Tisladi Mehmet Emmi

Gizli Ajan

Midnight Sweat

Yok Yok

Hot Jazz

Ikmiz Bir Fidaniz

Beş Kardeş

Z​ü​l​ü​f D​ö​k​ü​lm​ü​s Y​ü​ze

Z​ü​l​ü​f B (Reprised)

Bak Gör

Şatellites

Aylar

Not as good as their debut album, largely because I'm not as big of a fan of their new vocalist. She's more energetic, but not as delicate nor ethereal, and while she's even seemingly more fluent in Turkish, she just can't hit those high notes that her predecessor was able to reach. The high points of the album, namely the final two tracks (a single song broken into two parts), are outstanding, and the album's engineering is slightly improved (a DR of a whopping 10 in this style of music is rare and to be cherished), even if even if its production is less trippy and atmospheric. Itamar Kluger, the baglama player, while exceptionally skilled as always, takes a bit more of a back seat this time around, allowing the other musicians to shine, which is okay, but what is a little disappointing here is that he changed the tone of his baglama, and its effects seem milder this time, with most of the psychedelia coming from the synth players, firmly marking this as a neo-psychedelia release. I would give anything to hear a studio album from Kluger in which he uses the effects that he did during Satellites' KEXP live performance on Youtube. That's 10/10 musicianship from him, and one of my favorites recordings of all time.

It feels unfair that this whole review was essentially a comparison to their first album. Of course their sound will change with a lineup change; if Satellites' eponymous album took a late 60s/early 70s approach to psychedelic funk, then Aylar apparently took a late 70s/early 80s approach to the same style. Aylar is less "far-out," and more grounded and synthy. While their eponymous is more comparable to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Aylar is more comparable to Altin Gun. On its own, this is still a great album, but it's definitely a grower, and had the band not released the absolute masterclass opus that was their debut, Aylar may not have held my attention and begged for a second listen. I definitely like it more per each play, but despite the slight engineering improvements, I don't think I'll ever hold it as highly as their debut, and that's okay because again, this is still an excellent, if potentially even still a GOATed, piece of neo-psychedelia!

Daughter of Hate

Amongst Stars

Message in the Amber

The Golden Elk

Brother and Sister

Grain of Sand

Wrong Direction

As Mountains Crumble

Heart of the Giant

Pyres on the Coast

The Bee

We Accursed

Amorphis

Queen of Time

I really wanted to like this one, and in all fairness, the I think the melodies here are great; I love the use of the Nazareth Arab Orchestra and Hellscore Choir (both of which were utilized by Orphaned Land in their 2018 release as well), and the compositions in general are quite good. Unfortunately, the engineering is absolutely atrocious, even by Bogrens' standards - seriously, this album is one of the worst-sounding I've ever heard, at least I thought so at first? The mastering is actually very inconsistent for some reason. In the middle of the album, I couldn't bear the clipping anymore and had to pause the music for a few minutes for a stimulation break, but by track 9, I was thinking that maybe I somehow misheard the music earlier, or my computer did something to compress it? Because the mastering didn't sound as bad at that point. No. As it turns out, after running a DR test on the album, some songs are literally more compressed than others, making the listening experience not only disorienting, but just uncomfortable. There's no excuse for this. Plain and simple, a half-assed master and overdone mixing such that everything clashes with each other. This really could have been decent, too. It's just frustrating to ruin otherwise good music like this... nice orchestrations, good use of harmonics, and memorable melodies. Why not brickwall it and make it unbearable?

De Futura (16/07/1975 rehearsal)

De Futura (17/07/1975 live)

KMX-E XII (06/02/1974 Bremen)

La Musique Des Spheres, Part 2 (31/10/1976 Paris)

KMX-E XII (1974 Holland)

Utopic Sporadic Orchestra

Nancy 75

Supreme bassist Jannick Top composed a track and put together a Zeuhl supergroup to play it. There's a rehearsal version and a live audience version and oddly I slightly prefer the rehearsal one. Its mostly pretty frenetic and gets quite aggressive, with violins providing a key element of that aggression (Didier Lockwood being just one notable name on strings) alongside Jannick Top's rollicking basslines. It sounds free and improvisational at times but in reality it's just well rehearsed! Its intense, so not that accessible at times, and the bonus tracks are just more of the same. But for poignancy this is a good Zeuhl-linked track to dig out if you can.

NIVRAYM

BECTTEM POLLT

LUSSESOGGI ZOMN

VISSQAGUELL

MASCHTERVOZ

MEDERRO PASSQUIRR

AXALL HASCK

GASSTTRUMM

VALLCZEREMDOSS

KoenjiHyakkei

Nivraym

The slightly more accessible (relatively speaking) relative of Ruins, Koenjihyakkei are much more overtly Zeuhl-linked. This is perhaps their most accessible album yet, essentially the jazzier side of Magma with the madcap insanity of Ruins thrown in, particularly in the title track. Pretty much all the tracks are worthy examples of the almost unique Japanese Zeuhl style, avant-garde and jazzy, light-hearted at times, and above all fast-paced and aggressive! If I had to pick anything out, the two longer tracks on the album, Lussesoggi Zomm and Gassttrumm, showcase the ability to build and develop rhythms throughout a track rather than just simply hitting you with a wall of manic sound. While the first two Koenji albums were a bit too complex and inaccessible, this one hits just the right balance and is a fantastic example if you want to start exploring a musical niche.

Ruins

Pallaschtom

Ruins cannot be compared to anyone else, only Ruins themselves. Incredibly complex and chaotic, they bring a new meaning to avant-garde, but unlike their earlier albums there is some genuine refinement to their abrupt shifting and isn’t just noise for the sake of noise. A challenging listen to sit through for an hour, easy listening it is not, but do so and you’ll be rewarded not just with avant-prog, but some jazz and psychedelic passages too, as well as a fun set of medleys taken from classical, hard rock and prog, showing that the duo are indeed accomplished musicians. The atmospheric section in Czerudmuntzail wouldn’t be out of place on a King Crimson album. All in all for me its better than all their prior albums bar Symphonica.

Bondage Fruit

Bondage Fruit IV

The masters of Japanese Zeuhl boldly dropped their vocalists for their fourth album and shifted their style to include blues and psychedelia but started with the funky opening of Minus One. Zeuhl is admittedly on the backburner in this riffy jazz jam that wouldn’t be out of place as an old-school cop drama soundtrack.
Prayer goes a bit downbeat and slow blues, before there’s some quirky and brilliant bluegrass themed spacey jamming in Screen Game. Cowboys from Kobaia! 
The best track in my view though is Storm Bird Storm Dreamer. A rapid acoustic guitar strum sets a bed for a 12 minute progressive and tribal sounding spacey jam. Song Bank though attempts to do similar as an instrumental space jam but is perhaps a bit too long and a bit too chaotic.
Finally Old Blind cat returns to the fairly unique psychedelic bluegrass blend with a bit of chanting to go with.
Not really zeuhl, but certainly quirky enough to be related to that genre, and a decent album for anyone a fan of trippy space rock, jazz fusion, and blending of unusual styles.

Yesterwynde

The Antikythera Mechanism

The Day Of…

The Children of ’Ata

Something Whispered Follow Me

Spider Silk

The Weave

Lanternlight

The Antikythera Mechanism (orchestral version)

Perfume of the Timeless (orchestral version)

Something Whispered Follow Me (orchestral version)

The Weave (orchestral version)

Lanternlight (orchestral version)

The Day Of… (orchestral version)

Sway (orchestral version)

The Children of ’Ata (orchestral version)

Yesterwynde (orchestral version)

An Ocean of Strange Islands (orchestral version)

Hiraeth

An Ocean of Strange Islands

Perfume of the Timeless

Spider Silk (orchestral version)

Sway

Nightwish

The album starts of amazingly,  with some of Nightwish's best work to date; then Troy is put on vocals and I'm just like "ugh." Come on, Tuomas, he's a terrible vocalist.

Mastering is a little overdone, but is forgivable, and mixing feels off, as well. I'll give 'em props for the progressive/experimental nature of the album; probably their most progressive album to date. Will require more listens to garner more appreciation here, and if not for the less than satisfactory engineering work, it'd probably be a grower. Not a fan of the synthy/80s poppish moments ("The Day of..." was a, erm, failed experiment imo).

Also what's with the repetition of "we are" in some of the songs' lyrics... lol it sounds like a Penn State advertisement.

Overall a considerable improvement over Human:||:Nature as it is much more consistent (and has more DR, I think), and in some ways better than Endless Forms Most Beautiful, as it is more ambitious (and bombastic, like their earlier work), but lacks the concise refinement that made EFMB masterful imo. Goes a little too far into left field for me, but at least it doesn't have the "kumbaya" moments of their previous album...

"An Ocean of Strange Islands" is kind of by a long shot the best song on the album and probably of Jansen-era thus far. It's not even close, how much better than the rest of the album it is. "Something Whispered Follow Me" is probably Nightwish's first dive into proper prog metal, too, and it's quite good (kind of has some Opethian vibes imo).

Upon second listen, ig my other major complaint would be that the symphonics here really sound bad, like MIDI. It doesn't feel organic like on the previous 2 albums...

SNARE

WARRIDO

ZUMN-VIGO

COZHRITTO

LAIPTHCIG

JARREGOH

MOKCHILCO

VRRESTO

BEGUOTTO

FFENNIKO

DAGDAD

KPALIGOTH

SAVOLLODIX

LARIKOSCHODEL

QUOPERN

Vrresto

Admittedly as I’m now on my 11th short review of a Ruins album, I’m running out of different ways to describe their bonkers take on music. But while their early albums were akin to recording the sound of throwing a drum kit and guitars down a long flight of stairs, there is an evolution. Make no mistake, Vrresto is complex to the extreme and is far from accessible to the masses, however there is a high level of technical skill, and dare I say it, refinement, despite the jarring wall of noise. It’s Avant-Garde, RIO, Zeuhl, and a little jazzy. For a semi-accessible example of the latter, as well as that tight technical refinement and a bit of craziness, have a listen to the second half of Kpaligoth. A track by track review would be a serious feat, instead I’ll just suggest listening to the section of Quopern, Laipthcig and Jarragoh as a good sampler.

Symphonica

Primarily a duo of drums and bass guitar, for this album Ruins is expanded to include two female vocalists and a keyboardist, reworking some earlier tracks with the new faces. The result is something more layered, less chaotic, and certainly more accessible. Thebes becomes almost a classic Magma Zeuhl track, slow, dark and brooding with some shrieky vocals and it is the mellotron which gives it some extra gravitas. The more punky origins are present elsewhere, including on a great version of Graviyaunosch and the added keys takes nothing away from the high standard drumming and bassline. The album title and the addition of a keyboardist makes it fairy obvious what they're aiming for, and Praha in Spring is perhaps the most symphonic in sound, vocals aside it wouldn't sound out of place on a Genesis album. Infect is very different from its original, slowed down to double length and highly Zeuhl with some jazzy jamming in parts. A reinvention/re-evolution of Ruins style (or some might say the first time they've had some!). Having listened to their output in chronological order so far, this is by far their most accessible, and the first I would happily sit all the way through again.

Korona

Kechech

Elet-Fa

Toudath

Erheu

Hirech

Szepseg

Lady-Rap

Dieutzech

Ichmereth

Yochk'o Seffer

Yog 2 - Sefira

For his second 'Yog' album, Yochk'o Seffer teamed up again with jazz composer, keyboardist and programmer Thierry Maillard, whose work here is perhaps more dominant than Seffer's saxophony. The drumming and keys are so very synthetic (at times I wondered if it was using preset rhythms you'd get on a keyboard), and so loud in the mix that the Sax work is sometimes a mere footnote, which is a bit of shame. There's also no traces of Seffer's Zeuhl days here. Such is the way of this style of jazz with a lot of free-form improv that you do sometimes feel Seffer and Maillard were sat in different rooms and just played something with no communication, and just merged it together. Hirech and Lady-rap have a little bit of difference about them with some funk style but that's the only point of difference. It all just feels too artifical, and certainly doesn't have the appeal of Seffer's more experimental Neffesh Music series.

Welcome to Awesome Prog!