Odds & Ends: July 15, 2024

Band: Абстрактор (Abstraktor) | Album: Мать (Mat’, Eng. Mother) | Genre: Progressive folk | Bandcamp

This Russian quartet plays a smart, artsy variety of folk rock. They blend their own Slavic roots with jazz, modern classical, indie rock, and other bits and pieces from around the globe. The instrumentation is often intricate and full of unexpected twists. They build lush and varied textures, and they’re able to blend strong pop sensibilities with a spirit of adventurousness and experimentation.

Score: 81/100

Band: Agusa | Album: Noir | Genre: Progressive rock, Space rock | Bandcamp

I liked this release a lot more than I expected to. Agusa is a band I like–each of their last two albums have made my year-end Top 50 lists, after all–but one of my gripes is that they can be a bit noodly and long-winded. This album is a soundtrack for a film, so I was particularly cautious. Would the scattershot nature of soundtracks hamstring this work? Instead, this is a delightfully varied yet purposeful and coherent release. Folk, jazz, and space rock elements are incorporated naturally, alongside Agusa’s usual prog stylings. This album is also more consistently lighthearted than much of their other work, which is a nice change of pace. The shorter runtimes for these tracks also behoove the band, as they’re able to put forward fun ideas and meditate on them for a bit without needing to build some huge suite. Things do sag and slow down a bit near the album’s end, but it’s far from a fatal flaw in this case.

Score: 76/100

Band: Fire at the Plantation House | Album: Southampton Insurrection | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp

Fire at the Plantation House is a one-man act based out of San Francisco. The lyrics pull no punches in discussing social injustices, and the music is pretty solid, too. The vocal performance can be a bit shaky or awkward at points, but I admire the ambition of piling on so many layers. The music is solid overall, but this release does fall victim to the common tendency of prog acts to be overlong. There are plenty of exciting riffs and unexpected twists along the way, though.

Score: 73/100

Band: Hawkwind | Album: Stories from Time and Space | Genre: Space rock | Bandcamp

This is certainly a Hawkwind album. If you’ve heard any recent Hawkwind, you’ll know what you’re in for. The production is murky and not very good, and a lot of the songwriting is uninspired. Imagine if you took classic Hawkwind and turned the intensity down by about half. Their last album–2023’s The Future Never Waits–was surprisingly okay, but this feels a good bit weaker. Hawkwind have always struggled to capture their live energy in the studio–there’s a reason the most-acclaimed release from this band is Space Ritual, a live album–and they don’t seem to have gotten any better at it with age.

Score: 43/100

Band: The Tangent | Album: To Follow Polaris | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp

The Tangent typifies a lot of elements of retro-prog I’m not nuts about. The music here isn’t bad on a technical or compositional level. As I’ve said on other backwards-looking records, the music is well-played (though the vocals are a bit weak), with a lot of careful arrangements. But ultimately this just sounds like every project Neal Morse has been involved with, despite this not being a Neal Morse record. The band takes zero risks, and you know exactly what you’re getting into for the next hour. It’s long-winded, self-important, and unambitious; but moments of enjoyment can certainly be found. There are some fun solos and instrumental textures. However, the anodyne outweighs the good by a significant margin. If you don’t place much emphasis on adventurousness and you want some nice, safe, predictable retro-prog, you’ll probably like this.

Score: 55/100

Band: Writhing Squares | Album: Mythology | Genre: Space rock, Krautrock | Bandcamp

The latest release from this oddball Philadelphian act is a brash, uncompromising release. Bass, synths, and saxophone twist amidst lightly clattering drum machines for a wonderfully disorienting experience. It’s noisy, lo-fi, and mad. If you like The Stooges or Hawkwind, give Writhing Squares a shot, and I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

Score: 78/100