Maquina Vapor - A Direção Dos Bons Ventos (2018)

The second album from this band from Brazil.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals.

I was not particular impressed by their 2010 self-titled debut album. You can read the review somewhere else in this blog.

The band has taken an eight years long break and has returned with this album.

The band still sings in their mother tongue and that adds a lot of quality to the music. The vocals is also very good too.

The music is a mix of Italian symphonic prog, symphonic prog, eclectic prog and a bit tropico.

The music is melodic in other words. The band still shows some aggression and teeth on some of the uptempo songs.

There is a lot of good vocal harmonies on this album. And the music is progressive throughout with a lot of interesting details.

This is indeed a good album and it should really appeal to everyone who likes RPI, although the band is from Brazil, and melodic progressive rock. I really like this album.

3 points

Ramses - Light Fantastic (1981)

The third album from this German band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

I reviewed three of their in total five albums some years ago for # 1 of this blog and quite liked the albums.

I discovered this left-over album in my Billy CD shelf and decided to review it as soon as I could.

The music on this album is a mix of neo-prog and rock. There is also some metal here. But not much. Add some symphonic prog too and you get the drift.

The vocals are OK and the guitars does a good job.

There are some hints of Lucifer's Friend and Uriah Heep on this album.

The quality is not that good though and this album has a couple of cheap and nasty songs. There is also a couple of good songs here too.

The result is a barely decent album and just that.

Check out this band if German prog is your thing.

2 points

Wappa Gappa - Yamataikoku (1996)

The debut album from this Japanese band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and female vocals.

This band released three albums before they were disbanded. I will review these three albums, starting with this album.

The band is listed as jazz/fusion in ProgArchives and I was mentally prepared for some Japanese fusion. A genre I really like.

That though is not what we get on this album.

The basis of this album is neo-prog. Add some jazzy rock and then some symphonic prog. That is the hour of music on this album.

The vocals are really very good and Ms. Tamami Yamamoto is one of the best vocalists I have ever heard from Japan. Perhaps even the best vocalist.

The music is also at times pretty muscular and the musicians delivers one hour of good musicianship.

This is indeed a very good album which ticks most boxes.

Check it out !

3.5 points

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Nuthin' Fancy (1975)

The third album from this US band.

The band was a seven piece big band on this album with a lineup of guitars, keyboards, bass, percussion, drums and vocals.
Four guest musicians provided dobro, harmonica, piano, mandolin and percussion.

I reviewed their first two albums, their first two classic albums, some years ago for # 1 of this blog. I have again decided to review the remaining four albums I got of them.

The band is legends and that even before the horrible airplane crash who wiped out most of the band.

Nuthin' Fancy is one of the albums who adds to their standing and legends status.

Southern rock with some gospel, soul and country'n'western influences is what we get here. There is nothing fancy here.

.... And that is where I am wrong. The music is groovy, melodic, raw and pretty fancy. It is like the voices from the swamps, clubs, towns and farmlands in the deep south.

The songs here are well crafted and well delivered by the band. The classic lineup.

There is a lot to be admired on this album. An album without a killer track. It still has a lot of good music and great vocals from the lost voice of Ronnie Van Zant, who sadly perished in that airplane crash.

This is a really good album and one to check out..... also for progheads.

3 points

Gomorrha - I Turned To See Whose Voice It Was (1972)

The second and final album from this German band.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of piano, organ, guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

Their 1971 debut album Trauma was not a good album but I had heard a lot good things about the follow up album so I decided to lend my ears to it for some days.

We are still very much in the krautrock genre on this album.

It is indeed a krautrock album with a lot of heavy psych and hard rock inbetween some space rock and some more pastoral music.

The band really makes hard rock on this album. It is also very complex music with some flamenco also thrown into the mix.

There is a lot of organs here and that makes this album quite a good album. The vocals are quite good too.

We get forty-five minutes of hard and complex music here and it is an improvement on their debut album. A pretty big one.

Krautrock fans should check out this album. I got my reservations, but still rate this album as a good album.

3 points

Radiomobel - Gudang Garam (1978)

The second and final album from this Swedish band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and female vocals.

I have not bothered checking out their 1975 debut album Tramsebox as it is has horrible reputation. So I am jumping straight to their second one.... the best of their two albums.

The music on Gudang Garam is a mix of psych, acid folk, kraut and symphonic prog.

The sound is not the best and the female vocals are flat. If that is done by purpose or because the female vocalist has no voice, is something I do not know.

She sound like a Japanese female vocalist and I guess this is done by purpose.

There is little to be enjoyed on this album.

It is indeed a waste of time and a turkey.

Avoid.

1 point

Radavique - B Sides (1984)

The one and only album from this Dutch band.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals.

There is not much known about this band. The album title is a joke although a listen to the songs makes me hope the band actually wrote something far better than the music featuring here.

The music is a mix of rock, pop and neo-prog.

Most pop and rock, I would say.

The songs are very short. Around three minutes on average.

The vocals are a mix of male and female vocals and none of them are good.

The music is in short light weight and a bit on the teenybopper side. Bay City Rollers is a reference and that is not a compliment.

This album is a turkey and nothing more than a turkey. Avoid.

1 point

Professor Tip Top - Tomorrow Is Delayed (2020)

The sixth album from this Norwegian band.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of guitars, bass, keyboards, synths, drums and vocals.

I have had the pleasure of having reviewed their two previous albums and they have been a bit of a mixed bag.

From psych rock to more commercial psych rock.

Tomorrow Is Delayed sees the band with a female vocalist.

Sonja Otto's vocals are great, btw and a good addition to their sound. Her vocals is also muscular and not soprano. Something that suits this music. Or maybe the band has built the music around her vocals. I do not know.

The music is still pretty commercial. It is also a bit psych rock with some folk rock influences. References are both Pink Floyd and Renaissance. There are also some French folk rock here in the vein of Edith Piaf.

This three quarters of an hour long album still pulls a punch and has some very good flute sounding synths and some good guitars.

The result is a very good album and a solid improvement on the previous two albums.

It is an album which will end up pretty high on the list of the best Norwegian albums of this year.

3.5 points

Traffic - Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory (1973)

The seventh album from this British band.

The band was a sextet on this album with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, saxophone, flute, organ, piano, guitar and vocals.
Two guest musicians provided keyboards and clarinet.

The band is continued to be lead by Steve Winwood, one of the most gifted British musicians of all time.

His vocals and music is the core of this band and indeed this album.

The music on this album is art-rock.

Intelligent art-rock with a lot of pop influences (Elton John) and some rock influences. Some parts reminds me about Bad Company.

There are some acid folk here too and the saxophone and clarinet adds a lot of colours to the music.

The music is cleverly composed and good throughout. It is not their best album. But Traffic was a good band and I really like them.

Check out this album.

3 points

Passport - Blue Tattoo (1981)

The 11th album from this German band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of saxophone, vocoder, keyboards, bass, guitars and drums.

Klaus Doldinger had reverted Passport back to the lineup which worked very well on the first four albums.

The first four albums included some pretty intense fusion in the vein of Mahavishnu Orchestra. And they were good albums.

Passport is indeed a pretty underrated fusion band.

The intensity has slackened off a bit on this album. But we still get fusion with mostly jazz on this album.

The great solos is no longer here. This album is mostly laidback.

It still throws a punch though and the music is fairly good.

It is perhaps too laidback. But this is still a good album and one I like.

3 points

Yes - Talk (1994)

The 14th album from this British band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, organ, guitars, programming and vocals.

Their fourteenth album follows the pretty horrendous Union album. An album with far too many members and far too many cooks in the kitchen.

Talk sees Yes stripped down to the bones.

No keyboards attacks. Just a Hammond organ.

No massive, elaborate songs. Just stripped down songs.

Most of this album sounds like AOR and pop-rock from the 1990s. That with Jon Anderson on vocals and the Yes identifier.

The result is a pretty OK album which is not as bad as I feared. It is not progressive rock though and it is nowhere near as interesting as their best albums.

The quality is decent and just that. It is an album I want to forget.

2 points

Grace - Grace (1979)

The debut album from this British band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of moog, keyboards, guitars, bass, drums, percussion and vocals.
Three guest musicians provided flute, saxophone, moog, drums, percussion and guitars.

This band has been operating well below the radar since they released this debut album. Their last, fifth album, was released last year and will be reviewed later in this blog.

I have reviewed their other three albums for # 1 of this blog and have found these albums reasonable interesting.

We are in the neo-prog land when it comes to this band.

Their debut album is a pre-neo-prog album with a lot of pop and rock inbetween some progressive rock.

The music is catchy but also naive and not so rich in texture. The vocals are OK but not particular endearing. 

This is a decent enough album but nothing more than that.

2 points

Bondage - Anima Terra (2000)

The one and only album from this Italian band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of bass, drums, keyboards, guitars and Italian vocals.

This band and album is an oddity and it is a great shame that this album is their only output.

The fifty-two minutes of music on this album is divided into seven songs. But it should be regarded as one, fifty-two minutes long piece of music. A symphony of some sorts.

The music is still rock. Or to be far more precise; RPI. Rock Progressive Italiano.

The music is very dynamic and pretty eclectic too. It comes across as a mix of Banco, PFM, Camel and King Crimson.

There is a lot of epic melody themes here which makes the music soar towards the skies. The organ sound is very good. The vocals is good.

This symphony is a good symphony and this album is pretty left-field but still very much an RPI album.

It is a great shame the band did not follow up this symphony with more albums....

3 points

Constantine - In Memory of a Summer Day (2020)

The second album from this US one man project.

Constantine Hastalis did all the instruments on his own this time. That means mellotron, organ, piano, guitars, bouzouki, tambourine, bass, drums and vocals.

The 2015 debut album Day Of Light was pretty impressive. Acid folk with a lot of other influences. You can read my review somewhere else in this blog.

Constantine continues down the same path on this album, five years later.

Acid folk with some raga-rock, symphonic prog and some chamber rock influences.

The vocals are very good and there is a lot of interesting details here.

The music is mainly acoustic with some mellotron and organ adding a touch of electricity and texture where it feels natural.

The sound and ambience is very good as the listener is being transported back four hundred years in time. And it feels natural.

Constantine has again given us a quality acid folk album and it is about time people open their eyes to his two albums.

3 points

Bodkin - Bodkin (1972)

The one and only album from this Scottish band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of hammond organ, guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

I am myself living in Scotland and Scottish bands is of interest to me. But I am not giving them any favours whatsoever.

Bodkin does a mix of hard rock, hard psych, blues and symphonic prog.

The Hammond organ is the key to the whole band and their sound. The guitars are also very much present here. The Hammond organ steals the show, though.

The vocals too is really good.

The organ adds a lot of psych and some symph to the music. Music not for the faint hearted.

Uriah Heep has been noted as a good reference for this band and album. Indeed it is.

This forty minutes long album stands perfectly on it's two (four ?) feet and gives the listener a good blast of good music.

Yes, the sound is very much the 1970s and may feel a bit dated. The music proves that this album is one of the best of the socalled obscure albums.

This is an album you need to check out.

3 points

 

Final Conflict - The Rise of the Artisan (2020)

The eight album from this British band.

The band is a seven piece band on this album with a lineup of guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, backing vocals and vocals.

The drummer on this album is strictly speaking a hired hand. But he is still very much in the sound.

This band debuted back in 1987 and their discography is full of long breaks. This time, it is eight years since their last album Return Of The Artisan. A very good album.

The band has never been one of the leading neo-prog bands. It is still a respected band.

The music on this album is pure neo-prog with a slightly modern sound.

The sound and vocals are really good.

The songs are not particular long. But most of them has some good details and melody lines.

There is no really bad songs here or even some bad pop here. The band stays true to their neo-prog roots and delivers a neo-prog album.

There is no great songs here. The quality is good throughout and fans of neo-prog should get this album.

3 points

Spock's Beard - Feel Euphoria (2003)

The seventh album from this US band.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, loops, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
The band had some help from guest musicians who provided cell, violin, synths, fx and woodwinds.

Neal Morse had left the band and the band was a bit in the dark after the release of the fantastic Snow opus from 2002.

The band had left that sound behind them too as they wanted to make a clean break with Neal Morse.

The result is Feel Euphoria.

The album has some sporadic references to the good old Spock's Beard. The urge to make a clean break seems to be the main theme here.

That mean incorporating some grunge, rock and some metal into the sound which sometimes does not sound like Spock's Beard at all.

Their DNA is pretty well hidden but it is there.

The songs are not particular good with the exception of the title track and the final track. The rest is not really up to their normal standard. I hope this album is a blip and not the norm for the rest of their albums. Albums I will review.

2.5 points

SBB - Follow My Dream (1978)

The seventh album from this Polish band.

The band was a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, guitar, harmonica, clavinet, moog, electric piano, organ, mellotron and vocals.

The band's albums is slightly hit and miss. They were operating under the stalinist censorship and that made it difficult to write good stuff.

The music on this album has influences from the likes of Todd Rundgren (Utopia), Yes, Gong/Steve Hillage and the lines of Mahavishnu Orchestra.

There is a lot of symphonic prog and fusion themes here mixed up together.

The music is very epic throughout and uplifting.

It reaches for the sky and it has a great symphonic feel.

The end result is a good album which cement's their reputation as a very interesting band.

This is indeed a good album and one to check out.

3 points

 

Gomorrha - Trauma (1971)

The debut album from this German band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of vibraphone, flute, keyboards, organ, guitars, bass, percussion, drums and vocals.

This band released two albums and then disappeared again.

The music on this album is not easy to describe.

It is a very long album, a forty-six minutes long album where we only got LPs as the format. A CD re-release has seventy-eight minutes worth of music.

I am reviewing the LP version and that one is a bit bewildering.

Take ELP, add a lot of blues, add a lot of acid rock, add outer space rock and add a lot of hard rock. The result is basically a krautrock album.

A very heavy krautrock album at times.

It is also a bit more pastoral at times.

The quality is not there though and although it is a decent enough album, it does not really interest me. Decent but nothing more than that.

2 points

Luup - Meadow Rituals (2011)

The second album from this band from Hellas.

The band is a project of twenty musicians with a lineup of male vocals, female vocals, traditional instruments from Hellas, strings, drums, percussions, woodwinds and guitars.

The 2008 debut album Distress Signal Code was a very bad album. My expectations for this album was therefore very low.

The album title is pretty descriptive for the music.

The music is cinematic ambient with a ritual feeling taking place in an old, ancient meadow.

There is a lot of acoustic instruments here and hardly any electric instruments. I think a synth can be heard and that is all.

The vocals are very good too and there is enough of them to make this an interesting album indeed.

The music is surprisingly dynamic too.

The problem is the quality and there is not enough good music to make this a good album. It is though a substantial upgrade from the debut album. Enough to check out this album if ambient music is your style.

2.5 points

Margaritas Ante Porcos - Gluposti (2014)

The one and only album from this band from Latvia.

The band was a trio with a lineup of xylophone, percussion, drums, bass, guitars and vocals.

I thought this band was from South America, Argentina, based on the both the music and the band name.

Then I discovered they were from Latvia.

Hence, I am very surprised.

After several listening sessions, I have to say they comes across as a mix of Budgie and Gentle Giant.
Add a lot of King Crimson too.

The music is eclectic and also very hard. The band is a power trio, indeed.

The vocals is wild and so is the guitars.

The quality is unfortunate only half-decent and it is not an album finding much joy in my office.

Hence....

1.5 points

Marakesh - Marakesh (1976)

The one and only album from this Dutch band.

The band was a seven piece big band with a lineup of saxophone, trumpet, flute, organ, strings, piano, guitars, bass, percussion, drums and vocals.

This band was active in the mid 1970s before they released this album and then disappeared again. The members got normal jobs and this album remains a very obscure album.

The type of album this blog reviews.

The music on this album is a mix of pomp pop, pomp rock and symphonic prog.

Add some heavy prog and some hints of blues too and you get a pretty heady album.

The saxophones and trumpets adds the blues element, indeed.

The vocals and the guitar solos are quite good.

The songs are somewhere between decent and good in quality.

The album is obscure for a reason. Nevertheless, it is still worth a listen or two.

2.5 points

Univers Zero - Uzed (1984)

The fourth album from this Belgium band.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of saxophones, drums, percussion, synths, whistle, tapes, bowed guitars, bass, balafon, bass clarinet, cello, clarinet and pianos.

The band is back again with a new album.

This time, the band has gone electric. But not as much as Bob Dylan once did.

The use of electric power is more of a subtle kind.

We are still not in the rock'n'roll world either. The band remains an avant-garde classical music chamber orchestra.

The music is now slightly more accessible than on the previous three albums. It is still pretty dark and epic.

There is some rays of sun in their music and there is even some very good melodies here.

Of their first four albums, this is their best and it proves that even more less complicated music can be very eclectic and dense. Something this album is.

It is indeed a good album and well worth a listen.

3 points

Realisea - Mantelpeace (2020)

The debut album from this Dutch band.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, flute, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
The band had help from guest musicians who provided strings, woodwinds, synths and vocals.

The Netherlands has again given us a new band in the melodic neo-prog genre.

The vocals are both male and female here.

There are a lot of goth influences in their music and some progressive metal influences.

I would not agree with the band that there is some pop-rock here. The music is too complicated for that.

This genre they have released their album into is pretty over-crowed though. The music is slightly run-of-the-mill melodic neo-prog.

The music is fairly good. The vocals are really good and the musicians knows what they are doing.

The quality of the songs are not particular good.

This album ends somewhere between decent and good as I am not won over.

2.5 points

King Crimson - Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984)

The tenth album from this British band.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of Chapman stick, bass, drums, percussion, synth, guitars and vocals.

Robert Fripp is at it again with the 1980s version of King Crimson.

This version of King Crimson is even more eclectic music dominated than the 1970s version of the same band.

The album opens with the melodic, still pretty eclectic title track.

The album then feature another melodic song in the shape of Model Man before the album slides towards avant-garde before a strange tribute to Lark's Tongue In Aspics closes the album.

A forty-two minutes long album no less.

An album focused on the instruments and not necessary on melodies.

The album is a bit incoherent at times.

There is a lot of good pieces here too and King Crimson is what they are. Or what Robert Fripp is.

This is a decent to good album but nothing more than that.

2.5 points

Lucifer's Friend - Black Moon (2019)

The 11th and so far latest album from this German band.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards and vocals.
They had some help from guest musicians who provided cowbell, congas, electric violin, synth and trumpet.

I really liked their Too Late To Hate album from 2016. Good solid old school hard rock and heavy metal.

I had some pretty substantial hopes for this album.

The band continues to give us the same vintage hard rock and heavy metal the world wake up to at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s.

John Lawton was/is the vocalist in Uriah Heep and the comparisons is there.

The songs are really good on this album and is a reminder that this band is pretty underrated and a treasure for those who like good old style hard rock with some progressive rock influences.

If this is my last ever review of a Lucifer's Friend album, I have to say this is a very good band who I guess will be loved in decades to come by new generations.

Timeless, they are.

3 points

Glutton. The - Eating Music (2019)

The third album from this Norwegian band.

The band is a trio with a lineup of guitars, drums, bass and vocals.
The band had help from some guest musicians providing synths, samples, woodwinds and strings.

This is their third album from this band. I gave their debut album a miss but reviewed their second album.

Their music is basically indie rock with some influences from the likes of Rush and the post-rock scene.

There is also a lot of Gazpacho influences on this fifty minutes long album. Ditto for some industrial post-metal and some hints of Marillion too.

The vocals is multi-faceted and sometimes distorted.

The sound is pretty open and clearly very modern.

This album is decent enough but it fails to really win me over as a more traditional progressive rock fan.

Fans of indie and post-rock will like this album a lot more than I do.

2.5 points

Máquina Vapor - Máquina Vapor (2010)

The debut album from this band from Brazil.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, accordion, keyboards and vocals.
Guest musicians provided electric guitars, double bass, violin and flute.

This band is totally obscure although they have released two albums and they should have been included in the likes of ProgArchives.

This is indeed a progressive rock album and band.

The music is very much Latin-American progressive rock with a lot of tropicana influences.

Take a mix of King Crimson, tropicano, Yes, folk rock, rock and indie rock.

The music is at times very lush.... most of the times, in fact. The indie rock with faint smell of punk is always there.

That it smoothed over by some organs and some good vocals.

The accordion is also adding some tropicana and folk rock to this album.

Unfortunate for us all, there is not much quality and not much to remember this album for. This is a decent album and just that. They must improve....

2 points

Maqama - Maqama (2008)

The one and only album from this Israeli band.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of bass, drums, guitars, keyboards, ringtones and vocals.

This is another one-off album from an Israeli band.

It is also a strange one. A very eclectic one.

I believe the vocals are in Hebrew. Indeed it is. So no English vocals and that is a relief as Hebrew is a very melodic language.

The female Hebrew vocals adds a lot to the eclectic music. Music which comes across as some strange and twisted rock meets eclectic prog.

There is even some folk rock here and a lot of French cabaret music.

French cabaret music is  a good label on this album.

The music is not particular complicated and technical. It is just weird.

The quality is decent enough but there is no good songs here.

This album is an oddity and one to perhaps check out if oddities is your thing.

2 points

Traffic - The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys (1971)

The sixth album from this British band.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, flute, saxophone, violin, guitar, organ, piano and vocals.

Steve Winwood was still at the helm and this album is the second album after the band were reformed after a short break.

Their previous album John Barleycorn Must Die was more a folk rock album.

The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys sees the band move a lot towards Canterbury prog, acid folk and symphonic prog.

The music is very complex indeed.

It is also pretty eclectic with some raga-rock influences too.

Steve does a great job on the microphone and it is easy to understand why he is one of the all-time greats in the music world.

There are some hints of both Van Der Graaf Generator and the more playful jazzy end of the Canterbury prog scene on this album.

Most of the stuff is pretty melodic too.

This is another very good album from Traffic, a band I find eyeopening and a great addition to the music world.

3.5 points

Constantine - Day Of Light (2015)

The debut from this one man project from USA.

The band is Constantine Hastalis on mellotron, guitars, bouzouki, percussion, piano, bass, drums and vocals.
He has help from a long list of musicians who contribute with a long list of instruments. Sitar, woodwinds, strings, organ, tabla, vocals.... etc etc

The art-work caught my attention and draw me in. Ditto for the listing in ProgArchives.

The band has so far released two albums and I will review the second album as soon as I can.

The music on this forty-five minutes long music is acid folk rock.

Acid-folk with some raga-rock and some eclectic prog too. There is also some faint smell of English apple orchards in the air when listening to this album. The good old English folk rock bands from the early 1970s is good references. Even Led Zeppelin sneaks into their sound with some obvious references.

And yes, there are some flower-power here too and some indie-rock.

The vocals are both male and female. The songs are all good and Constantine has delivered a really good and cool debut album which should win them a lot of fans all around the world.

3 points

Generous Men - Through The Eyes Of A Child (2019)

The second album from this Swedish band.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of keyboards, bass, guitars, drums, percussion and vocals.

Their 2013 debut album More Than Meets The Eye was a good heavy prog album with some influences from the Swedish symphonic prog rock scene.

These influences from that scene is still evident on this album. But not so much as I had wished.

The heavy prog part has been replaced by straight art rock and some generic pop rock.

The vocalist and the musician does their best on some material which sometimes blunders into teenybopper land and is far too simplified at times.

There is not much prog here and not even so much art here either.

Commercial but still elegant rock with pop influences are what I get most from this album.

When the quality is as poor as on this album, there is not much hope for the music here. Sorry guys.....

2 points

Amuzeum - New Beginnings (2020)

The debut album from this US band.

The band is a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

The band consists of members from Mars Volta, Heliopolis and two other lesser known bands.

This band or project is their first venture into symphonic prog, their label says.

US symphonic prog, that is.

There is some Yes influences on this fifty minutes long album. Most of all, this album sounds like a crossover of The Flower Kings at their most poppy sounding tracks and Neal Morse.

Add some Kansas and a bit Spock's Beard too and you got this album.

The music is pretty light and fluffy. The songs are pretty long but not so epic and not so complicated.

The band knows their game well and the vocals are very good.

The quality of the songs falls a bit short. There is not many interesting details here either. This is another almost good album and another almost there album.

But it falls a bit short and that is a shame.

2.5 points

Luup - Distress Signal Code (2008)

The debut album from this band from Greece.

The band is a sextet with a lineup of loops, electronics, samples, keyboards, mellotron, piano, guitars, flute, glockenspiel, drums, percussion, saxophones and vocals.

There is a lot of music styles who falls under the progressive rock umbrella. It is indeed great that this genre, this sometimes much detested genre, is such a broad church.

As a progressive rock reviewer, that sometimes means I get music in my ears which is so out there in the left field that it is really hard to review.

This album is one of those albums.

The music is basically some loops with some contributions from flutes, saxophones and mellotron. That and some sampled vocals.

The music is ambient and pedestrian. And it is very eclectic.

That does not necessary make a good album.

The music is barely decent. It is a borderline turkey who does not connect at all with the listener.

I hope their two other albums, who I will review shortly, is better than this album.

1.5 points

Mappe Nootiche - Terra (2008)

The debut album from this Italian band.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drum machine, percussion, bass, loop machine, synths, keyboards, guitars and voices.

This is a new band to me. The band has released two albums but I have only got this album.

The band is playing some sort of psych rock. Instrumental one, that is.

The music is very cinematic throughout the one hour long album. The voices is used as instruments.

There is not much going on here during these sixty minutes. Some of the themes are relative fast and some of the themes are really ambient.

There is a big gap between the band's ambitions and what we hear on this album. The band has fallen well short on this album.

This album is barely decent and nothing more than that.

2 points

Passport - Oceanliner (1980)

The tenth album from this German band.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of percussion, drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, lyricon, saxophone, vocoder and vocals.

Their previous albums was pretty bad and I did not have any expectations to this album.

The band tried to recapture some of the sound which had made their first albums so good on Oceanliner.

The first impressions was pretty good, at least.

The music is a mix of fusion and jazz. There are some vocals here, but not much.

The music is very cinematic and not so intense. We are not talking Goblin copycats here. But the music is still laidback and cinematic.

The thunder and lightening has gone away from their music and that is a shame.

The music is pretty OK, though. It is not good, but these forty minutes is an improvement on previous two albums.

2.5 points

Maphia - Hans Im Glück (1974)

The one and only album from this German band.

The band was a sextet with a lineup of drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals.

This band and album is a curiosity in the krautrock scene.

The music is a mix of pop, rock and krautrock.

Most of the songs on this album is oddities and socalled funny songs with funny lyrics which only Germans understand as the lyrics and vocals are German.

There is nothing here of any value. Neither for krautrock fans or progressive rock fans.

It is a turkey of an album.

1 point

Glutton. The - Outliers (2017)

The second album from this Norwegian band.

The band is a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, trumpet, accordion, guitars, synths and vocals.

I have not had the chance to get their debut album. But I have their two new albums and will review them.... starting with this one.

The Glutton is a band whose music is inspired by post-rock, progressive rock, pop and indie rock.
That in equal measures.

There is a lot of melancholic melodies in their music.

A lot of shoe-gaze can also be found in their music.

There is some good music here and some not so good music. This album does not really stand out from the many other albums in this genre.

It is not a bad album at all. But I have got my reservations.

2.5 points