This is the sound of that state in between sleeping and waking – a place in which we’re not quite dreaming, but we’re not fully awake. Forget the usual review scribblings, wasted on these sound impressions drawn with piano, strings…
View More VLMV – Stranded, Not Lost
My first preview of Monarch Trail’s new Sand album was like hearing the early work of English prog rockers IQ for the first time, wonderful and a great journey back to the music that drew me into progressive rock in…
View More Monarch Trail – Sand
In this update we feature: > Universal Totem Orchestra – Mathematical Mother > Muffx – L’Ora Di Tutti > Il Cerchio D’Oro – Il Fuoco Sotto La Cenere > L’Albero Del Veleno – Tale Of A Dark Fate > Panther…
View More L’aspetto progressivo (A Different Aspect #17): New Italian Prog
Esoteric Recordings have, for me, always come up with hidden treasure when it comes to discovering unearthed gems that might otherwise have been lost. Whether it’s Marsupilami, Mellow Candle, Eyes of Blue, Julian’s Treatment, or Galliard, to name a few,…
View More Osmosis – Osmosis
Doug Rausch is a person who is willing to speak, or should I say, sing what is on his mind, and that is a rare commodity in music today… or anywhere, for that matter. This album is an honest story…
View More Rausch – Book II
Three years ago I reviewed a strange but engaging album entitled The Ranger And The Cleric by Irish guitarist and songsmith Jim Griffin, and it pleases me to tell you that here is the follow up, released in November last…
View More Jim Griffin – To A Far City
Ten years in the making, Dukes of the Orient is the album that many Payne-era Asia fans like myself had long since given up believing would ever be released. Having dropped the ‘Asia Featuring John Payne’ moniker, this is the…
View More Dukes of the Orient – Dukes of the Orient
Following in the footsteps of 2013’s instrumental solo-release Banshees and Harpsichord, Hurricane Esmeralda finds guitar virtuoso Niko Tsonev at his creative peak, assembling an all-star cast featuring the likes of keyboard wizard Adam Holzman (Steven Wilson, Miles Davis, etc.), and…
View More Moonparticle – Hurricane Esmeralda
Swedish psychedelic band Agusa present their self-titled third album, their second release on the Lasers Edge label and a follow up to 2015’s Agusa 2 (‘Tva’), an album that consisted of just two tracks spanning some forty minutes. On this…
View More Agusa – Agusa
“I command you to be my master and I will not take no for an answer”, ends the introductory paranoiac’s jerk that is The Answers, the opening track on 7shades’ brand spanking new album of dark pop-tinged psychedelic hot egg…
View More 7shades – The Monumental Midden