Album Review: Amplifier – Gargantuan

Band: Amplifier | Album: Gargantuan | Genre: Progressive rock, Space rock | Year: 2025

From: Manchester, UK | Label: Rockosmos

For fans of: Devin Townsend’s less metallic stuff, Porcupine Tree, latter-era Beatles

Amplifier is a band that’s been around for a while, and they’ve often skirted the edges of this site’s purview. They’re primarily an alt-rock band, but they frequently include prog, psych, and space elements in their music. I’m especially fond of their 2011 release, The Octopus. Gargantuan is the band’s eighth studio album, and it sees them largely stick to their usual sound, but with a bit more space rock influence than on their last album. Things are grand and huge and often overblown here, but the band pulls it off quite well.

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Album Review: The Mars Volta – Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio

Band: The Mars Volta | Album: Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio | Genre: Art rock | Year: 2025

From: El Paso, USA | Label: Clouds Hill

Bandcamp

I was not super jazzed about this album in the period leading up to its release. The Mars Volta’s 2022 self-titled was not a good record. I savaged it as being underbaked, half-assed, and overall un-Voltaic. Supposedly, the acoustic re-recording of that album from 2023 is better, but I haven’t listened to it. I thought the underlying songwriting was weak enough that an aesthetic reshaping couldn’t save it.

TMV’s new album is Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio (Dirty Luck; the Eyes of Emptiness). It’s 18 songs long, so that daunted me a bit at first glance. But the total runtime is under 50 minutes, so it’s not as bad as I initially feared. I was dreading the prospect of something with the sound of their self-titled coupled with the length of Frances the Mute.

I’m happy to report my fears were largely misplaced. Lucro sucio is a huge improvement over The Mars Volta. The songs are relatively short, but they don’t suffer from the same underdeveloped qualities of their reunion record. Songs flow together smoothly, giving this a sense of cohesion the last album sorely lacked.

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Odds & Ends: April 7, 2025

Artist: Lukey Cope | Album: Interpretation | Genre: Progressive rock, Progressive metal | Bandcamp

Lukey Cope’s debut album is an instrumental affair full of fast, flashy guitar licks. Amid all the showing off, he also displays a keen ear for melody and composition. Piano is prominently deployed, and that instrument’s percussive, biting tone pairs well against some of the thicker auditory qualities at play here. Despite being an instrumental record with a semi-atmospheric vibe, the bloat is pretty minimal here.

Score: 79/100

Band: Deddom | Album: When you find out the amount of your pension and start thinking what to do with it | Genre: Avant-garde metal | Bandcamp

This is an absolutely insane release. This 42-minute behemoth covers territory as diverse as black metal, free jazz, ambient, and more. It’s angry, full of harsh sounds and uneasy rhythms. There is a lot of inventive, oddball material here, and I like just how stark many of the contrasts are. That said, it is longer than it needs to be, and if you’re not in the mood for something harsh and challenging, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Score: 73/100

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Album Review: Frogg – Eclipse

Bad: Frogg | Album: Eclipse | Genre: Progressive death metal, Technical death metal | Year: 2025

From: New York, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Atheist, Atvm, Between the Buried and Me, Vektor

Bandcamp

I covered Frogg’s debut EP, A Reptilian Dystopia, back in 2020, and I really liked it. It was one of my favorite short releases of that year. In the intervening years, they’ve put out a handful of songs (all of which show up here), but now they’re finally back with their first LP.

Frogg’s brand of music is fast, dense, and powerful. I often have somewhat mixed feelings on tech-death bands, as it’s easy for such acts to get lost in their own intricate guitar lines. Frogg, though, demonstrates both a keen ear for melody and a certain compositional ambition often lacking elsewhere in this micro-genre.

Plus, just look at that album cover. 10/10, no notes.

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Album Review: Motorpsycho – Motorpsycho

Band: Motorpsycho | Album: Motorpsycho | Genre: Psychedelic rock, Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Trondheim, Norway | Label: Det Nordenfjeldske Grammofonselskab

For fans of: Amplifier, Gong, Dungen, Slift

Bandcamp

Motorpsycho is one of the most prolific bands in the modern prog scene. They’re not quite King Gizzard, but they’re not terribly far off, either. Including a handful of collaborations, their 2025 self-titled is their 28th full-length release. They’ve demonstrated a lot of range, both across their career and on individual records. Their 1991 debut is primarily a stoner metal album, for example. I wasn’t introduced to Motorpsycho until their sprawling 2017 album The Tower.

Motorpsycho sees the now-duo take an approach somewhat similar to The Tower. This is a long record with a few songs where the band really stretches out. Textures are rich, dreamy, and psychedelic, but flashes of heavier stuff crop up every now and again.

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Album Review: Steven Wilson – The Overview

Artist: Steven Wilson | Album: The Overview | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Hertfordshire, UK | Label: Fiction Records

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Steven Wilson has described his new album, The Overview, as a return to longer-form writing. I’m not sure “return” is necessarily applicable here. Even To the Bone and The Future Bites had one song apiece that pushed 10 minutes. Though I suppose if he’s talking more specifically about songs long enough to cover one whole side of an LP, it has been a while. The last one of such length was “Raider II” off Grace for Drowning in 2011. And this is the first album to feature two such massive songs since The Sky Moves Sideways (though disc one of The Incident is billed as one hour-long song cycle).

This is also the first Steven Wilson solo album in a while I’ve gone into with good hopes. He has explicitly cited Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd as influences he channeled here, as well as stating that the concept of The Overview is well-suited to progressive rock. (The concept behind this album is “the overview effect,” where astronauts viewing the Earth from above often report overwhelming emotion and a strong connection with all of humanity.)

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Album Review: Jethro Tull – Curious Ruminant

Band: Jethro Tull | Album: Curious Ruminant | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Luton, UK | Label: InsideOut Music

Bandcamp

Oh boy! Jethro Tull is back with a new album. I gave their last two releases middling-to-lukewarm coverage, so I didn’t exactly have very high hopes for Curious Ruminant. Overall, though, I was pleasantly surprised. They leaned hard into folk music, and the album is mostly a success. It’s not going to be a contender for my album of the year, but if you’re looking for some decent, proggy folk rock, this is a good choice.

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Odds & Ends: March 3, 2025

Band: Besna | Album: Krásno | Genre: Post-metal | Bandcamp

Slovakian quartet Besna’s newest album is a powerful record full of searing, anguished post-black metal. The band expertly blends haunting and disorienting atmospheres with raw emotionality and clever and unexpected song structures. There are moments of stark beauty woven into the piercing guitar lines. The closing track is an especially strong encapsulation of this band’s best tendencies.

Score: 82/100

Artist: Marton Juhasz | Album: Metropolis | Genre: Jazz, Jazz-fusion | Apple Music

This is certainly at the jazzier end of things I cover, but it isn’t out of place here. Juhasz’s latest album sees him toy around with complex meters and rhythms, and the drumming is especially impressive. Warm saxophones and glimmering electric piano lead the way on most songs. He also draws from a fairly diverse set of influences. “Sao Paulo” has fitting Brazilian flavors; the guitar on “Helio” would be right at home in a post-rock song; and “Radar” features the structured chaos of an avant-leaning math rock band.

Score: 81/100

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Album Review: Dominic Sanderson – Blazing Revelations

Artist: Dominic Sanderson | Album: Blazing Revelations | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Liverpool, UK | Label: Independent

For fans of: Van der Graaf Generator, King Crimson

Bandcamp

Dominic Sanderson’s 2023 debut LP, Impermanence, was one of my favorite albums of 2023. It was dark and moody, with sharp contrasts between delicate and bombastic passages. He drew a lot both from classic acts like King Crimson and more modern bands like Porcupine Tree. The song titles are a bit on the melodramatic side, but the music is strong.

Two years later, he’s back with his sophomore release, Blazing Revelations. Sanderson, covering guitar and vocals, is backed by four additional musicians, including a dedicated wind instrumentalist. The music maintains its dark edge, but he is much more clearly drawing directly from Van der Graaf Generator than on his previous release.

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Album Review: Dream Theater – Parasomnia

Band: Dream Theater | Album: Parasomnia | Genre: Progressive metal | Year: 2025

From: Boston, USA | Label: Inside Out Music

Bandcamp

Three-and-a-half years is a relatively long gap between Dream Theater albums. In fact, this is the longest it’s ever taken them to put out a new album. However, this record also saw some rare churn (or maybe un-churn) in the band’s lineup. Mike Portnoy is back behind the drums after a 15-year absence.

For my money, though, I don’t notice much of a difference. I wasn’t nuts about a lot of Dream Theater’s work with Mike Mangini, but Portnoy has his share of spotty records with the band, too. The music here is pretty typical of the band. They write big, majestic melodies, and they also engage in astounding amounts of instrumental wankery. C’mon. It’s a Dream Theater album. If you’re reading this, you probably know what you’re getting into.

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