If you are going to call your band Progression then you need to be pretty damn progressive. It’s like calling yourself Mr Big – if you’re not the tallest, widest or most powerful geezer in the room then, inevitably, your…
View More Progression – Noxologic
There’s a conventional wisdom that punk rock came along to burn the bridges and bury progressive rock under an earthquake of nihilism and a slightly less hygienic airborne barrage of phlegm. The reality was, of course, different. There were early…
View More Flat White – Blue Square
Back in November (ish) of 2015, I was lucky enough to get to get hold of a copy of Simon Godfrey’s Black Bag Archive, Vol.I and felt compelled to write a review. When Simon announced that he was going to…
View More Simon Godfrey – Black Bag Archive, Vol.II
There seems to have been a lot of goodness coming out of Norway of late. Founded in 2009, Pymlico are an instrumental band from Oslo, led by composer and drummer Arild Brøter, that mainly play a mix of progressive rock…
View More Pymlico – Meeting Point
This is another of Esoteric’s marvellous revisitations of a lost classic album, which they seem to be finding and reissuing on a regular basis nowadays. In my opinion, this is not a bad thing, especially when they find a real…
View More Steamhammer – Mountains
In recent times Scandinavia has established itself as the go-to place for heavy prog, and amongst the vanguard is Swedish instrumental behemoth Gösta Berlings Saga. A new album from this fine bunch of Viking renegades is always anticipated chez moi,…
View More Gösta Berlings Saga – Sersophane
Vangelis should be no stranger to you, dear readers, as he has been responsible for some of the major milestones in the history of making electronic music accessible to the masses and he has a clutch of legendary albums to…
View More Vangelis – Delectus
I HAVE to admit, I’m a sucker for Latin jazz. It’s happy music that goes straight to your hips and, as we all know, hips don’t lie. But I accept that it can sometimes have a whiff of Manchego cheese…
View More Mariah Parker – Indo Latin Jazz Live In Concert
This album is my wife’s favourite album of the year so far. Not that she has ever heard a single note of it’s lovely subtle, tonal, mood-fest. It’s my current album of choice to do housework while listening on headphones……
View More The Martin-Gruber Anastomosis – wonky JESUS
Fatal Fusion return for what is now their third album; hailing from Oslo in Norway they released their debut Land of the Sun in 2010, following that in 2013 with The Ancient Tale, both receiving great reviews. Total Absence is…
View More Fatal Fusion – Total Absence