Finishing off the year with 16 Highlights from the second half of November

During a time when a lot of music fans and news outlets were already hell bent on being the first ones to present their Album of the Year lists, a few of the most important albums of the year were still to be released. At least in the Prog realms that is. And one of those albums is certainly Moron Police’s “Pachinko”. The Norwegian ‘Action Rockers’ had to overcome terrible tragedy in order to be able to arrive at this point with their third album delivering greatness, joy, weirdness and bittersweet nostalgic feelings and everything and anything in between in one go. Read all you need to know about “Pachinko” in Van’s thorough and extensive review right here: https://theprogspace.com/moron-police-pachinko/ Dario

Another one of those important late-season albums is also the third full length for this band: “A Liminal Step” by Danish Prog Metal quartet Feather Mountain. Their sophomore album, “To Exit A Maelstrom” earned them a spot at ProgPower Europe 2022, and now they’re taking a step that doesn’t feel liminal at all. With ‘Prayer Wall’, the album might just have yielded the best song of the year in total and a singular achievement in cathartic songwriting. Those feelings of catharsis and overcoming traumatic experiences has always been central to Feather Mountain’s emotional approach to Experimental Prog Metal where beauty and devastation co-exist in equal parts. Never was the effect as startling and all-encompassing as with this monster of a masterpiece of a song. Now, any album with such an Über-song in its midst naturally struggles with the risk of having the rest overlooked. Don’t make that mistake though as all the other songs are certainly worth exploring as well. Dario

When I first saw the name of Aeons’ new opus, I thought it was still the working title 😉 But thanks to the internet, it was easy to look it up, and here we go: “6EQUJ5” was a signal caught by a radio telescope in 1977, and is – until now – considered the most promising candidate for an extraterrestrial message. So WOW!, what a story for a musical epic. They draw us in with a mesmerizing Pink Floyd-ish intro, before an electronic bass interlude changes mood and pace, seamlessly merging into the first, heavy part. From the clean, dreamy start, we lift off to a wild ride with mighty riffs, vigorous harsh and harmonic clean vocals, super tight drumming and marvelous bass playing, spiced up with magnificent guitar wizardry.

Writing an over 20 minutes epic is a challenge, but Isle of Man’s Prog powerhouse master it with flying colours, keeping the listeners attention thanks to the great dynamic in their song-writing and the full-sounding yet detailed production. Everything is totally on point, sounds so natural while they throw all kinds of stylistic elements into a huge melting pot to create something new with their very own, wonderful playfulness. All five band members skillfully add their pieces to the flow, exactly knowing when to push, and when to step back a bit.

The lyrics work in different directions: following the story, a philosophical approach in the overall context, but also in a personal way, resonating very well with me, and so does the music. Whether you like Prog, a captivating musical story, or are simply curious about a signal heard throughout space – Just go for it! Katha

Instrumental wizardry Pt. I: It’s been five years since I first heard of Australian keyboardist Rohan Sharma when I came across his incredible debut “eighteen”. Following his work showed a fast evolving musician, who now released his most ambitious album to date, “Sunder”. Accompanied by Lulu de la Rosa on guitar as well as guest appearances from Rohan Stevenson (I Built the Sky) and Toby Peterson-Stewart (The Omnific), he shares a fascinating, keyboard-centered record. Djenty parts seamlessly move into beautiful, classical piano sections, mixed up with modern electronic sounds, mighty shredding, and some jazzy interplays. A great listening fun, and a gem for fans of instrumental prog. Katha

Instrumental wizardry Pt. II: Based in The Netherlands, audio engineer Mendel bij de Leij has made a name for himself as a film score composer, and also as ex-guitarist of death metal band Aborted. With his solo project, he just shared his newest instrumental release, a five-track tour de force filled with shredding mastery. While the background arrangements wander between modern electronic and classical instrumentation, showcasing the colorful facettes of composing and producing, his guitar playing clearly stands out with its broad variety from razor-sharp riffs to mesmerizing soloing. Together with his playfulness and creativity, this EP is an exciting listen, and easily entered my Top10 this year. Katha 

2025 will be remembered as the year the next generation started to take over. With both of Ihsahn and Ihriel’s children releasing some awe-inspiring first scent marks (Angell’s excellent “Veiled by Woe” Demo EP and Ariadne’s shocker of a debut single “My Nightmare Ends Where Yours Begin”). And now Noak Méndez Artigas, son of Opeth bass legend Martin Méndez, dropped a stunning EP as well. Under the project name EOS (short for ‘Eye of Surrender’ I’m assuming), the 17 year old musician and composer plows through two high octane Progressive Death Metal hit singles on “Omnia Mors Aequat”, with an extra serving of a neoclassical orchestral outro in the form of the title track. The future is more than bright! Dario

16 albums in 30 years: French Cosmic Black Metal innovators of Blut Aus Nord haven’t been idle. While I had been familiar with the name for a long time already, I only got around to check them out with their previous release, “Disharmonium – Nahab”, and completely fell in love with the dissonant sound cathedrals they were building on there. “Ethereal Horizons”, their 16th album, sees the Frenchmen around mastermind Vindsval leaning into Psychedelic Post- and Krautrock tangents more so than ever, yielding something ever more so ‘ethereal’ and not as oppressive as before. Endlessly mesmerizing! Dario

Stripping away anything that is Metal from the approach that we just heard from Blut Aus Nord, going all in with Synthesizers and Electronics: robec’s debut “the forest is too loud” is like the perfect marriage of Psychdelic Krautrock sounds and instrumental Prog Rock. The exhilarating crescendo of the ‘unknown overture’ seems to climax in what sounds like a little hello from Steve Hackett, ‘latibulate’ grooves like usually only Gösta Berlings Saga does. Including a super smooth & dreamy Kitaro-esque synth solo… Until the groove returns. Mastermind Marius T. Robech delivers a fingerlickingly good highlight of synth music, no matter if you prefer it electronic or prog rocky. Tangerine Dream and Vangelis would be proud! Dario

Seven years have passed since the last Spock’s Beard album, and I had almost given up hope we’d hear from them again. Between Pattern-Seeking Animals releasing five albums and Ryo Okumoto staying busy with solo and the Allstar live Prog-ject, projects, the Beards seemed firmly in the past. Well, ‘hope is the key’, as they sing in the excellent 21 minute title-track of “The Archaeoptimist”. This marks a true return to form for the veteran line-up of Alan Morse/Dave Meros/Ryo Okumoto, the fourth album with Ted Leonard on lead vocals and the first with Drummer Nick Potters and composer Michael Whiteman (I am the manic whale). An unexpected late Classic Prog Rock highlight for this year. Welcome Back! Dario

Kind of picking up where the title track of EOS’ “Omnia Mors Aequat” EP left off a couple of highlights above, Antinoë is taking us into “The Fold”. This Madrid based one-woman piano project summons us into her atmosphere-drenched spheres that occupy a similar emotional territory as A.A. Williams. Think of her ‘arco’ EP but with piano instead of a string quartet. If you’re susceptible to the melancholy  realms of emotions and like to marvel at the dark beauty of it, this album is definitely for you. Dario

When a band calls their debut album “All Flesh is Grass”, it’s pretty obvious that there’s gotta be some classical influences somewhere. Glasgow based trio Godeater doesn’t show these influences right away on their sleeves musically though, but if you listen closely, it does come seeping through the pores of their Technical Prog Death amalgamation until it breaks loose in the final banger ‘Soil and Steel’, even reaching the harmonic grandeur of The Zenith Passage. And thus, the music of their “Alvocerer” EP fades out far too soon on a high note and leaves you craving for more. Bring on that third album, please! Dario

Continuing our classically inspired journey with some Nautical Atmospheric Folk Black Metal from Panopticon live-violinist Charlie Anderson. “The Splintered Oar” is his debut album under the Weft moniker and it takes us on an adventurous musical journey across the seas. Just as the weather out there can be sunny or stormy, the waters can be calm or treacherous, we are presented with a wide range of dynamics and moods from the dreamy acoustic opener ‘Leaves’ to the brutally epic closer ‘Dream of Oaks’. An accomplished work of art and hopefully a great sign of even greater things to come. Dario

Norwegian Boutique label Gymnocal Industries has been responsible for some of this year’s craziest releases like A Flying Fish or Double Mute. “Metamorphoses”, the debut album by The Incomprehensible Danny Midnight Orchestra, might just take the cake for the weirdest piece of art I’ve laid ears upon this year. 47 minutes of cinematic Jazz Noir as background for a very surreal story unfolding, told through expressive spoken word by the main man himself. The words themselves are pretty comprehensible as opposed to the crazy story they’re telling. I have no idea what it all means, but it sure sounds very intriguing. So does the music. Will I find out what these “Metamorphoses” are all about in the end? I don’t know. Will I keep trying with repeated listens? Hell yes I will. Dario

With two EPs and one full length album out so far, it was time for Scottish Proggers EBB to return to a longer format and they surely did so with “The Mirror”. Classic and classy Progressive Rock with lots of tasty synths and several longer songs, with the 11 minute title track sitting dead center as one of the definitive highlights. Elsewhere, ‘Take To The Stars’ knows to impress with a cosmic voyage and ‘Day 19’ surprises with a nice odd groove and cool flute sounds courtesy of keyboardist Nikki Francis. Not the biggest fan of the acoustic outro track ‘Geneva’, but now I still have their live album “Live at the 1865” to discover that they released earlier this year that I somehow missed. Dario

I’ll make it short for this one: Salt Lake City based Alternative Rock trio MELŌ have infused their sound with some great orchestral flourishes, recorded with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, on their new album “HiLO”. I’ll be honest, some of the more straight forward rocking stuff doesn’t quite click with me, but when they start progging it out like in the title track, this stuff can be a lot of fun. So for me it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but this should find many fans out there, seriously! Dario

“The Loss of Beauty”, Shores of Null’s latest studio album, made it into the Honorable Mentions of our back-then-resident Doom expert Lykle for his top albums of 2023. But the Italian doomster are not the reason for including “Latitudes of Sorrow” in these highlights. Sure, their two tracks opening this split album are pretty solid. But once the Finnish duo Convocation takes over, we’re talking some of the finest Funeral Doom/Death Doom ever! The joint track in the middle, ‘The Year With No Summer’, is already creeping towards that total annihilation via pure sorrow, with ‘Abaddon’s Shadow’, things become darker and darker. Until the ‘Empty Room’ crushes everything. One of the best songs in the genre I’ve ever heard. That empty room is full of sorrow. And my heart is full. Dario