Progfreak.com Progressive Music Ratings & Reviews

Greatly distorted but smooth attacks for my ears. AL_X aka Alex DUNFORD's solo project has launched dissonant atmospheric ambience for about a decade. This album "Low Clouds" was released as his third full-length creation in 2020 via a post-rock / ambient label Fluttery Records. This album gives us an opportunity to touch and enjoy his sensitive but magnificent fantasy. A bit thin rock-like texture is in his opus but we can enter his different-dimensional soundscape without any resistance.

Around him is something critical, just like the third track "Onwards", but no hoax-y conspicuous vibe cannot be heard all over. Every single phrase is simple, sticky, and hallucinogenic, but the collective of such repetitive moments produces comfort and pleasure. On the other hand, the complicated melodic structures created by his electric piano in "The Wait" sound delightful, beautiful but slightly tragic. The titled track possesses a well-matured, well-balanced combination of melodic dissections and pessimistic movements, as if we would watch him leading a lonely life. Anyway we can touch another pop / catchy potential of Alex in the following "Leaving The World Behind". This is the moment to find his colourful appearances amongst sincereness, seriousness, delicacy, and distortion.

As mentioned above, not enough rock-ish but pretty enchanting one, I'm sure.

The second side isn't quite as strong as the first, but this is otherwise up there with the band's debut.

Strong first outing from these neo-proggers. The title track is a masterpiece.

Not as adventurous as their previous LPs, but worth a serious listen.

Compilation of live cassette recordings. Includes excellent version of "Nocturnal Blond"

A grab-bag of radio appearances, soundboard recordings, and audience tapes, this album includes a lot of good material, but will likely prove inscrutable to those not already familiar with the band.

Compiled from various cassette sources, this album is a treat for fans, but likely inscrutable to anyone else.

 

 

 

 

Kinda fascinating heavy-tinged rock sound seasoned with pop / catchy spices should be acceptable for me. A French rock project HELIUM STATION were founded in 2019 in Toulouse mainly by the frontman / multi-instrumentalist Fabrice LACOURT. "Sanctuary" was released in May 2021 as their second full-length album featuring Fabrice's incredible guitar technique and Benjamin MARMIER's superbly strict drumming. Though some tracks, especially the first two "Simple Life" and "One Night Pain" have drastically heavy / metallic texture flavoured with progressive essence, this album is created with decent rock structure plus apparent pop aroma.

"Simple Life" could be called a masterpiece for them I imagine. Fabrice's uptempo, energetic, vivid guitar playing definitely leads themselves to artistic progression. Female vocals are powerful too. Guess the audience would get drenched in their incredible fantasy and absorbed perfectly. Via "One Night Pain" we could feel that Haken meet Journey ... heavy rock with tasty understandable digestive melodic appearances. "Heaven's In Your Eyes" is one of my favourite blues rock tracks of theirs crystallized with powerful voices based upon deeply bluesy melody lines. "Be Yourself", that possesses delicious, delightful light touches, reminds me of a similarity to 70s discotheque music or something. The titled track involves quite mysterious, stable, settled atmosphere all around. On the whole, this opus is an excellent rock one with full digestive melody lines and acceptable rhythmic bases, not progressive enough though. A good creation, nonetheless. :)

A collection of genre-bending songs that mainly draw on hard rock, heavy metal, and progressive rock - but also electronica, funk, and even extreme metal, this album is a very interesting listen. We are not dealing with progressive music in the sense of odd time signatures and super technical shoegazing instrumental performances, but it is progressive in terms of genre boundary transgression. The songwriting is interesting and the musicianship is top notch across the board: you got solid drumming, shreddy solos and all that good stuff. Rock fans that are looking for a breakaway from the confinements of genre conventions should definitely give this album a listen.

Electronic art rock cultivated with sweet pop and cool avantgarde nutrition. Forgive me not finding any good expression but her creation definitely has a great deal of charm. Mira is a Dutch solo artist utilizing digital audio workstation and other instruments. It makes sense via this album that she's been inspired by lots of musical essence like rock, pop, jazz, or classical. Not particularly leaning towards one specific genre, she's created her original soundscape featuring almost all of musical material. Regardless of such a serious title, "Mourning Earth And Wounded Sky" involves apparent emotional delight to the bright future, whilst launching current anxiety or conflict under such a terrible situation.

In general, she technically highlights her fascinating keyboard playing blended with complicatedly percussive (sometimes quirky) synthesizer sounds. Sometimes the electronika sounds like kinda old-fashioned computer game music but this is also good for us (aha I'm a middle-aged guy absorbed in computer games yeah!). The middle part of one of her masterpieces "Wounded Sky" reminds me of something like this, and simultaneously of oldie goodie memories in my young days. Yes today is tough like the ... -> show full review

A bold step in the right direction. To me, all of Steven's solo albums are precious in their own way, this one included. Not "prog" in the traditional sense, but beautifully made intelligent pop music, with a lot of subtle progressive touches that take some time to discover. I also love the sarcasm, the love/hate relationship with consumerism.

Gorgeous album. My favorite of the last 20 years.

In any case, Japanese pop / rock fans love art rock. Likewise in the Japanese progressive rock scene. Some Japanese 'so-called-progressive-rock' projects run towards kinda artistic style, along with superficially complicated rhythm and melody lines, and eventually end up with unoriginal collectives. Sorry I do not know the reason KIKU LATTE (formerly known as CICHLA TEMENSIS) have experienced 4-year hibernation from 2012 until 2016, but surely they've revived due to admission of Kazumi (flute, ex-Naikaku), Hiroyuki (guitars), and Shingo (drums) ... and finally last year their third album titled "Fantasia" was released. Guess they would have squeezed all of their musical / artistic pleasure into this 22-minute creation. It's good you can find their pleasure itself easily via this opus full of acceptable phrases and reasonable movements. Yes, they keep the flautist Kazumi upon the front line like other combos featuring flute, but such delightful atmosphere should never exist without a decent, consistent rhythm section.

The first shot "Sorairo No Geranium (Sky-Blue Geranium)" has superbly cheerful disposition. Sounds like all of them be frank, ... -> show full review

A flawless masterpiece. I really like all Haken albums so far (2020), but this one is just so beautiful and pure, yet at times really rough and sinister. A true work of art, with all the recurring themes and acapella bits. Wonderful!

Japanese rock band Nemophila pretty much kicked Youtube's metal community's ass when they released a reheasal version of the track 'Oiran' whose heaviness and sheer brutality caused thousands of jaws to hit the floor all over the world. Eventually, the band released the three-track EP "Oiran" which, in addition to the title track, features 'Monsters' and 'Life'.

'Oiran' is a modern metal track that combines thrash metal with incluences from metalcore such as breakdowns and down-tuned guitars - and don't worry, we're not talking lame-ass trite breakdowns. Right from the get-go, we're treated to aggressive riffage, a superb rhythm section, excellent lead guitars, and absolutely magnificent vocals that combine aggressive screams with melodic rock belting. Seriously, this is probably one of the best - if not the best - metal track to emerge from the Jrock scene (a scene which seems to generally be thriving very well). The song is well-performed and well-produced. It's aggressive as hell and catchy as fuck.

'Monster's is more of a power metal track with modern synth ... -> show full review

Despite the fact that they released only two albums in the 90s, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy - along with Kashmir, to be fair - were perhaps the most important band on the Danish alternative rock scene at the time. They eventually had a less-than-amicable split-up and, while Tim Christensen embarked on a solo career, the two other members took up regular day jobs, and that was the end of that adventure.

Or so it seemed, because the band decided to reunite and write new material, and in 2016, their comeback album "Forward in Reverse" saw the light of day.

And, boy, what a great album! From the opening instrumental track "Phying Pharao" over the uptempo rocker "Terrified in Paradise" and the heavy "Brainless" to the groovy "Mindgasm", we are treated to catchy and melodic hard rock tunes which capture capture the sense of Beatles-inspired sophistication that characterized the band's 90s albums. Even the ballads "Something So ... -> show full review