This will be our final new-releases update for a little while. After nearly ten years of blogging, I'm taking a break. My wife and I are heading off with our rucsacks.
Please keep an eye out for the usual end of year round-ups. There will also be a few special editions to celebrate this blog's 10th birthday in the spring of 2024.
Thanks for all your support. Keep listening. And keep supporting the artists!
Anyway, here are six of my newest favourites. As ever, each album comes with a mini review, plus all the necessary links you need to discover more about the artists, to listen to their music and, most importantly, to buy your own copy.
Published on 14th November 2023
All words, selections and layout by Andy Read.
1: GLASS HAMMER - Arise
Country: USA
Sub-genre: Prog / doom
Description: Glass Hammer are shooting for the stars with the release of their 21st studio album. Set against the backdrop of deep space exploration, Arise follows an android dispatched by overzealous scientists to uncover the galaxy’s hidden wonders.
Glass Hammer mastermind Steve Babb is again joined by singer Hannah Pryor and guitarist Reese Boyd. "Arise is my progressive-rock spin on space rock,” says Babb. “I’m still flirting with doom metal on a couple of songs, as we did on the last two albums, but there’s also psych-rock and even an 80s influence going on in the music. Even so, it’s very much a prog-rock album, just one that touches on other styles.”
"We’ve always been big on finales,” he adds. “But the final track is like nothing we’ve done before. It’s an epic-length instrumental prog-rock jam, meant to leave our fan’s jaws on the floor!"
I guess that's what you call going out with a (big) bang.
Listen to and buy the album on Bandcamp
More info from the official band website
2: VOKONIS - Exist Within Light
Country: Sweden
Sub-genre: Prog/psyche/doom
Description: Two years after their well-received Odyssey album, Swedish upstarts Vokonis return with their unique brand of doomy, proggy goodness with a ever-so-healthy dose of heavy-psyche. Shame it's only three tracks, but that just leaves you begging for more.
Listen to and buy the album on Bandcamp
More information from the official band website
3: HEAD WITH WINGS - Without Intervention
Country: USA
Sub-genre: Modern progressive rock
Description: New Haven, Connecticut. A quintet seeks to straddle the fine line between art, music and narrative drama. They succeed and then some!
Without Intervention is a compelling combination of dark alt/prog-rock and synth pop, woven within a concept about modern online culture. It's a complete story from front to back with multiple characters pushing the dialogue. One of the best modern progressive (art-rock) albums you will hear this year. Simples!
4: BURAK OZMUCUR - Alive
Country: USA
Sub-genre: Atmospheric heavy prog
Description: We've covered the work of this Turkish-born musician from New Jersey twice before. His three-track EP, In Silence, was one of my favourite albums of 2013 and his four-track EP, A Distant Light won favour back in 2016.
Here are another four enjoyable slices of atmospheric rock/metal, with a superb building of atmospherics. For fans of Porcupine Tree and The Addiction Tree, with touches of Riverside and (new) Katatonia.
5. LALU - The Fish Who Wanted to Be King
Country: International
Sub-genre: Progressive rock
Description: This is the fourth album from this international project put together by French composer and producer Vivien Lalu. With Damian Wilson back behind the microphone, this is a quick follow-up to last year's impressive Paint The Sky (one of my top albums of the year).
Frontiers is mainly a hard rock label and is great at picking up interesting bands like this and getting the product into the shops. But it has always been absolute shite at getting promotional material out to websites, especially those interested in its more progressive artists. I stopped asking long ago.
So the new Lalu album is out. The promo video is below. I'll have a proper listen soon. No fuller review likely.
Listen to and buy the full album on your preferred platform
More info from the official band website
6. PALLAS - The Messenger
Country: UK
Sub-genre: Progressive rock
Description: Forty years ago a band from Aberdeen recorded two of the seminal neo-prog albums of the 80s. It's great that they are still relevant and pushing themes and messages important in today's world.
The Messenger sees the return of singer Alan Reed. Where The Sentinel echoed the concerns of the cold war and the shadows it cast on all of us, The Messenger finds the band reacting to the existential threats to the world we find ourselves in. "From what we’ve done to the world, to the politics that shape it."
It's not released until December 15 but an initial promo trailer (below) gives plenty of tastes of things to come. You can pre-order on Bandcamp now, so that it arrives in time for xmas and everyone's Best Albums of the Year selections.
More great music to be discovered here in our special round-up of
The Best Progressive Rock Albums of 2023 (so far)
For more reviews, interviews, concert review and features on the world of progressive music visit our main page at dprp.net