(50:57; M-Theory Audio) Abstracted are a new name for me, but this Brazilian-based six-piece Extreme Progressive Metal band has been around for eleven years, and this is their second full-length release. Comprising Rosano Pedro Matiussi (vocals), Leonardo Brito (guitar), José Consani (guitar), Riverton Vilela Alves (bass), Carol Lynn (keyboards) and Fernando Pollon (drums) they have obviously been influenced  by Opeth and Between the Buried and Me, but the most obvious is Protest The Hero. The band provide mathcore Djent while Matiussi can sing melodically or growl with the best of them, although neither is as extreme as one might expect from Rody Walker. This is massively complex, with strange time signatures and interactions, and it is interesting to note they started life as a technical thrash band before moving into what is now termed by some as progressive death metal, but however one wants to describe it, this is music where there is always a great deal going on with complex ...

(61:00; Frontiers Music) In April 2025 the latest incarnation of Asia performed over three nights at Trading Boundaries of Sussex, featuring an album a night, with the first night being dedicated to the debut. Now, no-one can ever say that the 1982 album was not a classic,  and indeed Charles Snider in ‘The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock’ ends that wonderful tome with that album, the only one from 1982 which is included (we both feel to get the few picture of prog album you need this book plus mine). However, Asia is a band with a tumultuous history and a fractured line-up, and the version of the band which had been put together for these shows bears no resemblance to what has gone before apart from keyboard player Geoff Downes, as it is now completed by Virgil Donati (drums – ex-Planet X), John Mitchell (guitars – Arena, It Bites etc.) and Harry Whitley (bass and vocals). Virgil Donati rightly has a stellar reputation, while I have known John Mitchell’s work for years...

(78:36; Belle Antique) This 3-track album is the final ever album to be released by Hiro Kawahara of Heretic and will also be available later this year as a digital download from Cuneiform which will also include a bonus track which is a new remix of all three pieces which were rearranged chronologically and then remixed into a single track. In August 2023 Cuneiform released the mighty digital set of Heretic’s complete works, which is more than 13 hours in length, but while that was happening Hiro was suffering with some health issues so he retired from work. Not long afterwards his flat was scheduled for demolition, so he and his wife moved, at which point he sold all his instruments apart from a guitar. Then it was discovered he had breast cancer which had metastasized, so had to had to have an operation to remove the cancerous cells and later undergo chemotherapy. Less than a week after he was discharged from hospital, he came across some TV crews from NHK TV's "Document 72...

(50:19; Freia Music) There were quite a few line-up changes before Realisea’s second album, 2022’s ‘Fairly Carefree’, which saw them stabilise as a six-piece along with six guests, and there have been a few more changes this time around as well. Brian de Graeve (vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards), Marjolein de Graeve (vocals, flute) and Christophe Rapenne (keyboards) have been on all three, Jos Uffing (drums, vocals) and Rindert Bul (guitars) were around for the last one, and the line-up is now completed by Jos de Jong (guitars) and Patrick Verheij (bass) while there is just one guest, Tamara van Koetsveld , who has appeared on all the albums so far. Realisea was formed around Brian de Graeve, frontman and founder of progressive rock band Silhouette, and I am a fan of both bands, and rewarded the previous two Realisea albums maximum ratings, but I am finding this one somewhat more difficult to get inside. It is not the music, which is interesting and punchier with the addition of seco...

(45:04; Dominic Sanderson) At one point last year Dominic Sanderson’s second album was in the Top 10 of the PA charts (now at #40) which got me quite intrigued as to what it was like as this was someone, I had not previously come across. He hails from Wakefield, a city I lived close to before moving to the other side of the world (not sure if that is one of the reasons I left, but it could be) On this album he provides electric & acoustic guitars, vocals and Mellotron and is joined by Tristan Apperley (bass, violin), Jacob Hackett (drums & percussion), Embiye Adalı (Mellotron, Hammond organ, clavinet, Fender Rhodes, piano) and Andy Frizell ( tenor, alto & baritone saxophones, flute). There are only four tracks, but the album is 45 minutes long and given one of the numbers is just six minutes in length it shows the others are nice and juicy. This is complex Seventies retro progressive rock, which is also quite dark, and is undoubtedly heavily influenced by VDGG while at othe...

(56:10; OOB Records) Daymoon are back with their fifth studio album, the fourth I have heard, and this is a major step forward from where they have been previously, with a release which is utterly compelling, interesting and, it must be said, dark in places. The line-up is very similar to 2022’s ‘Erosion’, with the core seven being Fred Lessing (6-string and 12-string Acoustic guitar, bass guitar, cavaquinho, field recordings, flute, keyboards, melodica, metallophone, percussion, sax, violin, vocals & narration), Lavinia Roseiro (lead vocals and choirs, metallophone), Luca Calabrese (bugle, trumpet), Paulo Chagas (oboe, saxophone, flute, Catalunya gralla), Jeff Markham (acoustic and electric piano, Hammond B3, Minimoog), Thomas Olsson (electric guitar, eBow, guitarscapes) and Tiago Soares (vocals, violin) plus a few guests. I definitely recommend getting the physical CD as opposed to the digital download, as the booklet not only provides the lyrics and who played on what, but also ...