Toby Driver is an integral cog in one of the few truly progressive rock bands on the planet, the ever-morphing Kayo Dot. More than a decade on from his first, here Toby makes his second solo album, as he ironically…
View More Toby Driver – Madonnawhore
From Detroit, Michigan, Discipline return for their fifth studio album, Captives of the Wine Dark Sea, released on their new label Laser’s Edge. There are few bands that can give me a buzz of anticipation for their new release, but…
View More Discipline – Captives of the Wine Dark Sea
‘Haunting’ is a word which is frequently used in relation to a number of progressive albums, signalling a disquieting and lingering sense of presence which inhabits and permeates the music, bringing with it associated feelings of wistful nostalgia, the pain…
View More Bjørn Riis – Forever Comes to an End
Patto – Roll ’em Smoke ’em Put Another Line Out Judging by the chaotic, unfocused but nonetheless glorious mess that this album is, it would seem its title was instructional rather than allegorical. Weirdly described by Rolling Stone at the…
View More Patto – Roll ’em Smoke ’em Put Another Line Out / Monkey’s Bum
Djabe were founded in 1995, going on to become the number one jazz/world fusion band in their native Hungary. Their association and collaboration with Steve Hackett goes back to 2003 when he played on their Sheafs are Dancing album, and…
View More Steve Hackett & Djabe – Summer Storms and Rocking Rivers
Four years on from their tumultuous self-titled debut album, multi-national combo Mumpbeak reappear with this album of shifting moods and confounded expectations. Unlike on that first album, there is no impressive list of guest players this time round, as the…
View More Mumpbeak – Tooth
Andy Tillison has always been a composer who wears his heart on his sleeve, and on The Slow Rust Of Forgotten Machinery he’s in full-on political commentary mode, lashing the Brexiteers and the anti-refugee brigade with whip-like lyrics. It stands…
View More The Tangent – The Slow Rust Of Forgotten Machinery
Starting with a bizarre spoken word last will and testament where Mr Ramsay leaves his appreciation of art, sanity, and competence to the Government, because “by God they need it”, and ending with a fractured recitation of a script from…
View More Robert Ramsay – Confound And Disturb
‘Melancholy Death of a Gamekeeper’ was the rather sad headline which appeared in Welsh local newspaper, the Monmouthshire Merlin, in the late 1800s. This article told the sorry tale of the sudden and mysterious unexplained death of Thomas Prosser, the…
View More Cosmograf – The Hay-Man Dreams
When Boston-based Elder first arrived on the scene in 2008 they were working safely within the confines of Sleep-derived stoner metal. It was well-played but derivative and the doom/stoner scene was well saturated, so they simply got lost among the…
View More Elder – Reflections Of A Floating World