AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
GRANT MOON has a rummage down the back of the Prog sofa for the ones that nearly got away…
The Maestro’s Tale (whatstrangebeasts.bandcamp.com) is the inspired, joyful and highly promising debut from Seattle quartet What Strange Beasts. Packed with hooks, big vocal harmonies and palpable enthusiasm, this sprawling-yet-coherent concept album is an unrelenting hour of melodic, synth/piano-powered prog à la Supertramp with layered vocals and strong arrangements. On this evidence, What Strange Beasts are a band well worth looking out for in 2022.
Wild Hearts (RKUK/Proper) is a solid and highly listenable selection of improvised instrumental music from a trio led by seasoned English guitarist Rob Koral. This soulful, melodic and occasionally meandering music comes with jazz, fusion and blues inflections, as Koral delivers top-tier phrasing via a pleasingly thick, throaty guitar tone, with drummer Jeremy
Stacey (King Crimson, Chris Squire) and Hammond organist Pete Whittaker throwing down with him. It would be fascinating to hear these guys tearing into some proper hardcore prog.
Led by producer Neville Meredith, UK Crisis have been going in one form or another since 1987, and their back catalogue has broached everything from industrial to big beat music. Their latest work, Future Dark Ages (crisisonline.com) is an arty slice of dystopian electro-goth that’s cleverly composed, beautifully paced and meaningful. It marks them out as a mustlisten for fans of everyone from Spiritualized to The Towering Inferno.
Equally poignant but with bludgeoning guitars instead of keys, La Mort Du Sens (Rocket Recordings) is the new album from Salford collective Gnod. The title translates from French as ‘The Death Of Meaning’, and this is a fittingly angry and anguished soundtrack for our turbulent times. Insistent, noisy, garage-y guitar riffs, manic bass/drum lines and Paddy Shine’s punky vocal style make for a thrillingly seditious, sludgy mix that comes in from left field and goes straight for the jugular.
Also on Rocket Recordings but coming from a less visceral space, Twenty One is a mesmerising work from Swedish Kosmische unit Nova Express. Originally released in 2001 and now remastered, this is an entrancing journey into sound drawing on krautrock, modern jazz and psych. Chirping wind instruments, double bass, droning analogue keys and crisp drums take their time over long musical tracts that charm, enthral and transport.
And a proggy curio to end with. My Treasures is the self-released album by Amsterdam ensemble Hark! En Co. These classically trained Dutch artists set the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson to baroque chamber music, with arrangements featuring cello, violin, guitar and a host of voices. Leader Harke Jan van der Meulen presides over a sweet and sophisticated set that’s charmingly eccentric and utterly beguiling.