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

The second album from this band from Italy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 points

 

 

Wilson. Steven - Grace for Drowning (2011)

The second album from this artist from Great Britain.

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

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

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

His debut album was pretty good. 

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

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

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

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

3.5 points

 

 

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (1974)

The fifth album from this band from Germany.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rest of the album is decent enough.

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

2 points

Needlepoint - Remnants of Light (2024)

The sixth album from this band from Norway.

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

Three guests added clarinet and vocals.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3 points

 

 

Kanaan & Ævestaden - Langt, Langt Vekk (2024)

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

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

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

So those two bands decided to merge for this album.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am actually impressed. 

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

3.5 points

 

Otrere - Odyssey of Agony (2024)

The debut album from this band from Germany.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sound is good and the music is pretty decent.

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

2 points

Spidergawd - Spidergawd VI (2021)

The sixth album from this band from Norway.

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

Two guests added saxophone and vocals.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I like this band.

3 points

Mangrove - Touch Wood (2004)

The debut album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

Two months ago, I reviewed their new album, the 2024 album Bridge To Fiction, and promised myself to review their first three albums too. This is what I will do this month.... Starting with their debut album, this album.

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

References are both Pendragon and mid-era Genesis.

The tempo is mid-paced. The music is leaning more towards neo-prog than symphonic prog as the sound is a bit thin and poppy. 

The music is very melodic but not so rich on details. The vocals is OK'ish. Ditto for the sound.

The quality of the music on this sixty-seven minutes long music is somewhere between decent and good. This is a more than acceptable debut album but nothing more than that.

2.5 points

Mindgames - Spirals in the Wider Space (2024)

The fifth album from this band from Belgium.

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

A guest provided piano on one track.

I have reviewed their third and fourth album for # 1 this blog and that back in 2014 and2016. I liked both albums. I should also get their debut and second album too. I will add that to my to-do list.

The music here, as on the previous two albums, is neo-prog.

There is a lot of Pendragon influences in their music. A lot of more poppy and not so complicated and complex neo-prog.

The music is really melodic throughout this one hour long album.

The vocals is really good and the guitars and guitar solos is also good. 

There is nothing here I would say is bad. It is a refreshing neo-prog album and a remainder how good this genre really is.

3 points

Amon Duul - Hawk Meets Penguin (1981)

The debut album from this band from Great Britain.

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

This band was a splinter group of both Amon Duul and Amon Duul II. For some (stupid) reason, they still chose to use the Amon Duul name although they strictly speaking did not have the right to do that. Hence the many confusions in the many record collections since the 1980s.....

This, the Great Britain (Wales, I have heard) version of this band, released four albums and I have them up for reviews this autumn.

This, their debut album, gives us thirty-six minutes of improvisations. The music is a mix of both the German bands called Amon Duul and Amon Duul II. 

The music here is also a return to the very first krautrock albums, which was all about improvisations with guitars and the first ever pieces of electronics on the scene. 

The music is pretty decent throughout this half an hour or so. There is some interesting details here and there is a surprising amount of organic guitars and voices here.

Check out this album if you like improvised music.... krautrock.

2 points

Sleeping Pandora - Lifting Water (2021)

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

Mathias Rosman does the guitars, keyboards and electronics here.

Mathias continued on with his ninth album. You will find the reviews of the first eight albums somewhere else in this blog. 

Ninety minutes is what we get here.... One and an half hour of music. 

The music is gentle space rock with some ambient soundscapes. 

The music is mostly performed with gentle guitar pickings with some echoes and a reverbs. There are some sporadic pianos too.

The melodies and the music is decent enough. Ninety minutes is a bit of an overkill but nevertheless.... This is a decent album.

2 points