… It turns out that Exeter University spawned yet another fascinating prog offering: Principal Edwards Magic Theatre. Forming a little earlier than Fuchsia, this band moved to Kettering, Northamptonshire, in their early years. Astonishingly, I have links to Kettering too,…
View More Principal Edwards – Round One
Fuchsia might just be one of Esoteric’s most intriguing releases! Formed in 1971 at Exeter University, this prog folk outfit was made up of six students in total, three boys and three girls. The boys played on rock instruments while…
View More Fuchsia – Fuchsia
This is my second encounter with The Samurai of Prog, the first being three years ago when I reviewed their second album, Secrets of Disguise, largely a cover album which didn’t bring very much to the songs it covered. Indeed,…
View More The Samurai of Prog – Lost and Found
Hawkwind are a band that really need no introduction, but if you’re looking for one, this 5CD boxset ain’t the place to start. Hawkwind – The Flicknife Years (1981 – 1988) is Atomhenge’s rather neat solution to release all of…
View More Hawkwind – The Flicknife Years (1981 – 1988)
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this decade, you’ll have no doubt heard of Haken, the latest truly progressive band to take the world by storm. Despite being able to be broadly categorised with the humdrum tag of ‘prog-metal’,…
View More Haken – Affinity
What can I say? I am surely not the first (nor the last) to admit that I am indeed astonished by Dream Theater’s latest oeuvre, but the effects of this album go well past the shock factor that the band…
View More Dream Theater – The Astonishing
Accordo dei Contrari are Italy’s latest way of showing the rest of the world they are still at the top of their game in prog. AdC is their third opus – released on the ever-brilliant AltrOck label – after 2007’s…
View More Accordo dei Contrari – AdC
I’ve gotta say, I was pretty disappointed when I heard the opening notes of Captain Boogaloo, the initial track on this album. Cheesy, saccharine and utterly inane as this funky bit of fluff was, I really thought I’d picked up…
View More Quantum Jump – Quantum Jump
When you first enter the Psych Up Melodies website, the premier album on the homepage is the self-titled debut and sole record by the French psychedelic space outfit Nyl, originally released in 1976 on Urus Records. The artwork, as you…
View More Nyl – Nyl
A name like Yggdrazil can’t help but leap off the page right at you. The Italian band have taken their name from Norse mythology; if Wikipedia is to be believed, then the Yggdrasil is the large tree in those myths…
View More Yggdrazil – Settimo Grado di Separazione