NEWS FROM THE INVISIBLE WORLD

While this band is just beyond the borders of my prog comfort zone, going beyond the fringe is what this site is all about, so why not as I would rather be fierce than dead. This London crew features Matt Stevens and Steve Clayton on guitars and keyboards, lead vocalist and bassist Kev Feazy (who also contributes guitars and keys) and drummer Stuart Marshall. Their modern style combines post-rock, psychedelia, some proggy elements mostly in the background synthesized orchestrations and the colourizing keyboards as well as some pure rock attitudes.

I really enjoyed the opener, cunningly titled "Start", my first time listening to this band, and I instantly fell under the spell of its electro intro, with vocalized poetry that gradually raises its internal temperature until the boiling point is achieved, getting louder and louder. When the drums and the fulminating guitars kick in, it is like a modern version of Robert Calvert-era Hawkwind, at least for an instant, before fading into the silence. "Shake the Jar" is just that, a sonic blender stuck on puree, as the throbbing bass, insistent drums and raging axe all coalesce into tornado mode. The echo-laden vocals swerve in out of focus creating thus the impression of chaos. The outro is suitable dreamy and atmospheric, before taking one more swing at the ball. The imperturbable steamroller guitar fulcrum is at the centre of the initially phosphorescent "Golden Thread", dipping occasionally into a contemplative rampart, ready to pounce back into the fire. The guitars smoulder furiously, the riffs binary and thunderous, featuring descriptive vocals and tons of sound effects.

I really loved the pivoting luxuriance of "Photogenic Love", a mesmerizing melting pot of soft and hard, at times hallucinatorily ceremonial, yet real catchy, the arrangement prominently guided by a wicked bass axis, a pivoting melody that shimmers brightly, and some super innuendo-laden vocals, suddenly slashed by some dual guitar pyrotechnics that set the listening room ablaze. The Calvert hint enters briefly, just a nod and a wink to a fallen icon, a single polaroid snapshot kept in a drawer. A rubbery punkoid bass line (I kneel at the shrine) throttles the otherwise upbeat "Wonderful", a short wham-bam- thank you-ma'am ditty that spares no prisoners, marshalling beat a la Simon King verging on hectic, spiralling guitar shafts that show no light or dark, just a comfortable stage to launch into some musical nexus of insanity. Nasty and I like it!

Time to settle down into a groove and show off some restraint, as "Non-Player" takes nearly 7 minutes to fully develop and bloom. I was somehow transported into a realm reminiscent of the Legendary Pink Dots, replete with psychedelic excursions and floating vocals, and just a hint of crazy, as the guitars rev up seriously half-way through, led by a carousel piano motif that leads to hypnosis of the senses. The return to the shoe-gazing lilt is the coolest transition on the album and when the sultry sax shuffles its sexy squeaks (a la Nik Turner), the urge to applaud becomes compulsive. 'It's all so strange'. A tremendous track. "What A Time to be Alive" is the owner of a serpentine bass line that augurs well for the development of this vividly cinematographic track as it wanders in synthesized heaven, before it dive bombs towards an earth-shattering barrage of six-string fury that has hints of Mick Ronson, with the added details of some frizzy thunder flashes of lightning. The celestial interference acts as a contrast to all the electricity discharged and this is perhaps my favourite track here, just behind the previous three corkers. With a title like "Nostalgia Now", I was in surrender mode from the get-go, a soporific cloud of pervasive psychedelia, with wistful lyrics a mature old geezer like me can sink my teeth into. The space between is expertly traveled instrumentally, adorned with extravagant resonances and hyper entrancing lyrical content. Here I was reminded of some vintage Landberk, a nearly Scandinavian iceberg melting sound and easily Kev's finest vocal performance here, a crushingly poignant delivery for the ages. The doom-drenched guitar curtain call is utterly divine (or satanic, depending on your beliefs). Make that five gems in a row.

I am glad I had erased all my prior pre-conceptions because I did not want the secretary to have to disavow any knowledge of my actions. This tape will NOT self destruct in 5 seconds. And I am looking forward to the next chapter of global unseen stories.

4 Ferocious corpses

TFATD are a band I have been reviewing for more than a decade, during which time I have been a huge fan of everything they have achieved, with their 'Live USA 17 (RosFest 2017)' being nothing sort of a masterpiece. Here we had an instrumental band who were creating monstrous riffs who were beloved by fans of space rock, prog and so much more as they distorted and fuzzed their way into people's brains. Their last studio album, 2018's 'The Euphoric' took five years to appear after 'Spooky Action', so really it should be no surprise that their fourth album took the same amount of time. What was surprising though, was that the singles released ahead of the album had, wait for it, vocals! It was still the same line-up, but just that bassist Kevin Feazey had taken on the role of lead singer ? the rest of the band still Matt Stevens (guitar, keyboards), Steve Cleaton (guitar), and Stuart Marshall (drums).

I was not a huge fan of the last single, "Photogenic Love", as to me it did move the band too far away from their core sound, and I felt they had moved into an area which they themselves describe as a mix of Faith No More, Tame Impala, Smashing Pumpkins, LCD Soundsystem, Flaming Lips, Gorillaz and MGMT, which is not where I had ever expected them to be. However, while I am still not a massive fan of that particular sound (although it has definitely grown on me), when confronted with an album with so many songs containing vocals I have discovered that instead of taking something away from TFATD it has indeed added to their overall sound. That I still prefer their original sound is very much down to personal preference as opposed to as anything the band are doing wrong, and the more I have listened to this this more I have enjoyed it, it was just something of a shock when I first came across it. There are still the heavy riffs, the distorted and fuzzed sound which allows the listener to envisage the riffs as solid entities as opposed to soundwaves, yet there is now the additional element of Kevin's vocals.

In 2023 they describe their sound as a fusion of psychedelic rock, old metal records, post-rock, prog, broken analogue synths, and shoegaze. There is still plenty of their old sound there as well, just morphed and moved into new directions. TFATD are truly progressing and it will be interesting to see where they end up, yet here they have shown yet again proved they are one of the most dynamic and interesting bands in the UK prog scene.