Album Review: Beardfish – Songs for Beating Hearts

Band: Beardfish | Album: Songs for Beating Hearts | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: Gävle, Sweden | Label: InsideOut Music

For fans of: Big Big Train, Spock’s Beard

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, Beardfish were one of the most notable bands to come out of the burgeoning Scandinavian prog scene. Their music was melodic and usually pretty fun. Quirky vignettes easily mixed with more contemplative pieces, and they always incorporated a wide variety of influences. Sleeping in Traffic: Part 2 is one of the best prog albums of the 2000s, and it highlights all their strengths. They disbanded in 2016, and vocalist Rikard Sjöblom set out on a solo career.

Nine years after their last album, the cumbersomely-titled and somewhat uneven +4626-Comfortzone, Beardfish have reunited and recorded a new album. For as diverse as their records could be, Beardfish has a recognizable sound, and they largely stick to it.

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Album Review: Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks – True

Band: Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks | Album: True | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: Accrington, UK | Label: Frontiers Records

For fans of: Yes (duh)

Apple Music

Yes is a band I’ve written about a lot. My Yes Deep Dive was the first one I wrote for this site (and I’ve lately been contemplating rewriting parts of it, since my style of doing Deep Dives has shifted over the years). After I published that, they put out two more albums: the crap-tastic The Quest and the pretty-decent Mirror to the Sky.

This post initially began life as an Odds & Ends blurb, but I found myself with more to say than I expected. It also took me a while to get to this record because I honestly kept kinda forgetting about it. It’s not on Bandcamp, and I have a very strong preference for finding music through that platform.

Jon Anderson, Yes’s founding vocalist, hasn’t been in the band since 2008. Yes had scheduled a tour, and Anderson suffered a severe asthma attack shortly before it was to start. Under doctor’s orders to not sing for at least six months, the rest of Yes gave him the boot and replaced him with Benoit David (who was then replaced with current vocalist – and my whipping boy for all of modern Yes’s ills – Jon Davison).

The four Jon Anderson-less albums Yes has since released have varied from terrible to decent, but most of them have a certain dullness and sterility to them. I diagnosed Anderson’s absence from the band as a potential reason for Yes’s recent lousiness, as he was always one of the band’s primary songwriters. He’s also a much more dynamic and expressive vocalist than Davison. While I’m not overly-familiar with Anderson’s solo works, I know he’s put out some very solid music on his own. His solo debut, Olias of Sunhillow, is a favorite of mine.

The Band Geeks are a band headed by Richie Castellano, one of the current guitarists of Blue Öyster Cult. Initially evolving out of a podcast headed by Castellano, it featured him and a rotating cast of friends covering various classic rock songs.

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Album Review: Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja

Band: Oranssi Pazuzu | Album: Muuntautuja | Genre: Psychedelic black metal | Year: 2024

From: Tampere, Finland | Label: Nuclear Blast

For fans of: Hail Spirit Noir, Krallice, Sigh

Bandcamp

Black metal is one of relatively few styles of metal that seems to mesh well with psychedelia. (Or maybe only black metal acts are disproportionately willing to dabble in it.) It makes sense how one can make that leap, since classic psych often was categorized as such primarily on its instrumental tones, and black metal often focuses on having an atmosphere that ebbs and flows fluidly with searing tremolo picking and expansive walls of guitar. Just take a look at Sigh, Hail Spirit Noir, or these guys, Finnish five-piece Oranssi Pazuzu.

Their last release, 2020’s Mestarin kynsi, was a really solid release that I enjoyed a lot. Its hazy, swirling atmosphere made it a prime candidate for repeated listens, as something new always emerges from the sonic slurry. Muuntautuja sees Oranssi Pazuzu push some new boundaries, incorporating synthesizers and electronic elements to a significant degree.

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Odds & Ends: November 4, 2024

Band: Arcane Atlas | Album: Constellation Plus | Genre: Progressive rock, Art rock | Bandcamp

Arcane Atlas plays a relatively light and relaxing variety of prog. Expansive atmospheres and lush textures have a calming effect, and there are some really enchanting passages here. ‘90s Rush and ‘90s Yes are the most obvious influences to my ear. This album’s instrumental moments are its best. This duo does a great job at establishing a mood and toying around with drama. Not everything here is a winner (“Sample”, in particular, was a tough listen for me), but this band’s occasional veers into soft rock are forgivable in the end. If you’re looking for something intelligent but soothing, Constellation Plus is a good choice.

Score: 76/100

Band: Bent Knee | Album: Twenty Pills Without Water | Genre: Art rock | Bandcamp

This is a welcome return to form for Bent Knee after their unimpressive last outing. Smart pop hooks are mixed in amidst creative and surprising arrangements. The textures are lush, and the vocals are strong, as usual. Parts of this record can veer into less-distinctive sorta-art-poppy-type stuff every now and then, but overall, Bent Knee does a great job at weaving together accessible and inventive elements.

Score: 79/100

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Album Review: Geordie Greep – The New Sound

Artist: Geordie Greep | Album: The New Sound | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: London, UK | Label: Rough Trade

For fans of: black midi (duh), Frank Zappa, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Bandcamp

Geordie Greep is the vocalist and guitarist for the recently-disbanded avant-prog band black midi. That act made quite a name for themselves over their last two albums, Cavalcade and Hellfire, both of which I like a lot. Their dissolution was sudden and seemed to catch everyone by surprise, but Geordie–whose unique voice and jumpy, angular guitar were key elements of their sound–has come out with his solo debut

The New Sound is a sprawling double-album that largely carries black midi’s flame. Some of his former band’s songs featured the occasional tropicalia influence, but that element is much more prominent here. Avant-garde tendencies are toned down, and jazziness is cranked up. Much of this record was recorded in Brazil with local musicians, so that likely further solidified Greep’s clear underlying love for this style of music.

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Album Review: Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

Band: Blood Incantation | Album: Absolute Elsewhere | Genre: Progressive death metal, Space rock | Year: 2024

From: Denver, USA | Label: Century Media

For fans of: Wills Dissolve, Cynic, Morbid Angel, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream

Bandcamp

Blood Incantation has been a bit all over the place on their last few releases. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race is both brutal and intelligent. It features nasty, complex riffs alongside brief interludes of Floydian atmospherics. Their last two releases, though, have seen them go in a much more explicitly astral direction. 2022’s Timewave Zero was fully electronic and honestly not really my jam. If you’re more into Tangerine Dream than I am, it might be for you. Then last year, they released the EP Luminescent Bridge. One of the two songs on it was a fantastic synthesis of their usual death metal alongside more cosmic space rock and classic prog. The title track, though, is simply too ambient for my taste.

Their new LP, Absolute Elsewhere, sees the band expand upon the ideas put forth in “Obliquity of the Ecliptic”, off Luminescent Bridge. Death metal and intergalactic progressive rock both feature prominently, and the band strikes a great balance. (Though, like so many other metal bands that decide to incorporate non-metal elements into their music, they go on about “leaving the notion of genre behind” on their Bandcamp page. And I’m just not nuts about that sort of framing. Blood Incantation didn’t leave “genre” behind. They’re just playing two genres on this album, instead of one.)

Like their last EP and the ambient LP before it, this record consists of just two long compositions: “The Stargate” and “The Message”. Each of these pieces is split up into three parts, called “tablets.”

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Album Review: Diskord/Atvm – Bipolarities

Band: Diskord/Atvm | Album: Bipolarities | Genre: Technical death metal, Progressive metal | Year: 2024

From: Oslo, Norway/London, UK | Label: Transcending Obscurity

For fans of: Atheist, Artificial Brain, Gorguts

Bandcamp

I’ve covered at least two split records on here before, both from Ripple Music. (There have been a couple others I’ve considered, but I’m not sure I’ve actually written about them.) One is the stellar stoner/post-/prog metal collaboration between Howling Giant and Sergeant Thunderhoof. And the other is a study in contrasts with Wizzerd and Merlin taking opposing spins on stoner metal and heavy psych. Bipolarities is more in line with the former, as both Diskord and Atvm play complex, tangled varieties of death metal.

Diskord hails from Norway, and they’ve been around for a while. They’re not the most prolific band out there, but they’ve got three solid albums of tech-death under their belt. Atvm, meanwhile, is a newer band whose debut record I absolutely loved.

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Odds & Ends: October 7, 2024

Band: Chafouin | Album: In C | Genre: Minimalism, Krautrock, Math rock | Bandcamp

For their latest release, Chafouin tackle minimalist composer Terry Riley’s 1968 work, In C. This work has been covered by a number of other rock bands, most notably Acid Mothers Temple. The music has a tense, anxious feel to it, and the ritualistic repetition calls to mind other proggy subgenres, like krautrock and zeuhl. King Crimson’s work on THRAK also bears similarities, with the jagged, hypnotic, interlocking guitar lines.

Score: 79/100

Artist: Clarissa Connelly | Album: World of Work | Genre: Progressive folk, Experimental pop | Bandcamp

Before addressing the music, let me just compliment this album cover. I love that goofy, devious-looking piano. The music on World of Work is piano-forward, and Connelly’s voice is distinctive and emotive. Arrangements are minimal but inventive, and the vocal arrangements are intricate and charming. Things are rather sonically similar song-to-song, so it can kinda bleed together into a bit of a mush by the end of the album. I still like it overall, but a bit more variation would’ve been nice.

Score: 75/100

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Album Review: Beak> – >>>>

Band: Beak> | Album: >>>> | Genre: Post-rock, Krautrock | Year: 2024

From: Bristol, UK | Label: Invada Records

For fans of: late ‘60s Pink Floyd, Neu!, Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Bandcamp

I’m pretty sure this is the first record I’ve reviewed with a completely unpronounceable title. Thankfully, this is a text-based site, so I don’t need to say “greater-than sign, greater-than sign, greater-than sign, greater-than sign.” Such odd, ASCII-inspired titles are not entirely uncommon in certain styles of music. Math rock and many types of electronica dabble in it, and Beak> are math-rock adjacent. Most of this record is more in the vein of hazy, psychedelic, kraut-y post-rock, but post-rock and math rock do share quite a bit of DNA.

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Album Review: Cime – The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble

Band: Cime | Album: The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble | Genre: Avant-prog, Art-punk | Year: 2024

From: Aliso Viejo, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: black midi, At the Drive-In, Frank Zappa

Bandcamp

Monty Cime is the eponymous leader of this album’s titular ensemble. She covers vocals and bass, but beyond her, a huge cast of other musicians pitch in to flesh things out. On the Bandcamp page for this record, a friend of Monty’s describes how she recorded all the demos on a guitar and a cheap keyboard in their closet over the span of several days. It really is impressive knowing that these huge, sprawling, and lush tracks had such humble origins.

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