2025, Part 4: Other Albums worth checking out for yourselves

 The albums presented below represent a group of albums that each came highly recommended to me but failed to capture my sustained attention. Knowing that I no longer have the patience, time, or interest in forcing myself to review every album that comes my way, I offer these up as a reminder of music you may wish to check out for yourselves. This has been a difficult decision for me in that my initial intentions on becoming a music reviewer were to try to offer fair and impartial, somewhat "objective" reviews of as many of the hundreds of new album releases I hear about from each and every year of this 21st Century. I apologize to all of the wonderful music professionals who had hoped that I might review their musics.

FLUCTUS QUADRATUM Laplacian

Melodic and proficient synth-oriented NeoProg from England.

Line-up / Musicians:
- Jopheus Burtonshaw / keyboards, synthesizers, guitar & bass effects
- Rick Burtonshaw / drums
- Curtis Adamczyk / vocals

1. Laplacian (6:07)
2. Dawn of Acquiescence III (7:11)
3. Inertia (5:06)
4. Where the Lack of Logic Lies (11:21)
5. The Grey Room (2:19)
6. The House Within Itself (6:41)
7. Consequences (6:09)
8. Bridge to Suffering (0:50)
9. Suffering in Serenity (6:43)
10. Alone. (5:56)
11. Mistwell (0:43)
12. Direlight (13:01)

Total Time: 72:07

The music on Laplacian is pretty good, it's just that it's a little too obvious that Jopheus' studio album music is predominantly controlled, programmed, and issued from a computer keyboard. This can be done well but not while using the kind of "dated" (1990s) sounds that Jopheus chooses (including/especially "bass", "piano", and "guitars"). The second "problem" I have with the music on this album is that it's very run-of-the-mill, stereotypic NeoProg, which, as I've been stating repeatedly over the past couple of years, feels as if it has been mined to death: we're now working on anything we can extract through the intensive extractive processes of shale oil mining, fracking, or even capturing fumes. Can music progress no more? Are we done? Condemned to work only from the combinations and permutations of existing sounds, instruments, and styles?

      Curtis Adamczyk's vocals are weak and poorly rendered in the engineering department (sounding just like they do in their live concert performance videos).

      Qualitatively this is really a three to 3.5 star album but the Burtonshaw brothers manage to eek out some exceptionally-engaging music despite the equipment insufficiencies.   

MOTORPSYCHO Motorpsycho

And then there were two: the Psychonauts' two founding members . . . and a bunch of hired hands. The realities of the modern way of making and publishing music has finally dawned on Bent and Hans.

Line-up / Musicians:
- Bent Sæther / lead & backing vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, bass, Mellotron, synthesizer, piano, organ, Omnichord, percussion
- Hans Magnus Ryan / lead & backing vocals, electric lead, rhythm & slide guitars, Mellotron, synthesizer, piano
With:
- Ingvald Vassbø / drums (1,6,8-11)
- Mari Persen / strings (2)
- Reine Fiske / electric guitar (3,4)
- Olaf Olsen / drums (3,4)
- Thea Grant / vocals (8)

Disc 1 (40:49)
1. "Lucifer, Bringer of Light" (10:49) off to the races we go straight from the first frame--especially with metronomic JAKI LEIBZEIT-like drummer Ingvald Vassbø in the driver's seat. The harmonies on the team vocals are rather weak, even discordant at times. The song's chord structure is fairly straightforward with only a few interesting bridges or instrumental passages. The WHO "Baba O'Riley"-like third minute starts off interestingly but then devolves into a fairly straightforward ALLMAN BROTHERS-like guitar solo--and then slightly more interesting LYNYRD SKYNYRD-like duet/duel. This goes on until the ninth minute when the boys try to come back to a slightly-more sophisticated (and infinitely more interesting) variation on the opening theme for more vocals. (17.5/20)
2. Laird of Heimly (3:54)
3. Stanley (Tonight's the Night) (4:10)
4. The Comeback (4:32)
5. Kip Satie (2:25)
6. Balthazaar" (11:40) bug-buzz-saw playing around until Krautrock motif steps into play at the 0:56 mark (with a bass line that is a variation on the famous "Peter Gunn" riff). The team vocals are okay, melodic and smooth, I just don't know (or care) what they're singing about. Guitar solos with a variety of guitar sounds (one very Allman Brothers-like). Halfway into the song I'm finding the motif to be more annoying than hypnotic, this despite all the different guitar sounds and the addition in the sixth minute of piano chord hits. A turn given to synths for solos in the seventh minute provide a little diversion/relief but then we're right back into the rut for the next vocal section in the eighth minute. Around the eight-minute mark the band shifts a little (mostly drummer Ingvald Vassbø's drum beat and style) and then synthesized guitar takes off for the next solo (with the next sound). The eleventh minute brings us around to the final vocal section while the instrumental parts of the song show signs of cracking and, perhaps, dissolving. No such luck. And then there's the whole travesty of focusing a song about "Balthazaar" much less using the word as the exclusive occupant of the chorus's main lyric, repeated over and over. Sorry guys! This just doesn't live up to the high standards of your tremendous body of work! (17.375/20)
7. Bed of Roses (3:19)

Disc 2 (40:50)
8. Neotzar (The Second Coming)" (21:07) pretty weird and lame for the first 2:40 with piano-like guitar notes backing singer Thea Grant, but then the band kicks in with some decent cruise-drivin' music over which another lame vocal (and equally-lame background vocal) is set. The Mellotron strings work is mismatched and the guitar solos in the mid-section are just okay. At 8:15 there is a break before harp-like "heavenly" music fills a minute and more while, eventually, electric guitar plays a spacious series of mindless notes for another minute or so. In the eleventh minute some chords begin to form from behind, orchestral washes. At 12:15 some ominous and acerbic notes and chords begin amping things up until there is about 90 seconds of almost-UTOPIA/MAHAVISHNU/ZAPPA-like cacophony up to the end of the 14th minute. But then things smooth out and return to the main Motorpsycho highway though a more-subdued electric guitar continues soloing into end of the 15th minute before being rejoined by the other guitarist--who then takes over in the sixteenth. Man! It feels as if these guys have really been chompin' at the bit to have some loose solo time--even some vicious duels. Drummer Ingvald Vassbø really ups the chaos in the seventeenth minute but then things straighten out again for some piano and synth leadership--just before male vocalist steps in with a lame vocal. The final three minutes continue this piano-pounding palette while the guitarists (and vocalists--in the background) speed along toward the 21st minute in which they break it all down into bare-bones guitar and Mellotron note picking to the song's end. Interesting and sometimes exciting--especially if you're just into guitar shredding--but really not a greatly engaging or memorable song. (34.75/40)
9. Core Memory Corrupt (5:38)
10. Three Frightened Monkeys (8:41)
11. Dead of Winter (5:24)

Total Time 81:39

An album that feels like the two have rustled through their closets of old songs that had never made previous albums and dusted a few off for fresh renditions. I can see why most of these had been left in the closet. Even the ones that feel fresh are filled with either too much chaos or too much noodling: not the stuff that have kept me loyal to the cause for over 16 years.

EYE 2 EYE Lost Horizon

French NeoProg artist moving toward the heavier side.

 
Line-up / Musicians:
- Paul Tilley / lead vocals
- Bruno Pegues / guitars
- Philippe Benabes / keyboards
- Didier Pegues / drums, backing vocals, keyboards
With:
- Elise Bruckert / violin
- Etienne Damin / bass
- Djam Zaïdi / bass
- Valentin Gevaraise / guitars
- Nicolas Fabrigoule / piano
- Kelly Mezino / backing vocals
- Michel Cerroni / backing vocals
- Stéphane Baumgart / backing vocals

1. Garden of Eden (9:40)
2. The Letter (6:53)
3. Meadows of Silence (12:03)
4. Lost Horizon ( Ghosts Endgame) (22:45)
I - The Shoreline
II - Tempest
IIII - Sad Eyed Siren

Total Time 51:21

CROWN LANDS The Heart Is in The Body

Line-up / Musicians:
- Nicola Baigent / clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, recorder, flute
- Charlie Cawood / bass guitar, double bass, handbells, sitar
- Josh Perl / keyboards, vocals
- Sharron Fortnam / vocals
- Keepsie / drums, handbells
- Richard Larcombe / lead vocal, guitar, harmonium, harp, tin whistle, violin, cello, concertina, English border bagpipe, dulcimer
- Rhodri Marsden / piano, keyboards, bassoon, saw, recorder, tremolo guitar, percussion, theremin, vocals
With:
- Mark Cawthra / vocals (2,5,6)
- Susannah Henry / vocals (3)
- James Larcombe / hurdy gurdy (8)
- Sarah Nash / vocals (3,7)

1. "I Might Not" (5:36) (8.75/10)
2. "She Didn't Want" (5:56) (8.75/10)
3. "Weaker than Me" (5:06) (8.75/10)
4. "The Same Without" (6:39) (8.75/10)
5. "Et Tu Brute" (4:16) (I fear) I'm starting to get used to this music! (8.75/10)

6. "O Alexander" (5:36) the most stripped down yet-choral-oriented and vocal-bare of the album's songs. Still too angular and dissonant. (8.875/10)

7. "Did Look a Fool" (7:37) What?! an almost normal song?! The musicians seem to be building their weave around what feels/sounds almost like a straight 4/4 time. The XTC-like vocals are decent. If only the drum line and calliope player were older than six or seven-years old! (13.3333/15)

8. "A Sailor and His True Love" (9:46) the most Gentle Giant song on the album. (17.75/20)

Total time: 50:31

If I hadn't heard Gregorian chants, J.S. Bach, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dimitri Shostakovich, Gentle Giant, Robert Fripp/King Crimson, Henry Cow/Art Bears, Hatfield & The North/National Health, Happy The Man, XTC, This Heat, Cheer-Accident, The Cardiacs, Mr. Bungle, Advent, Jack O' The Clock, Knifeworld, The Muffins/Dave Newhouse/Manna/Mirage, and William D. Drake, I would have said that Richard Larcombe & Company might be onto something with this quirky, angular mix of mediæval choir motets put to electrified/electronic minstrel/troubadour music. But, as it stands, my bombarded brain keeps telling me that I've heard this before. Were it not for the lyrics, I would be inclined to agree with the processing center of my central nervous system, but, as it is, I'm more inclined to say that I hope I never have to hear this music again: I have enough dissonance and cacophony in my life already, thank you very much. Despite all this, I must say that, over time, with continuous listening, the ear and CNS kind of grow used to the dissonant parts and are then able to begin to pick up on the "smoother" melodies--which seem to come from the choir-delivered vocals more often than not. This fact helps render this music listening experience into the more palpable, even likable, category that I find I've placed New Jersey band ADVENT and American Prog folk artist DAMON WAITKUS (Jack O' The Clock) into.

     As I sit with this music--really sit with it--I find myself imagining a troupe of brightly-colour-costumed minstrels and troubadours marching into my medieval village from distant adventures who-knows-where, dancing, prancing, and frolicking playfully around the central figure of the marching man beating padded drumsticks on the should-harnessed tonal bass drum to a marching rhythm as wooden flutes and recorders are played by the some of the dancing troupe members. The problem with these songs for me is in their monotonous sound and choppy, angular rhythmicity. Were I able to "hear" and make sense of the words of their lyrics instead of hearing them as another element of the monotonous wall tapestry of sound they might accrue more weight to make their way into my heart. As they are, I feel as if I "just made it through" another one of those stereotypic bombardments of mirth and merriment brought into town by these sly, creepy, somewhat untrustworthy itinerate minstrel troupes. ("Whew! Glad that's over! Hope they're not back any time soon!")    

Total Time 50:32

88.11 on the Fishscales = B/four stars; a collection of anachronistic-sounding music that will not be for everyone but it might be for you. 

ECHOLYN Time Silent Radio II

Line-up / Musicians:
- Brett Kull / guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals
- Ray Weston / lead vocals, bass, backing vocals
- Chris Buzby / keyboards, backing vocals
- Jordan Perlson / drums & percussion, backing vocals

1. Time Has No Place (16:37) :
- a. Into Blue and Green
- b. The Air of Ivy Hill
- c. Emerald Garden
- d. Forever Evermore
2. Water in Our Hands, Pts. 1-4 (28:51)

Total Time 45:28

ECHOLYN Time Silent Radio vii

Released the same day as Time Silent Radio II, this album exhibits more of a pop song simplicity.

Line-up / Musicians:
- Brett Kull / guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals
- Ray Weston / lead vocals, bass, backing vocals
- Chris Buzby / keyboards, backing vocals
- Jordan Perlson / drums & percussion, backing vocals

1. Radio Waves (7:01)
2. Silent Years (4:31)
3. Cul-de-Sacs and Tunnels (7:09)
4. Boulders on Hills (6:53)
5. Our Brilliant Next (5:47)
6. On We Blur (5:41)
7. Tiny Star (8:29)

Total Time 45:31

THE AURORA PROJECT EVOS12

Line-up / Musicians:
- Dennis Binnekade / lead vocals
- Alex Ouwehand / guitar, backing vocals
- Remco van den Berg / guitar, backing vocals
- Marcel 'Mox' Guijt / keyboards
- Rob Krijgsman / bass
- Joris Bol / drums & percussion

1. Slave City (6:27)
2. The Movement (5:41)
3. Have Some Tea (11:36)
4. The Traveler (5:46)
5. Freedom of Thought (9:09)

Total Time 38:39