That Special New Artist

 

My English teacher from last year's best friend is the drummer, so he showed me a lot of their stuff together. www.brokenchord.com. that site has a bunch of stuff that is either just him messing around with stuff or its him and the drummer for metronome. Its pretty interesting stuff. Metronome's one and only album is excellent IMO. Its very original, and very eclectic. It actually feels like a "band", a "group" they feed off each others ideas and you can tell in the music.

Jimmy Row, you seem to be a vintage keyboard aficionado too, I prefer Gan Eden and Ubi Maior form your list, great Hammond and Moog sound

 

 

Johnobvious, thanks for reminding I had not posted that Ken's Novel review on Prog Archives, here it is, later it will appear on the homepage because at this moment I am on my work and Prog Archives reacts very slow on that  :

 

KEN’S NOVEL-Domain of oblivion (***)
- Ken’s Novel is a 5-piece band from Belgium featuring Patrick Muermans (lead – and backing vocals, drums and keyboard programming), Eric Vanderbemden (electric – and acoustic guitars), Bruno Close (keyboards), Geoffrey Leontiev (drums, percussions, drums programming) and Sebastièn Mentior. In ’99 they released their first album “The guide”, this one was boosted by a positive review from the magazine Prog Resiste and a distribution deal from the known French progrock label Musea Records. Ken’s novel played on several progrock festivals and in 2002 two songs from the band could be found on the compilation “Spring rock festival 2000”. A year later Ken’s Novel released the CD “Unplugged?” and in 2002 the album “Domain of oblivion” was released on a demo. Two years later the band put it on CD, again distributed by Musea. On this CD the band use a wide range of guest musicians (keyboards, bass, backing vocals, lead guitar, violins, cello).
The music on the CD “Domain of oblivion” sounds melodic, dynamic and varied with good solos on guitar and keyboards and strong interplay between these instruments. The propulsive parts with organ evokes KANSAS but in general the main reference is STYX, especially because of the vocals and the more polished parts of their music (AOR/poprock). Despite the running time of almost 77 minutes, the music didn’t fail to generate excitement: lots of spectacular synthesizer flights, some sparkling piano (“Voices”), sensitive electric guitar with soaring keyboards, metallish guitarwork and bombastic organ (“Wisdom part 3”) and a ballad with wah-wah guitar in the end (“Distinctive signs”). The absolute highlight on this CD is the long titletrack (more than 16 minutes): fiery electric guitar and sumptuous keyboards, acoustic guitar and piano, a beautiful, bluesy guitarsolo and then ... it’s solo time featuring a jazzy piano, sensational synthesizer runs and a swirling organ, this band ‘progrocks’ during these instrumental fireworks. This is the best from Belgium I’ve heard since the legendary Machiavel!

Darqdean, The Reasoning is quite overlooked, here's my review:

 

THE REASONING – Awakening (***1/5)
- This is a UK sic piece band that host two guitarists, a keyboard player en three members (including a female singer) who are doing the vocals. So no wonder there is a lot of attention for the vocale lines in the eight composition with lots of duets and vocal harmonies.
The songs are pleasant and melodic with a modern, a bit polished sound. The colouring by the keyboards and guitars is very tasteful like the propulsive rhythm and sensitive guitar solo in the titletrack, a spectacular synthesizer solo with propulsive guitar riffs and a wonderful final part in the alternating Aching Hunger, a beautiful closing section delivering a fiery guitar solo, lush keyboards and powerful drums in the great build-up Sacred Shape and a fiery, in the R&R tradition drenched guitar solo in the also strongly build-up piece Shadows Of The Mind. But the absolute highlight (in my opinion) is the final composition Within Cold Glass featuring Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery (a sticker on the front cover of this CD mentions him): first a dreamy climate with intense and melancholic sounding violin work and warm piano, then a mandoline and female vocals enter, the sound become more compelling. Halfway Steve plays a very moving guitar solo with howling runs that fits perfect to this emotional song
I am impressed by this new band and their strong and tasteful modern progressive rock on this debuut album, especially the neo-prog fans will be delighted!

 

 

 

GRAYCEON - Grayceon  http://www.myspace.com/grayceon

Grayceon offers appealing flavours for different and varying tastes. Some post-rock textures, some sludgy-metal (but of a lighter flavor than others in this field), some good old crunchy riffs of metal (with the occasional drum beat that remind me of the heavier side of metal), and great epics which are amplified in their effect by the magnificent use of the cello by Jackie and the vocal harmonies of Jackie and Max Doyle. The cello and guitar are used both as background and as solo instruments together and alone, which is another interesting aspect of their sound. They have the ability to create compelling music, long epic tracks with mesmerizing textures and vocal harmonies, alternating between a soft sound to a rapid and even raw sounding part in which the drums go wild.

 

RATIONAL DIET - Rational Diet  http://www.myspace.com/rationaldiet   

Rational Diet is a Belarus sextet (in this album) along with five guest musiciams playing music incorporating and influenced by modern classic composers and avant-rock. The press note that came with the promotional CD says that: “Rational Diet proposes an unusual mix of styles and sounds: Chamber music, rock, theatre and improvisation, supported by the amazingly instrumental abilities of their components. It’s difficult to define the mood of such music, which goes from dark atmosphere to grotesque, powerful or oniric, sometimes even humoristic.” They state their influences to be: “Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Webern, Ives, King Crimson, Henry Cow, Art Bears, Univers Zero, Present, Debile Menthol”. While I don’t necessarily hear all those in the music, I can hear some of them (Henry Cow, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd and Stravinsky) and the overall interchanging sound of Rational Diet certainly fits the “musical module” that these musicians and composers create.

The music derives its influences from past avant-rock, RIO and chamber music bands (Henry Cow, Univers Zero et al.) and the composers that influenced those bands as well. The music alternates between certain moods, feelings and styles. At times weird and quirky and in others chaos seems to dominate the music (but as I said, it’s only seemingly so). In other parts, you have a dark atmosphere ruling over the sound, and in other, it gets a bit more light-hearted and theatrical in parts. The overall feelings I get from the music are that it’s complex, dense unconventional and eerie, which I like very much. The musicians here do not try to show how much they know how to play their instruments (and they probably know it well) but to show how their instruments can be at the service of music, how they can create sounds and melodies (yes, melodies!) that are different and unconventional but appealing nonetheless.

OSADA VIDA - Three Seats Behind A Triangle  http://www.myspace.com/osadavida

This album is a very well done progressive rock/metal release, one that is diverse and rich in sound and that makes for a very enjoyable listen.

This Polish rock/metal band has been around for several years now and has released so far 2 official albums and two unofficial ones (one an EP and the other an LP). This album is their first one written in English.

There is good balance between the keyboards and the guitar (both electric and acoustic), each accentuating different emotions and moods throughout the story or rather the journey that is told in this album. Those two main instruments either mingle or take turn as the lead at the forefront. There is a good mix of different sounds and styles played here, from a more laid back rock and dreamy parts to more dynamic and metallic guitar driven (keyboards enhanced) parts, to Hammond organ lead excursions. I find the songs to be well composed, in that they have appealing melodies and are varied enough in both sound and structure to keep me hooked, while allowing the instruments free space to express themselves in an suitable manner, i.e. not too wildly and out of context of the song.

 

SENOGUL - Senogul http://www.myspace.com/senogul 

What is special about this album is that the use of the variety of styles and sounds is done in such a flowing natural way, as if we were never used to it being different than this, without sounding weird or out of place. It’s not that it is a multi-genre record, but there is a clever assimilation of styles in the tunes that Senogul plays, making it their own sound.
The music sounds to me as being “free, open, without barriers”, and not as a wall of sound or any other type of dense and thick sound. While not exactly a light-spirit album, it’s one that is characterized by an “airy”, fresh and “spacious” sound and mood. Senogul creates music that is tender and mellow alongside more dynamic and vibrant tunes. The diversity of the album is manifested in the styles played, tone and ambiance of the tracks (both within and between tracks), instrumentation and musical themes that are presented in each tune. What more, is that since the music is the way it is, I don’t feel “drained” at the end of the album, as I do with some other albums that can be an exhausting experience. With this album, I feel that I can listen to it again once I finish listening to it, despite it being quite long. The Senogul sound is highlighted by the keyboards (usually taking a piano sound), their particular guitar sound and their groovy rhythms. Though they are Spanish, there is no strong Spanish sound in their music except for several parts in the tracks that go that way. The guitar does take (though not all the time) a Spanish “accent” that I can also recognize from other Spanish bands. 
A magnificent release, one that I recommend highly. If you like varied music, enjoyable, well written, rich in sound yet not dense, music that progresses within each track and doesn’t stagnate, then this should please you. If someone were to ask me for an example of a band that plays a progressive form of music (not necessarily rock, but it obviously applies to them), then this album would be an excellent example.

 

 

YUGEN - Labirinto d'Acqua   http://www.myspace.com/yugenband 

Much like the cover art of this album the music here is a mixture of various genres, making this possibly more accessible to those who are not usual fans of the RIO/Avant camp. Several tracks have them being what Univers Zero had sounded, had they taken a much lighter approach towards life/music. And in other tracks there is clear (to me at least) symphonic prog references (tracks 1 and 8 for instance) which is may be understandable when you consider Francesco Zago background and previous band (The Night Watch). This reminds me of Le Silo in the broad influences of past RIO/Avant sounds that they have and also some non-R/A influences (but not at all the Le Silo sound).

 

 

Other bands to look for:

 

Accordo Dei Contrari http://www.myspace.com/accordodeicontrari

(RIO/Canterbury)

 

(Art-Rock)

 

(avant-rock)

 

Astro Can Caravan http://www.myspace.com/astrocancaravan   (thanks to Jimbo)

(jazz-rock/nu-jazz)

 

The Red Masque http://www.myspace.com/myredmasque  

(avant-rock)

 

Panzerpappa - http://www.myspace.com/panzerpappa

(avant-rock/fusion, see my interview with them, link in my sig)

 

 

 

(fusion/art-rock)

 

Solstafir http://www.myspace.com/solstafir

(metal/hypnotic/psych)

 

Trettioariga Kriget   http://www.myspace.com/trettioarigakriget   

(art-rock)

 

 

There's more, but I'll keep soem for later.

 

Great thread by the way, HT.