Chasing record after record: 69 releases overall this week including 10 highlights, 111 mini reviews so far this year!

Easily and by far my favorite album of this week is “No No No No”, the debut from a brand new band called Ultraphauna. Fronted by violinist Timba Harris (Secret Chiefs 3, High Castle Teleorkestra and many more…) and vocalist/keyboardist Dorothy Wave, completed by a fantastic rhythm section with Kayo Dot’s Toby Driver on bass and percussionist/drummer Joel C. Murray, “No No No No” is one hour and eight minutes of pure avant-garde art pop awesomeness. Touching violin prog metal à la Indukti (‘Collidascope’), suddenly going bombastically cinematic with timpani and brass sounds coming from a rather electronic synth beat (‘Im You Now’), or embracing influences from all around the world, this album is a true treasure chest and each of the then songs shows a distinct personality and different side of Ultraphauna’s sound. Four incredible musicians that set out to create fantastic new sounds where their individual sonic universes meet. An immersive journey through colorful universes of sound. Yes Yes Yes Yes! Give me more of that! (The quartet is currently on tour in Europe, check out the dates right there!) Dario

Just last weekend at the fantastic Prognosis Festival in the Netherlands, legendary King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto (who had just performed there with his other band O.R.k.) told me about this upcoming album from italian keyboardist Stefano Panunzi. And sure enough, here it is already! “Pages from the Sea” is a beautiful art pop record, full of ambient keyboard tapestries, wonderfully bubbling fretless bass (courtesy of Fabio Fraschini), the occasional Jakko M. Jakszyk (also King Crimson) guesting here and there and Mastelotto’s unique signature drumming style to spice it up even more. So if you’re into any of the aforementioned bands, Peter Gabriel’s solo albums or David Sylvian’s sound, this one should be right up your alley. Dario

By far the craziest highlight this week is another I, Voidhanger Records find, a small italian label that seems to prove almost weekly how well and thriving the extreme avant-garde underground is these days. Sarmat’s curiously titled “Dubious Disk” EP is apparently nothing more than a little teaser for the band’s imminent full length debut “Determined to Strike”, but what a teaser it is! 17 minutes improvised live in Colin Marston’s studio, running the full gamut from jazz to extreme metal and back again with ease: if this is any indication of the quality of the music on the full length album, oh boy are we in for an insane treat of avant-garde extreme jazz metal. No wonder, if people from Imperial Triumphant and Artificial Brain are involved here. Crazy stuff! Dario

Admittedly, the sound aesthetics of French synthwave pioneer Volkor X have always been pretty metal, despite the absence of riffing guitars. So it seemed only a matter of time until he came out with a little metal side project. Draxhan is that side project, and the first epic little EP, “Transmutations Act I” just dropped. Volkor X synth swathes and epic and slow-yet-forward-driving post metal is truly a match made in heaven and while the title track sounds like a Floyd-ish interlude, the final ‘Blackened Stars’ is bringing the full metal epicness The Ocean style. Great match of vocal styles between Volkor X and the second part of the duo, Sab Elvenia. Excellent guest guitar solo as always on Volkor X records as well, with returning collaborator Sylvain Coudret (Soilwork), Aurélien Edouard (The Great Old Ones) and of course Lucas de la Rosa (Archætype). Bring on Act II! Or new Volkor X stuff, I don’t care, anything is poised to sound excellent, no doubt! Dario

Atmospheric, melancholic, electronically tinged prog metal comes from Echoes and Signals this week. “Lunar” is the title of the follow up of 2021’s acclaimed “Mercurial” and sees the band changing into more or less of a one-man project by Fedor Kivokurtsev, whose wonderful timbre reminds me a bit of a less overbearing, more delicate version of Mick Moss. Musically, Antimatter could indeed also be a good reference point (or rather a slightly proggier version of it), whereas I feel that the electronic and synthesizer elements are granted more room to unfold and really shine compared to “Mercurial”, but then again it’s been a while since I listened to it, so I could be mistaken. An emotional vocal delivery, excellent songwriting, production and musicianship all around makes “Lunar” a compelling new album and reminds me that I should pay “Mercurial” another visit, as I remember liking it just as much. Dario

During last year’s Progpower Europe, a Dutch band called Neverus played their first show ever, and caught the audience by storm with their powerful music and entertaining performance. Nevertheless, we had to wait 6 more months for the release of their debut album, which is called “Burdens of the Earth”, and offers some serious listening fun. The general theme is about the balance of control between people and their surroundings, with each track taking a different perspective on this. Sonically, the songs are straight-forward, accessible yet diverse, presented with a mighty sound, great musicianship, and an infectious joy in their playing, especially during the guitar solos. The vocals switch effortlessly between full-sounding growls and clean, sometimes polyphonic singing. My favorites would be ‘Banish and Burn’, ‘Lazarus’ and ‘Temptation’, but at the end of the day the album has a great dynamic when listened as a whole, also because of the instrumental, playful interludes that give moments to rest in between. So if this is “majestic death metal” (that’s how Neverus call their music), I like it a lot – Worth to crank it up! Katha

Having already 4 full-length albums and an EP under their belt, April 20 saw Australian melodic death metal act Orpheus Omega unleashing their newest offering “Portraits”, on which every band member contributed one song in its entire vision and execution, and features guest appearances of Andy Gillion (Ex-Mors Principium Est), Björn ‘Speed’ Strid (Soilwork / Night Flight Orchestra) and Jim Grey (Caligula’s Horse) as well as Jukka Pelkonen and Markus Vanhala (Omnium Gatherum).

The songs are as individual as the five musicians behind Orpheus Omega, all varied in their compositions, but nevertheless the EP is a strong unit, melted together by the beautiful, fitting cover artwork and a mighty, yet detailed production. While the basis is clearly high-energetic melodeath with mind blowing riffs, hard-hitting rhythmic and vigorous, harsh vocals, there is still plenty of melody thanks to the virtuoso guitar and keyboard solos and the awesome background orchestration. The clean sung parts deliver a good pinch of catchiness, and you can also find a more modern approach, as they sometimes add electronic or slight core elements. All-together, “Portraits” is a short-whiled, vibrant listen, recommended ffo of the genre and beyond. Katha

Space Junk Is Forever is a Massachusetts based project founded by organist Jordan Holt and they play groovy, funky, spacey instrumental prog with a retro sci-fi feel somehow. Their fourth album, simply entitled “SJF4” is out now on YouTube and highly recommended for any space and synth prog lover to dive into. Just pure joy listening to it. Close your eyes and float in space, but beware, you gotta dodge the space junk… 😉 Dario

More instrumental keyboard centered prog, but this time more focused on ambience and textures: Michael Whalen presents his new album “Our April Tigers”, and this time around, he has enlisted none other than the legendary Michael Manring to grace the songs with his beautiful fretless bass sounds. Electronic ambient artpop for the connoisseur. The simplistic cover artwork design looks like it could be released by the legendary German ECM label, which it isn’t, but it would definitely be a good fit on their roster as well. Dario

And the bonus highlight of this week goes to Bell Witch’s new epic doom monster that is the 1 hour and 23 minutes spanning song/album “Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate”. I think the first drum beat appears somewhere after around eight minutes in, and most of the time it feels like the antithesis to the alarming trend of declining attention spans. You probably could watch at least one full TikTok video in between snare hits. That is in the fast parts, mind you. For the first ten minutes, I had no idea where this was going, but then suddenly it pulled me in and didn’t let go. Step through The Clandestine Gate if you dare! Dario