AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
GRANT MOON has a rummage down the back of the Prog sofa for the ones that nearly got away…
Pure prog, jazz fusion and rock come together in fine style on The Courage To Be, the self-released debut album from Cleveland, Ohio trio Lux Terminus. Pianist/keyboardist Vikram Shankar, drummer Matthew Kerschner and bass player Brian Craft are in perfect sync on eclectic tracks with proggy titles like Electrocommunion, Aberration and Spectral Shapes. What a breath of fresh air this is, a treat for fans of thinky piano-led prog, and the cherry on top comes in the form of a classy vocal slot from the ever-divine Anneke van Giersbergen.
London psych proggers The Osiris Club have removed their cultish masks of late and unveiled three-track single Island Of Stone (Indie). Ulver’s Kristoffer Rygg sings the catchy title track – taken from the Club’s recent second album Wine-Dark Sea; the Nik Void remix of Into The Silent Sea is a dispensable exercise in creepy ambient sound design (one for Ben Wheatley’s next woozy horror), and the crunching Machinations sees these contenders wear their mid-70s prog influences on their berobed sleeves.
Talented upcoming Bristolian Saul Blease has a knack for alt-rock and industrial textures, and an appetite for big themes. The Great War (Bad Elephant) is released on November 11, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1. His songs (Listen To The Man, War Machine, Passchendaele) are by turns savage, melodic and dramatic, but while Blease commits fully to his gruelling subject, it’s a weighty one which, for now, just exceeds his artistic grasp.
Public Service Broadcasting have the opposite problem on White Star Liner (PIAS), their take on the story of the doomed Titanic. As befitting PSB’s usual style, it features first-person narrative, from the son of one of the Belfast shipwrights
(The Unsinkable Ship) and survivor Eva Hart (on chilling closer The Deep). The motorik title track is the highlight of an accomplished but all-too-brief EP; an amuse-bouche in comparison to their previous treatments of the space race and Welsh mining industry. The brevity of these four (yes, high quality) tracks is markedly at odds with the scale and significance of the source tragedy.
Back to our own century, and as things turn further to shit by the week on the world stage, Brighton rockers Black Peaks are here to articulate the rage. Riven with anger and alienation, their second album All That Divides (Rise/BMG) is a rebellious scream into the darkness. Those System Of A Down and Mastodon comparisons are well-made, but there’s a substance to this work that’s all their own. They deserve their current wave of success and it’s a thrill to hear them grow.
Meanwhile, in a faraway field that is forever prog, Germany’s Fairytale follow their 2015 debut Forest Of Summer with Autumn’s Crown (Magic Mile). Mediaeval and Celtic tones abound on another spirited and authentic dive into oak-solid folk tradition. Composer Oliver Oppermann has got the goods, with vocalist Laura Isabel Biastoch and violinist/violist Berit Coenders adding glamour and, more crucially, real musical talent.