(77:05; Fruits de Mer Records) Track list: 1. Soft Hearted Scientists - The Fixer 3:46 2. Dave McLean - Faintly Blowing 5:26 3. Anton Barbeau - September Gurls 2:53 4. Crystal Jacqueline and The Honey Pot - Sympathy 3:51 5. Anton Barbeau - Dogstar 4:29 6. nick nicely - Mike Hall Is Calling 3:34 7. The Sand Pebbles - Desire Lines 3:55 8. Hanford Flyover - You Can’t Ever Come Down 2:41 9. Astralasia/Mushroom - Purple Exploding Budgie 4:03 10. McDowell & Westaway - Black Tar Acid 4:42 11. London Underground - Honey Drops 4:42 12. Pinhdar - Humans 4:11 13. Paul Lake - Dear Mr. Fantasy 4:58 14. Sidewalk Society - Can’t Help Thinking About Me 2:55 15. Vibravoid - Eye Shaking King 4:59 16. Sendelica - Downfall 16:00 Line-up: Artists as specified in the track list Prolusion. UK label Fruits de Mer Records is by now an established entity in the underground music scene, with cover versions of more as well as less known psychedelic rock gems and original material by veteran as well as new ban...

(45:20; Melodic Revolution Records) Track list: 1. Abstract Symphony V The Immortals 2:03 2. Full Body Access 4:11 3. Shall Not Be 3:15 4. Big Heart 3:53 5. Lunatic 6:21 6. Falling 20 3:24 7. Destroy Me 3:55 8. Inspire 4:45 9. Smirking Sirens 5:10 10. The Effect 3:07 11. Skywound 5:16 Line-up: Hamlet - vocals, bass Stefan Boeykens - guitars Umut Eldem - keyboards Paul De Smet - drums with (on backing tracks): Peter Matuchniak - guitars Paul De Smet - violin Paul Sax - violin Rachel Bauer - voice, vocals Elvya - dulcimer Prolusion. Belgian band Transport Aerian started out as the solo vehicle for composer and musician Hamlet, and for the past couple of decades this is a project that has been in constant development and motion as a recording unit as well as establishing a presence in the live scene. So far a total of 6 studio albums and two live albums have been released by the band. "Live in Ghent" is the most recent of the latter, and was released through US label Melodic Rev...

(37:05; Fabulae Dramatis) Track list: 1. Fabula Violenta 4:03 2. The Jungle of Ego 4:26 3. The City (Translucent) 6:04 4. Lead Astray / Indigo 5:03 5. River of Despair 4:11 6. Pawn Out of Board 4:27 7. The Illusionary Spyglass 5:43 8. Maquina de Suenos 3:08 Line-up: Isabel Restrepo - vocals Daniel Diaz - guitars Ted Dimitrov - drums Marco Felix - bass with: Kris Depuydt - bass Prolusion. Belgian band Fabulae Dramatic can trace their history back to 2011, albeit with few members remaining of the original line-up of the band as of 2024. They released their debut album "Om" back in 2012, and in 2017 they released their second studio production "Solar Time's Fables". Following a long gestation period that included settling in with new band members, the band self-released their third album "Violenta" in the fall of 2024. Analysis. This is a band described as being avant-garde metal and progressive metal at the esteemed website metal archives. For my sake I...

(48:49; SJS) This is the third album from Stuart J Strawman (yes, his initials form the name of the band), and he is again joined by the same core who played on 2021’s ‘The Unlikely Event’ with Graeme James (drums),  Christopher Soulos (upright & electric bass), and Douglas Skene (guitar) while Stuart wrote the songs, provided vocals and guitars and engineered and produced everything. He has been based in Australia for exactly half his lifetime and has recently been in touch with British family, and ended up in contact with his cousin, Richard Naisbett who he invited to contribute keyboards to this release. Richard is also in a duo with singer Kirsty Forster, and she was also invited to get involved so the band are now Australian/Anglo, and it is unlikely they will ever all be in the same room at the same time but it certainly never sounds like that. The only person who is on every track is Stuart, but this never seems like a project, but much more like a band outing. He descri...

(48:09; Fruits de Mer Records) Singer Cecilia Miradoli and guitarist/producer Max Tarenzi formed Pinhdar in Milan in 2019, but they had been working together for years prior to that in the rock band Nomoredolls. Fruits de Mer released their debut in 2021 and now they are back with the follow-up as they move through trip hop, dark wave and particularly dream pop. I was not surprised to see they spent time collaborating with Bruno Ellingham (Massive Attack, Unkle, Portishead, Everything But the Girl, New Order) as all of those bands have had an influence on this album. Here we have an album which really could move in many different directions and if the electro beat was removed then we would be talking about something else entirely, yet the focus is always on Cecilia’s vocals and the atmosphere being created by Max. In many ways I hear a lot of French For Rabbits in this, but whereas they approach the dreampop scene from more of a folk leaning this is much more in electro dance with plen...

(50:19; Code666) Formed in 2010 by guitarists Luiz Felipe Netto and Igor Meira, the group sought to conjure the introspective yet grandiose nature which can be found in the work of artists like Ihsahn, Opeth and Enslaved and there is no doubt that on their third album they are still working very much in that vein. After a brief stint as a trio in 2018 when they brought in a full-time drummer with whom they recorded their last album, they have gone back to being a duo with Netto providing vocals, guitars, keyboards and Meira guitars, bringing in a host of other musicians to assist them in fulfilling their vision. A special callout should go to Tony Lindgren (Leprous, Amorphis, Enslaved) as he mastered this and turned fully understood the brief. As with their major influences, one is never sure quite where Piah Mater are going to go as some of the music is very dark and Black Metal in its approach, while others are far lighter (and indeed closing number “Canicula” commences as Brazilian ...

(127:59; Cuneiform Records) The full name of the band is Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. / David Borden while the album is ‘Make Way For Mother Mallard: 50 Years Of Music’, and as one may surmise from the title is a celebration of a band’s 50th anniversary. American composer and musician David Borden helped pave the way for electronic music – via both analogue synthesizers and digital instruments – by forming the world’s first ever synthesizer ensemble in Bob Moog's Trumansburg studio, using Moog’s prototypes and finding a way of enabling them to be used in performance. He then later founded and headed Cornell University's Digital Music Department. This 2- disc set features one disc of early (1970’s) and one disc of recent (2019) Mother Mallard performances of several key Borden pieces. The first two songs on this set, “Endocrine Dot Patterns” (15:30) and “C-A-G-E I” (32:10) feature the earliest full line-up of the band, with David Borden and Steve Drews being joined ...