CROSSOVER PROG

5. Living in Another World for the solemn slap, we leave one Olympian track to enter another; Acoustic country opening, languid keyboard, and Mark attacks with his suave voice; a beautiful, easy, and addictive crescendo on the voice, on the fruity keyboards that no longer have anything minimalist like what could be criticized in new wave; long but addictive 6. Give It Up in mid-tempo, airy, solemn, and its staging of keyboards that carve out the spotlight; David still reels off his notes like sprinkling a fruit pie, torturing his strings, like on a KING CRIMSON from the 90s, yes, in the future 7. Chameleon Day for the leading trumpet in the night, a Variophon synth in fact that gives the intimate atmosphere of this short track highlighting the tortured, raw vocals 8. Time It's Time and 8 minutes to conclude the album with a drawn-out romantic-spleen ballad that doesn't add much in my opinion and can be boring given the previous tracks! Yes, I'm objective.

The album is strongly influenced by the current war, even if not explicitly. The music has a kind of singer-songwriter feeling, due probably to the excellent acoustic guitar, but the instrumental parts, sustained by a string quartet, give it the symphonic flavor.

But it's not only symphonic; there are heavy guitars, keyboards and surprisingly the growl of Andriy Tkachenko in the final crescendo of Thruths, the penultimate track of the album.

It starts melancholic. Child is perfect in setting the whole album mood, and I also suggest to watch the video. It's both on Bandcamp and on Youtube. The lyrycs are in Ukrainian, but to give you an idea a translated sentence says "Deep inside We're children In search of forgotten dreams".

I'm not expert in that matter, but I suspect that the singing style takes something from the tradition: the timbric of Agafonkin is simlar to the "Pink Floyd" Andriy Khlyvnyuk. Getting used to it may take a bit, but it's very rewarding. The whole band is excellent in term of musical skills, and a mention goes to the production that's equally excellent.

Now, while the war is just somewhere in the background on "Child", it's more present on the second track "On Distance". Stlii not explicitly, it says "We search for a refuge Staring through the snow". Not a mention to the causes of the war, the goods and the bads, just the description of what people feels. Read the lyrics on Bandcamp. It enhances the experience.

Hurricane is one of my favorites. The intro is instrumantal by acoustic guitar and strings while the chord sequence reminded me in some ways to the Canadian Harmonium. Thinking while I'm writing, if you love Harmonium and Serge Fiori, Obiymy Doschu is for you.

Refuge is a love song, with an interesting signature. The chorus is the kind that can resound in your head after the listen.

"After the war" is obviously a song of hope. Again, the lyrics don't speak explicitly of the current war. It can be applied to any other war, with the exception of Gaza that can't be considered properly a war as it's nothing but a genocide.

"Time" is more intimistic. I quote "Every drop will change something in the soul Where the rains never cease So that one day, hearing dreams We too may learn from Spring" The piano bridge is remarkable. The strings on the coda have summoned the Beatles in my mind, with the difference that here the strings are arranged and played by the band.

The already mentioned "Thruths" is the longest and also the most complex track of the whole album. It has a quiet start. Piano and acoustic guitar then strings with some classical influences before the vocals enter. The chord sequence is complex as well, but still very melodic. Finally, bass and drums join in while the piano continues the arpeggio. It's a crescendo of instruments. An electric guitar gives the start to a crescendo which in the end transforms the song. While remaining melodic, after a couple of stop, slowing it down, in the last part the guitar introduces a metal crescendo which ends with the growl. To me this is musically the best track.

Don't Give Up is an optimistic closer. I suggest watching the video (again both on Bandcamp and on Youtube). The melody is captivating and the backing vocals of Karina Sokolovska harmonize very well with Agafonkin. Also this song has a crescendo, but ends with the strings quartet on a melancholic theme, like the end titles of a movie.

As I have written in the beginning, to me this is the album of the year. In the past I have written about the previous works of the band. I loved both Elehia and Son, but this is really superior to both. I'm not ashamed of giving it 5 stars.

Try it on Bandcamp, buy it if you like it and please let me know. Have I been too enthusiastic?

This is an overwhelmingly slouch affair with a lumbering tristesse that would never have been found on an early 1970s album, because no record company of that day would have spent a cent on it, bless their hearts. At this point SHEARWATER was targeting sensitive slowfoik (a new genre for me), and you can hear it in the minimal arrangements and the frail strings here and there, but it's only mildly pleasing on a few upbeat numbers like "Well Benjamin" and "MIstakes", the clarinet heroism of "1209", and especially in the eerie almost vacuum sealed atmosphere of "Wreck". The latter almost passes unnoticed due to the somnolence of its compatriots, so I apologize if another gem might have been missed, but hey, like the album says.

"The Dissolving Room" sets course in a more subdued folk, singer/songwriter direction, and at this stage eschews pop elements, with predominant acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, and accordion, but utterly lacking the bluegrass, country and rock and roll of the first band. The contrasting lyrical and vocal styles of both men are paradoxically compatible, Sheff being more narrative and with a gruffer voice that reminds me of New England folk singer ELLIS PAUL, and Meiburg being more introspective with a smoother, higher pitch that at times recalls TIM SMITH of MIDLAKE or the nigh forgotten DAVID GATES of BREAD in gentility if not in subject matter.

The bar is set high with the opener "Mulholland", a wistful ballad with arrangements to match, and the album doesn't really dip until the last 3 tracks, with my other recommendations being the wrenching "Angelina" and, in particular, the haunting "The Left Side" that might be the most proggy number here, hinting at the developments that were still close to a decade off.

It's always wise to start the journey with a single step no matter how short or timid, before the sweet naivete of that moment yields to "corrupting" internal and external forces. This wispy piece may have dematerialized in the eyes of many long time fans, but is anything but skippable.

"The Baron's Eyes" is interesting for its funky new-wave alternation with shimmering synths and its heavy riff, typical of Foreigner AOR. The break moves into the spheres of the progressive cosmos before returning to the lands of Riverside and prog metal bands, Symphony X or Ark with Jorn Lande, demonstrating the opening. "Fighting Force" is an uptempo instrumental surfing on powerful, melodic prog metal, with Andy's guitar in evidence for the melting marshmallow velvetiness. "Over" brings together their musical soul with a throwback to the 90s. The association of bands who tried their hand at aging prog for a sound somewhere between Ark, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Toto's heavy era.

Note the nectar guitar solo. "Blood Moon" in sound synthesis, with a metal riff to make you swoon, a rousing chorus and a tune reminiscent of many a prog band of the last few decades, including Rush. The track rises like an endless wave from Cars to Kashmiri Led Zeppelin, from backing vocals to Nightwish, and everything in between. A long cinematic fade-out with a Flash-like outro for... lightning.

Red Bazar's album is typical, burnished by the progressive red-hot iron; virtuosity, rhythm, soaring flights, mellow breaks, a melting-prog ambience creating emotion and memories. Origine on Progcensor.

1. "No Such Place" (6:06) strumming acoustic guitars, loud snare drum, and Simen Valldal Johannessen's deep crooning voice makes for a welcome and comfortable sound--like something by Richie Havens or John Martyn. A solid, quite likeable song--even with the uncredited soprano sax. I especially like the clear out at 4:45 for solo arpeggiated guitar before slowly bringing the band back together to finish. (9/10)

2. "London" (4:20) good music that opens with some cool odd sounds and then moves into an insidious, relentless motif that takes a few measures to establish itself before Simen joins in with his vocal. The sound palette is pretty cool, especially with the creative guitar sounds and play, and a cool chorus, and some powerful STEVEN WILSON /PORCUPINE TREE-like territory to the song's end. (9.125/10)

3. "Run Into the Sun" (5:34) a weave of muted/compressed instruments provide the base for Simen to sing. It's a fairly standard song that is based a progression of four chords; it truly sounds as if it could come from a ROBBIE ROBERTSON or Richard Thompson album. Nice but definitely nothing groundbreaking (especially without access to the message of the lyrics). (8.75/10)

4. "Shimmer" (7:36) moving further into the world of distorted perception, Simen gives another powerful Jon Ivar Kollbotn (Major Parkinson) (verses)/Mark Hollis (chorus)-like vocal performance. Uncredited soprano saxophone solo appears briefly in the first half of the fourth minute. Though guitar starts the song out, this is another piano-based composition--as evidenced by the extended soft-jazzy piano solo playing out from the fifth minute to the end. Again, how Mark Hollis like! (13.375/15)

5. "Shapeshifter" (7:58) another song whose opening reminds me of Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik's 2018 Viking Folk masterpiece, Hugsjá, but then deep bass and drums join Simen in the second minute to give it a more insistent, urgent feel, almost metal-like. The wonderful tom-tom play sounds quite electronic (and why not?) while the instrumental fifth minute relies mostly on MIDIed electric piano layers before the toms and bass rejoin. Cool to have the toms acting as the "lead" instrument (as it turns out, not unlike Nick Mason's roto-tom work in Dark Side of the Moon's "Time." The layered vocal "chant" work in the seventh minute is cool--it leads into Stephan Hvinden's finest moment on the album with a searing electric guitar solo to take us to the the instrumental final moments. Very good song. (13.5/15)

6. "Borders" (6:24) more drum and bass lead-ins before PT/SW guitar power strums take us into the main motif. Piano- based with some programmed-sounding tracks (percussive in nature) in the weave leads to a heavy chorus with Simen's urgent vocals and some Viking choral phrases as well while the instruments ramp up their volume and noise. With the fourth minute the band presents some brief divergent passages to alternate with the power chorus: tuned percussion, piano, Mellotron, muted "background" drums, all carrying forward the main melody only in a softer, more minimalist weave. At 5:45 the heavier passage returns but sans vocals: only guitars, piano, and jaunty rhythm section. Interesting but nothing to write home about. (8.75/10)

7. "Sensory Overload" (8:12) bled over from the previous song, the same instrumental sound palette continues but the vocal performance is very different: there sounds to be either multiple vocalists or multiple tracks performed by Simen on which he transforms his voice credibly in several different ways. The tripart weave is remarkable but unfortunately, it fails to live up to what it seems to promise: fails to develop into anything more elevated or interesting. An instrumental mid-section explores keyboard electronica with some more creative drum pounding turns psycho-political with arrival of SEVEN IMPALE-like "saxophones" and then death metal growls. Not what we were expecting! And then crescendo and space-drone to end it all. (13.5/15)

Total Time 46:13

The music is still as melodic and accessible (and creative sonically) as their previous album (which I loved) but I feel as if there is less risk, less creative ideas being tried out on this one.

B+/4.5 stars; another excellent album of refreshingly creative music from one of Norway's up-and-coming artists. Definitely a band to keep following!

Needless to say, 'Molok' bolsters the band's signature art rock style that combines elements of neo-prog, folk rock, worldbeat, and alternative music - quite a fascinating mixture of styles that has served the band well, and while this album goes into a lighter direction, it remains one of the most focused, enriching, eclectic and expressive releases of the Norwegian rockers. Opening track 'Park Bench' immediately impresses with its abstract, minimal arrangements, which unfold into a full-blown chamber pop piece that takes equal amounts of inspiration from Marillion and Radiohead. 'The Master's Voice' is a lovely art rock number with quite a subtle sound design, while the third track 'Bela Kiss' plays around with some folk tropes, despite working as a straightforward pop song. Six-minute-long mini-suite 'Know Your Time', explores the more atmospheric side of Gazpacho's music, with the next song expanding upon its mood, flow and tempo, almost like a coda. 'ABC' is a more upbeat entry with a cheerfully soothing chorus, a bit like something you would expect to hear on a Coldplay album (with all the sadness included, of course). Around the album's end 'Algorithm' works as a fine interlude and introduces a touch of worldbeat to the album, while 'Alarm' only seems to pass by, giving way to the closing track 'Molok Rising', a 10-minute post-rock journey encapsulating Gazpacho's signature blend of neo-progressive writing with strands of folk and world music, definitely an ambitious and essential piece of atmospheric rock from this Norwegian group. And the entire 'Molok' album is an excellent excursion into their musical world, offering a beautifully chilling collection of songs, a work that brings together several essential elements of their past and ties them together into a very provocative but also endearing concept, which is what progressive music is all about after all.

Before I talk about the album itself, I would like to clarify a certain term that came to mind after listening several times to the latest, second album by the Italian band Living Stilts entitled "A Child", which was released a month ago but has only just reached me now.

You have probably come across the term "concept album" more than once or twice while listening to various records, both progressive and semi-progressive. And this term can probably also be useful in the case of other types of music. It can be somehow adapted to albums on which "(...) there are songs that have a common theme or, arranged in a specific order, tell a story, and the cover and artwork of the album are related to the main theme of the album". I have allowed myself to quote one of the popular definitions here, not at all meaning that it is the only infallible one. It captures the spirit of what I mean. Many albums are not a random collection of songs, they are not musically glued together in a more or less successful way. Many of them, as the definition suggests, attempt to draw the listener into a certain presented world that is not limited to one piece, does not "fit" into one piece, but rather fluidly leads us through (sometimes complex) musical or narrative structures creating stories, histories, descriptions or what is often referred to as a suite. Somewhere in all this we should place the rock opera, which combines sounds with sung words to create moving musical performances that can almost be "seen" while listening. Theatricality comes to the fore here, to which all the rest is subordinated ? the music, the way of arrangement, the way of performance. The whole thing is to create something that I will allow myself to call a "listening spectacle". And that is exactly what the album "A Child" is. It is a listening spectacle, which by its power not only evokes some musical associations and references. It is a record, which with its sound forces the listener to create certain, almost theatrical, images and roles. This is a release that is a ready template for showing the story told on the theatre stage. The way the text and music are treated brings to mind the works of Bertolt Brecht, often performed by musical theatres all over the world. By musical theatres. On the album, the band creates such a musical, listening spectacle, which allows those who are willing to go on an incredible musical and verbal journey. All the arrangements are subordinated to the "spectacularity" of the presented music. Of course, if the term from the field of theatre art can be applied to music, as I allowed myself to do above.

Living Stilts is a musical project conceived by composer Luca Mavilie with the intention of creating evocative sounds and allowing the listener to go on musical and verbal journeys. Their songs are inspired by fantastic, more imaginative art, fiction, poetry and everything that allows them to achieve their intended goal - to tell a story in an almost theatrical way. The music is influenced by many things, coming from progressive rock, hard rock, romantic classical music, baroque, renaissance and what is called Rock Progressivo Italiano.

The action of the latest album takes place in the imaginary American village of Pinesville somewhere in the seventies. Here, a young boy witnesses the mayor molesting a girl with mental disorders. The girl is the daughter of a single mother living in poverty. People in the village believe that she was conceived by the devil and that is why she is different. Many adults sexually molest her, taking advantage of her uncontrollable behavior until she becomes pregnant with the mayor, and her mother tells her to have an abortion. Although she is an adult, the girl remains a child in her development. The boy returns from the forest wounded and does not talk about what happened. A sanctimonious priest, who sees sin everywhere, is secretly attracted to the girl, considering her pure and naive. At the same time, believing that she is a gift from the Lord, not a punishment from the devil. The girl becomes his obsession. On the rocks in the forest, people find strange drawings and messages referring to some of the secrets of the village. A farmer finds a goat with a cut throat and blames "evil worshippers". The priest begins accusing various people, one by one, until he incites a mass riot. He accuses the African American children living in the village of beating up a boy, which prompted the citizens to burn down one of their houses. Later, she accuses the newcomers who do not integrate with the rest of the village, because they are hippies accused of worshiping evil. The village doctor, who knows what really happened, openly attacks the mayor, accusing him of the shameful act of exploiting the girl. However, the mayor is defiant and defends himself, saying that everyone in the village is a sinner. The girl tells her story and says how her father abandoned her and her mother because she was different. When the boy tries to tell the other children what he saw in the forest, he is beaten by the mayor's son so that people will not believe him. The girl's mother accuses her of ruining her life; because of her differentness, her husband left her. She confesses to the priest, telling him the story and tells him that she ordered the village doctor to perform an abortion. When the priest discovers the truth about the girl he idealized, he becomes furious, convincing himself that she is really the daughter of the devil and that it was the evil in her that attracted and corrupted others. He knows that many villagers are involved in this story and carries out a massacre during a village festival by poisoning the participants with wine. Only the girl survives because she does not drink wine. Isn't this a ready-made scenario for a play?

Musically, this scenario is written out over ten tracks, which are characterized by the complete subordination of music to the content conveyed. As it was once said: music is the background for the story being told, which of course does not mean that it is bland. On the contrary, this way of treating it forced the band to arrange and perform it more carefully, which can be heard in every minute of each song.

"Trampled Flowers" - the first of the tracks is, in terms of content, the beginning of the spectacle we are listening to. In terms of music, thanks to the specific sound of the organ, it is a good example of the sounds of the sixties and, interestingly, I would not see any similarity to the progressive music of that period, but rather to the sound of The Doors with a slightly different-sounding vocal maintained in the higher registers. Although of course the synthesizers appearing about halfway through and the slightly hard-rock-sounding guitar at the end modernize the whole arrangement.

In the second track, "Reverend Warren", rock dominates, and the guitar with stronger chords emphasizes the narrative nature of the composition at the beginning, which, as time passes, transforms into a song typical of the sixties. We have a similar sound in the track "Dig In The Ground". Guitar and organ. "Black Fire", telling about accusations against African-American villagers, in order to strengthen the message, begins with the playing of an acoustic guitar that sounds very bluesy. Sounds reminiscent of the so-called delta blues. And only the keyboards heard somewhere in the background bring to mind progressive arrangements.

"Strangers" - a guitar-based, hippie-like beginning of a story about "outsiders", about those newcomers, not ours, who (as is often the case in such situations) are to blame for everything. We are still in the sixties, and the simple guitar solo played with single notes is reminiscent of bands from those years.

To describe the song "Punishment Of A Noteworthy Citizen" one could say that it is half The Alan Parsons Project stripped of its musical ornaments and half the melodic, albeit slightly hard rock, sounds of the sixties.

The brass band at the beginning and in the middle of the song "The Girl Of The Stolen Sun" makes the combination of the story about the girl's mother with the simple playing of the electric guitar, which "comes to life" and speeds up towards the end, give the whole thing an incredible, slightly fairy-tale and at the same time hard rock sound.

The short, three-minute track "Forget What You Saw" is an arrangement of organs that sound , of course like those from the sixties.

The penultimate track on the album - "A Drink Of Faith" is the closest to what you can hear on progressive bands' records today. Strong, guitar-synthesizer sound, slightly prog-metal vocals.

If you still think that there is a lack of evidence to support the thesis of the theatricality of this performance, please listen to the last track on this album ? "The Puppet Massacre". Delicate piano, sounds of rain and thunder, over two minutes of instrumental beginning, final guitar chords. Very progressive, gentle and melodic piece of music. Melodic and atmospheric summary of the whole.

Although the band Living Stilts was formed in 2014 and recorded their first album entitled "Shipwreck", it was not until 2025 that they released their next album. It took some time for Alberto Abate (guitar and vocals), Francesco Girone (bass), Luca Mavilia (keyboards) and Alfredo Cassotta (drums) to prepare the album "A Child". Is it a good album? It is not up to me to give an assessment here. This is a different album compared to this year's music productions. It is a "listening spectacle" and I will insist on this, perhaps not entirely accurate, description, which (in my opinion) captures the spirit of this album. It is a musical story in which all the arrangement and vocal means are subordinated to telling the story of a girl living somewhere in the imaginary village of Pinesville. If someone is looking for an album that goes towards creating a musical spectacle, this album is definitely worth recommending.

And through the unconventional nature of her approach to heavy music, Wolfe dares to experiment with a variety of genres, moods and production techniques, elevating her brilliant songwriting to the heights of progressive, as this album stands as one of the most daring and avant-garde offerings. From the doomy mantra that is the opening track 'Spun' to the compelling manifestation of various emotions on '16 Psyche' and 'The Culling', this album dares to dig into the darker corners of its creator's mind. The heavy, distorted riffs and the wavy electronic patterns build up a gloomy collage of sounds that provides Chelsea Wolfe with an almost-abrasive sonic sheet over which she can experiment with her voice, which is equal amounts mesmerizing, soothing and sensual, and the contact zone between these contrasting forces of her music is a somewhat uncomfortable but always fascinating spot to find yourself in as a listener. 'Vex, 'Offering' and 'Static Hum', alongside the abovementioned songs, are particularly great examples of this, and not only that, but the entire album works really well as a whole, as it ebbs and flows nicely between heavy and beautiful, between light and dark - an excellent work with gothic undertones.