A Reset with Anova Skyway & a trip into the Hellfire with black midi

A highly melodic and catchy affair comes out of Houston today. The Texan six-piece Anova Skyway, now with ex-Oceans of Slumber guitarist Sean Gary amongst their ranks, return with “Reset”, a six-tracks 23-minutes EP that features their most accomplished and expansive material to date. Sitting comfortably between alternative and modern melodic prog, “Reset” sports a distinctive Jolly-vibe towards the middle (‘Spark’/’City Underground’), no wonder as they enlisted the co-songwriting talents of Jolly-Keyboarder Louis Abramson. New vocalist Mike Palacios knows how to impress with a presence that’s not too overbearing, but always on point. A brilliant cover of Faith no More’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is the icing on the “Reset”-cake, so come on and dig in. Best songs: the first and last tracks, ‘Translucent’ & ‘Horizon’, bookending the EP in glorious fashion. Dario

Already here with their third full-length release, UK experimental rock band black midi drop their highly-anticipated “Hellfire” after an already jaw-dropping release from last year with “Cavalcade”. Continuing in that avant-prog/jazz-rock direction, they kick it up a notch even more by throwing in some brutal prog; a genre probably least known by general proggers. Even to me, I’m not quite familiar with the term enough to identify it myself in music, but the “brutal” term isn’t so much like how it’s described in metal music. It’s essentially the combination of characteristics found in both prog and noise rock, making for an overall chaotic sound. The performances on here are so intricate that it can be difficult to follow on first listen, but since revisiting it, I’ve already latched onto it much more that I can easily place this not only as their best album so far, but also as a personal top 3 album for this year. Absolutely incredible performances all around from the whole band. If it doesn’t quite click for you yet, I highly recommend seeing them live. The energy they deliver is hard to ignore and will remind you why live rock music is so great! Colin