Atti Pubblici In Luogo Osceno - In Fondo Vedo Il Niente Assoluto (2018)

 

The one and only album from this band from Italy.

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

This album was digitally released through Bandcamp seven years ago. It seems like this page and their other websites has been taken down and I fear this album is their one and only album. 

That is a great shame as this album almost demands a follow up album.

The music is pretty classic 1970s RPI. That is symphonic prog with Italian vocals and some heavy prog, Italian folk music and fusion influences.

The album is short, clocking in at just over thirty-two minutes. The band has packed in a lot during these minutes, four songs. That includes an eleven minutes long piece of complex, epic music.

The vocals is superb and they are in Italian too. 

The music is pretty hard at times. It is always complex and is very much in the good old RPI tradition.

The result is a good album and I hope this is not the last time we ever hear from this quintet.

3 points

 

  

Kalugin. Antony - Constellations (2024)

 

The eight solo album from this artist from Ukraine.

Antony Kalugin did the keyboards and programming here.

He had help from two guests who added guitars and vocals.

Antony Kalugin has been releasing solo-albums since 2002 in addition of running Karfagen since 1997.

His solo-albums has been in the cinematic rock and neo-classical music genres.

That is also the case on this fifty minutes long album. Add in some hints of symphonic prog in addition to the neo-classical music and the cinematic rock here and you get the full picture. Add in some Middle-East influences and the picture is even more complete.

There is a lot of electric guitars here. The guitarist is Max Velycho. The sound is organic and pretty bold at times.

Ditto for the music which is pretty epic.

Not everything here is good but this is a fairly good instrumental album. It is an album well worth checking out from one of the better and most prolific artists in today's progressive rock scene.

2.5 points

 

 

Yoo Doo Right - A Murmur, Boundless to the East (2022)

 

The second album from this band from Canada.

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

The band returned again with a new album, the year after their debut album.

I liked this long winded named 2021 debut album. Some good krautrock and post-rock well blended together.

This three quarters of an hour long follow up album gives us a lot more of the same.

The music is a lot darker on this album though and a bit more krautrock influenced where various other sub-genres are being visited.

The music is indeed very playful while still being dark and still retaining a lot of post-rock ebbs and flows in their music.

There is not much vocals here but the few lines sung here is pretty good. Most of this album is instrumental.

This album is a small improvement on their debut album and a good album. 

Check out this album if both krautrock and post-rock is your thing.

3 points

 

 

 

 

Nine Stones Close - One Eye On The Sunrise (2012)

 

The third album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

Three guests added cello, guitars and backing vocals.

This is the follow up album to the very good 2010 album Traces.

The band started out as a neo-prog band. Their were hugely influenced by Marillion in the start and on parts of Traces too. Their take on neo-prog is though more in the Dutch, German and Polish tradition.

This too goes for this one hour long album.

The music is dark and melancholic neo-prog. There are some art-rock influences here too but most of this is darkened neo-prog.

The vocals is good and the blend of guitars and keyboards are good.

The overall quality is good too. This album is not as good as Traces but it is still an album neo-prog fans should have in their collection.

3 points

 

 

 

Bowness. Tim - Powder Dry (2024)

 

The eight studio album from this artist from Great Britain.

Tim Bowness did all the guitars, electronics and vocals on this album.

This is another true solo album from this prolific artist who started out in No-Man together with Steven Wilson and has worked with almost all the great artists in the progressive rock scene.

This album is just Tim Bowness, his guitar and some electronica. 

It is a true singer/songwriter album with a lot of electronica involved.

It is pretty bare-bones music in other words.

Tim's vocals is good and is the main instrument here. 

The music is not particular complex and that makes this a not so interesting album for progheads. 

Some of the songs are decent and there are some good songs here on this forty minutes long album too. This album is not his finest hour, make that forty minutes. 

If you like Tim Bowness, check out this album.

2.5 points

 

 

 

 

Myrath - Hope (2007)

 

The debut album from this band from Tunisia.

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

A guest added keyboards and backing vocals on one track.

Myrath is the first really metal band from the African continent to get a worldwide record deal. Although Tunisian is thousands of miles from the Middle-East, Myrath followed in the footsteps of Orphaned Land in the Middle-East scene.

This because Myrath's music is much more in the vein of the traditional Arabian and Middle-East music than in the vein of this undefined African music and sound. Therefore, Orphaned Land and Myrath has always been lumped together.

The band is not so much influenced by their own country and the Middle-East scene on this, their debut album. The band may have not been brave enough to do so and I can understand why. A worldwide record deal with a pretty big record label is not one to be lost by making a stupid move.... 

The band is very influenced by both Symphony X and Dream Theater here and that shows.

The music is more or less standard progressive metal fare with some good vocals and guitar solos. There is some hints of their local roots and music here. But most of the album is too much standard metal and does not have much of an identity.

The result is a decent fifty minutes long album. I will review the remaining albums, with the exception of their third album reviewed in 2011 for ProgArchives, this winter. 

2 points

 

 

Electric Orange - Morbus (2007)

 

The sixth album from this band from Germany.

The band was a quintet here with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, piano, organ, mellotron, synths, harmonium, flute, samples and vocals.

Some guests added male and female backing vocals.

I have not been very impressed by their first albums. Some of them has been downright poor. 

The band was much more a krautrock band on their first albums than the space rock influenced krautrock band they later became.

Morbus is an eighty minutes long album with a lot of krautrock ditties and weirdo stuff. They reminds me about Gong and Daevid Allen at times when it comes to ditties and their attempts on being funny and amusing. Attempts only partial successful. 

After a pretty poor first half of this album, the album becomes a lot better when the band moves much more in the direction of space rock.

This is by no means an impressive album. It is still a decent enough album. Check it out if krautrock with all it's ills rocks your world.

2 points

 

 

Esthesis - Watching Worlds Collide (2022)

 

The second and so far latest album from this band from France.

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

A guest added female vocals.

The band continued on from their 2020 debut album The Awakening. A good album. 

The band continues down the neo-prog path they chose on their debut album. Neo-prog very influenced by the neo-prog scenes in Germany and Poland. Melancholic and a bit soulful neo-prog in other words.

There are also a lot of art-rock influences here. Airbag, the Norwegian band, is a pretty big influence on their music and sound.

 The music is mid-tempo and has a good balance between the guitars and keyboards. The vocals is very good.

The art of writing great songs and tunes is eluding the band. Nevertheless, this is another good album from this band. A band everyone into neo-prog should and must check out.

3 points

 

 

 

Envinity - Sweet Painful Reality (2002)

 

The debut album from this band from USA.

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

This Bandcamp album, and I believe it is a free download, is clocking in at seventy minutes.

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

The sound is good, the vocals are pretty good and the instruments are played to a reasonable standard.

The music is a bit too much run-of-the-mill and there is not much of of their own identity here. 

This is a decent album but it is hard to really rate an album which sounds so much like any other albums in this overpopulated melodic hard rock grunge genre any higher than a decent rating.

If this sounds tempting, get this album from their website.

2 points

 

 

Rainbow Face - Enjoy This Ruin (2024)

The second album from this band from USA.

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

This is the follow up album to their 2020 debut album Star's Blood which I reviewed back in December 2022 in this blog. I was not impressed by that album.

The band has asked for reviews of this album am here to oblige. A review, this album will get.

I labeled Star's Blood as a mix of post-punk and art-rock. References were Van Der Graaf Generator, King Crimson and Sleepytime Gorilla.

In the case of Enjoy This Ruin, I would describe this three quarters of an hour long album as a mix of post-metal, post-punk and vaudeville rock. Black Midi, Sleepytime Gorilla and some Van Der Graaf Generator and King Crimson is good references here.

The music is in other words both eclectic and quirky.

The weirdness of their music is both the strengh and the weakness of their music. Music which is quality wise somewhere between decent and good. 

This album is a small improvement from their debut album but not more than that. I am yet to be won over. 

2.5 points

 

 

 

Yoo Doo Right - Don't Think You Can Escape Your Purpose (2021)

 

The debut album from this band from Canada.

This band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and voices.

This band is from Montreal in the Quebec province of Canada. They have so far released three albums and they are all up for review in the coming weeks in this blog.

Can is referenced in the band name and this German band is clearly an influence in their music.

In other words, the music here is krautrock. There is still a lot of post-rock influences here and it is only right and proper to label the music as a blend of krautrock and post-rock.

There are some voices here but not vocals as in the traditional meaning of that word.

There is a lot of guitars here and some keyboards here. The music is neither hard or heavy. The music is mid-tempo with some good details.

This forty minutes long album has some very good pieces of music and some pieces which needs a bit more refinement before they work.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting debut album and I am really looking forward to spend some time with their two other albums too.

3 points

 

 

 

Nine Stones Close - Traces (2010)

 

The second album from this band from The Netherlands.

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

After I had reviewed their 2008 debut album St Lo back in July 2011 for ProgArchives, and I was not impressed at all by that album, I had forgotten all about them until I got and reviewed last year's Diurnal album (see review somewhere else in this blog). 

That is when I found out that I had some of their albums laying around in my office. Hence, I will review these three albums in the coming weeks.

The music is still, as on their debut album, neo-prog.

That is.... Melancholic and soulful neo-prog with some soaring guitar solos. Their take on neo-prog is not as calculated and symphonic as the British take on this genre... a genre they invented, bands like Marillion and Pendragon.

There are still some Marillion influences and similarities here. 

The quality of the music on this three quarters of an hour long album is good and at times very good. The final ten minutes is where the album tails of and is not as good as the first half an hour.

This is still a very good album and one to check out if neo-prog floats your boat.

3.5 points

 

 

 

Written in Sand - Shadowpath (2022)

 

The debut album from this band from Germany.

The band is a one-man-band where Helge Megerle did the guitars, some keyboards and the vocals.

He got help from some guests who provided drums, oud, strings, piano, flutes and backing vocals.

I have had this album up for review for a long time. The lack of any informations about the band and who did what has prevented me from progressing a review. I got in touch with the band a couple of weeks ago and Helge Megerle very kindly gave me everything I needed for this long delayed review. He also kindly informed me that a new album will be released before the end of the year.

The music on this album is a mix of progressive metal, heavy prog and neo-prog. There are also some hints of both grunge and goth here.

This almost one hour long album has a good sound and the vocals is good.

The music is pretty straight forward and not particular technical or epic.

The pieces of music here, the songs, are somewhere between decent and good when it comes to it's quality. This is a more than acceptable debut album and I am looking forward to the new album.

2.5 points

 

 

 

 

Asfalto - El Planeta de Los Locos (1994)

 

The tenth album from this band from Spain.

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

This is their follow up album to their pretty poor 1990 album Solo Por Dinero. 

Four years has gone and it seems like the band is a bit more focused again. The sound is good and the band does a good job. The Spanish vocals is very good.

The music on this one hour long album is a mix of hard rock, psych rock and commercial rock from the 1990s.

The music is pretty elegant thoughout and the album has some catchy songs.

I guess this album was meant for the Spanish language mainstream rock scene and in this respect, the album is a qualified success. There is no really good songs here or this elusive hit single.

This is a decent enough album but not an album I will ever play again.

2 points

 

 

Gilmour. David - David Gilmour (1978)

 

The debut album from this artist from Great Britain.

David Gilmour did the guitars, keyboards, piano, harmonica and vocals here.

He got help from some guests who added percussion, drums, bass, piano and backing vocals.

David Gilmour is most known as the guitarist and main vocalist in Pink Floyd. He also got a very successful solo career. I intend to review most of his solo albums this winter.

The natural start is off course his debut album, this album.

The music on this album is melodic art-rock with a lot of psych-rock influences. The songs here most of all reminds me about the more melodic Pink Floyd songs. 

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and The Division Bell is two Pink Floyd albums that springs to mind here.

It is pretty obvious that David kept the best songs for Pink Floyd and left the less good songs for this solo album. That to his eternal credit.

There are some great guitar solos here and some good songs. Well, all the songs here are good. It is pretty obvious that he is one of the best guitarists of all time too, as proven by some stuff on this album.

This is a good album and one well worth checking out.

3 points

 

 

Esthesis - The Awakening (2020)

 

The debut album from this band from France.

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

This band from France has so far released two albums. Both of them are up for reviews here this month. 

I am not sure if the band is still around. I hope they are.

The music on this sixty-five minutes long album is neo-prog.

Their take on neo-prog is pretty melancholic. The neo-prog here is therefore leaning more towards the Polish and German take on this genre than the British take on this genre. 

There are also some good art-rock influences here and the latter days Marillion and Pink Floyd springs to mind.

The vocals are very good and the guitars are really smoking good and well during the guitar solos. The songs are on average around ten minutes long with the longest one clocking in at sixteen minutes.

Some of the songs are slightly uneventful. Nevertheless, this is a good album indeed and one fans of neo-prog and melodic prog should check out.

3 points

 

 

Envinity - Empyreal Progeny (2004)

 

The second album from this band from USA.

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

I reviewed their 2009 final album Moira's Lake for ProgArchives back in August 2010 and liked that album. It was a darkened prog album with grunge and goth elements, if my memories serves me right.

The band has previously released two more albums and I am reviewing both of them this month.

Empyreal Progeny is a seventy minutes long album.

The music here is a mix of progressive metal, grunge and some art-rock. 

The music is melodic but still pretty hard with some djent elements. Some of the songs are almost poppy punk like. Others are more developed and has a lot more going for them.

The sound is very good. The vocals are pretty good and the rest of the band does a good job too.

There are some good pieces of music here and some less good pieces of music.  

This album is a bit hard to find these days but check it out if you can find a reasonably priced copy.

2.5 points

 

 

  

Distant Dream - End Of The World We Know (2024)

 

The fourth and so far latest album from this band from Poland.

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

The band continued with their take on instrumental post-rock after their good third album, the 2020 album Point Of View.

The band continues in the same vein on End Of The World We Know (what a fitting album title, these days.......). There are some subtle changes, though.

More than some subtle changes, though.....

The music on this forty minutes long album is a lot harder and has some post-metal influences. They are pretty strong. 

The music is still melodic throughout. But it is harsher and more esoteric. There is still a lot of ebb and flow in their music. The guitars are pretty melodic and produces some pretty light, bright sounds at times.

The result is another good album from this band and an album post-rock fans should check out.

3 points

 

 

Motorpsycho - Neigh!! (2024)

 

The 27th album from this band from Norway.

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

Expect the Unexpected..... That is the first rule regarding any albums from this band.

Their 2023 album Yay! was an acoustic album and a pretty good one too. 

The band has added some electricity to Neigh but not much. The songs here are pretty downtuned and acoustic too. The guitars and vocals does most of the melodies work here.

This is this band at their most basic, songs orientated. Hence.. It is a pretty strange album, even in their discography.

Some of the songs are good and some of the songs are decent. This album is not among their best albums. It is still a album worth checking out as there is no such thing as a dull, irrelevant Motorpsycho album.

2.5 points

 

 

FreddeGredde - Eyes on the Edge (2017)

 

The third and so far final album from this band from Sweden.

This band was now a one-man-band with Fredrik Larsson on the keyboards, guitars, computers and vocals.

Fredrik returned alone after the trio who released Brighter Skies in 2014 had split up. 

His two first albums had some good Scandinavian symphonic prog with some neo-prog and folk rock influences. 

The music on Eyes On The Edge is still mainly Scandinavian symphonic prog with some neo-prog and folk rock influences. 

As there are a lot less instruments on this album compared with the two first albums, the vocals has come to the forefront. The music has lost a lot of it's symphonic sound and bite too. This has been replaced with some singer/songwriter pieces of music.

The album is sixty-five minutes long and it has some good stuff and some rather decent stuff. The music is a bit too simplified throughout this album. This is by far the least interesting album in the three albums big FreddeGredde discography.

I hope Fredrik, if he is still among us, will return with a new album.  

2.5 points

 

 

 

Croft. Benjamin - We Are Here To Help (2024)

 

The third album from this artist from Great Britain.

Benjamin Croft did the keyboards here.

Numerous guests added drums, bass, guitars and vocals.

The vocals is a mix of male and female vocals. All of the vocalists does a good job.

His first two albums were jazz albums. There were some hints of fusion in those albums, but they were mostly pure and standard jazz albums.

Benjamin Croft has hired/hooked in some of the best musicians from the prog and progressive metal scene and the result is something else again.

We get a blend of neo-prog and progressive metal on this this fifty minutes long album. There are still some jazz elements in the keyboards solos and in some of the pieces of music. But they are more subtle than clear and concise.

The music is pretty melodic with some great vocals and musicianship. The songs are all good and this is an album all fans of melodic progressive metal should check out.

3 points

 

 

Fish - Internal Exile (1991)

The second album from this artist from Great Britain.

Fish was doing the main vocals here.

He had help from numerous guests who provided drums, percussion, bass, guitars, fiddle, accordion, keyboards, whistles and backing vocals.

I was not impressed by his 1990 debut album Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors. Too unfocused, too much all over the place.

I therefore did not have much hope for Internal Exile. 

On this forty-five minutes long album, I am reviewing the one hour long remastered album, Fish sounds more like himself on the last two Marillion albums. And there is indeed a lot of comparissons to Clutching At Straws here.

A more downtuned and restrained Clutching At Straws, that is. His vocals is excellent and he is a master oft these mid-tempo songs. Songs which is a blend of neo-prog and folk rock.

Most of the songs are introspective and rather beautiful in their melancholy.

Most of the songs are very good. The vocals is adding a lot to these songs and are indeed essential for these songs.

This is indeed a very good album and one you should check out.

3.5 points

 

 

Tangerine Dream - Flashpoint (1984)

 

The 18th album from this band from Germany.

The band was a trio with a lineup of guitars, keyboards, synths, computers and vocals.

This is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. More about the movie at this Wikipedia link.

This album is forty minutes long. The first thirty-five minutes contains some pretty dynamic electronic prog. There is nothing here than synths and computers. It sounds a bit sterile and it has this 1980s sound. 

That is not a good sound at all. It sounds too sterile and the life has been removed from the sound.

It works very well with the action in the movie though. This is indeed an action movie, a western no less. In that respect, this music works.

The final five minutes is filled with this title-song, an rocking AOR song with vocals and it all. It is a decent song.

This album is a decent enough album. It is not among their best albums though. But it is a fair enough effort and album.

2 points

 

 

 

Epizootic - Daybreak (1976)

 
The one and only album from this band from Sweden.

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

This is a very obscure album released as an LP by the band and I guess sold in local record shops and at their gigs. It was re-released in 1999 on CD by a cottage record label from Germany. 

One of the members, the vocalist, later did the vocals in the Swedish bands Ragnarok and Triangulus.

The music is hard rock with a lot of psych rock elements and some pretty strong jazz influences. There are also some strong Deep Purple influences here too.

The music on this forty minutes long album is very much rooted in the early 1970s hard rock sound and scene.

The vocals is decent while the band does a good job with some good solos. The sound is at best decent. 

It is a bit of a shame that this album is so obscure and un-reviewed as this is not a bad album at all. Some may say this is a charming album.... and I would not disagree with that.

2 points

 

 

Entr'eux Couleurs - Entr'eux Couleurs (2016)

 

The debut album from this band from France.

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

This band has released two studio albums and one live album. The last studio album back in 2021 and the live album one year later.

This one hour long album starts out as an avant-garde album and my heart sunk a bit. One hour with avant-garde music with some mental weirdo saxophones is not high on my list of what I like on a cold day in February. Not on a warm day in July either, truth to be told.

Then this album changes tones and becomes a more classic jazz album. I can live with that on a cold day in February... or a warm day in July. 

The proper jazz kicks in after ten minutes and we get some really charming, interesting jazz from there on and to the end of the album.

Yes, there are some more avant-garde here but the pieces of jazz is really groovy at times.

At best, this is a pretty good album. The first ten minutes is at times pretty dire and not something that I will remember with any fondness, even after some listening sessions.

Those into obscure jazz albums should check out this album and indeed.. band.

This is a decent album but nothing more than that.

2 points

 

 

 

Anabasi Road - Ecce Homo (2025)

 

The second album from this band from Italy.

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

Their self-titled debut album was released back in 2014 and I reviewed it back in September 2016 for # 1 of this blog. I was not impressed by that blues rock album.

That album had some RPI and heavy prog influences. Hence it's inclusion in some prog rock websites. 

The band returns again with seventy minutes of mainly hard blues with some RPI, folk rock and heavy rock influences.

The vocals are in Italian and they are good.

The music is pretty hard and sound is pretty compact. The vocals is good but wild. Ditto for the guitars solos and riffs. The keyboards is honking around in the background. 

There are some gothic church organs at the end but those are not saving this album from at best being a decent enough album. The quality is not here and there is no really good songs here.

Fans of hard blues with Italian vocals may want to check out this album.

2 points

 

 

Motorpsycho - Yay! (2023)

 

The 26th album from this band from Norway.

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

Two guests added viola, violin, flute and female vocals.

The band were back for their annual album release.

Always expect the unexpected is the golden rule when it comes to this band. 

This forty-three minutes long album is no exception from that rule. 

The music is mostly acoustic. Not only acoustic.... it is tender and beautiful at the same time. Two words I never ever thought I would use on a Motorpsycho album... or anything from that band. But those two words is the only fitting words describing this album.

Gone is the brutal harshness from most of their albums. Gone is the hard psych. What is remaining is still psych rock, but this time tender and beautiful psych rock. Melodic too with some good vocals and a couple of superb guitar solos too. Two of their finest ever guitar solos.

The music is really good. OK, this album is a grower and needs time to really settle. It is still a good album and an album who proves that we should always expect the unexpected from this band.

3 points

 

 

FreddeGredde - Brighter Skies (2014)

 

The third album from this band from Sweden.

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

Their second album from this and whose the 2011 debut album Thirteen Eight was a good album.

Fredrik Larsson is still the main man here and is doing most things here. Guitars, bass, keyboards and vocals. Hence, this is a studio project and that may explain why this band/project is so obscure and unknown.

The music is mainly symphonic prog with some neo-prog and folk rock influences. The genre is Scandinavian symphonic prog and this album should be labeled as such.

The music is more symphonic and less folk rock influenced than the likes of The Flower Kings and Kaipa. 

The music is mostly mid-tempo, epic and pretty bold. There is a good blend of keyboards and guitars here. The musicianship is more workman like than great. But it is still good.

The vocals on this one hour long album is very good. The pieces of music here is also good and this is another good album from this band.

This band deserve some more attention and love.

3 points

 

 

 

 

Steam Theory - Chrysalis (2024)

 

The fifth album from this band from USA.

The band was a trio with a lineup of bass, guitars, synths, drum programming and vocals.

I thought I had reviewd their first four albums... but I was wrong. So I will do those reviews sometimes in the next couple of years.

As I have yet to review their first four albums, I do not know their history or development. I have to review this album as it is and as a single album.

The music on this album is US progressive rock with some symphonic prog and goth rock influences.

The vocals are female vocals and they are good.

The instrumentation is a bit bare and simple. Ditto for the sound which is the 1990s progressive metal sound. 

The music is big, bold and epic throughout. The quality is somewhere between decent and good. 

This is an album well worth checking out if US progressive metal is your thing.

2.5 points

 

 

Bodin. Tomas - She Belongs to Another Tree (2015)

 

The seventh album from this artist from Sweden.

Tomas Bodin did all the keyboards and programming on this album.

Tomas returned again with a pure solo album. It is his compositions, performed and recorded by himself. The digital version was released some years later with bonus material I have included in this review as the original album from 2015 is hard to find.

The music on this album is a mix of avant-garde electronica and instrumental cinematic rock. 

There are some Goblin references here. Ditto for some Tangerine Dream references.

There is some big contrasts on this album. From some good cinematic rock themes to some mindless avant-garde electronica pieces.

The big contrasts here makes this a bit of a challenging album, listening wise. 

Nevertheless, this is a decent album and one to check out if cinematic rock is your thing.

2 points

 

 

Borknagar - Origin (2006)

 

The seventh album from this band from Norway.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, guitars, keyboards, organs, grand piano and vocals.

Some guests added bass, violin, cello, recorder and bamboo flute.

This album came as a big shock.... both to their fans back in 2006 and to me, this week.

There had been some rumours that the band was writing an accoustic album in the vein of Ulvers Kveldssanger (1996).

Rumours proven right when this album arrived. 

All traces of extreme metal has gone here. There is hardly any electric guitars here. The vocals, delivered by Vintersorg, is clear vocals and pretty good ones too. There is a lot of cello and other accoustic instruments. 

The music is a mix of folk rock and progressive rock. I would label it as a progressive folk rock. But without that rock bit as there is no rock and hard music here. Progressive folk music ? Yes, that is the perfect label here. 

Hence the shock I got when I started to listen to this album......

The music on this thirty-six minutes long album is actually quite good. There is no really good songs here. There are some good pieces of music here though and the details is good. 

This is an album well worth checking out if progressive folk music is your thing.

2.5 points

 

 

Ex Ovo Pro - Dance Lunatic (1978)

 

The second and final album from this band from Germany.

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

The band album debuted in 1976 with European Spassvogel. A pretty good jazz album. 

We get more of the same on their second and final album....This album. 

That means dense jazz with some avant-garde and fusion influences.

The music is not particular melodic. It still has a nice drive and mid-tempo. There are some good semi-accoustic guitars here and some good synths solos. The woodwinds is also adding some solos and pieces of music.

The balance between the guitars, woodwinds and synths are good throughout.

There is no great pieces of music here and the music is not particular original. The band simply did not write and record enough good music to really stand out from the crowd. This is another decent to good album where they really needed a great album to really get a break through.

Hence, these two albums are pretty obscure but still worth checking out if jazz is your cup of tea.

2.5 points

 

 

Electric Eye - Horizons (2021)

 

The fourth album from this band from Norway.

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

A quartet of guests added cello, tambura, modular synths, auto harp, midi-saw, marimba and horns.

This band's albums has impressed me and I rate them as one of the best prog and psych rock bands from Norway at the moment. The band also released their fifth and so far latest album last year. See my review.

The music here is a bit different from the previous album, the 2017 album From The Poisenous Tree. 

We get a mix of psych rock and indie rock on this album. Add some raga rock and space rock too and you get my drift. 

There are some Motorpsycho in their music. Quite a lot, in fact. But Electric Eye still manage to carve out their own identity.

The music on this forty minutes long album has some South-Eastern Asian vibes and also some San Fransisco vibes.

There are some cool rhythms and vocals here. The pieces of music is really good too.

This is another interesting, good album from this band and should be checked out.

3 points

 

 

 

Giant Sleeper - Hyperliminal (2024)

 

The debut album from this band from Costa Rica.

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

It is pretty rare to review albums from Costa Rica, this country in the Middle-America on this narrow stripe of land between North and South America. 

This country produces some wonderful coffee though and I have a bag of it at least once a year. Great coffee. Great taste. 

This band has released one EP and numerous singles through their Bandcamp page. That is where I found this album, an album released in August last year.

The music on this three quarters of an hour long album is technical progressive metal.

The music is ultra-technical throughout. The vocals breaks up these excesses with some melodic pieces. But most of the music comes at you in a neck breaking speed.

Most of the album is pretty good and this is an acceptable debut album. Some of the music here is decent too and falls a bit short. Nevertheless, this is an album well worth checking out.

2.5 points

 

 

 

Distant Dream - Point Of View (2020)

 

The third album from this band from Poland.

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

The band debuted back in 2017 and I reviewed that album in # 2 of this blog. I am now reviewing the following three albums this winter. You will find the two other reviews somewhere else in this blog.

Their first three albums are instrumental post-rock albums. 

We get forty-five minutes with classic post-rock here.

There is a lot of ebbs and flows in their music. There is also a lot of electric guitars cascades here. The music is also shoegazing and introvert throughout this album.

There are a lot of good pieces of music here and the sound is very good. 

The band has come of age here and the result is this good album. A name-your-price album and a CD from their Bandcamp page. Post-rock and shoegaze fans will love this album.

3 points

 

 

Croft. Benjamin - Far and Distant Things (2021)

 

The second album from this artist from Great Britain.

Benjamin Croft does the keyboards here.

He got help from a dozen or so guest who added drums, bass, guitars, trumpet and trombone.

I really liked his 2019 debut album 10 Reasons To... and gave it a good rating. I posted this review earlier this month in this blog and I will post a review of this third and latest album sometimes later this month too.

His first album was a jazz album. This too is a jazz album in the same vein as the first album 10 Reasons To....

There are a lot of the British top players on this album and they delivers some good stuff and not at least.... good solos.

There are some fusion here too and some of the music is pretty melodic. Most of the jazz is pretty dense and based on creating a good vibe. The musicians is also delivering some great musicianships too.

The keyboards of Benjamin Croft is also pretty much in the foreground here and he is proving that he is a great player.

The overall quality is good although some of the jazz here is a bit run of the mill and not sparkling exciting. Nevertheless, this is a good album.

3 points

 

 

Jupiter Fungus - Garden Electric (2024)

 

The debut album from this band from Greece.

The band was a duo with a lineup of guitars, keyboards, flute, tin whistle and vocals.

A trio of guests added drums, bass, guitars and glockenspiel.

This album was released a couple of months ago and has got some attention and indeed praise.

The band has been compared to Jethro Tull. With good reasons, too.

Take folk rock in the vein of Jethro Tull, art-rock and some 1970s hard rock. Then you get music like this.

There is a lot of flutes on this album. The vocals is pretty good and not dissimilar to Ian Andersson. 

There is a lot of quirky details on this fifty minutes long album. The music is pretty spicy throughout. 

The sound is very warm and takes the listener back to the 1970s.  

There are a lot of good stuff here. The songs are lacking a bit in quality. But on balance, this is still a good album and well worth checking out from their Bandcamp site.

3 points

 

 

 

 

 

Motorpsycho - Ancient Astronauts (2022)

 

The 25th album from this band from Norway.

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

This very unpredictable band has reached a milestone with this album. A quarter of a hundred studio albums. That is well worth celebrating.... Which the band did not do, as far as I am aware of.

This band is unpredictable and I was wondering what they were up to this time. The first impression was as per always not a good one but this album soon started to grow on me.

This forty minutes long album is a mixed bag of some more ambient stuff and some hard rocking psych rock. 

These forty minutes really takes the listener through some different types of music. All of it with their trademark way of writing and performing their brand of psych rock. Their very unique take on psych rock.

The mellotron sound here is very good, short as it is but it still leaves lasting memories.

This is a pretty much different Motorpsycho album, a bit remote from the other albums. It is still a good album which really leaves the listener with a smile on it's face.

3 points

 

 

 

Electric Orange - Fleischwerk (2005)

 

The fifth album from this band from Germany.

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

Four guests added drums and bass.

I am trying to complete my task in reviewing all the Electric Orange albums after almost completing this task some years ago in # 2. Then I discovered some albums I had forgotten to review + that the band also released some new albums. 

I was of the impression that the band was a straight and simple space rock band. Their first albums has challenged that view.

This eighty minutes long album is a krautrock album.

There are some space rock here. Most of the album is avant-garde krautrock. And the quality of these samples and sound collages is poor. Very poor at places.

There are some space rock pieces here and some of them are good. But not even they can save this album from being a failure. Which it is.

1.5 points

 

 

Ex Ovo Pro - European Spassvogel (1976)

 

The debut album from this band from Germany.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitas, electric piano, synths, bassoon and saxophones.

This band from Bavaria in the south of Germany released two albums between 1976 and 1978 before they split up. Both albums are rather obscure. I will post a review of their second album sometimes before the end of this month.

I became aware of them through ProgArchives, the main prog rock source in today's world and got my copies of these two albums. Copies not too hard to find.

The cover-art work is alluding to this being a jazz album... and that is exactly what this is. A jazz album.

The jazz here is pretty dense and a bit avant-garde. There is not many melodic pieces of music on this thirty-five minutes long album.

There is a lot of bassoon here and that gives this album a pretty dark sound. The guitars, saxophones and the electric piano brings some more sunshine to this album, though.

The first two pieces of music is pretty haunting and indeed good. The album tails of towards the end and we get some avant-garde jazz here.

This is still an album somewhere between decent and good. Fans of European jazz should chech out this album.

 2.5 points

 

 

 

Electric Eye - Different Sun (2016)

 
The second album from this band from Norway.

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

I have previously reviewed three of their album, the newest one back in December last year. That was their 2024 album and the two other reviews was posted in # 2 of this blog. I really liked those three albums and this band is on my map as one of the better psych and prog rock bands from Norway.

I still had two more reviews to before I had reviewed their five albums. The last review will therefore be posted later this month. 

We get a nice blend of space rock and psych rock on this forty minutes long album. There is a lot of half-accoustic guitars here and they are mainly there to make some great guitar harmonies. The keyboards is also doing great job. The vocals are good and the right kind of vocals for this type of music.

The music is melodic throughout.

The pieces of music is very good throughout and the album has some captivating pieces too.

This is a very good album and one that everyone into space and psych rock should check out.

3.5 points

 

 

Longhare - Harerama (2024)

 

The fifth album from this band from Croatia.

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

Their first four albums was very unimpressive. In the case of their first couple of albums... turkeys. Their last two albums were half-decent albums. You can read these reviews somewhere else in this blog.

The band returns with their blend of garage rock, post-punk and psych rock.

The music is hard throughout on this one hour long album.

The vocals are decent enough.

There are some Middle-East folk music here which adds a lot of quality.

Some of the music is rather primitive and bare-bones. But the band has moved a lot towards psych rock on this album and that is a good thing.

The result is their so far best album and a decent enough album in it's own right. The band has still not won me over, though.....

2 points

 

 

Distant Dream - Your Own Story (2018)

 
The second album from this band from Poland.

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

This band debuted back in 2017 with their album It All Starts From Pieces. I did a review of that album for # 2 of this blog back in November 2017. It is a pretty good album. 

The band has released three more albums, the last one was released last year, and they are all up for reviews in this blog this winter. All their albums are name-your-price Bandcamp albums.

 Their 2017 album was an instrumental post-rock album. There is therefore no surprise that the band continues down the same path on this album.

There are some art-rock and psych rock elements here too. But most of the music on this forty minutes long album is a mix of shoegaze and post-rock.

The band knows how to create good mood and ambiences. Knowledge put to good effect on this album. The music has a mix of barren landscapes and more flowery landscapes. Mostly barren landscapes, it has to be said.

This is another pretty good album from this band and well worth checking out. Post-rock and shoegaze fans will very much like this album.

2.5 points

 

 

Croft. Benjamin - 10 Reasons To... (2019)

 

The debut album from this artist from Great Britain.

Benjamin Croft did the piano and keyboards here.

He got help from six friends who provided drums, bass, double bass, violin, flugelhorn and trumpet.

Benjamin Croft has so far released three albums and they are all up for reviews in this blog. 

His three albums was sold to me as a mix of prog and jazz. Hence my interest in his albums...

He debuted with this album, a one hour long jazz album.

There are a lot of fusion in this album too so it is strictly speaking a fusion album. It has a lot of violins and there is no doubts that Jean Luc Ponty has been a major, major influence on the music here.  

The music is really free flowing mid-tempo. There are some good piano and keyboards solos here too and the rhythm section does a good job.

The music is good throughout and this is indeed a very promising debut album. 

3 points

 

 

Supersister - The Elton Dean Sessions (2024)

The sixth album from this band from The Netherlands.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass and keyboards. Elton Dean added his saxophones throughout this album.

This album is not really a new studio album. It is archive material, some of it live, of a cooperation between Elton Dean and the great Dutch band Supersister. 

Both of these entities is great in their own right. A merging of them into one band is bound to give us some good music.

The question here will be the sound quality as this is archival material. The sound is reasonable good as the music was recorded in 1974.

We get forty minutes of some good jazz here. Jazz where Supersister and Soft Machine stuff is being combined.

Everyone included does a great job on some good pieces of music. Soft Machine and Supersister fans will off course lap up this album and get it whatever this review says. It is indeed a good album in it's own right and one to check out.

3 points

 

 

Asfalto - Sólo por Dinero (1990)

 
The ninth album from this band from Spain.

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

Some guests added synths and woodwinds.

The band had on the last five albums become a hard rocking band in the vein of Triumph, that band from Canada. Those albums had a fine blend of hard rockers and ballads.

A four years long break followed on from their 1986 album Corredor De Fondo. A break not doing them any good, music wise.

The hard rock has gone. What is remaining on this forty-two minutes long album is pop/rock with some Latin rock and RPI influences.

The vocals, good vocals, are in Spanish. The sound is good, though.

The music is a mix of poor pieces of music and some decent pieces of music. 

The result is a pretty bad album and one to forget. 

1.5 points

 

 

FreddeGredde - Thirteen Eight (2011)

The debut album from this band from Sweden.

The band was a duo with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, accordion, keyboards, harmonica and vocals.

This band is the vehicle of Fredrik Larsson who does everything with the exception of drums done by David Schlein.

Fredrik has released three albums under this name and they are all up for review this month in this blog.

This album is seventy minutes and it contains a mix of heavy prog and neo-prog. There is also some strong progressive metal influences here and some minor Scandinavian symphonic prog influences.

There is a lot of guitars, keyboard and piano here. The music is also pretty much dominated by the good vocals. There is hardly any solos here as the vocals does not give the instruments many breathing spaces.

The saving grace here is the quality of the music. The quality is good and it makes me really looking forward to get into the two other albums. 

This is a very promising debut album, indeed.  

3 points

 

 

Octopie - The Adventure of Harry and Walrus Kane (2015)

The second album from this band from Finland.

The band was a ten piece big band with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, viola, cello, violin, keyboards, trumpet, flute, saxophone, trombone and vocals.

I reviewed their newest album, the 2024 album Green Divine, earlier this year and gave it a good rating. I had also given their 2012 debut album a good rating in an earlier edition of this blog.

Then I got this album, the missing link, and put it up for review as soon as I could. 

The music on this three quarters of an hour long album is a mix of good old fusion from the 1970s scene in Finland, quirky prog as in Gentle Giant, vaudeville rock, eclectic prog and folk-rock.

The music is more melodic and restrained than their new album. This album is indeed the missing link between ther first and third album when it comes to their music.

There is some weird woodwinds here and some more linear normal woodwinds. All of them are good. The vocals is also good here.

The pieces of music is good throughout. 

This is a bit of a weird album which is not perhaps for those only seeking good melodies. It is a very interesting album though and one well worth checking out.

3 points

 

 

Days Between Stations - In Extremis (2013)

The second album from this band from USA.

The band was a duo with a lineup of percussion, guitars, lap steel guitars, organ, piano, keyboards, synths and mellotron. 

The band had numberous guest who added drums, percussion, bass, dobro, chapman stick, guitars, woodwinds, keyboards, synths, mellotron, flute and vocals.

I have previously reviewed their other three albums for this blog.... with the exception of this album. An album I got so I could complete my reviews of this band. A good band in the melodic prog genres.

The music on this seventy minutes long album is indeed a mix of art-rock, neo-prog, psych rock and symphonic prog.

It is most of all blend of Pink Floyd's and Genesis world of music. Not as copycats but the music is a crossover of those two bands. 

The music is big, bold and epic. It is very melodic too and it has a lot of good details. 

The vocals is good and the sound is big, bold and full of various instruments. 

This is an album those into big and bold melodic progressive rock should check out. This is a good band who recently released their fourth album. Let us hope for many more albums from them.

3 points

 

 

 

Kryptograf - Kryptonomicon (2025)

The third album from this band from Norway.

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

This album comes three years after their second album The Eldorado Spell. I gave that album a good review back in March 2022. Yes, in this blog, # 3. 

The band is a stoner rock band, heavy influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath.

There is a lot of stoner rock and Black Sabbath copycats around. Some of them are good, some are bad. 

Kryptograf has always included some psych rock in the vein of Motorpsycho in their music and that is also the case on this album. It is very much the case on this album, more here than on their first two albums. 

There are still enough Black Sabbath like stoner here to satisfy this crowd too.... but the band showcases their ability to branch out too and add another leg to their music.

The album is just over half an hour long and the music is catchy, good and has some good vocals too. This is a stoner album well worth checking out.

3 points