Terreno Baldio - Terreno Baldio (1975)

The debut album from this Brazilian band who many says is the South American answer to Gentle Giant.

I do not disagree much with that. This band, who sadly only released two albums, was a five piece band consisting of a keyboards, guitars, drums, bass, xylophone and Portuguese vocals.

The music on this thirty odd minutes long album is not as eclectic as Gentle Giant's music. There is a lot of Yes and Genesis in their music too. Not to mention some jazz too. The music is very much local too with a lot of South American and Brazilian vibes incorporated into the music. The vocals are a bit thin and the sound is surprisingly great, this band coming from Brazil in the 1970s which was a difficult time for Brazil.

The result is pretty colourful to say at least. There is no really great tracks here. The quality is good throughout and I am warming a lot to this album. It is an album which needs to be heard to be believed. It is a good winter warmer too and one I feel is giving me some good warmth. This is by no means a classic debut. Nevertheless, it is a good one.

3 points 

Trip To Elera - Rain Dreaming Ceremony (1996)

The debut offering from this German band. An EP, no less.

Offered to me as a free download krautrock EP, I grabbed the chance to enhance my krautrock collection with another EP. A twenty six minutes long EP.

Well, this is not krautrock. Maybe the free album is krautrock. I will soon find out. But this EP is post rock with some ambient soundscapes. No less and no more. The band was a three piece with guitars, drums and bass. The sound quality is not particular great. In particular on the final two tracks.

The quality of these four tracks is decent enough. They got some good ideas and that is it. It is a free download so make up your own mind. 

2 points

Liquid Wolf - First Light (2012)

The debut album from this Finnish band.

We are again in the middle of the Finnish forests where we hear the tones of Finnish progressive rock. Progressive rock more in the vein of Camel and symphonic fusion bands than the Heavy Prog label they have got from ProgArchives.

Most of the music here is instrumental with some good vocals making a guest appearance now and then. But most of the music is created with guitars, keyboards, bass and drums.

I mentioned Camel here. I also have to mention the Finnish band Kataya because there are Kataya members in this band. I much prefer Kataya to Liquid Wolf though.

The music on this fifty-five minutes long album just meanders along without creating much excitement or even interest. I find this album pretty dull to be honest. There is a lack of goods tracks here too. It is a decent album and nothing more than that, I am afraid.

2 points

TNNE (The No Name Experience) - The Clock That Went Backwards (2014)

The first album and the fifth album from this band if you regard their forerunner No Name as the same band. The band is from Luxembourg, btw.

This album was released by two members of No Name after the band had split up. I have been advised that TNNE is a continuation of No Name. So they are both a new band and a continuation of No Name. Confused ? I am. Not really. This is very normal in the business. 

I have not heard a tone of No Name and that is a shame because they seems to be right down my alley. Symphonic neo-prog makes me happy. Well, most of it. TNNE is also in that area. Male vocals, keyboards, drums, guitars and bass. The standard line-up. But still very effective. 

This album is fifty minutes long and most of it is very good indeed. My only gripe is the lack of a killer track or two. The music is very elegant with very good guitar solos and some good vocals. It is also very melodic and has both Marillion and Pink Floyd vibes. It is an album which will go down well with most fans of progressive rock. It has gone down very well with me. Hence my rating.

3.5 points

Mostly Autumn - Glass Shadows (2008)

The eight album from this British band.

Mostly Autumn is one of those genre-setting bands and they have indeed spawned a pretty big scene too. They also releases albums on a regular basis and is touring UK and the world on a regular basis. 

Glass Shadows is the final Mostly Autumn studio album with Heather Findlay. The future lead vocalist Olivia Sparnenn was already waiting for her turn as a backing singer on this album. Anne-Marie Helder from Panic Room was also doing her vocals bits on this album. So we get three excellent female vocalists here + Bryan Josh on male vocals and lead guitars. 

The result is quite a vocals heavy album with some light weight poppy songs and some more interesting Pink Floyd'ish songs. We also get the customary foray into celtic rock here. In other words; we get a Mostly Autumn album who delivers the goods for the fans and not much else. It is a good, solid album who just reminds us how great this band is. That's all.

3 points

Last Placid Days of Plenty. The - Headphone Gallery (2006)

Another band who released one album and then disappeared again. This time, the band comes from Canada. 

I know next to nothing about this band and cannot shed any light on why, by whom and where. I can only shed light on the music itself to the best of my abilities. 

The music here is performed with plenty of guitars and synths. They are supported by bass, drums and vocals. The vocals is not too bad although they are not particular good. But they suits this music and the very neo-prog sound.

Although the basis is neo-prog, the band is all over the place. This is a debut album and perhaps the only album the band intended to record and release. Which explain why this album is such a mishmash of neo-prog, art rock and theatrical symphonic prog. The first half of the album is pretty dire. They are all over the place with a mishmash of messy neo-prog and art rock which goes nowhere. It is a painful experience, listening to it.

The latter half of this one hour long album is an improvement with some theatrical conceptual symphonic prog where we also get female vocals and some improved male vocals. That is the only positive aspect of this rather dire album. Avoid it if you can.

1.5 points 

Traumhaus - Traumhaus (2001)

The debut album from this German band who so far has released three albums.

Germany is a vast country who has produced some bands with pretty much a local sound. It is not only that the vocals here are in German, but the band also has some other local trademarks up their sleeve.

That said, the core of this album and indeed this album's DNA profile is straight rock. Add a lot of prog metal and neo-prog too. All this with a lot of local colours and identity.

The album is around one hour long and we get treated to a lot of bombastic rock here with some rather clever details. Rather clever is the expression here. The songs itself is not particular long with the seventeen minutes long Ausgeliefert suite as the only break with the norm. The other songs are around six minutes long in average.

None of the songs enthuse me. The music is far too generic and wanders too easy into a prog metal territory. German prog metal, that is. The end result is a decent to good album which falls a bit short. 

2.5 points 

Machines Dream - Immunity (2014)

The second album from this Canadian band.

Their debut album impressed me a lot. Melancholic neo-prog was my call back then. I am very pleased that the band has explored this avenue again on this, the follow up album.

This five piece band made this album with keyboards, guitars, bass, drums and vocals. The band's debt to Marillion is pretty obvious on this album. That is the post-Fish era Marillion. They have also taken a lot from post rock too. At least the melancholy side of the post rock movement. The basis is still classic rock, classic neo-prog and classic progressive rock. This is a melodic album indeed.

Melodic though with a lot of chugging guitars too. That in between some really tasty and melodic guitar solos too. Rob Coleman does the guitar solos here and he deserve a lot of praise. Praise hereby given !

The title track is divided onto two tracks here. Three other tracks are splitting up the title track. The title track is great. There is no really outstanding songs on this forty-four minutes long album. Nevertheless, this is a great album due to the great guitars, vocals and numerous really tasty small details which is gracing this album throughout. This is a great band with a great album. Get this album.

4 points  

Lost Tales - A Volo Radente (1999)

The one and only album from this Italian band. A line I am writing a lot because this country has produced a lot of one-off bands. Bands who released one album and then disappeared again without a trace. 

Lost Tales was and maybe still is a four piece band. Guitars, bass, drums, synth and Italian male vocals. This despite of the misleading band name. The band name may allure to the type of music this band played and perhaps still plays. Neo-prog it is and neo-prog of the more traditional kind. 

Not even the Italian vocals can hide that we are in the middle of a neo-prog onslaught. All the ingredients is here. The songs are verse-chorus-verse orientated. The songs pretty melodic.

The end result is a good album which does not really impresses. Neither does it really offends me. This album is a nice listening experience but nothing more than that. Those who wants challenges and something more substantial in their ears, this album is not for you. Nevertheless........

3 points  

Eiliff - Girlrls (1972)

The second and final album from this German band and the follow up to the very promising, great self titled debut album from the year before.

Listed as a Krautrock band in ProgArchives and other places, this album is a bit of a deviation from krautrock. Move your eyes of Germany and move them towards Kent in England. The shire named Kent, that is. The music here is very much like Soft Machine anno Six and Seven. Very intense jazz at times. I have also heard that this album has been compared to the albums Nucleus released at that time too. Soft Machine was Nucleus at that time too so I am not surprised. I will check out Nucleus too in due time.

There again, we also have some typical krautrock meanderings here too. The band dabbles into techno krautrock avant-garde too. And there is some rock too. 

Half of this album is krautrock and the other half is Canterbury jazz. The quality is very good throughout though and I really value the two Eiliff studio albums I got. A great band.

3.5 points   

Lens. The - Regeneration (2010)

The second and so far final album from this English band.

The Lens was actually the forerunner for IQ, the famous neo-prog band. Mark Nichols and other IQ members were then playing in The Lens. A compilation album of old material was released in 2001 as the first studio album from this band. This is the follow up.

.... and it is nowhere near neo-prog too. The music here is performed with saxophone, guitars, bass, percussion, drums and tonnes of synths. I also believe there is a lot of computer programming here. 

The album runs for almost one hour too.

The end result is somewhere between an ambient Pink Floyd and Sigur Ros. No less and no more, really. The material here is full of moods and not so full of melodies. I prefer Sigur Ros any day in the week to this one. It has it's moments of good stuff. But they are not that often. I need more than this to keep me going. Hence my rating.

2.5 points

Landmarq - Origins (2014)

A compilation album from this British band. 

Landmarq is one of the pioneers and widely regarded as one of the best ever neo-prog bands. It is with great shame I have to report I have not heard a single tone by them until now. I know next to nothing about them too. I only know they evolved from Quasar back in 1990.

Origins takes us through all their albums, I believe. That include one CD with Tracy on vocals and one CD with Damien on vocals. I find the latter CD a lot more symphonic proggy than when Tracy did the vocals. Both CDs are very good and both vocalists does a great job. 

This album serves as a great kick up my backside and I will finally now check out their albums. In it self, this 2 CDs compilation albums is a very good album which should be both a reminder of how good this band is/was and a very good album in itself. Enjoy !

3.5 points

Lost Generation. The - The Lost Generation (2014)

I believe this is the debut album from this Italian band.

This one was sold to me as a progressive rock album. Maybe that is right. But not in the 1970s Italian prog rock style or in the new tech prog rock style. This is an album which is touching base with both the boyband and the pop rock scene. The vocals is very good and the band uses a lot of acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, bass and drums.

The end result is a forty-three minutes sugar sweet album which the easy melodies and sweet vocal harmonies seeking people will like. This gives me a lot of boyband vibes. There is no good songs here and I am not overwhelmed by this album. It is a fairly decent album which I will never listen to again.

2 points

Laser Pace - Granfalloon (1974)

The one and only album from this US band. A band who were in the forefront of the use of synths, it has been said.

There is some synths here, yes. My mind is more occupied with the free form jazz here. Free form jazz most often falling into avant-garde noodling. This album was recorded by a lot of musicians and instruments. It is still in the left-field free form jazz bracket. 

Most of the stuff here is really engaging and reminds me somewhat about the Canterbury style jazz. There is not much structure here and the sound is not that good either. 

Neither is there much here to be enthused about. Some synths over some free form jazz is what I get here. And yes, it has a different feel than most albums from that time. It may be an unique album after all. But not one who washes much in 2014. It is a decent album.

2 points

Tea In The Sahara - Behind the Door (1994)

The debut album from this German band. The first of in total two albums.

No, this is not a krautrock album. We are more in the neo-prog scene though. Bang in the middle of it too. Think IQ and Pendragon. I am also thinking very early Marillion too. 

Tea In The Sahara was a four piece band and the setup was the usual synths, guitars, bass, drums and English vocals. The vocals are good. The sound is very much the usual 1990s sound. A very typical neo-prog sound too.

This one hour long album consists of six songs. Although long songs, they are not that full of details. I think the band has been pretty pedestrian in the songs and there is not much to be happy about it here if you are a more symph prog minded person as I am. I very much like some details which excites me and makes me sit up and really take notice. 

This is a rather dull, decent to good album. I hope the follow up is a better album than this one as I have bought both albums.

2.5 points

Looking Glass Lantern - The Hound Of The Baskervilles (2014)

The second album from this project who is the creative vehicle of Graham Dunnington from England. I believe he does everything on this album too. A one man band. 

We are in soft symphonic prog land. That comes with a lot of references to the likes of Genesis, both eras. Graham's main strength is his vocals which is ethereal church choir like and great. He creates the music here with a lot of keyboards, some bass, guitars and drums too. The music has got an orchestral feel.

This album is about the often told Sherloch Holmes mystery with the same name. I have seen this on a DVD and I am not sure why so many are so fascinated by it. But I guess I am from a different culture, a more Scandinavian culture than the English culture. That said, this album tells the story on at least one song. I know next to nothing about the lyrics here.

The music is mostly pastoral and softly spoken. Mostly due to Graham's church like vocals and music. Music which is not always great, but still has a lot going for it. Get a better distribution of this album with some marketing towards ProgArchives and Graham probably has a winner on his hand. 

This is a very good album which deserves to be heard. Get it.

3.5 points  

Laurelie - Laurelie (1970)

The one and only album from this band from the Ardennes forests in Belgium.

This band was one of the first ever bands from Belgium in what we can loosely call the prog rock genre. In this case, this is loosely called prog rock too. 

This five piece band created their music with Hammond organs, guitars, flutes, English vocals, bass and drums. The music on this album is late 1960s psychedelic rock with a great deal of folk rock influences. The songs are pretty intricate and a bit more dense than most songs from this period. 

Unfortunate, this album does not really have any great or even good tracks. It has some good moments, but that is all. There is nothing here that really marks this album out as a hidden gem too. But if early psych rock is your cup of tea, get this album.

2 points

Le Orme - Amico Di Leri (1997)

The sixteenth album from this Italian band.

.... Although it is not really a new album. Spurred on by their comeback and the reactions to their gigs, the band went back into their old albums and re-recorded some of the songs from those albums with new recording studios and all the mod cons. This just to give those songs an updated sound.

Well, I thought this is what we used live albums for. But Le Orme have other ideas. I cannot find anything wrong with the old versions either. Neither can I find anything wrong with the 1970s sound either. For me, this album is a bit pointless. Yes, the songs are great. The idea is poor. Hence my verdict here and I am moving on to their final albums.

2.5 points

Locurcio. Emilio - L'Eliogabalo (1977)

The only album from this Italian movie producer, author, actor and music teacher. He also released this album.

With his background, I am not surprised to having listen to a forty minutes long mainly theatrical album. Take a bit Area and Ange. Take a lot of acting, spoken words and dramatic vocals over some music produced by keyboards, bass, drums, guitars and numerous other instruments. The vocals are shouting and rather spoken male and female vocals. The vocals are in Italian and I don't understand much here. 

The whole album sounds a bit street theatre and chaotic. There are some rather jazz music included here and some decent instrumental music. Most of it is chaos. 

The end result is a fairly decent album. The first songs are rather good before the inmates of this mental asylum takes over and makes the rest of the album a bit of a waste of time. That is really all I can say about this rather obscure album.

2 points

Living Stilts - Shipwreck (2014)

The debut album from this Italian band.

Progressive rock is the order of the day. But not Italian progressive rock as we knows it. The band is wholly inspired by the English scene and this sixty minutes is indeed a full on English prog rock album. That means English vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass, narration, choirs and drums.

Yes, this is a concept album about shipwrecks. The perils of the sea and all that. It is also a rock opera. It is more a rock opera than a concept album. So we get an hour long rock opera here with music the band can take to a stage and perform as a rock opera. For all I know, the answer is on their homepage, that is what they have been doing and is doing with this music.

There is a lot of theatrical sounds here with a ship bell chiming and all that. That inbetween some songs too. Some of the music is instrumental and some songs are with full vocals. 

The music is not too bad although I suspect this piece of music is better on a stage with actors than on this album. I have belated landed on a good award. Fans of Camel and rock operas would land on a far better rating. The smell of Camel is everywhere on this album. You can also add neo-prog and the Kompendium project as references. It is a good album, but I am not convinced I ever want to hear this album again. This rock opera deserve a stage and not only a sterile album environment.

3 points 

Pageant - Abysmal Masquerade (1987)

The second album from this Japanese band. 

Japan has their own take on symphonic prog. That means thin female vocals, lots of keyboards, some guitars, bass and drums. In this case, lots of flutes too. 

The music is pretty pedestrian with female Japanese vocals. Vocals in their native tongue is great and I really like that. The rest of the music is following in the English symphonic tradition. Lots of Camel and Renaissance references. Lots of Genesis references too. The music is not particular complex although there is some classical music references.

The end result is a good album which neither angers or enthuses me. I may check out their two other albums too on the basis of this album.

3 points 

Saga - The Human Condition (2009)

The 19th album from this Canadian band.

I guess this album will go down in the history as the album where Michael Sadler took a break and left the microphone to Rob Moratti. Michael was back on the microphone on the next album though. 

The reason for his return is obvious when listening to this album. I am sorry Rob, but you don't belong in this band. Not as a vocalist. Saga without Michael Sadler is like Coca Cola without the black colour and the logo. Although Jim Gilmour and the Crichton brothers are still here, this album simply lacks the Saga trademark. It took me two listening sessions to get my head around the fact that this is a Saga album. Sort off....

This album is very heavy throughout. It does not have much colours and the trademarks a good Saga album got. It is full on all the time. No great vocals from Michael. That said, Rob Moratti is not a bad vocalist. He is actually a great vocalist. On this album, he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is much more suited as a prog metal vocalist. This album is a prog metal album in all but name. And that is not Saga. This band is not what it has been made to be on this album. 

This album is also anonymous and toothless. Send this as a demo tape to any record label and the label will turn it down..... without even replying. This album does connect with me at all. It is a decent album though. It has some decent music. But it is only a Saga album by name and not by right.

2 points  

Laser - Vita Sul Pianeta (1973)

The one and only album from this Italian band.

The Italian prog rock scene has got their fair share of one albums only bands. The reason maybe that recording an album was hideous expensive back then. If you did not sell many albums, you were down and out. In many cases, that also meant that their record label was down and out. Your next job was in the docks or as a hard-working laborer on a building site. 

Laser was one of those bands who did not make it in the record stores. The main reason was probably because this album was as much in fashion as a horse and a cart on a busy motorway. The music here is basically Italian beat with some pop and psychedelic rock influences. The music is pretty hard too.

The music is performed with guitars, Hammond organs, bass, drums and Italian vocals. The vocals is shrieking and thin. Sometimes it is downright false. The vocalist is simply not hitting the notes. Very bad and not so endearing to the buying public back then who had a lot of great vocalists to choose between. The vocals here is probably one of the most inept I have ever heard on an Italian prog rock album.

There are some half decent songs here. That saves it from the turkey yard. Barely. Don't pay hundreds of dollars for this album. Just ignore it.

1.5 points 

  

Marbin - The Third Set (2014)

The first live album from this Israeli-US band. 

Marbin is one of those bands who I have always regarded as a very tight band with a pretty heavy, noisy brand of jazz. The band has played hundreds of gigs and has got a very good reputation. So it was about time they released a live album after three studio albums.

Marbin plays a very intense form of jazz here. They starts out in five hundred miles an hour with some hard and fast jazzy guitar solos before the saxophone comes in and the tempo is slightly becoming slower. A bit slower. The band combines the saxophone and the guitar very well.

Music wise, their music comes across as heavy jazz/fusion with a lot of blues and hard rock influences. I prefer to call it intense music which straddles many types of music. Even the hard rock fans will like this album a lot. 

There is no doubts that this is a great live band. There is no really great tracks on this one hour long album. I would still give this live album a very good rating. Check it out and make sure you are there next time this band visit your town. 

3.5 points 

Lokomotive Kreuzberg - Fette Jahre (1975)

The fourth album from this rather strange left-wing German band who lived in West-Berlin, a stone throw from East-Germany. 

They have rightly lumped this band into the krautrock genre although they are not playing what I would regard as traditional krautrock. The music here is a mix of folk/gypsy rock, a lot of theater and circus music, pop and rock. The music here is pretty much avant-garde too. The music never get the chance to overshadow the message, as expressed in the German lyrics. I spent the two years of German lessons peacefully asleep (30 years ago....) and my German is a bit rusty. But I gather that they are not overwhelming happy about capitalists, wars and the military. Which is fair enough. 

The music is weird to say at least. Weird in a sense that it feels like a madman has written it. It is vaudeville with a lot of Eastern European influences. It is like cabaret music. This half an hour album is a cabaret. 

The music is strangely enough pretty good. Not good, but it is a decent album. It is also an album nobody in their right mind would release today. This was the weird, weird 1970s and this album is a time capsule. It is in it's own right a fairly decent album. Hence my rating.

2 points     

Conqueror - Stems (2014)

The fifth album from this Italian band.

I have to admit I have got an ambivalent relationship to their previous four albums. This Italian progressive rock band has never really won me over. They are trying their best to win my heart with Stems. 

The band is now a four piece band with Simona Rigano doing the vocals as per usual. The sound and her Italian vocals is in the cool sea breeze tradition. So cool/cold that I almost want to jump into some warmer clothes. Getting sun burns is very unlikely with this music. The music has also got a detached lounge jazz feel with a lot of semi-acoustic guitars and a lot of jazzy keyboards. The band is by no means threading onto Sade's territory. But they are not too far away either. 

The slightly warmer guitar solos makes this album not a frost-fest. It is obvious that this band has got their own style and probably their own fanbase too. The music is still Italian progressive rock. But it is different from most bands, if not every bands in this scene.

That is not a problem whatsoever for me. My main gripe though is the lack of any great tracks here. It is by all means a good and a very pleasant album. But that is really it. Better songs would had made this album a lot better.... it goes without saying. I would still recommend checking out this album. 

3 points      

Living Life - Mysterious Dream (1981)

The second and final album from this Italian band.

I was fairly pleased by their 1975 debut album. It took six year to produce another album and the world had changed a lot during those six years. The jazz and prog scene they lived in had gone long time ago and we were in the beginning of the most cynical decade we have ever seen; the horrible 1980s.   

The album starts out with a live track and that makes me question if this is a studio album at all or a compilation album. The other tracks are not live albums. The remainder of the album also have a huge variety of genres too. From Soft Machine like jazz to space rock and more poppy material. 

What unites this album is the lack of quality. There are one good track and that is all on this thirty-five minutes long album. It is not by any means a horrible album. The music here is decent enough. But nothing more than that. Both this album and the band is obscure. There is a good reason for that. Period.

2 points 

Syzygy - The Allegory of Light (2003)

The second album from this five piece US band and their first under this name. Their first album was released under the Witsund name.

This album is a crossover prog rock album in it's real meaning. The band has never denied that they have gone back to the 1970s and got inspirations from that scene. Bands like ELP, Kansas, Yes and even Genesis has inspired this band a lot. You can hear a lot of Kansas and ELP here. Not to mention most bands from the 1970s. That also includes the likes of Frank Zappa. Spock's Beard is also very much present here in their sound and music.

The sound is very contemporary and clean. The main instruments here are keyboards, guitars, bass, drums and vocals. The album is full of intricate details and it is fair to call this technical traditional progressive rock. The music is mostly hard and the production is a bit on the prog metal side.

I like most of this album. An album who is very technical, but not so moods and melody orientated. The guys here are almost too clever and has created a bit of a soulless album. That aside, this is a good album. I am not entirely convinced about this album.

3 points   

Kaipa - Händer (1980)

The fourth album from this Swedish band. One of the pioneers in Scandinavian progressive rock and one band I am a bit fascinated by.

Their three first albums were pretty good albums. The year was 1980 and the prog rock scene was pretty much dead and buried. Roine Stolt too had left the band and the art work tells the story about a band who had gone mainstream rock. 

Take a slice of ABBA and Swedish rock. This is pretty much where this album can be found. Maybe not so much ABBA as Swedish rock. But the music here is slick and suffers from all the ills of the post-punk and the post-prog era. The drums, Swedish vocals, bass, keyboards and the guitars offers up little to nothing of any interest. The verse-chorus-verse songs here are pretty dull. Even the instrumentals are not that good. This is a weak decent album which barely avoids being thrown into the house where my turkeys lives. 

2 points 

Eloy - Destination (1992)

The 15th album from this German band. A band who had their best days in the 1970s.

The last two albums Codename Wildgeese and Ra was two pretty dire albums. Albums from a band who had given up the ghost and their self belief. They moved towards mainstream rock and pop. A music style which did not suit them at all.

Destination is another example of a misplaced piece of music. The tracks here follows a strict songs formula with verse-chorus-verse throughout. The music is 1990s rock with some ballads and some rather heavy songs too. A kind of Mr Big, Scorpions and those bands type of rock. There is no psychedelic or space rock here. Just some songs.

On it's own merit, this is not a bad album. It is a pretty decent album which shows promises. But it is not a good Eloy album or anywhere near good at all. It is only an album for collectors, I am afraid. 

2 points 

Marblewood - Marblewood (2014)

The debut album from this Swiss band and a Bandcamp download too.

Switzerland is not far away from Germany and I guess this band has been listening to both old and new krautrock. It is krautrock we get here. 

The music starts out as hard blues/psychedelic rock before the album takes a turn towards ambient krautrock with a lot of jazzy improvisations and electronica. The psychedelic stuff is really very good with a lot of hard, edgy guitar solos and guitar runs. The bass is rumbling around in the background and the drums follows suit. The vocals are also good. 

Not everything on this seventy minutes long album is very good though. The albums tails of after an hour and some mindless electronica and ambient music follows. I am not a fan of that.

The end result is an album which is somewhere between good and very good. The album should mean this is a band well worth following. I am keeping an eye on them. I give this album a good rating.

3 points

  

Lorien - Children's Games (1994)

The debut album and so far only album from this English band.

The neo-prog scene was in full flow in 1994 and a lot of bands were around back then in a quite lively scene. Lorien was one of those bands who never really made it. This despite of having Sean Filkins on vocals and guitars. The rest of their setup is the usual guitars, bass, keyboards and drums. 

Children's Games is a fifty minutes long album of middle of the road neo-prog. Their brand of neo-prog is a mix of Marillion, Yes, Genesis, Pendragon and some subtle hints of Saga and Pink Floyd. 

The music here is actually good. The vocals is a bit thin and an acquired taste. That aside, the guitar solos and the keyboard runs are good. Ditto for the bass and drums. The band did not offer up anything new with this album. It is a good album nevertheless. 

3 points

Lava - Tears Are Goin' Home (1973)

The one and only album from this German band.

It may not come as a surprise that we are again facing up to a krautrock album. Lava was a pretty successful live band before they took the plunge and recorded their material. Unfortunate, the main composer died shortly afterwards and the band were disbanded.

Take a solid dose of blues and add an ever bigger dose of psychedelic rock. Then add some electronica too. Yes, this is all what krautrock is about. Mainstream krautrock. Lava is very much in the mainstream of krautrock.

The songs goes from hard rocking blues to a more melancholic psychedelic theme to avant-garde electronics. This album has it all. It also has some very good vocals, guitars, keyboards, drums, flutes and bass. 

It also has some very good songs too. The opening title track is the best one here. The other pieces are good to very good too. The end result is a very good album everyone into krautrock should get themselves. 

3.5 points  

Mr Toad - Trench Art (2003)

The debut album and the only album so far from this Israeli band.

Some albums are so diverse that it is almost impossible to review them. This is one of those albums. It is based in folk rock... or rather baroque folk rock. Take a solid dosage of classical music and symphonic prog too and add a big dash of King Crimson. Add the likes of English folk rock and Aranis too. The end result is somewhere near this album.

The music is very much softly spoken and almost shoe-gazing. Less is more is the motto on this forty minutes long, very dense album. The music is performed with a lot of acoustic guitars, all kinds of woodwinds, drums, percussions and vocals. 

The music is both naive and eclectic at the same time. The woodwinds almost gives this album a hippie feeling. The smell of cider and English apple orchards is very much in the air. 

The end result is an album which really demands a lot from the listener. No book reading here, I am afraid. The end result is also a very good album with a lot of very interesting melodies and songs. It is an album which really deserve a bigger audience. Get this album !

3.5 points 

Moolah - Woe Ye Demons Possessed (1974)

A one shot US band with their only sign of life.

Krautrock is the word which best describe this aural assault coming from the speakers. Take a large slice of avant-garde and ambient drone techno. Then you get this album.

There is a lot of electronics here and some droning vocals. Add some Hammond organs and percussions too and you get this album. It is not anywhere near melodic. Not to mention; harmonic. This is a forty minutes long aural assault on the senses.

I find this album pretty decent and far from my ideal night with an album. It has it's good moments and that is it. It is not an album which will grace my life on a regular basis. Hence my verdict.

2 points

Machines Dream - Machines Dream (2013)

The debut album from this Canadian band. Or Ontario to be more precise.

The band is walking down the well trodden paths of neo-prog. Or perhaps; crossover prog as ProgArchives calls it. Take RPWL, modern days Marillion and Airbag. Then you get their sound and music.

The music is melancholic throughout with a great deal of guitar solos, keyboards, bass, drums and the very good vocals from Craig West. The sound is excellent. 

I have to admit this is a type of music that really interest me and Machines Dream has been duly noted in my book of bands I need to check out more. I don't think I am the only one who has taken down their name as one to look out for. 

The music is lush and very organic with the excellent guitars from Keith Conway. This gives away a warm radiance from this album. Something that chases the cold weather away.

My only gripe with this album is the lack of any great songs. Besides of that, this is a very good album and one everyone should check out.

3.5 points

  

Backnee Horn - Backnee Horn II (2011)

The second album from this Israeli band.

Their debut album really impressed me. First of all that there is a krautrock band from Israel. Second of all because their hypnotic music on the first album was really good. 

The band more or less continues down the same path on this album. The same hypnotic, purposeful type of krautrock again. They reminds me a bit of the house/ambient band The Faithless here. Not at least on the vocals delivery and some of the more ambient soundscapes. 

And Backnee Horn are sailing pretty close to that ambient whatever it is called scene throughout this ninety-six minutes long album. It is very ambient at times. But it still has a great deal of substance and contents. 

This album is not as good as the debut album. It is still a good album where half of it is really good. It is still a grower and I may value it higher in the years to come. Keep an eye on this band as I am pretty sure they have a great future.

3 points

L'Ange Vert - Le Sang Des Hommes (1995)

I know next to nothing about this French band. But I guess this is their debut album. It is actually their debut album and the first of three albums.

This band plays an energetic form of folk rock. They have been compared to Gwendel a lot. Which is a good comparison. OK, to put it into my own words though.... The music here is lush folk rock. It both has influences from punk, French symphonic prog (Read: Ange) and celtic folk rock. 

The band is from Brittany and that area of France has a very strong celtic folk music tradition. You can include this band in that tradition although the band has mixed in a lot of rock into their folk music. The music is performed with flutes, guitars, bass, drums and some other acoustic instruments. Most of this album is indeed acoustic. Add some very good vocals to the mix too.

This album is hideous long, clocking in at well over an hour. But you get a great deal of value here. Almost a bargain if you love this type of music. 

And the music is good throughout. My only gripe is the lack of any great songs. The overall quality is good and the album is for sale at Amazon. I think it is a good purchase and well worth checking out.

3 points

Budgie - Impeckable (1978)

The sixth album from this Welsh power trio.

The band had gone through some pretty lows and highs up to this album. The high and lows was normally on the same album, only a few minutes apart. Listening to a Budgie album was like traversing the mountainous Welsh landscape with it's high peaks and deep valleys. 

Well, the band has this time around managed to deliver an album which is without these big hills and deep valleys. The whole forty-five minutes of it is without any cringe-worthy stuff. Bravo !

The sound is really great this time around too. The riffs is really good too. And best of all, there is no really bad ballads here. The band has chosen a more funky and mainstream brand of hard rocking boogie this time around. The vocals, guitars, bass and drums is sitting there, basking in some very good riffs. There is a big red thread on this album. No flippant songs. This is a good rocking album who is also looking back towards rockabilly too. 

There is no real great songs here though. It is still a good album from this band I am warming more and more towards. Investing some of my hard earned money was not such a waste of money after all...

3 points

Lagger Blues Machine - Tanit Live (1970)

The live album from this Belgium band and their first ever recording although it was released in 1992, twenty years after the release of their only studio album.

This band originated from the jamming jazz scene in Belgium and moved towards zeuhl on their studio album. In 1970, they created a lot of noise and jams with guitars, vocals, Hammond organs, saxophone, flutes, drums and bass. A lot of noise ! So much that the heavy rock genre was pretty close to their heart during that time.

The music sounds structured enough and their music is pretty good. The sound is pretty bad throughout this seventy odd minutes album. But we are able to hear what they are doing here. This album though is just a warm up before their studio album and a pretty decent one. My rating is a weak two pointer, a weak decent rating.

2 points

Makajodama - Makajodama (2009)

The first and so far only album from this Swedish combo who was an off-shot of Gosta Berlings Saga before they attracted new members and released this album.

The band's lineup is cello, violin, bass, flutes, guitars, drums and keyboards. That says something about this album. A wholly instrumental album, the whole hour this album lasts. 

Take a mix of King Crimson, Aranis and Univers Zero. That is the essence of this album. The cello, flutes, violins and (the often distorted) guitars is leading the melodies here and solos. The music is pretty laid back throughout with a lot of the Swedish folk music vibes too although these are not clearly pronounced throughout this album.

I am by no means a fan of instrumental albums and I have to admit that this album fails to excite me on all levels. There is no real good melodies here and the solos fails to ignite. This is an album which works as background music and nothing else. Put it in a shopping mall and it may excite people there in between the pastries and wine racks. It does not work in my humble abode. It is nevertheless a decent album.

2 points    

Marche La Void - The Origin of Non​ Entity (2012)

I always connect post-rock with the letter I. I stands for Iceland. I also stands for Indonesia..... but I do not connect post-rock with Indonesia ! But here is a post-rock band and album from Jakarta, Indonesia.

This is a Bandcamp album and a free download album from another link which you can find on the same Bandcamp page. The music here is pretty much middle of the road post-rock with a lot of ebbs and flows in the music. The music is pretty somber and depressed on this one hour long album. Some of the songs are very long too. 

The music is based on guitars, bass and drums. There are some sampled vocals and some keyboards too. The keyboards aspects is working very fine. The end result is a good post-rock album in the Sigur Ros vein and well worth the effort to get it. I am mildly impressed by this album although one hour in it's company is too much. In my case, many times x one hour. But check it out.

3 points 

Living Life - Let: From Experience To Experience (1975)

The debut album from this Italian band who went onto releasing a further one album before they split up.

No, this is not Italian prog rock. This is jazz. Some sort of jazz. Not like Area either. This is much more like Weather Report and Kraan. Though with some of the intensity of Soft Machine.

Take saxophone, flute, guitars, keyboards, bass, drums and some vocals. Then you get this album. In addition to the influences listed above, there is also some Latin American influences here. In particular when the vocals breaks through this largely instrumental album.

To say that this is a varied album with many different styles is an understatement. I think it is too fractioned and too much coloured by a band who yet did not know what they wanted. This is another decent to good album. An album who partly works and who partly fails. Hence this rating.

2.5 points 

Blue Öyster Cult - The Revölution by Night (1983)

The ninth album from this US art rock band. 

The band entered a bit of a heavy metal phase in the middle of the 1980s. This album has some of the ills of this era too.

Their most prolific songwriter Albert Bouchard had just left the band. The band was left on their own devices and was seen scrambling for some pieces to release on this album. The album is a mix of hard rock, catchy poppy songs, AOR and some very hints of what this band had been in their previous incarnation.  

The title track and a couple of other tracks are fairly good. The rest is fairly decent stuff. This album suffers a great deal from the lack of any really worthy material. The material here is way below their usual standards. This is a decent to good album.

2.5 points 

Edison's Children - The Final Breath Before November (2013)

The second album from this super-duo of Eric Blackwood and Peter Trewevas. They have expanded to a super-trio on this album with the inclusion of Henry Rogers from Touchstone.

Those who loved their first album will also love this album. Let me put it that way. Edison's Children has always been about emotional charged neo-prog with some avant-garde and strange forays into vaudeville heavy metal. 

There is a lot of guitars, bass, drums and some keyboards here. The vocals are great. The guitar solos is very good too. Comparisons to Pink Floyd has to be made.

The melodies on this seventy minutes long album is mostly straight melancholic. The themes are perhaps overused during these seventy minutes. Or they are completed just in time. 

The end result is a great album which has a couple of dubious tracks in addition to some really superb tracks. The average is a great album and that is my rating.

4 points   

Merlin, Swara, Ilor & Friends - Cosmic Kraut Experience (1975)

The only album this band graced us human beings with.

As you may have gleaned from the album title; this is krautrock. The four band members comes from the whole world. But I guess Germany has a lot to answer for in this band. 

Style-wise, this album comes across as a mix of Amon Duul, Spanish flamenco, a bit drone and some raga-rock. Minimalism is the word I would use here on the music. Swara Samrat's not so good vocals is dominating this forty minutes long album.

To say that this album is a dreary affair is an understatement. The sound is not good and the music is so minimalistic that the listener falls asleep after some minutes. I like the Spanish influences here and that is saving the album from the turkey yard. Well, almost. This is indeed an awful album. Meet me at the Christmas dinner. 

1 point