AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
GRANT MOON has a rummage down the back of the Prog sofa for the ones that nearly got away…
Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 concept album Imaginos put the kibosh on their career for a while, but 30 years later their former drummer and co-founder
Albert Bouchard hasn’t let this fantastical tale of alien conspiracy go. Last year he released Re Imaginos, a largely acoustic reworking of the record, and now he’s back with Imaginos II, Bombs Over Germany (Minus Zero And Counting) (Deko Entertainment). This is a grand, wacky concept album with plenty of ideas and a pretty solid throughline, and given that its lengthy credits feature BÖC members Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma and Joe Bouchard, it’s nothing if not a curio for fans of that band to explore.
After their 2018 EP Oceans Of Time, Greek five-piece
Within Progress stake their claim with their first LP, Inner (withinprogress. bandcamp.com). Touching on everything from emotional turmoil to global issues such as climate change, this is impassioned and melodic prog metal with touches of alt-rock and electronica too. Vocalist Efthimis articulates the band’s themes clearly without recourse to histrionics, and the band’s groove, from opener Sky We Want, Sky We
Love to the closing Pathos is nuanced and crunchy. A really promising debut.
There are also hopeful signs of something interesting afoot in Finland. Prog trio Kings Of Sweden make their entrance with The Training (Golden Robot), and are keen to point out their debt to the likes of Camel, Genesis, Yes and Crimson. Bassist Erkka Heinilä and drummer Janne Savel make for a nimble, committed rhythm section, and while the complexity of the music stretches guitarist Sampsa Nelimarkka to, and perhaps beyond, his technical limits, tunes such as Two Thieves and Help Arrives power along royally.
To France, and Nantes’ own Graceful return with their superb second album Demiurgia (Vlad Productions), mastered by Cult Of Luna guitarist Magnus Líndberg. Singer François Orain is a fully engaging presence over songs that deal with madness, ambiguity and human frailty, and while there are shades of psych, stoner and rock (Monster Magnet, The Mars Volta, Mike Patton, Primus), the band imbue their punky, direct and exciting work with experimental atmospheres and trip hop elements too.
November 23 was officially Delia Derbyshire Day, so what better date to drop La Planète Sauvage (Fire Records), a collaboration by Stealing Sheep & The Radiophonic Workshop? Together the electro trio and the BBC’s pioneering sound lab create a trippy, often eerie alternate soundtrack to René Laloux’s titular 1973 animation, with lashings of analogue synths, treated guitars and cosmic Doctor Who-style sound effects. It’s arty, woozy stuff that surely Derbyshire herself would have approved of.