Grimsthorpe Castle, Bourne Friday, 5th September 2025 A beautiful sunny morning that ensured that the day started well but, still tired from the previous day I reviewed my strategy for seeing bands and realised that I was spreading myself too…
View More NVRF 2025 – Day Two
Grimsthorpe Castle, Bourne Thursday, 4th September 2025 Intro and first impressions… Despite this festival being in its third year I was still a virgin to Nene Valley Rock Festival. So, other than seeing a line up full of interesting bands,…
View More NVRF 2025 – Day One
Wippy Bonstack; great name huh? It may not surprise you to learn that it’s made up, as a name for the solo work of Ben Conigulario, a hugely talented multi-instrumentalist and composer. He has a number of band projects, (Sun…
View More Wippy Bonstack – Tactile Demons
Whilst a guitar is always pretty central to a Phi Yaan-Zek record, it’s been quite a while since he released an album where the guitar was the focus throughout. Well, the wait is over, as his latest musical outpouring is…
View More Phi Yaan-Zek – Inner Cosmic Spiral
Whimsical Creature is the latest outlet for the songs of Michael Whiteman, whose prolific writing brought us I Am The Manic Whale, as well as Spock’s Beard keyboard maestro Ryo Okumoto’s most recent solo album. Here he teams up with…
View More Whimsical Creature – Wistful Thinking
Guitar, bass, drums and voice; it’s a format as old as the hills. Bands have been exploring the possibilities for decades, and you might think all bases had by now been covered. From Cream to Sabbath, Motorhead to ZZ Top,…
View More Ethiva – Beaten Track
Norwegian jazz prog stalwarts Pymlico return with their eighth album, Core, their first for three years. Unusually for Pymlico, the band’s line up is unchanged from 2022’s Supermassive. It seems that they believe they have hit upon a particularly rewarding…
View More Pymlico – Core
Focus is the second album by Norwegian jazz proggers Soft Ffog, led by acclaimed guitarist and composer Tom Hasslan. He is something of a virtuoso player, hinting at John Etheridge at times, or occasionally Zappa, particularly in the improvised passages.…
View More Soft Ffog – Focus
Pryzme are a French prog band built around the nucleus of guitarists and singers Dominique Blanchard and David Chollet. Their latest album True Stories…And Other Lies is their first since 2021’s Four Inches, and is a step forward in terms…
View More Pryzme – True Stories… And Other Lies
One of Canada’s finest and most idiosyncratic bands, Half Past Four, are back! If you know them, that’s great news. If you aren’t familiar yet, it’s still great news, because you have vibrant exciting new music to discover on this…
View More Half Past Four – Finding Time