Sommaire pour Issue 133 de Prog

YAMAHA TURN-T The boffins at Yamaha recently put their heads together for a bit of blue-sky thinking, and came up with what they call the “Stepping Out Of The Slate” collection: ideas and concepts that may come to fruition if enough of the general public go “Wow!” Possibly the most preposterous of these is the Turn-T, which looks like a vintage record player, complete with tonearm, which you rest on a spinning image of a record on the screen of your smartphone in order to hear some tunes. None of the tactility and nostalgic character of vinyl, but all of the hassle. Put me down for zero units. www.yamaha.com AMPERSTAND When you get your first guitar, you don’t really think about getting a stand – it’s the guitar that’s important.…

Initially known from her work with Brendan Perry as vocalist-musician-songwriter with shape-shifting gothic group Dead Can Dance in the 80s and 90s, Lisa Gerrard is now a prominent composer, vocal arranger and soundtrack artist, with an impressive catalogue of albums and scores built since her 1995 solo record, The Mirror Pool, accompanied by the Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra. Gerrard’s most visible mark was made with Hans Zimmer on the score for the 2000 historical epic, Gladiator, but her three-octave glossolalia technique has been heard with collaborators such as Orbital, Ennio Morricone and The Mystery Of The Bulgarian Voices. For a new album, Exaudia, Gerrard digitally reunited with composer Marcello De Francisci, long distance from Australia to LA. “This record has sensuality, a physicality to it,” she tells Prog. “Most of the…

Reclusive Beefheart guitarist beams down for his very first solo album. Under the alias Antennae Jimmy Semens, Jeff Cotton played guitar and lap steel on Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. Later he joined his former Exiles bandmate Merrell Fankhauser in psych unit Mu, but by 1975 he’d quit the industry, found a new life in a Christian ministry, and these days resides in Hawaii. Given that he’s had so long to write this material, perhaps it’s no surprise that Cotton’s first solo album is a baggy, rambling curio. The Fantasy Of Reality’s 22 tracks run to over 65 minutes, and some of them are eminently expungeable (the caterwauling The Season Of Awakening; Heavy, with ill-judged Delta blues ‘character’ vocal). That said, the record has a hopeful, hippie-spiritual/acid-fried charm. Cotton’s Beefheartian…

The Ocean drummer’s electronically focused solo project. Since joining The Ocean in 2013, drummer Paul Seidel has proved a more integral member than most among the German prog metallers’ rotating cast of characters. But like most of the musicians featured in these pages, he has more ideas on the boil than can be contained under one artistic umbrella. Hence this debut album from his solo project, Fern. The contrasts with The Ocean are immediately marked: where the latter’s last two albums have been themed around archaeology, Intersubjective sets its sights firmly on the near future, as electronic rock meets soundtrack-y noirscapes to evoke the rising claustrophobia of an increasingly digital yet alarmingly impersonal age. Prog influences are evident in the stuttering rhythm, backward vocals and melodrama of Shadows but there’s…

Belfast proggers, lovingly packaged, on their final tour. If anything highlights what fan power can do these days, take a look at the activities of the Fruupp Facebook group, who have coordinated this release, along with a raft of other merch and releases, to help keep the Belfast proggers’ memory alive. So many great bands from the 70s deserve discovery, even 50 years after they first wowed audiences, yet beyond standard reissues (from Cherry Red in this case), vaults, if they exist, sometimes remain untouched. Masquerading With Dawn is a bootleg recording of the quintet from Friars in Aylesbury from December 1975 when Fruupp were touring their fourth and final studio album, Modern Masquerades. The sound quality isn’t great, although this fact is not shied away from in the liner…

Putting the ‘chilling’ into ‘chill out’. The otherworldly timbre of the Theremin has long been used to signify the supernatural, the spacey and the downright scary. With its title taken from the Catalan word meaning to whisper, Icelandic Theremin player and cellist Hekla Magnúsdóttir’s second album summons those elements within a series of striking vignettes that glow with cinematic intensity. A graduate of the Icelandic Academy Of Art, Hekla cleaves sparsely decorated tunes out of thin air with graceful sweeps, bringing a razor-sharp focus within 10 ominous, sometimes abstract arrangements. Save for the closing track, these perfect miniatures of unease and disquiet arrive and depart without recourse to over-the-top Hammer Horror dramatics. Discrete electronics, icy vocal melodies and the unsettling scrape of her cello, so sonically manipulated as to become…

Keys, keys, more keys (and a side order of keys) from Mark Mangold. There is no need to consult the Trade Descriptions Act: Keys is a band formed by a keyboardist, Mark Mangold, in collusion with other keyboard players, to perform keyboard-based music. No surprise, then, that one’s appreciation of this record will depend entirely upon your feelings about a device that has been deeply rooted in the birth and development of progressive rock. From the opening chord of When Shadows Fall to the conclusion of The World Can Wait a dozen songs later, it’s difficult to imagine how many more keyboard-related elements could possibly have been crowbarred into Keys. Besides his work with the hard rock bands Drive, She Said and Touch, Mangold has operated within numerous genres –…

In search of inner space. Over the course of a free-ranging career Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr has utilised psychfolk, drone, electronica, jazz and numerous other jumping-off points as a means to explore a deeply personal yet expansive musical universe. The follow-up to 2017’s captivating You I Me arose following a commission by the Oslo Jazz Festival with Myhr working on an individual basis with seven other musicians who variously contributed drums, percussion, organ, synths and guitars. The composer’s description of music as being like “a dream within a dream” is apt. Overflowing with waves of interleaving guitars, primal beats, shafts of radiant organ and blissed-out synths the mesmeric ebb and flow has the psych rock detector’s needle swerving deep into the red. The album unfurls over 73 minutes and it’s…

Toto keyboardist strikes out alone for the first time. Given that David Paich’s name has graced more than 2,000 different albums, how odd to consider that 68 years were required in order to make one all of his own. The multiple Grammy winning keyboardist and singer helped to form Toto back in 1977, penning many of the smashes that made them terminally unfashionable yet enduringly popular. These titular ‘toys’ had been sidelined for extra-curricular purposes, only to be recalled and rescued during lockdown. Paich performs most of the lead vocals with occasional help from Toto bandmate Joseph Williams, and backed by an illustrious cast that includes Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, Brian Eno and the former Eagle Don Felder. Unsurprisingly, the results are slick and mature though rarely steeped in gravitas.…

Never one to lay low for too long, one-man psych-garage powerhouse Ty Segall has followed up last year’s double whammy of Harmonizer and Whirlybird with a largely acoustic gem. Hello, Hi (Drag City) finds the prolific Californian channelling Marc Bolan (before he went electric) on Good Morning and Cement, while the sunken dream of Looking At You comes from the weirder end of the psych-folk spectrum. There’s also a concession to his default mode on the splenetic, fearsome title track. By contrast, Texan quintet The Black Angels offer up Wilderness Of Mirrors (Partisan), their first effort in five years. An expansive work it is too, reinforcing their bruising psych rock credentials on the distorted History Of The Future and the majestic, politically-pointed La Pared (Govt Wall Blues). And while 100…

More symphonic prog rock treats from mastermind Vincenzo Ricca. The sunnier successor to 2020’s IV – Beaten Paths Different Ways is a valuable but imperfect addition to Vincenzo Ricca’s series. Like its predecessors the album’s biggest strengths and weaknesses come from its instrumentals. Each piece sees plenty of synths, strings, percussion, guitars and other regal timbres colliding in adventurous and moving ways, recalling both older acts like Camel and ELP and neo-prog staples such as Arena. The excessive number of instrumentals, however, results in a cumulatively unbalanced and repetitive listening experience because so many of them sound alike. This issue is intensified by the atypical The Last Night In The World, a beautiful piano ballad that showcases Ricca’s ability to implement vocalised songwriting into his work. It’s still a gratifying…

Australian band add extra dimension (and Greek culture) to second album. Singer Victoria Knight formed this band to support Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie in her native Melbourne in 2019, releasing their well-received debut, Essentia, the following year. Its compelling blend of symphonic and power metal hinted that the quartet had more expansive music within them, and so it proves with this follow-up. Kore is a concept album, billed as an exploration of modern themes through the lens of the Ancient Greek Homeric Hymn To Demeter. Knight has Greek heritage, and takes this mythological topic seriously. In among the anthemic singing and Cookie Monster death growls of lead single Persephone, she breaks into Greek. It’s an effective twist that makes thematic sense in context, and she employs this tastefully across the…

Modern prog standbearers filmed at the peak of their powers. “Welcome to storytelling with Big Big Train,” says David Longdon wryly as he introduces Kingmaker to several thousand fans at Loreley, the fabled German open air theatre located above the Rhine. He could just as easily be referring to his band’s career – few mix history, myth and imagination as vividly as BBT. With its own set of myths and legends, Loreley was the perfect location for what remains the biggest and most prestigious gig of Big Big Train’s career to date. Their electrifying headlining set at Night Of The Prog XIII on July 13, 2018 is captured on this live Blu-ray/double-CD set. BBT’s already expansive line-up is bulked out with a five-piece brass section, bringing A Mead Hall In…

A dazzling collection of the King Crimson star’s high-minded writing. In 1975, Robert Fripp – looking inward, in the thrall of Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff – ditched King Crimson and headed to a spiritual institution in Sherborne, Dorset to further his research into thought systems. He soon resumed his musical activities, but his deep affinity with loftier matters informs all 560-plus pages of The Guitar Circle. “His tone has the placid objectivity of a Zen master.” This extensive collection of writings on the art of guitar playing is culled from Fripp’s correspondence, blogs, journals and presentations since his first Guitar Craft course, held in 1985, and evolving into the Guitar Circle in 2010. Thousands of students – or ‘Crafties’ – have enrolled internationally (including Crimson’s Trey Gunn and Bill Rieflin)…

VENUE O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN, LONDON DATE 27/07/2022 The band who put the “super” in “supergroup” finally arrive back in the UK for one night only. Having piloted the transcendental Transatlantic airship across Europe, they hit London with their often epic and inescapably catchy brand of symphonic prog on the penultimate date of this brief tour. It’s also the first UK performance since the Kaleidoscope shows in 2014. Sadly, this evening’s gig coincides with a rail strike, which has a noticeable impact on The Forum’s audience. Not that this detracts from the crowd’s undiluted excitement, however, as attested by the huge roar greeting the band as they embark of a performance of last year’s The Absolute Universe, cleverly weaving in arrangements from both long and abridged versions of the album…

VENUE EVERYMAN ON THE CORNER, LONDON DATE 08/08/2022 All 28 (very plush) seats of the Everyman in King’s Cross are taken and latecomers eke out whatever standing room is available around the sides for this evening’s show. Although there’s no stage, Tim Bowness, Peter Chilvers and Matt Stevens occupy the meagre space between the front row and the cinema screen. Ostensibly this small tour is a promotional vehicle for new album Butterfly Mind, but Bowness reveals tonight will be an overview of his whole career encompassing both solo and collaborative work. Never Needing, a song from pre-No-Man band Plenty, takes us back to the late 80s and Bowness’ emergence as a singer-songwriter in the vein of Mark Hollis and Paul Buchanan. Peter Chilvers proves himself to be something of a…

Hello, and welcome to the new issue of Prog magazine. So what’s your favourite Kate Bush song? It’s not as easy a choice as one might think, is it? After much deliberating, I’d probably go with In Search Of Peter Pan from 1978’s Lionheart (along with Hounds Of Love, my favourite KB album). Not an obvious choice, you’re probably thinking. And you’d be right. It didn’t even make our list of the 40 best Kate Bush songs according to her progressive peers (dammit!). But Kate Bush is special: “An extraordinary and unique artist” Eivør tells us, while Gavin Harrison calls her “a national treasure”. They’re just two of the 40 musicians we spoke to who told us about their favourite pieces of Kate’s music and why she’s so brilliant. We…

“I thought that the track would get some attention. But I never imagined that it would be anything like this. It’s so exciting, but it’s quite shocking really, isn’t it? I mean, the whole world’s gone mad.”Kate Bush When Stranger Things first appeared on Netflix in 2016, it was a sensation. The supernatural, retroset 80s noir about a group of kids who stumble across a young girl with telekinetic powers married The Goonies with The X-Files and, well, just about every show or film you’d ever watched from the 80s. It was an undeniable winner. It rehabilitated Winona Ryder and made an overnight sensation of 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown, who played the show’s central character, Eleven. Although the phenomenon settled, the following two series built on the momentum of the…

Karl Bartos might always primarily be associated with Kraftwerk, but he’s been no slouch outside of the group. As well as reliving his experiences as the second robot from left in his new book The Sound Of The Machine, Bartos explores his time as a classically trained percussionist during the 70s, his well-received post-Kraftwerk solo albums and collaborations with groups like Electronic (featuring Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr), and his foray into academia: Bartos was a visiting professor at the Berlin University Of The Arts between 2004 and 2009, lecturing on Sound Studies and Acoustic Communication. Born in 1952, the young Karlheinz Bartos (Kraftwerk shortened his name to ‘Karl’ to save money on lettering) was turned onto music the moment he heard the opening chord of The Beatles’ A Hard…

Jim Steinman meets symphonic metal courtesy of Symphony X/ex-Nightwish duo. It seems a little unfair to Magnus Karlsson that his name doesn’t appear alongside Russell Allen and Anette Olzon’s on the cover of their second album together. As songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Karlsson is the creative engine behind Army Of Dreamers, but presumably it’s the presence of the former Nightwish star and Symphony X’s frontman that brings in the punters Like 2020’s Worlds Apart, this is big, bombastic symphonic prog metal that benefits from the contrast between Allen’s gruffer, masculine voice and Olzon’s purity of tone and lofty range. Karlsson’s arrangements balance crunchy guitar riffs with lush strings and grand melodic hooks, putting the project somewhere close to the pop metal mash-up of Amaranthe, minus the death metal growls. Olzon…

UK prog metallers reunite with former vocalist for third album. A lot has happened since Deadly Circus Fire released their last album, back in 2015: a global pandemic, major conflict in Europe, President Trump, Brexit. It’s apt that the prog metallers’ third dispatch is called Extinction. They’ve also managed to reunite with original vocalist Adam Grant, and this record feels like the London quartet are putting the world to rights. The at-times incendiary Bombs Away springboards off the concept of war, while Falling’s opening flurry contorts around the fretboard, discordant drama aplenty, holding a mirror to the ills of the world. The 10 tracks straddle a dynamic fusion of plunging tech riffola and a foreboding nu metal snarl, and they regularly veer to the dark side; Slaves To the Radio…

Dutch neo-proggers’ joyous reunion. After building a strong reputation in their native Netherlands in the 90s and early 00s, For Absent Friends went on hiatus after 2006 album Square One. But after reuniting with a new line-up for a tribute show to their founder member Rene Bacchus, they got the bug again, and on this new record there’s a re-energised buzz about them. While they drifted into soft rock territory at times in their original incarnation, this is a proudly proggy affair. Yet they also punctuate their sound with enticing melodies while still having a high old time flexing their instrumental muscles. Spiky synth motifs, freewheeling instrumental breaks and big hooky choruses, like the one found on 58 People, grab the attention. Even the jazzrock instrumental workout, Keytar, is as…

A Kinder Surprise of an album from head-spinning US collective. There’s little about The Egg That Never Opened that isn’t challenging, convoluted and/or distinctly bizarre. This Colorado-based project’s debut takes a posthumously published Philip K Dick novella – Radio Free Albemuth, about a dystopian future where a corrupt populist president holds sway – as its conceptual jumping-off point. Musically, it shoehorns innumerable styles into its 40 minutes. Spaced-out 60s surf rock rubs shoulders with portentous power metal in The Aramchek Accusation, arthouse movie theme music alternates with cheesy 70s lounge band vibes in The Days Of Blue Jeans Are Gone, and Diagnosing Johnny sees the ghost of Beach Boys’ hits past possess both a Disneyland parade band and an experimental jazz outfit simultaneously. It veers from the frenetic, dense and…

Lovingly retrogressive outing from Derbyshire multi-instrumentalist. While prog has become a broad church, much of Ian Neal’s fourth album could serve as an aural guide for the uninitiated as to what classic prog is meant to sound like. Noodling Wakeman-esque keyboard tapestries, soaring guitar pirouettes, portentous spoken-word excerpts, and a vague nostalgia towards some mythical simpler time while also imagining a future influenced by sci-fi and fantasy novels. All wrapped up in a lushly illustrated gatefold sleeve. But what Barkston Ash lacks in originality, it makes up for in musical content. Highlights of the freewheeling 48-minute set include the dramatic surges of The Vale Of Linden accompanied by swooping synths and howling guitar, before rich vocal harmonies and angelic choirs accompany the pastoral, symphonic prog of Come Harvesting!. In between…

Although they’ve made some very fine albums together since 2009, Julie Tippetts and Martin Archer’s Illusion (Discus Records) is, without doubt, their best. At 75 years old Tippetts’ power, range, and capacity as a vocalist remains just as captivating as it was early in her career on 1968’s Mellotron-soaked pop classic, This Wheel’s On Fire. Whether she’s summoning wordless swarms of pure emotion that cut with diamond-sharp precision or caressing poetic lyrics with a silky soft tenderness, her presence throughout this kaleidoscopic two-CD set stands as a remarkable tour de force. Multi-instrumentalist Martin Archer leads an ensemble of players crackling with energy and startling turns through a sequence of perceptive settings incorporating jazz, rock, electronica and other forms, typifying his progressive approach to this visionary collaboration. Fractal Sextet’s self-titled debut…

Post-rock soundtrack kings weave their magic again. With their cinematic, suspenseful sound, there was little surprise when Mogwai transitioned into soundtracks in 2006 with Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait. Since then, their work for film and TV has run alongside their main career and introduced them to, if not a wider, then a decidedly different audience. Released to accompany the Apple+ series starring Taron Egerton, Black Bird is the group’s eighth foray into scoring. Unlike 2021’s masterful non-soundtrack release (and UK No.1 album) As The Love Continues, there are fewer surprises on Black Bird, but it plays wholeheartedly to Mogwai’s core strengths; the closest parallel is the work they did for Les Revenants in 2013. Few bands disconcert as masterfully as Mogwai. Shorn of the visuals it accompanies (the tale…

Sweet 16 for prog metal pioneers. For their 16th studio album, and fourth with vocalist Todd La Torre, Queensrÿche build on the winning form of 2019’s Verdict, crafting smart progressive metal that compares favourably with anything in their venerated back catalogue. Digital Noise Alliance marks their third album in a row with producer Chris ‘Zeuss’ Harris, which reinforces a sense of sonic continuity in the post-Tate line-up. Zeuss doesn’t bring a lot of warmth to the mix, but there’s plenty of power, from the punchy drums – marking Casey Grillo’s album debut – to the imposing wall of guitars. The songwriting is consistently strong, from the shifting moods of Sicdeth to the epic riffage of Out Of The Black, while the twin guitar harmonies of Michael Wilton and Mike Stone…

Textured dreaminess from Engineers mainman. Anyone remember Engineers? During the first half of Prog magazine’s existence, they were part of the Kscope stable and added a touch of shoegaze and dream pop to the post-rock and post-progressive leaning aspirations of that label. They were also quite wonderful. And then, following 2014’s fourth album Always Returning, we never heard from them again… “One of the musical highlights of 2022… An absolute gem.” That’s ‘we’ as in the magazine, most of whom were all big fans. But away from our gaze it appears the band had carried on. They released a fifth album, Pictobug, themselves in 2020, but were clearly operating below the scrutiny of Prog’s radar. Mark Peters is the vocalist and guitarist from Engineers, and the arrival in our inbox…

Dark folk that could be the soundtrack to a long-forgotten Norse arthouse film. Named after the proto-Germanic word for destiny, this one-man dark folk project’s third album in three years details the dance between fate and free will. Traditional instrumentation blends with modern production and meditative throat singing, making for a heady and transportive affair, deeply rooted in pagan aesthetics but guided into the ether by progressive thinking. Stearcost Ealra builds on moody nyckelharpa – a Swedish string instrument that sounds for all the world like a wounded score of violins – and throbbing rhythms, dropping tempo in its mid stages with dramatic effect. Bouzouki is the lead instrument on Æt Wega Gelætan, while throat singing and angelic choirs make for a paradoxical mix. Elsewhere, the ominous Ðæs Webban Cræft…

Atmospheric post-rocker ups the grandeur and maintains the sorrow. Doling out lyrics like, ‘True love is all for nothing’ and ‘If you only knew I can’t prioritise you/I’m alone and there’s nothing you can do’, AA Williams doesn’t hold back on the heartbreak during her latest album. The singer/songwriter’s 2020 debut, Forever Blue, lived up to its title with eight forlorn soliloquies and won critical acclaim. Its gloom was only matched by its diversity, as the Londoner folded pop, goth and postrock music into her canon. There were a plethora of avenues Williams could have taken for the follow-up, and she opted to more fully explore the rock end of her bleak soundscape. The result is less genre-defying upstart and more what would happen if Emma Ruth Rundle sang over…

Rewarding reissues for Sylvian’s most uncompromising tilts. Now on 180 gram vinyl for the first time since limited releases in 2004 and 2009 respectively, there’s nothing lightweight about Blemish and Manafon. They’re an acid test of even long-term Sylvian fans’ devotion, being the definition of “difficult”. Forget the warm glow of earlier post-Japan solo albums, which were challenging and innovative yet retained a reassuring melancholy, using his voice as a cinematic caress. 1999’s Dead Bees On A Cake was eclectic but still allowed you to drift and dream through the lushly lugubrious Cafe Europa and I Surrender. Blemish, however, removed any safety nets or stabilisers. His marriage with singer-artist Ingrid Chavez was on the rocks, and his lyrics became confessional and raw. As a divorce album it’s up there –…

The authoritative account of Connecticut’s prog metal heroes. Fates Warning may never have attained the same level of commercial success as their contemporaries Dream Theater and Queensrÿche, but they were at the forefront of the creation of progressive metal in the 1980s. Unlike those music biographies that rely on secondary sources, Destination Onward was written with the participation of band members past and present. The result is a portrait that brings the group to life on the page in their own voices and is rich with small details, like Ray Alder recalling how Armored Saint’s John Bush introduced him to honey and lemon tea to help look after his voice on tour. The book really dives into how their creative process evolved over time, from album to album, exploring the…

VENUE UNDERGROUND ARTS, PHILADELPHIA, USA DATE 16/08/2022 Aside from a couple of short EPs [Short? 2021’s The Indigo Child is eight tracks long! - Ed.], there was a six-year gap between 2016’s Act V: Hymns With The Devil In Confessional and this year’s Antimai. The Dear Hunter’s triumphant return – in addition to the new record’s bright and bouncy nature – is reason enough to celebrate, which is exactly what they do here. Performing in a small but packed venue, they run through the entirety of their latest album (and some bonus tunes) with superb skill, demonstrating once again why they’re such a unique band. Compared to most of their Act… albums, Antimai is shorter, funkier, poppier; more digestible without sacrificing the group’s token progressive/baroque rock identity. So, it’s no…

VENUE CITY WINERY, CHICAGO, USA DATE 18/07/2022-19/07/2022 Even after five decades of musical visibility, Adrian Belew remains one of the most innovative guitarists on the scene. His sound is one unto itself. And that sound travels, having moved from progressive rock to pop to experimental music and back again. Regardless of context, there’s no mistaking Belew’s skills when they reveal themselves. And for two nights in Chicago, Illinois, Belew puts those skills on display before enthusiastic crowds at the City Winery. His band take the stage dressed in floral-patterned shirts as though they are still playing Cruise To The Edge, which they did earlier this year. With smiles galore, they rip into the B3 section from Belew’s solo album, E. To know this piece is to know the band didn’t…

TRANSCENDING MUSIC Thank you for Prog 132 packed full of guitarists. It was quite a feat to have [interviews with] Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew in the same issue and, above all, in so much depth. We had the chance to go beyond the technique of these respectable musicians; you have given us the chance to glimpse their spirit. For example, it is almost moving to read that Robert Fripp considers the transmission of his knowledge as his main objective. This confirms my idea that progressive music has always been a vehicle for manifesting a degree of spirituality and human brotherhood, and not just a display of virtuosity. And your magazine has accomplished this extraordinary mission of bringing together a universe of music and musicians who want to help raise…

When it comes to popular culture, Cornish-language records are pretty thin on the ground. But Gwenno Saunders is doing her damnedest to put that right. The singer-songwriter’s new album, Tresor, is sung almost entirely in Kernewek, Cornwall’s revived tongue. A rapturous piece of work it is too, its lyrical unfamiliarity only serving to deepen the strange beauty and rich textures of the music. It’s a rare treasure, as its title implies. “I really wanted to make something that was about exploring quite intimate emotions, desires, all of those things,” explains Gwenno. “And I felt like Cornish was this perfect vessel for me to do that, because it feels so natural. The language has shaped who I am and I’m sort of growing with it. And it’s just a beautiful language.…

STEVE STEVENS The guitarist is best known for work with Billy Idol, but another claim to fame is the searing leads in the Top Gun theme. He appears on The Vortex and Seven Seas. NUNO BETTENCOURT The Extreme guitarist – and member of mega pop star Rihanna’s touring party – joins the fun on Fire Horse. JOE BONAMASSA Sherinian’s pal in Black Country Communion, the guitarist crops up in the jaunty Key Lime Blues. MICHAEL SCHENKER The rock veteran, who is famed for UFO, Scorpions and his solo work, adds guitar to the track Die Kobra. ZAKK WYLDE The hairy axeman and Ozzy Osbourne sidekick is no stranger to guesting on Sherinian’s albums, and he also appears on Die Kobra. MIKE STERN The jazz guitarist has played with Billy Cobham…

Norwegian guitarist goes the extra (Royal) mile on hymn to his favourite city. Guitarist Anders Buaas has played with numerous bands in his native Norway, and organises the guitar festival in his hometown of Larvik, which attracts the likes of Guthrie Govan and Steve Vai. In 2019 Buaas added to his canon with the ambitious, historically literate folk/rock trilogy The Witches Of Finnmark II, and last year’s Tarot was his assured and eclectic shuffle through that most prog-friendly deck of cards. On The Edinburgh Suite he takes two 20-minute instrumental strolls through his favourite city. Pt.1 Old Town rings with jaunty acoustic guitars, downhome banjo and celtic, fusion, country and old-school prog elements. The whacking organ/synth stab at the mid-point leads to a very Oldfield odd-signature passage, attesting to Buaas’…

The psychedelic Swedes change musical direction – sorta. Anyone familiar with Dungen will know the Stockholm band for its lush psychedelic folk-and-jazz flavour, late 60/early 70s analogue warmth, fretbuzzadelic reverb and splashy drums. There will also be the awareness that super-fan Kevin Parker took their prototype in 2010 and bolted with it, pretty successfully. But Dungen prevail; still singing in their native tongue after 23 years, now on album nine, they push for new routes. En Är… dials back some of the fuzz, brings frontman Gustav Ejstes’ keyboards forward and supports with their signature banks of harmonies. The reverberama bursts through on tracks such as Nattens Sista Strimma Ljus, adding loops and epic drum breaks under Reine Fiske’s colossal soloing, but it’s tracks such as Möbler where the contrast occurs,…

The space rock juggernaut rolls on with 13th live album. Dave Brock has helped steer the good ship Hawkwind for more than half a century now, weathering periods of derision and indifference while always remaining resolutely unfashionable, although one wonders how much more universally venerated they’d be if they’d come from Westphalia instead of west London? We Are Looking In On You concerns itself not with such matters, inexorably juddering forwards with the same raw energy that marked them out during the 70s. This new double CD is further proof, if it were needed, that there’s plenty of life in the old bird yet. The classic Magnu from 1975’s Warrior On The Edge Of Time nestles comfortably alongside tracks from last year’s excellent Somnia album with no suggestion that these…

The German prog metal trio go solo for this EP… together. When life serves up lemons, make lemonade. When Covid restrictions force a band to be apart, they create together in a different way. Of course, swapping files over the internet and making music without being in the same room (or country) isn’t new. But for their Solitaer EP Hanover trio The Hirsch Effekt decided to conceptualise the experience and assign a song per band member, recording solo. The results are focused, fevered and thrillingly fucked-off. It opens with the part-barked punk assault of bassist Ilja John Lappin’s Palingenesis, and for guitar/vocalist Nils Wittrock’s Nares the band lyrically take down those libertarian or negligent about public health, grabbing the listener by the collar and screaming in their face. Amorphus is…

Another taste of Kerzner’s prog rock recipe. Dave Kerzner is an expert at assembling genre greats that bring his work to life, and this remains true on third solo album, The Traveler. With help from Steve Hackett, Heather Findlay and the late David Longdon (among others), he ensures that the LP is a worthy follow-up not only to 2014’s New World and 2017’s Static but also his work with Sound Of Contact and In Continuum. Another Lifetime kicks things off with a fusion of uplifting songwriting and lively arrangements. It channels Anathema, Pallas, and post-Gabriel Genesis without ever detracting from Kerzner’s specialities. A Time In Your Mind and Better Life prioritise snappy melodies and fairly simple musicianship for immediate engagement, whereas For Granted and Ghostwritten Fables, respectively, are built upon…

Norwegians blend prog and rock on their emotive second album. Maraton’s impressive 2019 debut Meta melded the rhythmic complexities of Meshuggah and The Mars Volta with the intergalactic pop rock of Muse. But on its sophisticated follow up the band, who feature 22 vocalist Fredrik Bergersen Klemp, have traded heaviness for a luscious, lighter and delicately layered sound more akin to Norwegian counterparts Leprous than of the metal-tinted melodies of its predecessor. “It’s dictated by emotions and bigpicture thinking.” While Meta was impressive, Unseen Color feels more mature, focused and progressive, dictated by their emotions and big-picture thinking. When a section returns, it does so with nuanced differences; these songs feel very much like growing, evolving beings. In Syzygy is an understated but deceptively complex opener on which a reflective…

Inventor of the Tesla coil gets his own concept album. This isn’t the first album about pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, but if anyone deserves such attention it’s the inventor of the AC commutator-free polyphase induction motor. Italian musician Jerry Cutillo is the latest to pay tribute to the great man, his O.A.K. (Oscillation Alkemy Kreativity) project bringing in ex-Jethro Tull bassist Jonathan Noyce and Van der Graaf Generator sax man David Jackson for support. Like much modern prog, Lucid Dreaming And The Spectre Of Nikola Tesla feels like it’s arrived from 1975 without paying too much attention to the intervening years, but it also sounds a little synthetic, as if it was compiled in the cloud rather than performed in a more earthly environment. The wailed vocal on The…

American virtuosos collaborate on eclectic fourth album. Polyphia’s guitar duo of Tim Henson and Scott LePage are generational talents. On Remember That You Will Die they team up with a host of guests to further amplify their tradition-challenging, crosspollinated aesthetic. Purists might raise their eyebrows at trap beats and J-pop sitting alongside modern progressive metal textures on the sumptuous Reverie, or the glitching digital drums which underpin the fluttering classic guitars of Playing God yet, such pairings feel effortless. Their formerly instrumental music is now adorned with vocals, with wide-ranging guest singers bringing their own flavours. Sophia Black adds sugary vocal hooks over winding guitar lines on ABC, Deftones’ Chino Moreno brings his band’s ethereality to Bloodbath, and hip hop stars $not and Lil West rap over two signature Polyphia…

Guest stars abound on the New England collective’s concept album/rock opera. This nine-piece group formed around New Hampshire’s Rocking Horse Studio in the 2010s. Following their 2019 Anthony Phillips tribute, Which Way The Wind Blows, they now come out with all prog guns blazing. The elevator pitch for Circus Of Wire Dolls’ elaborate rock opera concept could be: man creates miniature toy circus whose dolls begin to articulate their creator’s thoughts on his own life. The Club delve into their influences, ranging from Rush to Marillion to Genesis, with nods to Radiohead and The Who. The premise is solid, the music well rendered, and the band (with six guitarists and three singers among their ranks) sound like they could confidently play any dots put in front of them. The guest…

A warm reception from instrumental post-rocker. Slovakian guitarist and sound sculptor Jakub Tirco returns with an immersive dose of his moody, progressive ‘headphones’ music on Alaska. Some instrumental, guitar-led bands can be guilty of letting the desire to showcase their technique guide every musical choice, but Tirco keeps the melody squarely front and centre. Here, waves of warmth wash over the listener, with accompanying swells of keys and even trombones on a handful of tunes. Leprous drummer Baard Kolstad plays on The End Of All Things, creating an articulate dialogue between the drums and guitar lines. Handling the rest of the drumming duties, Palo Balcak proves equally dextrous as he navigates the changing odd measures of Cocaine Lipstick and the urgent intensity of Aubade. Tirco builds peaks and valleys into…

Guitar, mandolin, lap steel, bouzouki – if it’s got strings, chances are Norway’s Geir Sundstøl can play it to a world-class standard. The in-demand musician describes his utterly beguiling The Studio Intim Sessions Vol.1 (Hubro) as “an ambient raga-country reggae-beat record”, inspired by his colourful uncle’s vinyl collection (Rick Derringer, Serge Gainsbourg and King Tubby were all in there). Dub beats, chanson flavours, louche saxes adorn six cosmopolitan, exquisitely produced jams, with Sundstøl’s creative, elite string work straddling countries, and genres. Kent four-piece Splink say they make ‘no-rules music’, and so are warmly welcome in these parts. The folky, psychtinged rock on their Kozmosis (No Rules Music) would be best served on a balmy summer’s evening at Cropredy, or another suitably proggy festival. Matt James’ eclectic fretwork hints at that…

Attempting to decode the riddle inside the enigma that is Tool. Among the most intentionally mysterious acts in modern music, Tool are an enigma countless have been attempting to crack for 30 years with little to no success. The Los Angeles prog metal titans steadfastly refuse to print their lyrics and vehemently keep their private lives private – an arms’-length approach that, ironically, has only amplified fans’ fascination with them. This track-by-track, album-by-album breakdown of their lengthy career sees author Matt Karpe attempting to lift the lid on the mystique, albeit by digging deeper into their music than their personal dramas. That said, it’s when the two converge that things are at their most compelling. Analyses of songs such as The Patient, which singer Maynard James Keenan wrote about his…

VENUE THE LIACOURAS CENTER, PHILADELPHIA, USA DATE 27/07/2022 Coheed And Cambria are masters of representing their hyperenergetic sci-fi songs with an equally arresting spectacle. That’s truer than ever here, as their 90-minute performance is accentuated by complex visuals that enhance the epic nature of their set. It’s an absorbing way to commemorate not only this year’s Vaxis – Act II: A Window Of The Waking Mind but also the New York quartet’s 20-year recording history. They kick things off with conceptual gravitas via the one-two punch of Prologue and The Dark Sentencer from 2018’s Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures. They’re meticulously recreated and immensely crowd pleasing, with the audience singing along every step of the way. Vaxis II is obviously the star of the show, though, and the…

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