(43:22; Mother Black Cap) UK band Mother Black Cap are out with the album "Caveman TV", and progressive rock is the style explored on this production. Now this is an album that has been made with the approach and execution one would find among many progressive rock bands of yesteryear. This crew doesn't stick to any one specific subset of the form, but rather opt for an inclusive approach. While gentler acoustic moments and careful pastoral side steps may be a bit of a recurring element here, I guess the most dominant aspect of the compositions reside somewhere in the hard progressive rock department, complete with a retro style organ and guitar combination. Deviations into more expressive symphonic progressive rock landscapes do occur however, as well as a bit of a switch over to landscapes perhaps a bit closer to classic hard rock, but when the band feels like it they aren't afraid to take a side step into a more jazz-oriented mood and mode either. An ...

(31:44; Fyre and Lytenyng Music) US band The Filibuster Saloon are out with the album "Going Off Topic", and progressive rock is the style explored on this production. It is an expressive and diverse production we get in this case, and initially the band comes across as a bit of a stripped down but playful variety of early Kansas with some violin and piano driven tunes. But as the album moves on the songs also gets gradually more expressive and creative, with numerous side steps into chamber rock territories that occasionally also includes some folk music undercurrents at times. Playful piano prog with jazz-oriented instrument details come and go too, and quirky and whimsical instrument and arrangement choices gets to be the norm rather than the exception as this album unfolds. The music is elegant and fairly easy to listen to all along though, even when the compositions come with a wide array of otherwise challenging details, and the choice to make this an all ...

(59:58; Flame Drop) Swiss band Flame Drop are out with the album "Flow", and progressive rock is the style explored on this production. In this case we have a band that has a go at the neo-progressive rock tradition, and they have chosen to go about it in instrumental mode too. The main modus operandi of the band is to craft long compositions with multiple sections, a feature that should tick some boxes among quite a few progressive rock fans unless I'm much mistaken. Those fond of atmospheric laden landscapes with flowing and floating guitar solo runs as well as liberal amounts of guitar solo runs with more of a crying guitar feature should find a lot to enjoy here, with the keyboards chiming in with shorter expressive moments and as a supplier of elegant textures. We do get some more energetic guitar riff and keyboard moments too, as well as the more careful plucked guitar combined with careful keyboards or wandering piano combinations. And on a couple of...

(70:00; Little Cloud Records) US project Pete International Airport are out with the album "It Felt Like The End Of The World", and this is a production that might also be of interest to fans of progressive rock. By and large I'd say that contemporary psychedelic rock is the best description to give the landscapes explored on this production. Most of the songs have a straight forward nature with a liberal influx of pop music sensibility, and quite a few of them pull in elements from various kinds of electronic music that adds a little bit of an update to the psychedelic music traditions. Layered keyboard arrangements of a fluctuating nature is an essential feature in many songs, and are used in more of a classic manner for the traditions of the style but also in a gentler manner in more of a dream pop orientation on one occasion while on the opposite side of the extremes of the album we get a song with a bit of an industrial feel to them. That the concluding...

(40:42; The Manifesto) Italian band The Manifesto are out with the album "Season of Miranda", and this is a production that may also be of interest to fans of progressive rock. This is an album that to my mind at least is more straight up psychedelic in nature, with a bit more of a crossover to indie and alternative rock rather than to the progressive fields, albeit with individual songs that probably fall in under the progressive spectrum too. Some of the songs come with all the sounds you might expect from a retro-oriented psychedelic rock band, with vintage floating keyboard textures and fuzzy guitars that drip psychedelic features when floating into guitar solo runs, others have a bit more of a cutting and acid feel to them, and a slight side step into the more moody landscapes explored by bands such as The Doors are present too. And the occasional use of world music element sis noted to boot. But we also get more contemporary sounding creations where noise ...

(18:57; Starhenge Records) While still working on their next album, Harpo Jarvi decided to take a sidestep for some fun and have produced this EP which contains two instrumental tracks called “Big Bangus” and “Baby Bangus”, and no prizes whatsoever for thinking that one may be somewhat longer than the other. Although we still have Nick Johnson (bass, guitar, synth) and Jim Miles (piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond organ, synth), I notice drummer Dan Ilges is no longer involved and his place has been taken by Ernesto Doural. When I reviewed ‘Babuska Noir’ I said they reminded me very much of Egg and Hatfield & The North, but now they have taken their music in a different direction, inspired by the sounds of vaporwave. They've tried to take those sounds, drawing from trip-hop, downtempo, lounge, RnB, and smooth jazz, and repackage them up into two psych-prog numbers. One thing I noticed when playing this is that they have been influenced by genres I generally never listen to, yet some...

(36:39; Jam Records) Released in 2019, it is obvious which genre Jeremy is following on this one from the title alone, and we are firmly back in power pop. Jeremy provides vocals, guitars, bass, piano, Mellotron, synthesizers and drums and he is joined by drummer Dave Dietrich and bassists Peter Morris and bassist Todd Borsch. The album is dedicated to Todd who died before this was released so I guess he played on certain tracks with it then being completed by Peter when he was unable to do anymore. Jeremy has always had that uncanny ability to be able to produce whatever music he wants in whatever style and is more than capable of doing it all on his own and can often be found working on multiple albums at the same time as the muse takes him. However, he realises that not everyone has the same magpie instinct as him, so each album generally contains songs from just one genre, and each time I wonder just how he does it as each time it feels like this particular style is the one he belo...