(40:24; Hitchtone) Track list: 1. Jakna od Teksasa 5:10 2. Vikend u Jasmini 4:39 3. Eshtafe 5:13 4. Zdravo za Gotovo 5:28 5. Tri Probe Tjedno 4:25 6. Kralj Tekstila 4:42 7. Tepsikord 5:49 8. Mekota 4:58 Line-up: Mak Murtic -  saxophone, flute Mihovil Jurdana - bass Damir Mihaljevic -  drums Nika Bauman - flute Lucija Stanojevic - violin Doringo - guitars with: Orjen Ridanovic - guitars Prolusion. Croatian band Doringo have been releasing new material at a fairly rapid pace from 2017 and until now, with almost a dozen releases great and small available on their Bandcamp site. "Budem Budem" is the name of their most recent production, which was released through the label Hitchtone Music & Promotion in the fall of 2021. Analysis. Doringo is one of those bands that are difficult to pin down into one specific segment in the progressive rock universe, something I for my sake feel grateful for. One of the points of progressive rock is to progress, and by being difficult to categ...

(45:09; OctoberXart Records) Track list: 1. Paradise Flying Snake I 3:02 2. Seafoam 1:56 3. Angel on a Tower 4:29 4. Lena Pillars 4:49 5. Footsteps 2:55 6. Doppelganger 4:21 7. Maybe 3:01 8. Deep Low 4:37 9. Roads to Sunrise Cities 6:33 10. Sarisin 3:00 11. Land of Opportunities 2:42 12. Paradise Flying Snake II 3:44 Line-up: Angel Ontalva - guitars Victor Rodriguez - keyboards Avelino Saavedra - drums with: Yolanda Alba - flute John Falcone - bassoons Pablo Hernandez Ramos - saxophones Wadim Dicke - bass Amanda Pazos Cosse - bass Prolusion. Spanish musician Angel Ontalva has an established history in progressive rock circles, at first with the band October Equus and then in the last decade or so as a most productive solo artist with more than a dozen albums to his name as either strict solo albums or as collaborations. "Angel on a Tower" is his most recent solo album, and was released by Octoberxart Records in the fall of 2021. Analysis. As a band member as well as a solo ar...

(40:41; Apollon Records) Track list: 1. Melancholy City 4:03 2. Hesitant Light 3:01 3. Dance of the Swallows 4:50 4. Night by Night 4:45 5. Floating World 5:05 6. Street Heat 3:09 7. Andromeda Waltz 2:51 8. Escape from Plague City 5:32 9. Devil's Highway 5:51 10. Coda:Street Haze 1:34 Line-up: Jacob Holm-Lupo - keyboards,m synthesizers, guitars, programming, samples, loops, percussion with: Keith Carlock - drums Georg Wadenius - guitars Marte Eberson - vocals Hedvig Mollestad - guitars Nikolai Haengsle Eilertsen - bass Brynjar Dambo - synthesizers Bill Bressler - synthesizers Kristoffer Momrak - flute Ivar Winther - synthesizers Prolusion. Norwegian project Donner is one of the many side projects of White Willow main man Jacob Holm-Lupo, and this one has more of an emphasis on the electronic aspects of the music universe. "Hesitant Light" is the first full length album created under this moniker, and was released through Norwegian label Apollon Records in the fall of 2021...

(42:59; Karisma Records) Track list: 1. Enter the Dome 1:15 2. Retrograde 6:32 3. Hypersonic 3:43 4. Deadbeat 5:20 5. Waver I 4:46 6. Waver II 6:11 7. The 1% 6:30 8. Orbit 8:42 Line-up: Sturle Sandvik - vocals, guitars, bass Severin Sandvik - drums, percussion, vocals with: Jonas Saersten - Rhodes, organ, piano, Mellotron Ole-Andreas Jensen - bass Morten E. Olsen - guitars Prolusion. Norwegian band Kosmodome was formed a few years back, and following a self-released EP they were signed to Norwegian label Karisma Records. The band is now ready with their debut album "Kosmodome", which will be released in early December 2021. Analysis. The main style of this band is a retro-oriented type of psychedelic rock, and a variety of the style with a distinct progressive orientation at that. Mainly due to structural elements, but some of the arrangements and instrument details also point towards a more progressive take on psychedelic rock in this case. Songs that ebb and flow in intensi...

(77:00; Cleopatra Records) It is impossible to talk about Calvert without also mentioning the band with which he was involved so heavily during their golden years, Hawkwind. But he also released five solo studio albums before his demise from heart attack at the early age of 43. Of these, the one which is most fondly thought of by his fans is the debut, ‘Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters’, which is obviously referenced here in the title. Calvert was a true multi-media artist, being involved in poetry long before he joined Hawkwind, and I am sure he would have been intrigued in this bringing together of his music from throughout his career. The project features vintage Calvert tracks taken from both his solo albums as well as raw, unfinished demos, completely revamped by the likes of indie noise icons Xiu Xiu, chillwave group Small Black, post-punkers Soft Kill plus darkwave duos Xeno & Oaklander and Sixth June as well as veterans A Flock Of Seagulls and The Damned’s Rat Scabies!...

(48:03; Soniq Theater) One thing that can be said about keyboard player Alfred Mueller is that he is incredibly consistent, both in terms of his music and output. Every January he releases a new album, both digitally and as a CD-R, saying that people can pay what they want for it. Now, in some ways this has meant he has stayed in the deepest bowels of the underground so that even those familiar with the scene either have never heard of him, or feel the quality of the music must be somewhat lacking in that he does not spend money on self-promotion or artwork, and does not even charge for people to download his music. I look at it in a different way altogether, in that Alfred does not make music because he wants to, he does it because he must. There is an inner driving force that demands he keeps putting his music out there, even though it is unlikely that many will hear it or write about it. This is his twenty first solo album, and I have reviewed every single one of them, as well as th...

(43:14; Sonus Umbra) About 20 years ago I used to be in contact with Brian Hirsch, who set up Moonchild with Andrew Robinson (Magus), and once he realised there was someone who was as mad about music as he was, he flooded me with material from tapes to CDs. One of these was an American progressive rock band who used to be based in Mexico, and their second album, ‘Snapshots From Limbo’, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Brian and I lost contact, and apart from Jeremy Morris, I don’t believe I heard from anyone else involved with the label until earlier this year when Sonus Umbra again came onto my radar. They released four albums in fairly quick succession, before an extended break, with their fifth not coming out until 2013. There had been some significant line-up changes, with only bassist and founder Luis Nasser and guitarist Andrew Tillotson playing on the albums either side of the break. However, between 2013’s ‘Winter Solstice’ and 2016’s ‘Beyond The Panopticum’ the band had remained fa...

(64:34; Sonus Umbra) This 2020 album is very much related to the previous one in terms of story and style, with a major difference being the departure of co-lead singer Brittany Moffitt, and Roey Ben-Yoseph now working on his own. The other change is that cellist David Keller has been rewarded for his work on other Sonus Umbra albums and is no longer a guest but is a full member. Again, this is an album of complexity and layered arrangements which is an absolute delight from start to finish. By having both a flautist and cellist in their mix, along with three people providing guitar and a couple of different keyboard players, they can bring in many different influences and textures. Luis never truly forgets his Mexican roots, and there are times when those influence come shining through, and yet again it is only the polish which makes one realise that here is an American band as they are far more rooted in the styles of classic prog coming out of the UK than the US. They are also not a...

(26:29; Spurge) One day I received an email from bassist and band leader Jen Hodges asking if I would be interested in hearing the new album from her band Spurge. Given that one of my personal rules is that if I am contacted by an artist directly then I always review the material, I replied in the affirmative, apologized in advance for knowing it was going to take me a long time to get to it and put it on the list. A while later (okay, a long while later) I finally got around to playing it, and during the first song I was sat there asking myself who had sent me this and why had I agreed to it? Jen told me that Spurge is a progressive band and that she had been told about me by Daniel Graham of Great Wide Nothing, but what I was listening to was nothing that I would normally call prog. “NC Flowmaster” opens the album, with some wonderfully delicate bass playing (Jen is a Berklee grad so knows what she is doing), joined with lovely guitar (the rest of the band are Charles on guitar (gigg...

(57:22; Frontiers Music) Now, I confess I have not heard the latest Yes studio album, but I was so traumatized after ‘Heaven & Earth’ that I have not been able to bring myself to buy it. Why do I mention this? Well, in many ways this band is a Yes offshoot as virtually everyone has been involved with them in some way. The line-up contains three current Yes members in vocalist Jon Davison, bassist/vocalist Billy Sherwood, and drummer Jay Schellen, and is completed by Dave Kerzner (ex-Sound of Contact) on keyboards and guitarist Jimmy Haun (who has recorded with Yes in the past, on ‘Union’ for example). People are bound to compare this band to Yes given the close relationships, but that is unfair in so very many ways. All those involved have had careers away from that band, and I was a fan of Davison with Glass Hammer long before he joined Yes, Schellen and Sherwood were both in World Trade, Kerzner has been involved with multiple bands outside of Sound of Contact etc. The issue with...

(60:58; Immrama Records) These days I am so far behind on my reviews that even if I read the press release at the time the album was made available to me, I have long forgotten who was involved by the time I get around to playing it. Hence this was a wonderful surprise when it finally made it to my ears, and I wondered how such a well-formed band could have come out of nowhere, and in some places there was no doubt whatsoever that they had Troy Donockley (Nightwish, but for me will always be associated with Iona) playing as I recognise his work anywhere, so who was this band and who did they bring in? It transpired that the people behind this are multi-instrumentalist Ian Jones (Karnataka, Chasing The Monsoon) and singer Agnieszka Swita. While I guess Polish singer Agnieszka will normally be linked with Caamora, I have been aware of her other works as well and highly recommend searching out her solo album ‘Sleepless’. Then they brought in a few others to assist, such as Steve Hackett (...

(64:00; Jonatan Pina Duluc) I have been fortunate enough to have come across composer and multi-instrumentalist Jonatan previously, have always enjoyed his work, and here he is back with his latest solo album. Hailing from the Dominican Republic, he has won the country`s most important composition competition the Premio Nacional de Música on six occasions in three different categories: Symphonic/Choral, Chamber music and Latin Dance music, which shows just a few of his diverse tastes which also include Jazz, Rock, Latin Troubadour, Dominican folklore, and everything eclectic. This album is a collection of suites and pieces written for film or inspired by film as storytelling with a style which goes from quiet soundtrack avant-garde pieces to epic “Afro-Dominican Jazzodelic Progressive movements” (his words). He has also started making short films available on YouTube showing what inspired him to make this music. Fusion is the starting point, but that is combined with styles straight ou...

(64:45; Moonjune Records) Wingfield has long been known as an adventurous and innovative guitarist, and this album find him in the company of Jane Chapman (harpsichord), and Adriano Adewale (percussion). Although I have come across the harpsichord in modern music previously, it generally has been in the hands of the likes of Rick Wakeman, and not in this sort of format whatsoever. Wingfield and Chapman have been working together for some 15 years, and one of their first joint performances took place in what was once composer George Frideric Handel’s house, situated next door to Jimi Hendrix’s flat. Two very different and diverse worlds separated by a layer of bricks, mortar, and time and that is exactly how this music comes across now. Chapman is not playing a synthesiser but instead a copy of an 18th century harpsichord, the only difference that it has two manuals instead of one. This means there has been no need for double tracking, but she produces more sounds than one would expect ...

(55:06; Purple Pyramid) Billy Sherwood is back with the third album under the Prog Collective banner, the first since 2013’s ‘Epilogue’, and again it follows a similar pattern in that he has invited in loads of guests to help out so we have performances from the likes of odd Rundgren, Derek Sherinian, Jan Akkerman, Steve Hackett, Steve Hillage, Patrick Moraz, Sonja Kristina, Joe Lynn Turner, L. Shankar, Arjen Anthony Lucassen, Roine Stolt, Graham Bonnet, David Johansen and others. While the original concept may have been to work in a similar fashion to Alan Parsons in the Seventies we get something that is many ways is a pastiche and certainly adds nothing to the original. Sherwood is an outstanding bassist who has made important contributions to many bands, but for the first half of this release it just feels like musicians are going through the motions and putting in sections which are “prog” without having any heart and soul. But at least for the first half it is traditional materia...

(53:17; Inside Out Music) Over the last 30+ years it has been rare for me to review an album more than once, there must be something special for that to happen, yet here I am once again falling in love with an album which I originally wrote back in 2004. The rationale this time around is because Inside Out Music have now made it available for the first time on their label as a digipak as well as vinyl and has been re-mastered by Dan Swanö (Opeth, Katatonia, Nightingale). These days, Riverside are probably the largest progressive export from Poland, and right from the beginning this album looked like it was going to create a stir as after it had been released independently it was picked up by Sony, while the band then signed to Laser’s Edge for a worldwide release. This was big news in the scene, as this was still in the dark days of Prog, when labels and mass media were trying at best to ignore the genre and at worse were trying to kill it, so to be picked up by Sony was huge. What’s i...

(152:47; Gonzo Multimedia) There is no doubt that Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett is viewed by many as being an incredibly important person in the history of music, even though his complete musical career was only ten years in length. He will always be remembered for being a founding member of Pink Floyd and the incredible lengthy improvised meanderings they developed onstage, but due to multiple reasons (often associated with mental health and drug use) he was let go from the band, recorded a couple of solo albums and then disappeared to his painting and gardening until his death from cancer. On the 75th anniversary of his birth this collection was released which attempts, for the first time, to bring together in one place all the songs Barrett recorded after left the band. To realize this, the organisers invited many artists from various parts of the world – Italy, Mexico, France, Ireland, UK, USA, Sweden, Japan, Belgium Germany, The Netherlands – and asked them to choose one son...

(41:51; Inside Out Music) There are few female singers who have so much confidence in their own ability that they will happily collaborate with Floor Jansen, but Anneke has been at the very top of her field for a great many years now and here she is back with her 23rd album. I first came across her more than 20 years ago when she was fronting The Gathering, and since her departure in 2007 she has been much in demand for projects with the likes of Arjen Lucassen, while there is no doubt that whenever she performs with Devin Townsend, she totally transforms his performance. In 2018, Anneke began working on new material for her metal band, Vuur. Although their debut album, 'In This Moment We Are Free - Cities', was met with a mixed reception, fans were warming up to their heavy, progressive sound and it was expected that a quick follow-up would establish them in the market. However, Anneke had financed the debut album and consequent tour herself, which meant that another album wou...

(42:10; Cuneiform Records) This is the third album from Canadian band Bisbâyé, who have now signed to Cuneiform Records having released two EPs and the two albums independently. The band was formed by guitarist Jean-Pierre Larouche and drummer Hugo Veilleux, back in 2001, since when Larouche (who is also the main composer) has been working on combining mathcore, djent and progressive rock in a way that is both familiar yet very different indeed. Some of this is down to the band line-up, as the duo are joined in their quest by bassist Vincent Savary, guitarist Nathanaël Labrèche, and drummer Julien Daoust. Yes, here we have one of those rarities in modern music, as not only are they an instrumental act but utilize two drummers throughout their performance. Imagine King Crimson joining forces with Meshuggah, throwing in some Voivod and one may just be able to imagine what is going on in the headphones. This is an album which really benefits from being played in sonic isolation as one dru...

(82:10; Dreamslain) No-one can fault this Norwegian trio for their effort, as for their debut release, they have provided us with just 9 songs lasting more than 80 minutes as a double CD. Comprising Daniel Paulsen Figenschou (drums), Anna Loppacher (piano, Hammond organ, synthesizers and bass pedals), Igor Jakobsen (lead, rhythm, 12 string, classical and bass guitars, banjo, lead and backing vocals) they have brought something together which is progressive, metallic with hints of folk metal combining with RIO and neo prog to produce something where the listener is never sure where the journey is going to lead. The only real issue, is whether they actually want to go on the trek. To put it bluntly, this is a hot mess with a singer who feels he is much better than the reality. The frustrating thing is that there are times when his vocals fit in perfectly, but it is when he has calmed it down and is not trying to force things quite so hard, when it sounds almost as if he is using throat s...

(43:49; Iosis) On Saturday 24th July 2021, Igor Savitch died from COVID, only a week after being admitted to the hospital feeling only slightly ill. For 35 years Igor led his band Flight 09 through tours at home and abroad, starting out when Uzbekistan was still a part of the Soviet Union back in 1986. They built a reputation as being the top progressive rock band in the country, and I had been fortunate enough to hear four of their albums prior to their latest and must confess I always thought of them as a solid outfit as opposed to inspirational. However, on 2018’s ‘Drift’, Savitch had relinquished lead vocals on a few songs to Tatyana Serikbeyeva, which had been a major change given he was the songwriter and Flight 09 had always been his band. It went some way to mitigating a major weakness of Flight 09, and I did wonder at the time what it would mean for future recordings. 2020’s ‘10515’ answers that cleanly, as although I cannot confirm it is still Tatanya as I do not have a physi...

(120:32; Knitting Factory Records) Although Lucas has released more than 30 albums in his own right, and has performed on at least 50 more, he is probably always going to be associated with two performers in particular, namely Captain Beefheart and Jeff Buckley. He was featured soloist and later full Magic Band member on the last two Captain Beefheart albums, “Doc at the Radar Station” (1980) and “Ice Cream for Crow” (1982), while he formed psychedelic art-rock group Gods and Monsters, whose members have included Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) and most famously Jeff Buckley (Gary co-wrote and performed Jeff’s anthems “Grace” and "Mojo Pin”). This double CD set is broken in two, with the first disc being by Gods and Monsters and the second a combination of solo, rarities and collaborations. This is a vast collection, with 36 songs lasting more than 150 minutes, and shows the sheer diversity of his style. The only real constant through all the music is the superb guitar playing, whi...

(43:17; Cuneiform Records) In 1929, brothers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer opened their animation studios, competing with Walt Disney. They had major success with various characters, including Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman, with Mae Questel becoming known especially for voicing Betty Boop and Olive Oyl (Popeye’s girlfriend in case you are a heathen and have no idea who that is). Gary Lucas and trombonist/arranger Joe Fiedler had discussed releasing an album in homage to those days some years back, but it was only in 2016 that it came to fruition, with Fiedler being convinced to craft zingy, kinetic, and historically grounded arrangements for singer Sarah Stiles, who has managed to capture that innocent and slightly strange way of singing we all associate with Betty. Finding Sarah was the hard part, as Fiedler soon managed to get the right musicians in Jeff Lederer (sax), Michael Bates (bass) and drummer Rob Garcia to combine with himself and Gary...