Month: December 2010

Categories
Music Reviews Progressive Metal

Haken – Aquarius

There are few albums that acquire your attention so quickly, and somehow, I missed Haken’s debut release Aquarius in March 2010. As the year draws to a close, this album has had several rotations on my playlist and there is no reason for it to leave any time soon. For a debut album, Aquarius has the polished glazed that often only appears on a band’s third or forth album.

Aquarius is a concept album about two parents who beget a mermaid child and release it into the river, knowing full well they could not properly raise it themselves. The mermaid child struggles to live in a changing environment as becomes surrounded by nature’s retaliation toward those responsible for global climate change.

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Categories
Amateur Round Up Music Reviews

December Amateur Round-Up

ProgSnobs welcomes all musical acts to submit their music for review. However,  it may be impossible to do a full-length review and not all bands are able to send a compact disc, our preferred way to listen to new material. Once a month, if enough material comes through, ProgSnobs will publish an Amateur Round-Up with brief reviews of albums or material submitted by unsigned bands or artists who provide us with streaming or downloadable content.

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Categories
Music Reviews Progressive Rock

Salim Ghazi Saeedi – Iconophobic

Iconophobic is an instrumental album that is far more focused than most releases by self-produced individual artists, yet each of its compositions offer unfocused melodies that appear to be controlled chaos to your ears’ benefit. The album never gives you cheap thrills that you would expect and the short songs often have a feel of jamming to them, despite their construction being that of one person, Iranian musician Salim Ghazi Saeedi.

The first two songs offer the listener a clean and simple way to enter into Saeedi‘s musical world, particularly with the ultra short “Composer’s Laughter”, which features moments that captures the song’s namesake. “The Songful Song of Songbirds” has the jam feel to it, praise for a one-man operation. “Don’t You See the Cheerful Rainbow” has a playful and slightly humorous quality to it.

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Categories
Music Reviews Progressive Rock

Kaipa – In The Wake Of Evolution

While Kaipa has had a lengthy career, beginning in the mid-1970s when English progressive rock was waning and the influence was spreading to other countries, I have finally heard them. My knowledge of them is more recent, as a big fan of The Flower Kings knowing that Roine Stolt was a founding member would give enough fodder to gain my interest. In The Wake of Evolution is an wonderful album, deep in conventional progressive ideals, Kaipa has a welcomed place in most traditional progressive rock fans. Kaipa continues and strengthens my opinion that some of the best progressive rock has come from Sweden in the past decade plus including Opeth, The Flower Kings, and Beardfish to name a few.

The opening track, “In The Wake Of Evolution” is the grabber and a wonderful way to introduce the album’s musical contexts, and as a new listener a great way to introduce the band. Aleena Gibson’s voice is well placed in the mix and adds an uncanny romanticism to the lyrics, especially when the music kicks back in. The solos are filled with talent and never masturbatory and add the right amount of tension to the musical journey. “In The Heart Of Her Own Magic Field” has an excellent melody in the chorus that will embed itself into your mind.

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