(63:00; InsideOut Music) Back at the beginning of 2022, Leprous singer Einar Solberg reinterpreted the Leprous album ‘The Congregation’ in full, just piano and voice, as a special live streamed performance. That performance has now been made available as an album, with no overdubs or changes, so we can hear it just as everyone else did at the time. Now, I must admit that I was not a huge fan of the original album, and although I love ‘Coal’, I have not always been nearly as effusive over Leprous as many others who seem to view them as one of the most important prog bands of the last few decades and they can do no wrong. There is no doubt that Solberg has one of the most amazing voices one can ever hear, and the way he slips into falsetto is seamless and simply remarkable, while he is also a fine pianist who provides an accompaniment which is never over the top but adds to his vocals to make them stand out even more. My problem is that while in many ways this is nothing short of brillia...

(38:16; Dialeto) I have been a fan of Brazilian trio Dialeto for some time now, and although it has been seven years since the last release, the trio of Nelson Coelho (guitars, digital instruments), Gabriel Costa (bass), and Fred Barley (drums) are back. One of the reasons for it taking so long is of course due to the pandemic, and this album recounts Nelson's experience as a severe Covid-19 patient in March 2020. The songs represent the chronology of the illness, hospitalization, and long recovery with the album itself being part of a multimedia project, which also includes a book written and illustrated with paintings by Nelson. There was obviously a great deal of suffering for Nelson, and this album is full of drama and anguish. All three musicians provide massively complex and complicated music, somehow weaving the threads together so they make sense, and while they can be driving and dynamic at some points, they are reflective and laid back at others. They can be highly invent...

(50:41; Comedy of Errors) It was only when recently reviewing the latest opus from Comedy of Errors that I realised I had somehow missed their 2017 album, ‘House of the Mind’. This was their fourth album since they got back together, and of course there have been two more since then. At this point they were releasing an album every two years, something somewhat unusual for bands from the Neo scene, as while most had a heavy release schedule in the Nineties it had somewhat diminished in recent years. But given they were not active at all for 20 years perhaps they were making up for lost time. Unlike many of the bands who started making a name for themselves in the Neo scene in the 90’s and beyond, CofE are from an earlier era, having been formed in 1984 by Joe Cairney (vocals) and Jim Johnston (keyboards), who are still there in the current day. They recorded with Rog Patterson (who recently has been found opening for Pendragon on their recent tour), and due possibly to their geographic...

(34:42; Heavy Progressive Records) After blasting around the scene with his instrumental rock outfit Ape Shifter, here we find Jeff as I first came across him some years back, as a solo acoustic guitarist (with some guests on some tracks to assist in filling out the sound). As well as touring as support for the likes of Allan Holdsworth, Soft Machine, Scott Henderson, Stu Hamm, Greg Howe, Alex Skolnick, Carl Verheyen, Johnny A. and Albert Lee, he has been touring and recording with Anne Clark for the last 20+ years, and famously set the world record for the “most concerts performed in different countries in 24 hours” twice (2009, 2012). The album is a cross section of his solo acoustic instrumental fingerstyle guitar playing from the last few years, and while some have been played in concert they have not been recorded and not played like this, while some of these songs will never be played again. There are some real highlights on here, with “Matilda’s Lullaby” a case in point. The pia...

(74:00; Jam Records) Even before I looked inside and realised that this time Jeremy Morris was working with old friend and drummer Dave Dietrich, I had a huge smile on my face, as the album title is very much a double pun. ‘Bright Side of the Sun’ is of course the opposite of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, and by switching ‘Sun’ to ‘Son’ he showed that this was lyrically another of his religious releases. Just in case people didn’t get the joke there are two covers on this album, “Interstellar Overdrive” and “Obscured by Clouds”. Musically this is Jeremy spreading his wings and moving away from the power pop for which he is well-known and far more into prog with only one song under five minutes long and two more than 13. It is also an album where he shows that while he is often happy to be strumming an acoustic, he can then overlay rich work guitar over the top. I smile every time I listen to “Interstellar Overdrive”, probably my favourite Floyd song when I was a young teenager, as somehow, ...

(46:46; Jam Records) This is another album from the duo of Jeremy Morris (The Jeremy Band , The Lemon Clocks) and Ken Stringfellow (The Posies, REM, Big Star), with Jeremy providing the songs, vocals and guitars and Ken everything else, including production. I’ve lost track of how many albums they have recorded together, but I think it is either the fourth or fifth, while this is the 15th solo album I have reviewed by Jeremy in a very short while, as I numbered them to ensure I wrote about them in the correct sequence, and this one is from March 2023, so I am slowly catching up. I hate to think how many of his releases I have reviewed since we got in touch 30 odd years ago, but we will say more than 50 and leave it at that. The thing is, I have yet to come across a duff release from Jeremy, as each one tends to be in one musical genre, and whichever he decides to work on that day (psychedelia, power pop, acoustic guitar, piano, prog etc) is always absolutely fine and dandy. The same is...

(61:00; InsideOut Music) Brisbane-based prog metallers Caligula’s Horse are back with their sixth album, their first as a quartet as they have dispensed with a second guitarist, which means much more work for Sam Vallen, who alongside singer Jim Grey has been steering the band since its formation in 2011. They are again joined by Dale Prinsse (bass) and Josh Griffin (drums) as they move through a form of prog metal which has been heavily influenced by djent. Grey is a wonderful singer, obviously really happy to be at the front of a metal maelstrom, but for me the issue here is the amount of production and lack of real dynamics which creates an album which is technically brilliant yet failing emotionally. I would be interested to hear what this would sound like if the guys had just plugged in and played with no studio trickery or over the top use of compression and wall of sound, but instead had cut through the blanket with a knife and let us hear just what they are like when all that i...