Band: CHROMB! | Album: Cinq | Genre: RIO, Avant-prog | Bandcamp
CHROMB!’s appropriately-titled fifth album, Cinq, is a solid return to what I love about them. I wasn’t nuts about their 2020 release, Le livre des merveilles. One of their trademark characteristics is their frenetic, madcap energy, but that release saw them try to trim back those elements of their sound. Cinq has that irrepressible oddness and liveliness I love, but it’s been distilled into shorter, more focused compositions. As much as I love their sprawling 2016 release, 1000, sometimes you just want 33 minutes of to-the-point avant-prog.
Score: 78/100
Band: Howling Giant | Album: Glass Future | Genre: Heavy psych, Progressive rock | Bandcamp
Though nothing here matches the scope or scale of their 2020 epic, “Masamune”, Glass Future provides plenty of solid music. Hints of the band’s stoner roots can be heard in their riffs, but the arrangements are lush, thoughtful, and complex. Organ adds a powerful richness to the sound, and the vocal performances are strong. Melodies are catchy, yet inventive and unique. The songs on this album are all relatively short, but they don’t feel rushed.
Score: 80/100
Band: Jättedam | Album: Onda Blommor | Genre: Progressive rock, Folk rock | Bandcamp
Onda Blommor features a lot of fun jazzy and folky passages mixed in among some laid-back sorta-proggy rock. It’s a fun listen that is both pretty original and vaguely nostalgic. There are a lot of strong hooks, and I really like the vocal performances. There’s an overall sense of warmth that gives this album a very inviting atmosphere.
Score: 77/100
Band: Mammatus | Album: Expanding Majesty | Genre: Progressive rock, Space rock | Bandcamp
I’d listened to Mammatus before, but they’d never really clicked with me. Their songs were often too ponderous and meandering for my taste. There are still moments like that on Expanding Majesty, but it’s their most engaging record to date. It’s full of fun, soaring guitar lines, fuzzed-out proggy riffage, and celestial, psychedelic textures. This is a great record to relax and hang out to. The closing “Beams of Light” features some especially fun jamming.
Score: 79/100
Band: Mondo Drag | Album: Through the Hourglass | Genre: Psychedelic rock, Space rock | Bandcamp
This sounds distractingly similar to a Pink Floyd album from their weird, transitional period c. 1968-1970, albeit with somewhat heavier guitar tones. It’s enjoyable enough psychedelic rock with some nice bluesy and spacey elements, but it typifies why I’m not nuts about this band. This release is fine, but it isn’t particularly original. If you shut your brain off and do some bong rips, I’m sure it’s more enjoyable, but hearing something that sounds like a facsimile of a style that peaked over 50 years ago doesn’t really get my motor running. I’d rather just listen to Atom Heart Mother or the live disc of Ummagumma.
Score: 61/100
Artist: Kevin Wulf | Album: Plebeian’s Procession | Genre: Progressive rock, Folk rock | Bandcamp
Kevin Wulf has put out a few things this year. In January, he put out the absolutely fantastic single “Faust”, and I hoped that was going to be something off an upcoming album. Instead, it seems to have just been a one-off followed by a couple of unrelated EPs. Plebeian’s Procession is in the same general vein as most of his work: the pace is unhurried, Wulf’s flat intonation draws heavily from classic grunge acts, and there are prominent elements of folk music. However, whereas I loved all this assortment on Dorilton, here it goes a bit too far. The songs are a bit too slow and last a bit too long. This, cumulatively, results in a mild slog of a record. There are plenty of good ideas here, but they needed to be refined a little more. I’d also like him to bring back the omnipresent saxophones he had on prior releases.
Score: 65/100
The Elite Extremophile 