1. Preboreal hypnotic dub bass bringing a dreamlike rise that casts a chill, has THE OCEAN really calmed down or is it just a preamble? This synth which navigates from one anvil to another is just perfect, contemplative and dreamlike with this French phrasing which calls out to you, in short the black prog blood flows here, ah this synth... 2. Boreal follows and shows the beginning of the violent latent atmosphere, in the good sense of the word 3. Sea of Reeds continues to focus on the dark sound, distilling only a distant heavy climate; the reminiscences go straight to what the second era ANATHEMA did so well; in short, we are in progressive territory without knowing it 4. Atlantic for the sound flirting with that of SMASHING PUMPKINS and OCEANSIZE, with field trumpet, military not jazzy, dub for the electro side; good to remember that we are on a heavy nag all the same so the explosion is only logical

5. Subboreal to the sound of The GATHERING for an alternative, metronomic and extreme shoegaze, for those who don't expect this rise in controlled violence it must be hard 6. Unconformities is missing from my file, too bad I'm going to listen to it in my corner on YT... Yes the title which raises questions with this feminized, a sound on a supercharged PORTISHEAD with the trumpet which now reassures and with this orgasmic crescendo sublimated by the vocal, instrumental surge; you have to breathe, catch your breath, prog metal is at this price, come on let's shout with Loïc this is the motto of this cataclysmic title that should not be missed 7. Parabiosis gives in shared violence with its ambient brake; we are far from the alternative beginning, here the perfusion flows freely and drives the point home in brutal atmospheres; on a CULT OF LUNA for example but more prog, on a less compulsive TOOL, a short piece that intrigues 8. Subatlantic with the oriental ambiance, its latent sound, we return to the beginning of the album; that no, the dark-obscure side of the beast comes out in spurts, in bursts; the drums make the link between the screamed voice and the plaintive, depressive guitars.

Australia's finest prog metal band surely has to be Caligula's Horse, having released their sixth studio album 'Charcoal Grace' via Inside Out Music in January of 2024, continuing their line of work of incorporating the aesthetics of djent into their signature style of melancholic yet powerful blend of heavy progressive music. Sam Vallen, Jim Grey and co. have this time organized their album around longer pieces, bookmarked by two longer epic tracks, while spreading the 25-minute-long title track over four parts in the middle of the album. While the band has done longer pieces throughout their discography, they have never before presented their work in such a way, which is an interesting decision, also making this album their longest running one to date, surpassing 2017's 'In Contact' by some seconds.

The sound of this album does not diverge too much from what the band did in the beginning of the decade with 'Rise Radiant', their pandemic album, whereas a stronger djent influence was becoming more prevalent, focusing a lot on technique and resulting in a more compressed and massive sounds, in comparison to their cleaner and more "stripped" dynamics from before (2015-17). It has to be mentioned that the vocals are as good as always, Jim Grey is undoubtedly a very powerful vocalist who is able to elevate the compositions and bring them a very eerie, majestic and emotive edge. Sam Vallen displays his signature guitar sounds serving the band just perfectly, while the rhythm section is mostly entirely delightful and well-done.

It is the compositional aspect of the tracks on 'Charcoal Grace', however, that seems to have been overshadowed by the more technical approach, as the two tracks bookmarking the album (and clocking in at ten and twelve minutes respectively) get slightly diluted over the course of their playtime, as if there was not a clear direction or a clear vision of where these songs should arrive. Surely they are packed with graceful riffs, intense hooks, and gorgeous vocal melodied, but they seem to be less focused than previous longer compositions done by C-Horse, who had cemented themselves as masters of suspenseful heavy progressive music, always leading you to a very powerful climax through the band members' manifold creative ways, as they had perfectly achieved that with 'In Contact'. This aspect of their music seems to be mostly missing here.

It is recaptured mainly and seemingly in the shorter tracks like 'Golem' or 'The Stormchaser', two highlight tracks. The title track, dissected into four pieces, as ambitious and powerful it may seem, fails to leave a lasting impression of a strong, oriented epic song, perhaps missing a very recognizable and memorable underlying thread or theme, perhaps being occasionally overplayed. While it has its highlights, whether it be the beautifully intricate introduction to 'Prey', or the acoustic tranquility of 'Vigil', or even the chorus build-up of 'Give Me Hell', it is too fragmented, which could also be why it was presented as four tracks rather than a continuous long piece.

In essence, 'Charcoal Grace' is a good and strong album, nicely ornamented, but mostly lacking the punch and focus that the band's usually got, and it will probably go on to be one of the more polarizing releases by Caligula's Horse.

And there goes the album with the most decent prog rock cover and title! GG took their mission and chops seriously once again and deliver the album which is, in my opinion, little surprising and rather, continues in their mid 70's slightly streamlined but still very powerful and unique maze of complex rhythm changes, brilliant vocal exercises and excellent symphonic moments. The first track, "Proclamation" can be a suitable representative track of the album with all traits I've mentioned above. It is also less repetitive that what you hear later through the album. "So sincere" can be rhythmically one of their most challenging track, sounds very incoherent at first listens but you'll hear the binding motive later on. "Aspirations" has a modern facade with lush keyboards, simplified drumming and greater accessibility. "Playing the game" is the second great epic on the album with typical GG motives. The second half of the album is slightly worse but all in all, it is still a very strong album.

1. Rytter av dommedag for a deluge of vintage notes which echo what was done in time, hence my disappointment since the creation is missing; 16 minutes of thinking about, of bathing in a barely brackish musical climate is a painful observation of poorly digested revival 2. And sted under himmelhvelvet in radio edit and the same feeling with the folk voice that goes to the lands of ÄNGLAGÅRD and the more recent TUSMØRKE; what's the point of 'pumping' a sound that has proven itself but has lost its faith and energy these days? So unless you want to keep blinders on your ears and don't want musical evolution, beautiful is not synonymous with great and this sound fits well into a bygone vintage sound.

3. Jærtegn yes the harpsichord is beautiful, a memory of an ancient time, yes Lars sings well and it feels like we are around a Viking fire, yes but it goes around magnificently in circles, a bitter observation, yes it lacks that energy which in WOBBLER or KALUGIN makes you strain your ears and listen again for their own sound 4. Naturens katedral comes to change my mind, why? A more tortured sound which takes from the 70's and monopolizes it to create, which will even push the musical vice to flirt with the hard prog Dinos before their time, yes GENESIS with DEEP PURPLE used the organ for hard rock psyche scents ; in short it swirls, it swells, we feel the prog blood flowing, the one that makes you move and not doze off; grandiose title through the use of instruments for a tormented but progressive bucolic journey, but why did we have to wait for the last title? (2.5)

Gentle Giant being down to 5 musicians do not let the listener notice it too much. The sound is still very rich mainly thanks to the myriad of keyboard sounds and the keyboardist mastery of complex arrangements and hooks. Drumming has become a bit more streamlined (at least they sound more contemporary). Guitar playing gives harder edge to the music but can become quite muscular and supports the progressive direction. As usual with GG, the first track blows me away, this time it is less because of vocals and more because of very complex rhythm structure and subtle keyboard workouts. "An inmates lullaby" is an impressive lush vocal driven lullaby, maybe the most sophisticated one you've ever heard and you won't feel asleep easily ;). "Way of life" combines disco-like beat with a high number of rhythmic shifts and even medieval mini-suites with symphonic moments. This piece is overfilled with progressive moments and becomes to the best tracks by GG. It proves that even though GG could be dissonant, they could also bring harmonies together. "Experience" is perhaps the most known composition with a catchy hard-rock hook. "In a glass house" deserves the same merits as "Way of life", full excellent upbeat playing, energy and even guitar riffing.

Gentle Giant released to excellent albums in 1972 and I find "Three friends" to be a better one because of its soundscape, it is very experimental and no signs of compromising yet. It also has longer compositions to immerse in than "Octopus". "Prologue" has an ominous start and reminds a bit of King Crimson and Magma but no way ripping anything off, the rhytm is very irregular, the bass sets the tension and keyboards greatly fill the space with Hammond/synths/moog. "Schooldays" brings alteration with medieval vocals and jazzy keyboards. How they managed to combine this masterfully with the evil seemingly unrelated piano chords is beyond my understanding. The third part of the composition is a venture into a fast honky-tonky territory. Incredible amount of ideas. "Peel the paint" is one of the most successful GG hard rock composition, but don't think of a few-second riff, this one has a complex and long hook, I also love the raw guitar and intensive drumming. "Three friends" is a beautiful symphonic composition with semi-church organ/melotron and excellent vocal harmonies. It has a majestic chord sequence that Focus wouldn't be ashamed of. Excellent GG album, once again.

Hi fellow Prog rockers and music lovers. Steven Wilson, early into his solo career comes out with an album that has every bit of sophistication, imagination and production quality of the great albums we know and love from the golden age of prog rock with a slight sense of contemporary.

Featuring some guest musicians that we are all well acquainted with such as Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) and Steve Hacket (Yes) and the somewhat familiar lineup long time collaborators Nick Beggs and Theo Travis the musicianship is high quality but in some parts more so in terms of creativity and or imagination rather than "sport" playing although they have their individual moments to shine in their own right.

The album has a very early 70's vertigo swirl record production sound to the music that I would classify as eclectic/prog/fusion rock and in my view is more a night time album where you have the time and lack of distractions so one can really dig deep into the music because there is a lot of great content along with quite long tracks.

I give this Album a solid 4 stars and in my view it is definitely SW's best prog/eclectic fusion rock album which conjures up all the elements of a classic vertigo swirl album from the early 70's and beyond with added requiem/choir parts , beautiful use of space/atmosphere along with some contemporary programming of course has a beautiful audiophile engineering production standard throughout the album as we have come to expect from this artist.

Definitely get this album, you will not be dissapointed but approach with an open mind and allow enough time to hear the whole album as it has a flow to the tracks. This album definitely grew on me after a few full album listens and now its my favourite from Steven. GET THE SURROUND SOUND VERION AND ENJOY IN 5.1

Over the years I have found Arne Schäfer (lead & backing vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, keyboards, bass, orchestrations) and Eberhard Graef (drums & percussion) to be a little hit and miss with some albums worth investigating, others somewhat in the middle, and others definitely ones to avoid. However, I did really enjoy the last two, so I had high hopes of this one, only to feel somewhat let down. Although they are rightly deemed to be crossover on PA, they have always had a high amount of neo in their style and have been seen as being somewhat at the forefront of the 90's revival in their native Germany. I think the best word to describe this album is "bland", as while there is nothing awfully dramatically wrong with it there is also little here to get excited about.

I found I kept thinking of one of Clive Nolan's many projects he used to undertake, with somewhat of a theatrical bent, but not delivered in anything like the same degree. Even when Arne has the guitar wailing and the drums are driving forward as on opener "No-one But Ourselves", it just feels somewhat staid and almost formulaic. Four of the six songs on this set are more than ten minutes in length, something any proghead will gladly sink their teeth into, yet they meander without direction or emotion, leaving the listener unsatisfied yet bloated at the same time. Let us hope this is just a one-off and the next one finds them with more bite and verve, but this just feels there is not enough clarity and space and the arrangements have been layered in the hope that something will come out of it, but it didn't.

Three years after Derbe Respect, Alder, Faust would expand a bit more on their industrial portfolio by doing another collaboration album. This time, instead of reaching towards the Americas with hip hop, they decided to reach out towards Ireland in pursuit of a very experimental direction, one that, while not as bold as their previous, certainly bode a uniqueness among their past outputs.

This time they collabed with Nurse With Wound (or NWW). Nurse With Wound is a group I haven't heard much of, admittedly only one record being A Sucked Orange, and also this as well. Formed in 1978, they have developed the industrial and noise scenes ever since, being next to greats like the disturbing oldies of Throbbing Gristle, the foreboding Einstürzende Neubauten, the chaotic Foetus, and the oddly sensual Coil. They even helped out on releases for my all time favorite neofolk group of Current 93. They have quite the repertoire of releases, about 91 in total according to RYM, so they clearly are the ideal group if you want help with any bizarro noise works, which Faust seemed to desire within the year of 2007.

This would be their last record in their more industrial time period as they would go for a more straight edged krautrock sound on their next, but this is certainly a good one to cap off an intriguing and noisy era from this wonderful band. We get 4 songs, each over 10 minutes in length. Each song on here has quite a lot of lovely textures and noises to go around, a speciality with NWW. I think this record has probably some of the best it has to offer when it comes to the sound production, as I can really feel each weird drone that the songs occupy. From the disoriented pulses of the title track, to the bassy grinds of It Will Take Time, I can really feel the music on here, and I really dig that. There are some records that I love that have elements such as this, namely those within post rock, so to hear a more quiet, droning album that has this much weight and girth really brings me some delight.

I do also wanna point out my love for the drum work here, namely on Lass Mich and Tu M'Entends, both having these sharp and grooving drum lines, with Tu M'Entends building up to the anxiety and horrific tension that the track has within most of its near 15 minute run. Werner Diermeier certainly proved to be quite the master drummer, no matter the context. Makes sense since he has been with the band since their debut, so he had a lot of time perfecting his craft.

Despite all this, though, this album suffers the same problem as Derbe Respect, Alder...but in the reverse now. This time it feels like Faust is in the back, with Nurse With Wound being on center stage. In fact, I'd say the band themselves get less time to shine than dälek, weirdly enough. Sure they show up from time to time, especially Werner, but after their time in a shared spotlight with Lass Mich, they give NWW a chokehold on the songs after the fact, creating less of a balance than what their previous album even did, and it is basically worse for it in my opinion. I mentioned this before, but the best collaboration is within a shared spotlight, not with one artist in the sun while the other is in their shadow. This does not feel like Faust WITH Nurse With Wound, or Nurse With Wound WITH Faust. This feels more like Nurse With Wound having Faust in their back pocket if they need them. Because of this, really only Lass Mich I can say is the best track on here since it does have both of these talented groups share the center stage. Afterwards though, you might as well count it more as a Nurse With Wound album.

This record is good, but certainly not great, and it was probably a message to Faust that they aren't quite shaped up for the world of collaborations. They would still work on occasion with some notable artists later down the line, such as with Keiji Haino on 2022's 这条路是正确的 This Is the Right Path, but the artists are more for features than collabs. This is certainly an interesting album, especially for the end of Faust's industrial zone, so I'd say it is a good listen if you can manage to find it, but I cannot quite rank it on the same tier as Ravvivando or The Last LP.

Best track: Lass Mich

Worst tracks: Disconnected, Tu M'Entends, It Will Take Time

It is strange to think that Pierre Salkazanov was one of the pioneers of electronic music in France, releasing three albums before stopping in 1983 because he was too busy. It took more than 30 years before he revisited the music he had been working on for his fourth album, but after he purchased an Arturia Origin synthesiser in 2014 he started playing again, and this is his fourth work since then. I came across him with the release of his last album, 'Chaos Islands', which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I was pleased when I came across this one, which was released towards the end of last year.

This is music which has been heavily influenced by Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and Jean Michel Jarre and in some ways is quite dated because of that yet somehow also feels very modern. Unlike some performers working in this field there is always a sense of purpose and drive, and little of the meandering use of effects which some seem to rely on. This is not dance music, it is electronic which sometimes has a symphonic edge, and is something which can be readily enjoyed the first time it is played yet there are numerous threads which keep building the layers so there is always more to discover within. I don't listen to too much of this style of music and I was somewhat surprised to see how easily I fell into his world. This is where he explores the idea of being immersed in the future, suggesting a sense of adventure, uncertainty, and the enigmatic nature of what lies ahead, and is the perfect accompaniment to any science fiction book you may currently be reading. Zanov was working on his latest album when he was 76 so one can only wonder how many more we will be getting from him, but this is a delight and a great place to start investigating his music.