A Day in the Life of a Universal Wanderer was Gandalf’s Fist’s fourth album, released in 2013. An enjoyable sci-fi musical romp based on signals from a stricken vessel on the edge of a wormhole and assembled by “the best…
View More Gandalf’s Fist – A Day in the Life of a Universal Wanderer (Special Edition)
With news of a new studio album from Alan Emslie scheduled for late 2018 and with the new re-mastered editions of his first four releases appearing in April this year, it seems a timely opportunity to revisit the early years.…
View More Alan Emslie – Floating | Emotive Bay | Driven Heavy | Dark Matter
Jet Black Sea came into being in 2013 as a new musical project for Adrian Jones and Michael Simons, after they had been working in the studio with Adrian’s band, Nine Stones Close. It became apparent that they both wanted…
View More Jet Black Sea – Absorption Lines
The signs were all there: forward-thinking music, a vocalist who can both scream and sing, a dedicated keyboardist, and 2014’s Language was already moving in that direction anyway. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that The Contortionist have almost entirely…
View More The Contortionist – Clairvoyant
Swedish progressive rock band Kaipa return with their thirteenth album, Children of the Sounds. Formed in 1973 and now led by original member Hans Lundin, they released their debut album in 1975. This is their eighth album since the band…
View More Kaipa – Children of the Sounds
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a prog album recorded in the 1970s must be in want of a Steven Wilson remix. Nowhere is that more true than with the Gentle Giant catalogue, in which complex, challenging compositions and…
View More Gentle Giant – Three Piece Suite (The Steven Wilson Remixes)
The arresting image of rutting stags, antlers locked in a dramatic contest for dominance and control, provides a thoughtfully reflective and emotionally perceptive insight into the contrasts which lie at the heart of this beautifully elegant second studio album from…
View More White Moth Black Butterfly – Atone
The Pineapple Thief are a band that I have dabbled with over the years without giving their catalogue the attention it deserves, despite being drawn to Bruce Soord’s work many moons ago via a Cyclops Records sampler featuring tracks from…
View More The Pineapple Thief – Where We Stood [Blu-ray/DVD]
In 2014 TPA reviewed Fractured Despondency, the second release from Edinburgh based project Plastic Noose, which despite some early misgivings at the time, turned out to be a damn fine album – especially the sixteen minute album closer Suicidal Crisis.…
View More Plastic Noose – Desolation
In the beginning was the dark, a little Thin Lizzy, a touch of Muse, a smidgen of Marillion and a soupçon of Queen. Yes, there are other influences from the history of Prog, but this is the real McCoy (not…
View More Drifting Sun – Twilight