September starts with a focus on prog and post rock

30 years after his first solo album and countless albums with bands like Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment and with his own name attached to it, keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess decided to make a fully vocal driven solo album. With the heavenly voice of That Joe Payne, he found the perfect match to lift his compositions towards uncharted heights of melodic and harmonic bliss. Prepped up by a flawless drum performance from in-demand prog guy Darby Todd (Devin Townsend, Kaipa etc.) and excellent guitar contributions from Steve Dadaian and Bastian Martinez, “Permission to Fly” turned out to be a shining progressive rock highlight with plenty of marvelous melodies and harmonies to bathe in. Don’t worry, the keyboard wizardry and shredding is still present, only well-integrated into the songwriting. And I doubt anything can top ‘The Alchemist’ as progressive rock song of the year. Simply sublime! Don’t miss out on our Q&A video interview with Jordan over on our YoutubeChannel! Dario

Starting off this week’s post rock triple with A Swarm of the Sun from Sweden. “An Empire” is their fourth album in 14 years, so they surely take their time to perfect their sound. As they do in their compositions. Take their time I mean. And presuppose their listeners to display a certain patience when diving into their songs. The reward you’ll get will be a thousandfold though. Hypnotic, massive organ walls crash into the biggest climaxes you’ll hear all year, and the dread in Jakob Berglund’s voice is just so palpable and relatable. The comfort of shared pain, like a familiar blanket of warm horror if that makes any sense. It doesn’t? Well, for me the unique music of A Swarm of the Sun makes perfect sense ever since I fell in love with ‘Infants’ from their 2015 masterpiece “The Rifts”. It’s hard to put into words, and sometimes the feelings they manage to evoke are too deep. In the right doses and in the right moments, A Swarm of the Sun can work cathartic, comforting wonders though in an exceedingly scary world, and for that I’ll be ever thankful. Dario

Echotide is an Australian band founded by ex-Arcane members, Matthew Martin and Michael Gagen. But despite that, it can be described as cinematic post-rock, rather than prog. That said, “DUSTWUN” strikes a very good balance between quieter, melodic parts and the explosive guitars, building up nicely, which reminds me of MONO, although the Australians build the composition around beautiful piano melodies. It’s a very emotional album, with fantastic songs like ‘Silence, Static and Signal’ or shorter piano-driven interludes like ‘Call Sign One’ making me want to come back to this album and go through these emotions again. Fantastic musicianship (can’t expect any less from the Aussies) and composition, which can express more with less sometimes, wrapped me like a blanket. Definitely putting this album in my highlights of the year. Alex

The post-rock legends God is An Astronaut released their 11th studio album, “Embers”, continuing their 3 year release cycle. The new release is deeply emotional, as it’s dedicated to Torsten (guitars) and Niels (bass) father, Thomas Kinsella. ‘Falling leaves’ is driven by an acoustic guitar, which belonged to Thomas, and was written the day after his passing. Overall, many themes (cellos, sitar, effects) were influenced by the twins’ father – who was a musician himself – which makes this album very personal. It also sounds quite differently from the typical crescendo-based post rock – featuring a number of instruments and guest musicians like Jo Quail (cello) and Dara O’Brien (Sitar, shamanic drums, and others), and a lot of ideas that still blend well together – even the blastbeats in ‘Ember’” sound organic. The Irishmen still continue to make music that sounds fresh, even in the genre which might feel stale at the time. I am also a big fan of Lloyd Hanney‘s drum work, as the grooves are ever-developing and quite uniquely God is An Astronaut. So if you are a fan of post-rock, or in general emotional instrumental rock music with exotic hints, look no further than “Embers”. Alex

Back with their seventh album already are Aussie prog rockers Anubis. “The Unforgivable” is classic prog rock story-telling with one single song split into 10 parts. Always an ambitious undertaking, the six-piece from Sydney really fill those 46 and a half minutes to the brim with some excellent music that keeps on giving and just when you’re sure you’ve just heard the album’s climax, along comes a part that might be even better than what you just heard. Further solidifying their name as steady purveyors of quality progressive rock, Anubis surely have thrown in “The Unforgivable” in the ring to be considered one of the best albums of the genre in 2024. Dario

If “Statues”, “Bodies” and “Concrete” was their original pre-hiatus trilogy, Pure Reason Revolution’s post-hiatus trilogy would be “Lion”, “Bear” and “Dog”. I’m referring to the cover artworks of course, and the correct name of “Dog” is actually “Coming Up To Consciousness”, a nine track (plus five interludes) exploration of cool pop prog goodness. Excellent songwriting takes center-stage and holds you hostage for the better part of 42 minutes if you’re a sucker for stuff like this. Thoroughly enjoyable. And on tour in Europe soon with Lesoir, including a stop at ProgPower Europe (without Lesoir though). Don’t miss out! Dario

An excellent new voice in the ever-brimming Montreal prog and metal scene is certainly Voidchaser, who just unleashed a killer debut album in the form of “Solace”. Clocking in at almost exactly 30 minutes, the six tracks (or rather “parts”) take us on a journey seamlessly switching back and forth between neckbreaking progressive death metal riffing, piano ballads – anything in between. Having just completed a small tour of Quebec with the likes of The Anchoret, Universe Effects and Alpha Boötis, I sure hope this excellent release will put them on a wider, international radar as well. Top notch progressive (death) metal genre connoisseurs should be lapping up readily. Dario

Your ambient electronic treat for this week comes from Finland in the form of Oneironaut’s “Alien Gnosis”. Released through the Italian extreme metal label Avantgarde Music, it features four spacy explorations in the vein of the German ambient tradition that land somewhere around the 20 minute mark. So if you’re ever in need for some good, long-winded analogue synth trips à la Tangerine Dream, you’ll feel right at home here. Dario