(46:06; Karisma Records) Track list: 1. No Such Place 6:06 2. London 4:19 3. Run Into the Sun 5:33 4. Shimmer 7:36 5. Shapeshifter 7:57 6. Borders 6:23 7. Sensory Overload 8:12 Line-up: Simen Valldal Johannessen - vocals, piano, keyboards Öystein Sootholtet - bass, guitars, keyboards, programming Sigbjörn Reiakvam - drums, percussion, programming, keyboards with: Stephan Hvinden - guitars Steinar Refsdal - saxophone Dave Foster - guitars Prolusion. Norwegian band Oak started out back in 2013, initially self-releasing their debut album the same year prior to signing for Norwegian label Apollon Records in 2016. Two years later the band attached themselves to Norwegian label Karisma Records, and have released three albums through that label since then. The most recent of these is "The Third Sleep", which was released towards the end of April in 2025. Analysis. It is an atmospheric laden variety of progressive rock that Oak explore on this fourth studio album of theirs. They have...

(62:07; 3VE Records) Track list: 1. No Comfort Zone 11:22 2. Silent Transition 12:24 3. Velvet Clouds 10:25 4. Out from the Sky 6:21 5. Signal on the Shores 6:55 6. Winding Paths 14:40 Line-up: Pit Furrer - drums, percussion Urs Hochuli - bass Roland Ruckstuhl - piano, organ, keyboards, percussion Peter Wolf - vocals, flute, saxophone with: Alex Hutchings - guitars Prolusion. Swiss band Flame Dream is a bit of an unknown entity to me, one of those badns from the progressive rock underground I've just never encountered on previous occasions. The band had their heyday back in the late 70s and until they went on hiatus in the middle of the 1980s, but in 2022 the band got together again and started to write new material. The result of this creative process was released as the album "Silent Transition" on a label called 3VE Records back in 2024. Analysis. This is a band that were active back in the latter days of the golden era of the genre, and one can hear that this is a sea...

(20:35; Northern Soundscapes) Track list: 1. Ascension 4:39 2. Mad Laughter 5:21 3. Drive Out The Demons 7:19 4. The Man In The Moon 3:16 Line-up: Tim Hunter - vocals, guitars, synthesizer Thierry Sportouche - vocals, Mellotron, flute Prolusion. Silver Hunter is a duo consisting of UK artist Tim Hunter and French artist Thierry Sportouche. The latter is perhaps best known for being the editor of the French progressive rock magazine Acid Dragon for the last few decades. This musical venture was, from what I can see, formed back in 2015. The EP "Chapter 1: Mad Moonlighters" dates back to the same year, and was released through the label Northern Soundscapes. Analysis. While I don't really know whatever progressive rock credentials this twosome has as songwriters and artists in their own right, Sportouche's involvement makes this venture one that will be of interest for progressive rock fans anyhow. Even if the end result, at least as far as this EP is concerned, may not...

(137:26; Fruits de Mer Records) Track list: 1. Theme One 3:00 2. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake 2:27 3. Theme From Suspiria 3:58 4. In The Long Run 3:23 5. Back of Her Car 0:57 6. Take a Heart 3:42 7. Jericho Son Down 3:46 8. Her Famous Wish 2:29 9. Who Will Be Gold 3:55 10. Reverse the One Me 0:58 11. Dedicated to the One I Love 2:26 12. Galactic Joke Part D 11:14 13. Fate Chaser 2:37 14. Over the Hills and Far Away 3:44 15. Forever Before 3:35 16. High School High 2:20 17. Outrun 4:28 18. Meet You in the Wind 3:46 19. Peace Walks By My Side 3:21 20. Dream It All 3:13 21. Crossing Over 4:54 22. Sun Daze 3:26 23. Whiskey 4:42 24. In This Station 3:10 25. Sorrow Comes to Town 3:03 26. Expressway 4:00 27. Shadow Mantra 4:46 28. Narcosis Fading 3:04 29. Dream of the Portugal Keeper. Part 2 3:04 30. Shadow Bossa 4:23 31. Day Alive 3:45 32. Window Pain Reprise [IV Mix] 2:42 33. Activate [2024 Mix] 3:23 34. Rainbow Chaser 4:18 35. Starry Eyes 4:54 36. The Hills Are Live With Swordfish 7:17 37. O...

(42:13; Inverse Records) The debut album from Finnish band Ice Exiled is a blast from beginning to end, and while I can see it being called progressive metal, symphonic metal, melodic metal or similar, all one needs to know is they have a slight twist which makes all the difference. The line-up is Miika Matilainen (vocals), Oskari Kilpi (guitars, keyboards), Roger Gottleben (bass), Ville Nummisalo (drums), Veikko Sajaniemi (cello, vocals). Yes, you read that right, here we have a metal band who are blasting away onstage with a cello in their midst, but it is not a gimmick but is an integral part of their overall sound. It adds to the bottom end at times, comes in over the top at others.   Miika has a wonderfully broad voice which allows him to sing melodically or growl when the time is right, while the rest of the band are locked in tight, really cooking. Apparently, they formed in 2016 under the name Archares, releasing a few singles and an EP. They  had a rethink during the ...

(46:16; Melodic Revolution Records) Although Ellsworth may be known to many as the leader of progressive band Aethellis, he has long been working in the field of library music and soundtracks. He wrote his first Piano Concerto in the Eighties, eventually recording it and releasing it alongside the soundtrack for ‘Beside the Manor Selby’ on MRR in 2014, and it has taken another ten years for him to return with another in the same vein. Ellsworth provides piano, and he is accompanied by The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, providing 10 pieces in total, four of which forms part of “The Oratorio of Lycidas”. I have long been a fan of piano music, playing myself from an early age, and my mother was an acclaimed accompanist, so I grew up either hearing it being played in the house, or playing it myself, and I could often be found playing classical piano records with Joseph Cooper being a particular favourite. These days I tend to only listen to classical piano when playing some of Wakeman’s wor...

(12:49; Dronestool) Up until this release, multi-instrumentalist Matt Deacon has been managing to keep his fixation with stools out of the artwork, but here we have something which if it was not for the word “Dronestool” on the flying saucer would sit quite happily as a cover for The Bob Lazar Story. Personally, I think he just likes messing with me, as I know he is a man with a very warped sense of humour indeed, but it can also be taken that musically it is much closer to the material he has released under the other band name and that is probably closer to the truth. What we have here are eight instrumental pieces, total running time of 13 minutes, but he is putting more complexity into this and less of the more ambient approach we associate with this side project. It is not as full-blown as what I would expect from his earlier TBLS recordings with drummer Chris Jago but definitely has more similarities with the more recent ‘The Bob Lazarus Chronicles’ recordings than the other Drone...

(41:46; Cuneiform) Dirk Bruinsma (saxophones, bass guitar, electronics, percussion and composition) is a musician and composer who has been active for about 35 years and is best-known for his work with Fred Frith, Barry Guy, Louis Sclavis, Elliott Sharp and Jaap Blonk while he is also active with his group Pumporgan, the composers collective Monotak from Amsterdam and in a duo with video artist/VJ Marit Shalem. The pieces on this album were originally conceived to be performed in other settings, and it is only recently that he has reclaimed the songs and recorded them as a solo artist. Opener "Scala Vertigini" was written in 2015 for the ensemble Modelo62, but he was unhappy with the performance, the five pieces making up "Bassconstructs" (interestingly the parts on the album are not in the correct order) has been performed a few times with different musical groupings, while closer "Frozt" was written for a band that after two live performances saw the COV...

(69:53; Cuneiform) To say this is an unusual album, even when compared with wide styles of music I listen to, is something of an understatement. Maroney views himself as a “hyperpianist", which involves bowing and sliding the strings with bars, cylinders, bowls, blocks, and cases which really does make him sound like no-one else. It sounds as if at times he is playing the piano with both hands and then adding the string textures over the top. However, that is not the case as this is actually a live album recorded in 2006, and the performance must have been intense to watch, and fairly acrobatic I am sure. When one sees his influences one can sort of understand where he is coming from, but as well as the avant garde there are some classic jazz musicians who never sounded anything like this at all, and even they may find this a little far out for them. Denman Maroney says he is inspired by nature and the music of John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Henry Cowell, Duke Ellington, Charles Ives...

(54:48; Deep Limbic System) Eight years on from their debut, Mexican progressive act DLS are back with their second album. Given the amount of time which has passed it is somewhat surprising to realise that only guitarist Efrain Fraire is no longer a member of the band, as he left during the recording of this album so provides some additional guitar on just three tracks. He has been replaced by  Leonel Huerta while the rest of the band are still Sergio Sunga (vocals, guitars), Carlos Barcenas (keyboards), Angel Natividad (bass) and Jose Armengol (drums and percussion). The result is an album which is very much middle of the road crossover, with some heavier touches here and there, and the initial reaction is that this is a band who will appeal to fans of Porcupine Tree, RPWL, modern Marillion and Big Big Train as well as the likes of Pineapple Thief. For me the album works best when they are punching the guitars, such as in sections of closing number “Ωmega”, but when they are taki...

(34:16; Days Between Stations) Here we have the fourth album by duo Oscar Fuentes Bills (keyboards) and Sepand Samzadeh (guitars). I was convinced this was the first time I had come across them until I realised they first came to attention after they sent some material to Bruce Soord who then used some of it as the basis for the song “Saturday” on The Pineapple Thief’s ‘12 Stories Down’ which I reviewed more than 20 years ago. This particular album has had a long gestation in that its’ conception goes all the way back to the mid-2010s when Oscar and Sepand began working on music for a documentary film about artist Jean-Paul Bourdier with friend Alexandre Dorriz (who had shot the original footage). This is why the album is subtitled ‘Music For A Film’, and why there is just one song, “Being”, with vocals (provided by Durga McBroom), which is also the only song to feature real drums (Scott Connor) as the rest of the album is just the duo. It also explains why the Hipgnosis-style cover is...

(79:00; Melodic Revolution Records) I reviewed the debut Corvus Stone album all the way back in 2013 but never came across 2014’s follow-up until recently, possibly because the debut left me somewhat confused with its strange mix of material which did not seem to relate to each other. However, it has been more than a decade since then, my musical tastes have changed, plus guitarist Colin Tench has died way too soon, all of which is bound to have a bearing on how I listen to this now, so this review may be somewhat different to what I would have written if I had heard it when it was released. Corvus Stone were somewhat unusual in that they were an instrumental quartet, who then used different guest singers to provide voice to the songs. Also, they were determined not to make an album containing material which could be considered as being in a similar vein and the CD includes the statement, “This album is extremely varied. It does not follow any imaginary rules. It is not genre safe!”. T...

(39:47; Melodic Revolution Records) I must confess to being somewhat surprised last month, when I had a call from The Captain. Not that it is unusual to hear from him, as we are often in contact, but more so that he was releasing a new album so soon after the amazing, majestic, ‘Beautiful Ugly’. Given what has been going on his life over the last few years, the recovery from an awful car accident, and then working hard again on the live circuit, I found it difficult to understand there was a new one being made available so soon. Would I be interested in hearing it? Would I? There is no doubt in my mind that COTLW is one of the most important, vibrant and honest musicians around. What you see is what you get, a troubadour performing from the heart, treading the boards as a full-time musician playing a style of acoustic music which is often overlooked by the mass media. Here we find COTLW taking a slightly different route, unadulterated and pure, as one would hear him if you were sat wit...

(54:38; WHI Music) Following on from two albums with different line-ups, Phil Hargreaves decided to take Bloodcog on the road, and what we have here is the result: 11 improvised songs, 55 minutes in length. What is interesting is that those in the audiences, and anyone playing this, may well be quite confused as to what is going on as the music is being treated as it is played so no-one quite knows what is going on (including the band). The line-up was Fran Bass (electric bass), Richard Harding (chapman stick), Phil Hargreaves (saxes/flute/FX), Richard Harrison (drums/objects) and Pete Smyth (analogue electronics), but with the Stick being basically two instruments there were six being played at the same time. Harrison was mixing using a laptop live on stage, the two Chapman Stick outputs were going through a pedalboard, the drums were augmented with electronics, the woodwinds were being altered while the bass also got some treatments time to time while Pete Smyth was playing a no-inpu...

(46:22; Fosfor Creation) I have known Swedish multi-instrumentalist Carl Westholm for years through Carptree and Jupiter Society, although others will probably recognise his name more for his time with Avatarium and Candlemass.  I sent out my normal Christmas update email last December and Carl soon responded, asking if I would like to hear the albums from his two new projects, of which this is the first. Carl provides electric piano, organ, synth, bass, Theremin, Vocoder and backing vocals while he brought in friends and collaborators from other projects, so the line-up is rounded out by singers Öivin Tronstad and Cia Backman with drummer Lars Sköld and guitarist Ulf Edelönn. Carl describes the band as having one foot in Progressive Rock and the other in electronic Art Rock, and I certainly understand where he is coming from as while some of this is Crossover, and some Neo, there are also plenty of Art Rock and Melodic Rock influences which makes this a very enjoyable release inde...

(33:14; Cuneiform Records) The reason behind the quite unusual album title is very simple, none of those involved can actually remember when this short-lived outfit existed. They played just two gigs, and had one recording session, which was unearthed in 2023 and has resulted in this release. While the band may have been long-forgotten, even by those involved to some extent, the players are certainly well known in the scene as it comprised Zeena Parkins (accordion and acoustic harp), George Cartwright (soprano saxophone), Chris Cochrane (electric guitar and tapes) and bassist Fred Chalenor. Zeena was in between News from Babel recording projects and was about to join Skeleton Crew, George was in between the first and second Curlew recordings, Fred had just come east with his band with Myles Boisen, Face Ditch, while Chris was improvising with a range of “downtown musicians” and curating shows as the Director of NYC'S Improvisor's Network. This was long before No Safety (with Ch...

(31:09; Carton Records) There are times when I feel I must be living in a real-life algorithm, in that while back in the 90’s most of the music I was sent was fairly straightforward progressive rock and metal, these days I am sent far more improvised music which is rather more difficult to ascertain on first hearing and takes a long time to get inside. I guess it is the simple fact that the more I review in a certain area the more my reviews are seen by other artists and labels also working in that area, so they make contact. I think this is my first review for the French label Carton Records, and I see they have a huge catalogue, so guess I will be hearing even more from them in the future. Here we have Abacaxi’s debut release on Carton, and I must confess I can find virtually no information about them anywhere, so while I think this is their first ever release, I could be wrong. The trio of Julien Desprez (guitar), Jean Francois Riffaud (bass), and  Francesco Pastacaldi (drums, s...

(114:00; Independent Artist Records) Alex Carpani is an Italian French composer, keyboard player, singer, producer, musicologist and artistic director who lives and works in Bologna. From the late 90’s to the mid-2000’s he wrote and self-produced a lot of instrumental music, ranging from new age, electronic, symphonic, music combined with poetry, DnB, electro-jazz and music for theatrical performances and documentaries. However, since the mid 2000’s he has dedicated himself mainly to rock, releasing 8 albums with Italian and foreign labels, which has led him to collaborating with the likes of David Jackson, David Cross, Theo Travis, Jon Davison,  Bernardo Lanzetti and others. For this album the core band again comprises drummer Bruno Farinelli, with whom he has worked on the last few albums, along with bassist Giambattista Giorgi and guitarist Emiliano Fantuzzi with guests  Alessio Alberghini (soprano sax) and Valentina Vanini (mezzosoprano). This album comprises two long suit...

(122:16; Fruits de Mer Records) There is definitely an argument to be made that Christian (Dr) Koch's band are probably the finest psychedelic/krautrock rock band in Germany and have held that crown for more than 30 years. During that period they have released 22 studio albums, countless live albums, singles and EPs. ‘Live At Finkenbach 2015’ made it to No. 2 on the official German vinyl sales charts and ‘Live At Rheinkaut Festival’ stayed for several weeks in the Top 20 of the German CD sales charts. They have been releasing tracks on FdeM since 2009, covering bands such as covers of classic 60s tracks, including Can, Pink Floyd, Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly and H.P. Lovecraft. This brings together many of those songs, but after the decision had been made regarding this collection, Christian went  back to the band's original recordings and remastered them for the first CD, and then compiled a second CD comprising previously unreleased live recordings of some of the tracks fro...

(40:30; Is It Jazz? Records) Here we have the debut album by Norwegian jazz-rock quartet The Verge, who comprise Emil Storløkken Åse (guitars), Aksel Rønning (saxophone, flute), Alf Høines (electric bass) and Ingvald André Vassbø (drums). They met at the legendary Norwegian jazz school NTNU, playing their first concerts in 2019, before heading into the studio in 2021 to record this. I do not know why it has taken until the end of 2024 for it to finally be made available, and I can only hope the band is still active given how busy Vassbø has been with Kanaan and Full Earth as this is quite something.   Seven tracks, 41 minutes, here we have a band who have delivered something which is often much heavier than one would expect from fusion, but as complex and layered as one would hope for. That each musician is a master of their instrument is never in doubt, but special credit must be given to Vassbø as the man is everywhere all the time, changing style and approach instantly and altho...

(60:00; Flatiron Recordings) I am not sure what there is left to say about Tony Levin, except that he is one of the most highly regarded bass and stick players in the world, which is why he managed to get the following involved with his first solo album since 2007: Robert Fripp, Vinnie Colaiuta, Earl Slick, Mike Portnoy, Steve Gadd, Jerry Marotta, Gary Husband, L. Shankar, Pete Levin, Jeremy Stacey, David Torn, Pat Mastelotto,  Larry Fast, Steve Hunter, Manu Katche, Alex Foster, Dominic Miller, Markus Reuter, Chris Pasin, Collin Gatwood, Josh Shpak, and Don Mikkelsen. The vast number of guests only play on one track, although his brother Pete plays on a few more while Jerry Marotta and Gary Husband are also involved more than the rest. The booklet is wonderful, a collection of photos and text as Tony talks about his friends, the instruments, what has happened to them and what tracks he uses them for on this. Tony also provides vocals on the tracks which have them, and this is where...