Progfreak.com Progressive Music Ratings & Reviews

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

I respect Opeth very much! And I still believe they are one of the most important/innovative bands of the last 30 years.
As the world sank with regrets over the group's changes since Heritage, I was curious to know where the band was going.

It turns out that the band... keeps going! After the great Pale Communion Opeth released a very weak album with Sorceress and I really didn't have much hope for the next album, but here they are with In Cauda Venenum!

First of all I need to get out of my head two little things that I noticed right away that are little easter eggs in the album (maybe there are more): The title of the album was obviouslyce mezzo-stolen from Italian Jacula's In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum. The album's opening track, Livets Trädgård, is a clear 'tribute' to the Swedish group Älgarnas Trädgård. Being Mikael Åkerfeldt an avid 70s Prog collector this is no surprise. This makes me a little unquiet, I still don't know why.

In Cauda Venenum is a record that should please fans of the band's new phase. Despite the completely unnecessary introduction (an instrumental introduction only makes sense if it is linked to the concept of the album, it is not the case here, at ... -> show full review

is a North American band formed in 2006 by Adam Sears (vocals and keyboards). During the time of recording� (2012), the band’s debut album, they also had Andy Catt (bass), Dustin Prince (drums), Adrienne Woods (cello), Hoyt Binder (guitars) and Nate ‘The Fish’ Olmos (guitars and vocals).

(2012) took 5 years and over 50 musicians to be completed. The album also includes a 30+ person classical choir and a guest percussionist Alex Acuña ( ). The album was produced by Steven Leavitt and mixed and mastered by Rich Mouser ( ,� ,� ).

It’s impressive that a debut album comes with such a nice digipack. The CD comes in a hard-cover bound booklet with 20 full color pages, with original art by world David A. Hardy ( ).
Every band that releases their albums in digipacks should learn with� how you do it right! (pictures on their Bandcamp page� ).

is an intriguing, refreshing and inspiring mix of Prog Rock with singable melodies. The first track ‘Time And Space’ begins and the game is over. The band gets you on the very ... -> show full review

A timeless masterpiece. Ghost are often misjudged as a shallow/gimmicky band, but especially on this album they managed to combine deep lyrics about death and the shortness of life with grotesque humour, great melodies and awesome musicianship. Metal at its finest.

METRONHOMME – 4 presentation About Métronhomme: The musical group Métronhomme was formed in Macerata (MC), ITALY, in the summer of 2003; the idea of the members was that of developing an unusual project, based on original music compositions, open to a wide type of sounds and experimentations. The first Metronhomme’s work was characterized by the form of the "concept": not single pieces for the sake of themselves, but a single conceptual composition divided into several moments; the purpose was to represente the work in a theatrical context. With this method, the first three works of the group come to life: “L’ultimo canto di Orfeo” (The last song of Orpheus), “Neve” and “Bar Panopticon”. The show entitled "The Last Song of Orpheus" was played in public for the first time in 2005: a free musical-multimedia interpretation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The idea is based on the representation of a musical journey using a small dance troupe; some backgroud narrating voices accompained the unfolding of the musical paintings as a small vademecum for the viewer and the band used the synchronized video-projections as sound for the paintings. The band, represented its first work in numerous theaters; the performances were welcomed by the critics and Metronhomme decided to create a CD of the musical part of the show (here the music from the Cd - www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbrSti5ifybEToTx6z7Zl5V2bTt4-gMrd). In 2008 it was the turn of "Neve" (tr. “Snow”). It is a musical-theatrical representation, freely taken from Maxence Fermine’s homonym novel witch constitute a research work exploring the fusion of a theater and music. In 2010, the group was involved in a new project: "Bar Panopticon"; the work was first played at the Lauro Rossi Theater in Macerata, with the contribution of AMAT (Marche Theatrical Activities Association) and the Municipality of the town. Proceeding along the path of interference between music, theater and video, the Métronhomme ... -> show full review

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A thrilling return to form! This album is a nice synthesis of Opeth's former heavy outings and the newer outputs, which were more than decent albums, but also seemed a little tame to me. There is no extreme metal on this album, but it is really dark in some places, a sinister roller-coaster ride. Takes a few spins to appreciate, as any decent prog album should.

Aquacadia was started by Gary Jacobs and Gregory D. Davis on September 13, 2014 in Lexington, Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri. The band is currently located in San Antonio, Texas and St. Louis, Missouri. The aim of Aquacadia continues to be to capture progressive rock, retro-rock and electronic sounds with a focus on music composition. The music is eclectic, drawing on progressive rock, instrumental rock, synth pop, electronic rock, electric guitar, classical guitar, funk rock, post-punk, and upbeat rock elements. The album "Into Atalantia" is their debut and blends all of these styles of music in an interesting way.

The band members are: Lead vocals, percussion, bass guitar, electric guitar, synthesizers, composition: Gregory D. Davis. Electric guitar, classical guitar, synthesizers, composition: Gary Jacobs

Very ambitious project to make a 3-hour rock opera. Definitely too long...

I faced to another "Avant-Atmospheric Technical Symphonic Progressive" album from Isildurs Bane! Their new album show me that they are not a Symphonic Prog band anymore! I found too many different styles in their music. IMO "Eclectic Prog" is fit genre for their music. Apart of what is their genre , I love this album so much and recommend to huge fans of Instrumental Progressive music that like King Crimson type music!

A "Masterclass" album of the 2017. Unexpected instrumental album from the band that have great Vocal parts in their albums. They use the wide range of Progressive Rock music styles very solidly in this album. Full of 70's Progressive music era musical elements and known moments. Retro sounding and using Classic Prog instruments like Mellotron and classical instruments (Violin , Cello,...) perfectly. If you love 70's Progressive Rock musics and Modern music elements together , this is fit for you. Don't miss it...

Revisited this just now after quite a while ... this is a really, really beautiful EP. They really nailed the SciFi vibe and combined heart-warming melodies with energetic driving metal tracks. Can't wait to hear what they will do next, since at this time their Facebook page says "Hobbit Prog" ...

Back to the style of the first two albums. 2017's masterpiece.

Now their new album "Novum" after 13-14 years. I expect very better album. Honestly , I can't say "This is a Prog album"! but I love it as a beautiful Hard Rock album . Its remind me Bob Seger's good songs and albums! plus a little Prog Rock stuffs!

This might quite possibly be Arjen's best effort yet. Flawless, impressive, super cool!