Gazpacho

Soyuz

Ambitious, Marillionchampioned Oslo proggers. The world’s leading Norwegian artprog band to be named after Andalusian cold soup have racked up 10 albums over 15 years, and aren’t averse to a fullblown concept.

Soyuz contemplates the transient beauty of fleeting moments, manifesting this bittersweet reverie through characters and tales. Thus a doomed Russian space capsule captain, a Tibetan Buddhist funeral, Hans Christian Andersen and the oldest recording of a human voice (from 1860) feature in a sombre, sometimes overwrought deluge of gravitas.

Like that soup, Gazpacho are an acquired taste, but one which devotees lap up. They execute angsty prog while resembing A-ha’s Morten Harket singing for OK Computer-era Radiohead, particularly on the rumbling Hypomania. Gazpacho always demand you open your textbooks and employ your most earnest, fun-is-for-frauds ears. Yet you have to risk detention by applauding the commitment they pour into the melodramatic Emperor Bespoke or the shapeshifting space travel of the 13-minute Soyuz Out.

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Chris roberts