I hope you will still enjoy the 2600 reviews in this chapter of
the blog.
The new chapter, The Sound Of Fighting Cats # 4 is
available at
# 4 will serve us until 2029'ish when # 5 takes over
The Sound Of Fighting Cats blog lives on
The 11th album from this band from USA.
The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
This album is their second album this year and I guess the album with the short songs. The album called Time Silent Radio II has three long suites.
Time Silent Radio VII is more songs based as it is three quarters of an hour long, divided on seven songs. The longest song here clocks in at eight and a half minutes.
This band album debuted back in 1991 with their self-titled album. I have reviewed their self-titled 2012 album, their eight album. I have no idea why they have two self-titled albums. But that 2012 album is my only meeting with this band.... until now where I am now listening to and reviewing Time Silent Radio VII.
The music here is basically American symphonic prog with some neo-prog and pomp rock influences. The music is at the melodic side of the prog rock spectrum. There is some pretty good early Elton John influences here too.
The result is a good album and one that makes me wanting to explore this band a lot more. I hope to do soem more reviews of their albums in the coming years.
3 points
The sixth album from this band from Sweden.
The band was a quartet with a lineup of bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
Numerous guests added drums, percussion, guitars, accordian, piano, organ, clavinet, keyboards, woodwinds and vocals.
This is their return after a nine years long album break. I believe they have done some gigs with The Tangent inbetween their last two albums.
Transmutation is a one hour long album. The music continues down the same road the band has always followed. That means one hour of Scandinavian symphonic prog. There are some heavy prog influences here too.
The music is both epic and bold. It is also elegant with some very good vocals.
The music has also got some complex pieces inbetween some very good pieces of music.
There is a very good harmony between the various instruments here and the vocals. Some of the vocals are also vocal harmonies.
Jonas Reingold and Karmakanic has again delivered a very good album which will please all fans of symphonic prog. Check out this album.
3.5 points
The 13th album from this band from Ukraine.
The band is a duo on this album with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
This band is in reality a one-man-band and has been that since the start. The person behind it never gives out information or do any interviews. It still have a big following and is one of the bigger extreme metal/black metal bands in the world.
Drudkh has always been somewhere between folk music, black metal and progressive rock. That is not the case on this fifty-five minutes long album.
What we get here is fast and furious black metal. There are still some hints of folk music and progressive rock here but these hints are very faint, indeed.
There is a great deal of sadness in the music. No wonder taken into consideration the unprovoced Russian attack on Ukrainia.
The result is a decent enough album. I am no fan of black metal but this is an album well worth checking out even for those of us who are not fans of this genre.
2 points
The sixth album from this band from Great Britain.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
This is their so far latest album. The band album debuted back in 2006 and I have reviewed all their albums. I have so far not been impressed.
The music on this forty minutes long album is a blend of art-rock and neo-prog. A good reference is Marillion. That is both early and latter days Marillion.
On this album, the band has reverted a bit back to the neo-prog soundscape from the early 1990s. There is therefore far more neo-prog here than art-rock.
This album is therefore a kind of a retro neo-prog album. It is also based on songs. Some of them are pretty short and catchy, make that poppy, too. The final track is an eleven minutes long track.
The qualiy has actually improved on this album and this is their so far best album. I am not yet converted but I still hope we will get some more albums from them.
This is indeed a good album and well worth checking out.
3 points
The third and so far latest album from this band from Finland.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, mellotron, organ, minimoog, piano, synths, clarinet, saxophone and vocals.
The band returned three years after their very good second album with this, their third album.
This band went back to the roots of the Finnish psych and progressive rock scene from the 1970s and created their own brand on their two first albums.
This is something they have done on this almost forty minutes long album too.
Take some cool mid-tempo melodic music with plenty of organ, minimoog, mellotron, guitars, saxophones and some clarinet. Add some cool, good Finnish vocals on the top.
The soundscape is very cool and the music has some very interesting details.
It has to be said that this album is not as good as their second album though. Nevertheless, this is a good album which reeks of class and quality. This is really a band who deserve a lot more attention and one of my best discoveries this year.
3 points
The second album from this band from Poland.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, bouzouiki, keyboards and vocals.
I reviewed their 2018 debut album back in August 2018 for # 2 of this blog and gave it a good rating. I compared the band with Bad Company back then.
This fifty minutes long album takes us through some psych rock. The psych rock has been blended with folk rock, blues, fusion and art-rock too. There is even some Iron Maiden'ish heavy metal blended in with the psych rock here.
In other words, the band is playing on many different strings on this album.
The male vocals is pretty good and the band does a good job on some workman like songs. Songs which has plenty of both keyboards and guitars.
Not all the music is good here and the band has yet to master the art of writing great songs. This is still a pretty good album and one to check out.
2.5 points
The seventh album from this artist from Great Britain.
Fish did the vocals here.
He got help from some guests who delivered drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, loops, programming, narrations and backing vocals.
Fish returned again with his first post-millenium album.
This album is just over fifty minutes long. The music is a blend of art-rock, folk rock and mainstream rock.
The album is as always dominated by Fish vocals and indeed, personality.
The songs are pretty muscular with where his full range of vocals are being employed.
There is not a bad song here. There is not a great song here either. The music is good throughout. A bit too workman like at times, but still good.
This is also an interesting album with some good details. Hence.....
3 points
The debut album from this artist from Great Britain.
Colin did the percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, trombone and drum programming here.
Two guests added various noises and female vocals.
I reviewed his second and third album fifteen years or so ago for ProgArchives. I also interviewed Colin for the same magazine too. Then I forgot about his albums.... before I found three unreviewed albums in my collection. These three will be reviewed here and in the upcoming # 4 of this blog sometimes in the next couple of weeks. I also hope to purchase a copy of his new album too.
Colin Masson has in total released six solo albums and some albums as a member of The Morrigan.
This one hour and five minutes long album gives us a mix of keltic folk music and symphonic prog. There is a lot of Camel influences here. There is also a lot of Clannad influences here too.
This album has three tracks. There is some very good female vocals from Cathy Alexander on the opening title track. That is the most Clannad influenced track here. The two remaining tracks are more in the vein of Camel.
The guitars are very good throughout this album. The quality of the song writing leaves something to be desired as the final track is a bit of a dead fish.
The result is a good album and one to check out if symphonic rock with some keltic folk influences are your thing.
3 points
The second album from this band from Great Britain.
The band was a sextet on this album with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
Two guests added guitars and programming.
Their 2019 debut album New Ghost Orchestra was a pretty good debut album. The music somewhere between electronica and art-rock. Oceanside was a reference for that album.
Six years later and Oceanside is still an influence on this band and this fifty minutes long album.
The music is in short a blend of art-rock, post-rock and electronica. It is the post-millenium's take on progressive rock. It is a break with the 1970s Genesis influenced progressive rock... but still it is progressive rock as far as I am concerned.
The music is mid-tempo with some good guitars. Some of the guitars are dissonant in the vein of post-rock. There is some ebbs and flows here too. The music is still melodic with some good female and male vocals.
The overall quality is good. I hope we will hear more from this band in the future as their first two albums showcases a band with some pretty substantial promise.
3 points
The second album from this band from Spain.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, Spanish guitar, electric guitar and vocals.
The band returned again with their follow up to their 2017 debut album Fiebre. A good folk rock with a lot of flamenco guitars.
That was a pretty wild and hard album. So I was expecting the same again... But I was wrong.
We are still in and around the Spanish folk rock genre again on this fifty minutes long album. Plenty of Spanish guitars delivering flamenco and other wild, local types of folk music.
The band has restrained themselves and gone for a more elegant, sophisticated mid-tempo take on folk rock. This by incorporating Spanish symphonic prog into their music.
The music is therefore pretty melodic. It still has some wild, youthful music. The Spanish vocals are pretty wild but also very good.
The result is a very good album and a confirmation that this band is one of the best bands coming out of Spain in the recent decade. Check out this band and album.
3.5 points
The 10th album from this band from Peru.
The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, flute and vocals.
Two guests added English vocals on a couple of tracks.
I was not impressed at all by their previous album, the 2023 album Lines Of Nasca. A heavy metal folk rock album and not a good one.
The band seems to have left their roots and gone for a commercial heavy metal sound again on the forty-five minutes long Cosmos.
There is a lot of Spanish vocals and South-American flutes on this album. Somehow, some of the flutes sounds like this band is an Irish folk metal band. Which is strange.... But very commercial.
There are some English vocals tracks here too, two of them, and they leaves a bad taste in the listeners mouths.
There are some folk rock here. But there are not many minutes of folk rock here. Most of the music is heavy metal, almost power metal, and the only saving grace here is the flutes. There are also a couple of pretty good songs here.
The result is a decent enough album. I very much prefer their first albums compared to their latest two albums. Go for those albums instead of this album.
2 points
The fifth album from this band from Great Britain.
The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, samples and vocals.
A female vocalist added her vocals on one of the songs.
The band returned again four years after their less than impressive Paralysed And Hypnotised album. I reviewed that album in # 1 of this blog back in September 2015. That was when I gave up on this band until I earlier this year decided to review their remaining five albums. See these reviews somewhere else in this blog.
The Code is a forty minutes long album. The music is a blend of neo-prog and heavy prog. There is even some pub rock and mainstream rock on this album.
The music here is very muscular. It is also heavy at times. The music is also pretty complex and it has a progressive rock edge. Some of the songs are a bit too straight forward and is lacking in details. Too much workman like and run-of-the-mill mainstream rock.
The music is mostly driven by guitars with the keyboards playing a supporting role. One of the songs has some good female vocals too.
The male vocals is good and so is half of this album. This album is an improvement on the Paralysed And Hypnotised album but not by much. The band can do better.
2.5 points
The second album from this band from Finland.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, minimoog, mellotron, organ, electric piano, keyboards and vocals.
Some guests added double bass, violin, octave violin, minimoog and flute on a couple of tracks.
I really enjoyed their 2015 self-titled debut album. An album with some good retro psych and symphonic prog. An album that established this band as one of the best bands in Finland.
The band continues on in the same direction on this forty minutes long album. It has a blend of acid folk, psych rock and symphonic prog. The music is a bit of a return to the 1970s Finnish prog and psych scene.
The male vocals is very good and the sound is great. Ditto for the ambience. The organ, minimoog and the mellotron sound adds a lot to this album. Ditto for the restrained guitar solos where no tones are wasted. That gives this album it's elegant sound. Add in the vocals and the flute on one of the tracks and the listener is being transported to the thousand lakes by the music here.
The music is very elegant too. It has lots of very interesting details too.
The band has grown in confidence on this album and bettered their debut album. This is indeed a very good album, indeed. Check out this album.
3.5 points
The debut album from this band from Chile.
The band was a ten members big band with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, organ, synths, saxohone, flute, narration and vocals.
I am not really certain if this is a band or a collective of musicians who has recorded and released this forty minutes long album through Bandcamp.
The music here is also all over the place. This album is truly bi-polar.
We start with dream pop, then get some djent, progressive metal, avant-garde electronics, rock and then some jazz.
This album feels like a compilation album where everyone does their own thing and where there is no band and not coherence.
The music is decent enough but this album is too varied and too much kicking in all possible and impossible directions.
2 points
The second album from this band from Great Britain.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, flute and vocals.
The band returned again one year after their debut album was released.
The music on this album is a mix of hard rock and pomp rock. Mostly pomp rock, it has to be said. Styx is an obvious and clear reference here as they were on their debut album too.
The vocals is good and the band does a good job on some straight forward songs. Verse-chorus-verse in other words.
The music is pretty hard. It still retains this 1970s hard rock sound too.
There are some pretty good songs here and some sub-standard songs. Not everything has aged well on this album.
The result is barely a decent album. It is also widely regarded as one of their weakest albums and I am glad to hear that the coming albums, and I am reviewing all their albums, may be better than this one.
2 points
The second album from this band from Norway.
The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
The band returned again for their second album. This time with a record deal with Sensory in USA and worldwide. The self-released debut album had impressed a lot of people and this band was regarded as one of the best unsigned bands at that time. And rightly so although I did not really embrace their debut album in my review earlier this week.
Tall Poppy Syndrome is an one hour long album.
The band blends in pomp rock, djent and art-rock into their take on progressive metal here. Bands like Opeth and in particular Riverside is references here. But Leprous has more or less created their own universe here. This is an universe they really never left throughout their career.
The vocals is mostly clear vocals with some screamo djent vocals on the most heavy pieces of music here. Music that in places is wandering into death metat territory too.
The music is very complex and sometimes epic. There is still some melodic pieces here too.
The result is a good album and one that really broke the band as this album was widely regarded as the best prog metal album that year. Check it out.
3 points
The debut album from this band from Great Britain.
The band was a ten piece big collective with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, synths, computers and vocals.
This is my first meeting with New Ghost from Sheffield in Yorkshire. A town more known for the birthplace of steel, knives and the zillions of albums selling Def Leppard. New Ghost has so far released two albums and I will publish a review of their second album before the end of this month.
This band started out as a ten pieces big collective on this album before shedding half of their participants on their second album.
The music is a blend of electronica, indie rock and art-rock on this forty minutes long album. Oceansize is a good reference when it comes to bands they sounds like.
The vocals are a mix of male and female vocals. The music is melodic with an electronica edge.
The quality of the music is pretty good. I am not won over by this album but I am looking forward to sinking my teeth into their second album. Hopefully, more albums will follow.
2.5 points
The debut album from this band from Spain.
The band was a sextet with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, electric guitar, flamenco guitar, banjo, saxophone, flute and vocals.
This band is a new discovery to me. They have just released their second album and a review of that album will be posted here before the end of the month.
Fiebre is a fifty minutes long album in the Spanish folk rock tradition.
There is a lot of both early Spanish symphonic prog from the 1970s, Latin rock, flamenco and Jethro Tull influences.
The frequent flamenco guitars gives this album a very exotic flavour. In this respect, this band is a very original, exotic band to us from the English speaking part of this scene.
There is also a lot of mainstream folk rock here with the emphasis on the rock part of this genre. We get some rock hooks and rock guitar solos.
The Spanish vocals, male vocals, is good and the band deliver some really good music on the whole spectrum from hard to more softly spoken folk rock.
The result is a good album indeed. One both folk and prog rock fans should check out.
3 points
The eighth album from this artist from Norway.
Anders Buaas did percussion, bass, guitars and keyboards here.
A handful of guests added drums, percussion, piano, saxophone and vocals.
I have to admit I had my reservations when I got this fifty minutes long album for review. His previous albums has been instrumental symphonic prog and cinematic rock. There is nothing wrong with the music and his first seven albums but I have grown a bit tired of this type of music lately...
Then Anders Buaas gives me a big surprise. This album is not instrumental symphonic prog and cinematic rock. It is a different kettle of fish.
Take keltic folk rock, blend it with symphonic prog and some cinematic rock. There is even a whiff of americana in this music. Then add some really great female and male vocals. On the top of that again, add a soprano saxophone which really sets the tone.
Anders Buaas guitars too are adding a lot of good things to this folk rock/symph prog crossover album. Both is acoustic and electric guitars is on fire here.
The ambience and mood here is great. The ambience is as described on the album art-work. Melancholic but still pastoral and dignified.
This is no doubts his best album so far and an album who really deserve a more mainstream audience. That if there was any justice in the music business. And we all know that this is not the case.
3.5 points