brian Urso is not a good guitarist. 

This album is an improvement but not by much. It is still a turkey and one of the worst albums I have ever heard in my life.

1 point

 

 

Garden - Somewhere Else (2013)

The third album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a seven piece big band with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, cello, violin, piano, flute, tuba, saxophone, clarinet and vocals.

Their debut album, the self-titled 2012 album, did not go down that well with me in my review of it some days ago. But it deserved a decent rating. 

That album had a mix of post-metal, art-rock and chamber prog. 

The musicians adjusted their style and came back with something rather new and fresh. Out went the post-metal. The band still went down the art-rock adn chamber prog route. That with some folk rock and eclectic prog added on.

The strings and woodwinds also gives this forty minutes long album a bit of a weird melancholic and atonal sound too. The sound and songs is not particular uplifting, to say at least. 

Some of the songs here are pretty good and some are not so good. The vocals is good and this album is in general pretty weird. 

If weird and slightly eclectic music is your thing, this is a pretty good addition to your collection. It is an album well worth checking out.

2.5 points

 

Mangrove - Bridge to Fiction (2024)

The fourth album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

The band has returned again after a fifteen years long break. The band album debuted in 2004 and released their third album back in 2009.

I find it hard to believe, but this is my first review of a Mangrove album. I have their other three albums though and will try to review them before the end of the year. I should have done this many years ago though as they are a symphonic prog band. 

The music on this album is a mix of lots of genres, though.

Take Dutch symphonic prog, add some hard prog and some more eclectic prog. Then add some pomp rock too. Yes, the band mixes it up a lot.

The opening track, the title track, is ten minutes long and does not really impresses me. There are five shorter, better songs before a twenty-two minutes long symphonic prog epic closes this well over one hour long album.

The vocals is good and there is a lot of interesting details here. The guitars and keyboards is adding a lot of good stuff here.

The quality of the music here is barely good but it is still a good album. I should really have checked out this band years ago though.... My prog-radar need an overhaul and some new parts.

3 points

Trk Project - Music Inspired by the Little Prince (2017)

The debut album from this band from Poland.

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

The full name of this band is The Ryszard Kramarski Project but most blogs shortens it to Trk Project. This band is a side project of Framauro and Millenium. Framauro released a new album earlier this year. See my review.

I have reviewed the last two Trk Project albums in this blog and then got hold of their first two albums after that for some reviews. The second album will be reviewed later this month. I also hope to get hold of their third and fourth album later this year.

The music here is a mix of art-rock and neo-prog. The female vocalists added musicals like vocals to this album too and that gives this album a bit of a folk rock musicals sound too. 

The music is pretty soft and melodic. There are some good guitar solos here and the vocals is good.

There are still some good details here. Some of the stuff is not that good. Nevertheless, this three quarters of an hour long album is a fairly good addition to the many art-rock and neo-prog albums from Poland and well worth checking out. 

2.5 points

 

 

Tristan Park - A Place Inside (1995)

The second album from this band from USA.

The band was a ten piece big band with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, piano, woodwinds and vocals.

Their 1993 debut album At The End Of The Day was not an impressive album. It was in fact pretty close to be a dire album. 

Nevertheless, the band soldiered on and we got this album. 

A one hour long album, no less, with a mix of pomp prog, commercial rock and some US neo-prog.

Pomp is the word here as the music is big and bold. It is also melodic and has some good hooks.

The vocals is pretty good. The woodwinds is.... weird and has no use here. It seems like the band was trying to break through to the tamla-motown fans too. Like those who liked the first Phil Collins album. Weird.

The result is a decent enough album. It is not an album for the prog rock fans but nevertheless....

2 points

Gunerius & Verdensveven - Fantasmagor'i (2024)

The fourth album from this band from Norway.

The band is a trio with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, sitar, guembri, kalimba, synths, electronics and vocals.

A guest added trumpet and synths on one track.

This is another band who are on the fringes of the Norwegian progressive rock scene. I would still very much include this band in this scene, though. 

I reviewed their previous album, the 2023 album Kapitalypse Na back in July 2023 in this blog and liked it a lot. That album gave us a mix of Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Amon Duul II and Popol Vuh. 

We get a lot more of the same here. The King Crimson influences has been replaced with some Miles Davis like jazz though. This album is indeed leaning a lot more towards jazz than progressive rock.

We still get krautrock and a lot of Frank Zappa here. The Norwegian language lyrics, which I as a Norwegian understand, but will get lost for those whos does not, is important here. They are hippie and peace on earth orientated. They are also good. They are also delivered as scatches and raps like mix of singing and talking.

There is a lot of rhythms here and the music is mainly funky jazz.

The band does a good job and the vocals is good. The songs too is good. I am afraid this album may be lost in translation outside Norway and that is a shame. Nevertheless......

3 points

 

 

The Samuel Jackson Five - Same Same But Different (2004)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, theremin, piano, organ, synths and samples.

Two guests added drums and violins.

This band has so far released five albums and they are all up for reviews this autumn in this blog. 

The band can loosely be associated with the Norwegian progressive rock scene although their music is different from the normal prog rock fare.

The band plays instrumental math rock. 

The band has mixed in some RIO and a lot of post rock in their take on math rock. 

The music is mainly guitar based. But there is some tasty organs and piano here too. A violin also adds to their sound.

The music is also medium paced and not particular intense. Neither is the music particular laidback and relaxed. 

The result is a decent enough album who may please the math rock crowd a lot. Check out this album if esoteric music is your thing.

2 points

Sleeping Pandora - All the Way (2020)

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

Mathias Rosmann did the guitars, piano, synths and programming here.

Sleeping Pandora is his cosmic space rock project. He is also involved in other bands inbetween releasing a couple of Sleeping Pandora albums a year.

Or he was releasing that amount of albums every year until recently. He has not released any albums this year, though.

The music on this forty five minutes long album is cosmic space rock and some psych rock. It is also pretty melancholic space rock and slightly filled with sorrows. 

The music is not particular uplifting, that is. And that itself is an improvement on the previous two albums who sounded a bit too mechanic and run-of-the-mill ambient space rock.

There are some pretty good music here, indeed. There are some proper good melodies here too. Melodies in the melancholic psych rock vein too. 

All of it is instrumental and the music lacks a bit of a bite and focus. Nevertheless, this is one of his better albums and well worth checking out if melodic cosmic space rock is your thing.

2.5 points

Gideons Mob - Gideons Mob (2019)

The debut album from this band from USA.

The band is a one-man-band run by Brian Urso who plays keyboards and guitars in addition to his vocals.

He has released two albums under this name. Both of them will be reviewed this month in this blog.

This album must have been recorded in his bedroom or under his bed. The sound quality is among the worst I have ever heard and reminds me about some really poor death and black metal demos from the late 1980s/early 1990s.

The music is early 1970s psych rock and prog rock. The very poor sound quality where the levels is going up and down throughout the songs, makes it difficult to hear the music properly too.

The vocals, guitars and keyboards is very poor and the songs are very, very poorly performed.

This three quarters of an hour long album is a turkey and almost an unlistenable record. Avoid !

1 point

Garden - Garden (2012)

The debut album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was an eight piece big band with a lineup of bass, guitars, mandolin, euphonium, cello, violin, piano, clarinet, saxophone, flute and vocals.

This band comes from Scotland and I got their two albums for reviews. They have been in my collection, unreviewed, for many years and it is about time to give them my attention.

The band has in total released two singles and two albums between 2011 and 2017. I only got their two albums. 

The music here is a bit of a mix of post-metal, art-rock and chamber prog. 

The music on this half an hour long album is weird to say at least. The vocals is pretty good and the woodwinds is among those elements who is adding this weirdness.

The cello and violins gives this album a bit of a chamber prog sound too. Some of the pieces of music is also down this road.

The music on this album is eclectic indeed and pretty left-field. This is a decent album and well worth checking out if eclectic music floats your boat.

2 points

Ice - Man In The Moon (2024)

The second album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

This band album debuted back in 2005 with the album The Saga. I reviewed it in August 2015 for # 1 of this blog and liked it a lot. Prog rock in the vein of Genesis, the Mama era.

I did not expect a return from the band as they were involved in other projects and bands. Thankfully, I was wrong and Ice returned nineteen years later. 

The music is a mix of art-rock, symphonic prog, pomp rock and neo-prog.

There are still a lot of Genesis, the Mama era influences on this one hour and six minutes long album. Ditto for some pomp rock too. 

The music is very melodic. It still has a lot of bites and substance you only get from progressive rock. The music is also pretty epic with some good, long guitar solos.

The vocals too is good and this album is a bit of a Dutch prog rock feast as it has the good old classic Dutch prog rock sound. The same sound as on their debut album in fact.

The result is a good album where the song writing could have been better but who still deliver the goods.

Check it out.

3 points

Reegonetti Band - Songs from the Raven's Nest (2024)

The second album from this band from Sweden.

The band is a duo with a lineup of drums, organ, keyboards, synths and vocals.

Their debut album was a mishmash of art-rock, pomp rock, musicals, cinematic rock and funk. It was like throwing darts into the dark to see which of them would hit home.

The band has found the answer based on this album. 

The music on this one hour long album is a mix of art-rock and pomp rock. 

The vocals is really good and the organ is good too. The lack of both bass and guitars feels a bit strange. The album would have benefited from the inclusion of both instruments.

The keyboards runs is good to very good and adds a lot to this album. It makes this mid-tempo music album into a good album with several very good pieces of music. There are also some not so good pieces here.

The result is a good pomp rock album and one to check out for those into melodic progressive rock.

3 points

Runemagick - Beyond The Cenotaph Of Mankind (2023)

The 13th album from this band from Sweden.

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

The so far latest album from this band and the final Runemagick album review. 

Starting out as a classic death metal band in the same vein as Grave and Bolt Thrower, the band started to slow down their aural onslaughts and changed to a more doom metal band. One of their album contained some gothic metal too.

Four years has gone from their previous album... and the band has upped the tempo a bit.

There are still some doom metal influences here and the speed is not as fast as the more modern death metal music you get these days. The band is not as technical either as the likes of Cannibal Corpse and the more modern death metal bands.

The result is a mix of classic death metal and slower doom metal on this fifty minutes long album.

The vocals is brutal and ditto for the music which is at times very brutal and esoteric.

This is one of their better albums and one to check out of death metal is your thing. It is a decent album from a rather obscure death metal band. A band who deserve a bit more respect. 

2 points

 

 

Habelard2 - Macchie Di Inchiostro Su Carta Sensibile (2024)

The 13th album from this one-man-band from Italy.

Sergio Caleca does all the instruments and samples here.

I have reviewed a couple of his albums before but I cannot remember much from them. Cinematic rock and neo-classical music is not really genres that interest me that much.

The music is cinematic rock with a lot of symphonic prog influences.

The main instruments are piano, keyboards, acoustic guitars and flutes. 

The tempo is a mix of slow and mid-tempo. The music is rather pastoral too.

The music is well crafted by a musician who knows his craft. There is no surprises and not so much of greatness here. The music is pretty good though and those who likes instrumental cinematic rock with some prog rock influences will enjoy this album. I have some reservations, though.

2.5 points

 

 

Motorpsycho - Child Of The Future (2009)

The 14th album from this band from Norway.

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

One guest added piano on one track.

The band continued on from the garage psych album Little Lucid Moments from the year before, the previous album.

The music on this short album, which is unusual from this band as it is clocking in at almost forty minutes, is a mix of alt-rock and garage influenced psych rock.

There are even some The Beach Boys and The Beatles influences here and these influences are at times pretty strong too.

The sound is as dirty as in a garage and in garage rock.

The quality of the songs are a bit weaker this time around and this album is not on the same level as the previous album Little Lucid Moments. It is still a decent to good album and worth checking out.

2.5 points

Triumph - Triumph (1976)

The debut album from this band from Canada.

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

A guest added keyboards too.

Rightly or wrongly (wrongly in fact), I have for the last forty years thought Rush, Saga and Triumph was the three big bands from Toronto, Canada. So I developed a bit of a fascination for them. Saga and in particular Rush became my favourite bands and their studio albums has been reviewed in either ProgArchives or this blog.

It has taken me many years to come around to Triumph, though. Their ten albums are all up for reviews in the coming months. I have also bought the Rik Emmet biography on Kindle and will read it while I review these albums.

Somewhere in their ten albums, there are some progressive rock influences. But not on this album.

Some wild party rock and hard rock is what we get here. There are some references to Rush self titled debut album and Led Zeppelin here. But most of this album are pretty wild.... until we get to the final track Blinding Light Show/Moonchild which has some folk rock influences and sounds a bit like Thin Lizzy. 

The result is a half decent album where  the band dips their toes in the ocean. This is surely not their finest moment. 

1.5 points

 

 

Mimedyr - Mínym (2019)

 

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

Wow... There is no end to the amount of progressive rock bands from the five million people populated Norway. I had not even heard about this band and album until a couple of months ago. This due to this album getting some poor marketing.... it it ever got some marketing at all. 

This is in other words an obscure album. But that does not means it deserve this status.

The music here is mainly eclectic prog with some Canterbury prog influences.

The main references is both King Crimson and Gentle Giant. There is though some early Robert Wyatt influences from the Rock Bottom era. 

Some of the music is a bit dissonant and harsh. Other pieces are more light and pastoral.

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

The result is a good album who deserve a lot, lot more attention. I hope we will soon get a follow up album as this band is a band with a very good future if they stick together.

3 points

 

Kant Freud Kafka - Historias del Acantilado (2021)

The third album from this band from Spain.

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

They had help from numerous guests who added bass, guitars, strings, keyboards, piano, woodwinds and vocals.

This band was first a one-man-band with the drummer Javi Herrera as the only member and with hired hands. The band is now a trio.

I have reviewed their first two albums in both # 1 and # 2 of this blog. Both albums got a good rating.

The music is still neo-classical with some cinematic rock and some eclectic symphonic prog influences.

The vocals is a bit on the operatic side of the spectrum. Both the male and the female vocals. The vocals is good to very good. The orchestra makes are pretty good on these fifty minutes of dark music. 

The music is indeed dark and moody. It is also pretty melodic too. The cinematic rock pieces here adds more dept to this album.

The result is another good album from a band/project well worth checking out. Go so forth...

3 points

 

Nine Stones Close - Diurnal (2024)

The fifth album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

This band album debuted in 2008 and I reviewed that album back in August 2011 for ProgArchives. And to my big surprise, that is the one and only Nine Stones Close album I have ever reviewed up to now. I will now search out the three other albums and review them sometimes at the end of the year.

The band was pretty similar to Marillion, the Steve Hogarth edition of the band. Sixteen years has gone and they are again in the same territory.

The music on this forty-five minutes long album is slow to mid-tempo with some good vocals. There are some good guitar solos throughout this album.

The sound is good and it is pretty beefy and detailed.

The result is a good, enjoyable album. I will most definate visit some of their other albums too and review them.

3 points

 

 

 

 

Reegonetti Band - Exploring the Unknown (2021)

The debut album from this band from Sweden.

The band was a duo with a lineup of drums, piano, keyboards, synths and vocals.

A guest added female vocals on one song.

This band has just released their second album and I thought it would be fun and informative to first review their first album before I review their new album sometimes later this month.

Their music is a mix of a lot of genres and things.

There is no guitars here and the music is based on piano, vocals, keyboards and a lot of synths. The music still sounds organic.

The music is a mix of art-rock, mainstream rock, funk, cinematic rock, musicals ballads (one song with female/male duet vocals) and pomp rock.

The male and female vocals musicals song is very cheesy. Another song is very similar to the type of funk fronted by the British band Jamiroquai. Other songs are more cinematic rock like.

The quality is pretty good throughout, with the notable exception of that duet which is too cheesy and pretty dire.

This album could have been better but it is still an acceptable debut album.

2.5 points

Runemagick - Into Desolate Realms (2019)

The 12th album from this band from Sweden.

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

The band started out as a classic death metal band in the vein of Bolt Thrower, Massacre and Grave. They later moved to becoming more of a doom metal band. Which is the reason I decided to review their albums. I also knew Haavard, the owner of their record label Aftermath and his label deserve a lot of credit and support.

This album is clocking in at seventy minutes.

The music is a mix of doom metal and not so particular brutal death metal. Classic death metal, I would label it as.

This combination of death and doom metal is pretty potent. On this album, the music is also pretty epic and majestic.

The result is a decent enough album which may interest those into death and doom metal. It is not progressive music but it is still pretty eclectic music.

Check it out.

2 points

 

 

Ritual - The Story of Mr. Bogd Part 1 (2024)

 

The fifth album from this band from Sweden.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of percussion, drums, bouzoki, bass, mandolin, guitars, harmonica, harmonium, keyboards, flutes and vocals.

The band has made a comeback again after an album break of seventeen years. 

During these seventeen years, the band got a semi-classic status and rightly so. Their 2007 album The Hemulic Voluntary Band is one of the best prog rock albums ever to come from Sweden.

The music on this three-quarters of an hour long album is a mix of Scandinavian symphonic prog, art-rock and eclectic prog. There are also some hints of raga-rock and Middle-East folk music.

The music is also pretty true to what the band did on The Hemulic Voluntary Band. 

The vocals is very good and pretty operatic.  

The music is also pretty complex and epic with some classical music 'esque types of melody lines inbetween some more prog rock melodies.

Some of the music is more pastoral too.

The use of the various instruments here is very clever too.

It can be argued that this is their best album so far. It is hard to beat The Hemulic Voluntary Band though.... Nevertheless, this is a great album and a very much a triumphant return from Ritual.

This is surely be among the best albums this year.

4 points

 

 

 

Spidergawd - II (2015)

The second album from this band from Norway.

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

This band has so far released seven albums and all of them are up for review this autumn on this blog.

I quite liked their debut album. A hard rocking album with references to the likes of The Cult, Led Zeppelin and Motorpsycho.

The band is not as heavy as they were on the rather explosive hard debut album.

There is a lot more psych rock on this album and the band sounds like Motorpsycho's manic cousin on this album. 

The hard psych rock has indeed a lot of 1960s garage influences and some surf rock influences.

The songs are this time a lot better than on their debut album. That means more than forty minutes of some good songs. The music is still pretty hard rocking but there are some song structures in this hard psych rock.

The vocals is good and the guitars and bass are really noisy and good. 

The result is a good album and one to check out if hard psych rock with some garage rock influences floats your boat.

3 points

 

 

 

Tristan Park - At The End Of The Day (1993)

The debut album from this band from USA.

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

This band released three albums between 1993 and 1998 and they are all up for reviews in this blog this month.

The band is labeled as a neo-prog band in ProgArchives. So that meant I got their three albums.

The music on this thirty-four minutes long album is a mix of pomp rock, AOR and US neo-prog.

Take some Saga and add some Styx and Asia. 

The music is really melodic with some pretty good vocals. The music is also mid-tempo and neither particular hard or particular soft.

The music is at times a bit dire and makes me cringe as it has some of the worst excesses from the 1980s. Some of the songs are decent too.

This is not an album worth anyone's time unless commercial rock is their thing. I am not won over.

1.5 points

Anima Morte - Serpents in the Fields of Sleep (2022)

The fourth album from this band from Sweden.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, guitars, piano, organ, mellotron and synths.

Numerous guests added vibraphone, percussion, glockenspiel, bass, guitars, violin, viola, cello and woodwinds.

This band album debuted back in 2007 and has sporadicly released two more albums before this album arrived. I have reviewed them all and have given them good ratings.

The music is a mix of cinematic rock and symphonic prog. 

The band has always been inspired by Goblin and those inspirations are obvious on this album. They are coming through loud and clear. 

The music is dark in other words and is fitting for a horror movie or a similar movie genre.

The music is also epic and soaring too.

That gives us forty minutes of some decent to good instrumental music and a soundtrack that will enchance a long car journey or a more relaxed rest on the sofa.

Check out this album and their first three albums.

2.5 points

 

 

 

Animator - Gallery (1990)

The one and only album from this band from USA.

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

This band comes from the state of Illinois and labeled their music somewhere beteen IQ and Pallas. Which is not the full picture...

The sound is the 1980s British neo-prog sound. Yes, Pallas and IQ is two good references. But also add a bit Marillion and a large chunk of Rush and Styx too and you get the full picture.

The vocals is good and the sound is decent enough, as it is this not so great 1980s neo-prog sound. The sound is therefore a bit thin and not so beefy.

This sixty-six minutes long album has some pretty decent songs. Eleven pieces of music to be more precise.

This is an obscure album for a good reason: It is not a good album. It is a decent album and only neo-prog fans will really seek the pleasures this album is offering. Their kind of pleasures, that is.

I am not won over by this album, though.

2 points

Windmill. The - Mindscapes (2024)

The fourth album from this band from Norway.

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

A guest added acoustic guitar on one song.

I believed that this band had split up as the main man is so involved with promoting gigs. Gigs with many famous prog rock bands from agroad and Norway. Great gigs.

The band has returned again after a six years long break. The band album debuted back in 2010 and is not the most productive band around. But who cares as long as their albums is very good. That goes for their first three albums.

Mindscapes follows in the same direction as those three albums.

Take Scandinavian symphonic prog and add some heavy-prog too. Kaipa and Høst springs to mind throughout this album.

The vocals is very good throughout. Ditto for the flutes. 

The twenty-two minutes long Fear occupies more than half of this album and it is a very good, epic and complex piece of symphonic prog. The three other songs are more in the vein of heavy prog and more catchy.

The music is always interesting and engaging. 

This is indeed a very good album. I wish this band welcome back and I hope we will get some more albums from them in the upcoming years.

3.5 points

Tompox - Reincarnation (2019)

The third and final album from this band from Hungary.

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

A female vocalist added her vocals on one track.

The band returned again with a seventy minutes long album. An album in the same vein as their first two albums.

This means instrumental music in the borderland between cinematic rock, folk rock, symphonic prog and fusion. The album closes with a jazz and musicals inspired song with female vocals. It is not a good song.

There are some sporadic voices on this mostly instrumental album. The music is dynamic and it has some good flutes too. 

Some of the music here is a bit too run-of-the-mill. Some of the music is rather good and this is their best album. An album well worth checking out.

2.5 points

 

Tasavallan Presidentti - The Lost 1971 Studio Session (2022)

The sixth album from this band from Finland.

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

This album is a recording made in 1971 for the YLE Broadcasting Company in Finland. Their first vocalist Frank Robson is on vocals.

There is not much vocals on these four tracks though. 

The music is heavy and hard jazz rock. Fusion as you may want to label it. 

The music is also eclectic with some very obvious King Crimson influences. 

There are also some more pastoral dense jazz pieces here. Some really eclectic jazz, indeed.

This is not an official album. My guess is that these recordings was not released back in 1973 because the music here is far more pure jazz and eclectic prog than the band had released up to then... and later. These four pieces of music does not fit the picture, indeed the image of the band they gave on their semi-classic Lambertland album.

Thankfully, Svart Records gave these four pieces of music it's rightful release and the result is a good album. An album quite different from the five other albums but still a good album. 

I really like this band and may get their live albums too for my private enjoyment. Lambertland was their crowning glory though and a semi-classic album from Scandinavia. 

Check out this album.

3 points

 

 

 

Yobrepus - A Rhizome Revolution Part 2 (2024)

The third album from this band from Norway.

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

A handful of guests added guitars, violas, violins, cello, loops and piano.

This is part two and the final part of this two parts long series of albums. 

I reviewed part one back in March this year and I recently got part two from their record label.

The music is again art-rock with some eclectic prog, psych rock and a lot of electronica. 

The sound is contemporary and the guitars and vocals is both good.

The music is also both melancholic and dark. It is also complex and not particular melodic.

The thirty-seven minutes long album can also be divided into three parts with a more melodic part starting the album before the music changes to a more eclectic, complex electronica landscape before the album ends with a more psych and art rock based landscape.

The result is a good album. It is not as good as part one but it is still a good album and one to check out.

3 points

 

 

Spooky Tooth - You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw (1973)

The fifth album from this band from Great Britain.

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

Some female vocalists added their voices too.

And the band played on....... 

Their last album was not exactly a triumph. Neither artistic or commercially. So the band returned again with this strange titled album.

What we get here is a mix of psych rock, blues rock, hard rock..... and soul and gospel.

The vocals is pretty good and the band does their best on some not so interesting songs.

The soul and gospel inspired rock here shows how far the band has left their roots and their best days behind them.

A couple of decent songs is the only acceptable pieces of music on this rather dire album.

1.5 points

 

 

Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation (1970)

The debut album from this band from Germany.

The band was a trio with a lineup of percussion, bass, guitars, violin, cello, farfisa organ, piano and some voices.

This band is the biggest ever band in the electronic prog rock genre and legends. This is also a genre I have successfully been avoiding, with a handful of exceptions, since I started out reviewing prog albums in ProgArchives and later in this blog which I started twelve years ago.

I now feel I have to review their albums and I will at least try to review all their proper albums and a couple of their movie soundtrack albums as this band has released close to eighty albums. I have seventeen of them in the first batch I will review this and next year.

This album includes the three big ones in the scene, Klaus Schule, Edgar Froese and Conrad Schnitzler. We get five compositions here, taking us to thirty-seven minutes worth of music.

The music is pretty linear and the electronica has some krautrock influences. There are some chiming guitar solos in this pretty dissonant ambient landscape.

The music is, for me, surprisingly good. Not really good but this is still an album somewhere between decent and good. It is also a good introduction to me who are not particular fond of this genre. It is not as alien to me as I expected. Long may that feeling continue on their next albums.

2.5 points

 

 

 

 

Aha!! - Keep Nose In Front (1984)

The one and only album from this band from Norway.

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

A guest added some sampled voices too.

This album was released on a small jazz label at the same time as the far more famous pop band with a similar name, A-Ha, got their breakthrough with the hit single Take On Me. One small country, two bands with a similar name...

Aha!!'s take on me..... sorry, take on music is a mix of jazz and fusion. The band has some of the more famous Norwegian jazz musician and a guitarist who got a national breakthrough in a soul-pop band some years later. 

The music is pretty good throughout these forty-two minutes. There are some good acoustic bass, guitars and saxophone solos here. The music is in the mid-tempo range.

The sound is not the best and this album is only available on a hard to find LP. There are far better jazz and fusion albums out there and this album is obscure for a good reason. It is still worth checking out. 

2.5 points

Actionfredag - Turist i Eget Liv (2023)

The debut album from this band from Norway.

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

Some guests added glockenspiel, harp, violin, melodica, flute, woodwinds and vocals.

This is another new band to me and a very pleasant surprise. And I am not alone here as the album now seems to have been pulled from Bandcamp and will get a record label release later this year on CD, LP and digital download. This with 1-2 more songs but otherwise unchanged. 

The music here is playful Canterbury prog and jazz. Both prog and jazz is well represented here.

There are some playful good vocals in addition the mostly instrumental music here. The vocals are in Norwegian and pretty witty.

The music is very lively, jazzy and playful. The use of glockenspiel and the many other instruments here is very clever.

The music on this forty minutes long album is indeed very good and this band can, on the basis of this album, be added to the long list of talented Norwegian bands.

3.5 points

 

 

Sjs - A Sequence Of Mistakes (2024)

The third album from this band from Australia.

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

A guest delivered female vocals on two songs.

This band is lead by Stuart J Stawman whose initials gives the name to the band. Three albums has so far been released and they are all up for reviews in the coming weeks. 

I have yet to be impressed by this band as their first two albums were pretty pedestrian. 

The music on this, their new album is a mix of art-rock, psych rock and ambient music. 

The musical landscape, the soundscape, is a desolate landscape. The only signs of life is small forms of life. Transferred to music, the melodies and vocals is very softly spoken. The songs are not much different from each other and this albums therefore has one big piece of music, a fifty minutes long piece of music.

This album is full of details and breathes through them. 

The guitar and vocal harmonies are good to very good. Despite of being pretty ambient and softly spoken, these details really makes this album to what it is. A good album. 

This album is most of all an album that requires the full attention from the listener as it is a pretty useless album used as background noise. Don't do that. Approach it as one album you need to give 100 % of your attention. Don't drive anywhere with this album on the car stereo.

This is indeed a good album and one to check out.

3 points

 

 

Tompox - The Dark Side Of The Sun (2013)

The second album from this band from Hungary.

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

A handful of guests added guitars, keyboards, saxophone and narration. A choir also added their voices too.

This is the Solaris bass player Tamas Pocs side project and the band has released three albums. All of them reviewed this month in this blog.

I was not particular impressed by their run-of-the-mill instrumental progressive rock album. Hence, I had no expectations to this album.

We get more of the same here. ELP, Camel and some Dream Theater. But the band has added something extra too... 

There are some really good guitars here and guitar solos. There are also some Hungarian folk rock too here. The choir bit is a bit cheesy but it still adds some personality and colours to the album. The same does the flutes.

Not everything here is good. Nevertheless, this is an improvement on their debut album and an album well worth checking out.

2.5 points

 

 

 

 

Tasavallan Presidentti - Six Complete (2006)

The fifth and final studio album from this band from Finland.

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

This album is a one off album with the original lineup. That means Frank Robson is back on vocals again. This album was followed by some gigs and live albums. 

An archive recording was later released too and I will review that later this month too.

Six Complete was originally released as an EP under the name Six before some more songs were added and it became a fifty minutes long album.

The eight vocals tracks here takes us back to this band's beginning as a blues rock band. The vocals is very good and the songs are decent enough.

The flute dominated instrumental track Dance is a mix of Jethro Tull and Camel. It is a fairly good track and the highligth on this decent enough album. 

This is an album well worth checking out from a band who gave us two good albums and three decent albums. 

2 points

Amarok - Hope (2024)

The seventh album from this band from Poland.

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

I have followed this band with interest for the last years and albums. This band is one of the better and highest rated bands in the art-rock and progressive rock scene in Poland.

The music is a mix of art-rock and neo-prog. There are also a lot of electronica here which gives the music a futuristic sound.

The music is mid-tempo and pretty melancholic. Neo-prog from Poland has always been melancholic. Amarok's music on this album is following in this tradition.

The vocals is good and the music is pretty catchy at times. The electronica elements is adding another dimention to their music.

The result is an hour with very good music. This is an album who more than confirm how good this band and the art-rock and progressive rock scene in Poland is.

Check it out.

3.5 points