4 eclectic and diverse albums for your weekend

Why not start off our Highlights of this week with something completely different? “Dalya” is the fifth album by Israeli psychedelic indie rockers of Ouzo Bazooka and it contains six around six minute long hallucination-inducing dance hits that are poised to rule the campgrounds of any new Burg Herzberg or Woodstock festival in the future. Middle eastern psychedelia, so trippy that you’re not sure if you’ve taken your pills yet or if it’s the music working its way into your body. Definitely nothing for djent purists or strict old school prog metal fans, but a fun journey for everyone else with an open mind. Dario

Now this is something for djent fans though: an atmospheric, instrumental “Talk” from St. Petersburg, Russia based project Walking Across Jupiter. The russian spoken word bits might seem a bit distracting at first, as I’d really love to know what this “Talk” is all about, but in the end the music does the talking and it does it quite well. Nice clean production, good balance between atmosphere and heaviness, and some good old anthemic, catchy hooklines that prove there can be memorable instrumental music without being too flashy. Looking at their Bandcamp page, they’ve been quite active and prolific since almost 10 years, so it’s high time they’d come a bit more into the spotlight. Dario

Oh, what do we have here? It is the second album from Barcelona based death metal band White Stones led by bassist Martin Mendez, best known for his work with Opeth. While their debut “Kuarahy” last year was altogether quite raw and a bit half-baked, “Dancing Into Oblivion” is a completely different affair. That was already apparent in the first two singles, with blistering guitar solos and haunting atmospheres. But they do manage to uphold that quality over the complete 35 minutes runtime of the album. The 3 minute bass-led intro to ‘Iron Titan’, the spiralling schizophrenia of ‘To Lie Or To Die’ or the beauty of ‘Freedom In Captivity’: this album keeps surprising the attentive listener. A huge step up from their debut! Now I’m really looking forward to hearing more from them! Dario

Last December, UK modern prog metal superstars of TesseracT took to the stage for an exclusive streaming event called “P O R T A L S”. They won the category of “Best Live Stream Event” in our first The Progspace Awards and ever since the initial streaming on Dec. 12 of 2020, the fans never ceased to call for a multi-format release of this huge career-spanning production. Band and label heeded the calls and finally, you can own 1 hour and 45 minutes of finger-licking TesseracT deliciousness on Bluray, CD or Vinyl. A must have for fans, either to re-watch or to dive in for the first time. The Portal has re-opened – all you need to do is step through it and immerse yourself in the aural & visual wonders that lay beyond. Dario