(35:30; Sheet Happens) Some three years on from the last album, and guitarist Aaron Marshall is back with ‘Circadian’. As with ‘The Way Forward”, drums and percussion are provided by Nathan Bulla, but there is a new bassist in Jacob Umansky, and together the three provide some incredible instrumental mathcore with elements of djent. What makes this such an enjoyable album is the way the music is light and full of space, while there is incredibly high note density, it feels right and much more about the music than someone’s ego.  There are times when all three musicians seem as one, all playing the same refrain, while at others they split away to provide contrast and depth. The guitars are multi-layered, and the songs structured and defined so they always have purpose and are never a meandering mess. There is no singer, but there is simply no room for vocals to be slotted in anywhere as this music is just so frantic and dense. Bassist on the last album was Cameron McLellan, here are...

(61:11; Moonjune Records) On May 15th, 2019, Reuter went into the renowned La Casa Murada studio in Spain, where Moonjune have recorded many albums, and with him there was David Cross (Fender Rhodes, Electric Violin), Fabio Trentini (Bass), Asaf Sirkis (Drums, Percussion), Mark Wingfield (Electric Guitar) and Robert Rich (Keyboards). When they left later that day, they had recorded this album, ‘Nothing Is Sacred’. All the musicians are very highly regarded not only for their musical ability but also the way they can bounce and improvise with each other, yet for this album Markus employed a more premeditated, disciplined, yet radically divergent approach to group performance. "This is insane music. I used a compositional system that basically disallowed the musicians to play intuitively. They had to follow rules which served to create really strange melodies and harmonies," Markus revealed. "In the back of my mind, I wanted to create something as fundamentally radical as ...

(36:24; Moonjune Records) This collaboration came together after Markus was contacted by Dennis Kuhn from the famous Mannheimer Schlagwerk percussion ensemble. Led by Kuhn, they have built a reputation for experimental music, so a collaboration with Reuter (King Crimson, Stick Men), is in many ways an obvious choice. Recorded on May 23rd, 2017, at Alte Feuerwache, Mannheim, Germany, this finds the ensemble working from Reuter’s score, while he himself improvised over the top (although this has also now been notated for future reference). This 36-minute-long single piece of music find Markus interacting with young musicians, with plenty of vibraphones, to create something that is pushing musical boundaries so much so that one would say this is modern classical, or is it experimental, or it is progressive? It is probably the latter but using the word in its truest sense as opposed to describing yet another Genesis clone. In many ways, the closest band with which this bears any relationsh...

(32:55; Jack Dupon) Track list: 1. Mute 4:46 2. Niout 5:30 3. Ludus 6:25 4. Taureau 9:21 5. Garagiste 6:53 Line-up: Gregory Pozzoli - guitars, vocals Arnaud M'Doihoma - bass, vocals Thomas Larsen - drums, vocals Philippe Prebet - guitars, vocals Prolusion. French band Jack Dupon have a history that stretch back to 2005, and in sixteen years and over seven studio albums and two live albums they have explored their particular variety of progressive rock. Often to critical acclaim at that. "La République Dominicale du Zoo" is their most recent studio album, and was self released in the spring of 2021. Analysis. Jack Dupon have been categorized as a band residing inside the more avant-oriented part of the progressive rock universe ever since they started out, and they continue exploring these landscapes also on this most recent album of theirs. Challenging music is the name of the game here, where odd sounds and unusual timbres are used in compositions that more often than no...

  On Saturday the 24th of July Igor Savitch passed away, only a week after being admitted to the hospital due to feeling only slightly ill. It is one more tragedy that took place due to the Covid -19 pandemic, and a great loss for the music scene in Uzbekistan. 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. The band's first six albums were released for the home market only, but in that initial phase the band also managed to tour abroad on multiple occasions in Holland and in the US. From 2002 and onward their next seven albums were made available internationally. The band had many plans going forward, and among those plans was the desire to return to the international tour scene. The loss of Igor is a great loss to his family and friends as well as his band members, but also a loss for the Uzbekistan music scene. A friendly and supporting artist, Igor Savitch was a good frien...

(44:46; Nuclear Blast) As with virtually every band, Norwegian group Enslaved have been through line-up changes over the years, and indeed they now have a new drummer since the last album in Iver Sandøy, yet founders and childhood friends Ivar Bjørnson (guitars) and Grutle Kjellson (vocals) are still there, as they have been now for some 30 years (the band is completed by Arve Isdal, lead guitar, and Håkon Vinje, keyboards, vocals). They first came to prominence with a split release with Emperor all the way back in 1993, but like Ihsahn, they have now come a long way from those days, although even now they still look back to their roots. They may have been a death metal band at the beginning, but now they are firmly entrenched in a progressive metal vein of their own making. Vocals switch between clean and gruff; the keyboards provide polish, the drums are all over the place, and the guitars never stop. They are incredibly tight, witness the ending to Homebound , which is chaotic a...

(95:57; Inside Out Music) The Flower Kings are back with their second album since their break, which saw long-time keyboard player Tomas Bodin no longer in the band. These days the line-up is Roine Stolt vocals, ukulele, guitars, additional keyboards and Hasse Fröberg (vocals, acoustic guitar), who has also been there since the beginning, bassist Jonas Reingold, who has now celebrated 20 years in the role, plus the new guys, Zach Kamins (keyboards) and Mirko DeMaio (drums). I have always been interested in The Flower Kings since I heard Roine’s solo album which led to the group being formed, more than 25 years ago. However, although I loved their early albums, since then I have been somewhat wary of new releases as to my mind, they can either be wonderful or overblown and way too long. So, what is Islands like? The first thing I do now with an album by them is check the length, and this one is more than 90 minutes in length which sent up a warning sign for me, but only amber and no...