Flickering Stillness

Gulch

Indelible

Evergreen

Specific Resonance

Cascading Crescent

Pining For Ever

Wandering Mind

Pelican

Flickering Resonance

Probably they best in recent years, compositionally, but as predicted there's one major problem here, which is that it is completely and uttered compressed to the point that it is disorienting. Would be great if the awful master didn't once again ruin the album. Almost, but not quite as bad as City of Echoes, of which this is reminiscent, mastering-wise - it's like CoE crossed with Nighttime Stories, which is otherwise a cool sound from a melodic standpoint; It's their sludgiest album since 2005, as well (which is also good).

A remaster would most likely get a B rating from me. That's how bad this engineering work is for me. Big shame :/

Christian Vander

Les Cygnes et Les Corbeaux

Apparently this took a decade to put together: An hour-long eerie orchestral piece, operatic, celestial, and unmistakably Vander. Although understandably filed under Zeuhl, with the falsetto and chanting vocals, slow repetition and ominous mood, it's a classical and choral piece in its own right. Vander is a multi-instrumental talent, here ditching the drums for piano trills and synthesised classical instruments, and doing it brilliantly. Classical music is a long way from my comfort zone though so my mind eventually drifted elsewhere while listening through it, getting slightly bored despite the often complex nature of it, but there's absolutely no doubting it is brilliantly well crafted.

Numbers World

Simple Things

Melting Thoughts

Another Day In The Office

Sahara Afternoon

Drive

The Calling: Rush Hour

Ain't Good Enough

Sunset

Melting Clocks

Fields of Sunrise

The Routine

Yossi Sassi

(continued from blurb) In others words, this album has some incredible parts in it, but the moment-to-moment experience isn't fully engaging. The album can thus be interpreted, I guess, as inconsistent. The dated production (which was typical for 2012) does make it hard to appreciate all the details Yossi Sassi put into the sound. What he did set up here, however, would service his solo project for the next thirteen years and counting, as many of the great melodies he records here would appear numerous times on most of his other albums, often deriving from jam sessions. Most notably, the main the melody in "Numbers World" would basically serve as the anthem for his "oriental rock orchestra;" for instance listen to Akrotiri and Black Rock Jam from Illusion of Choice.

He had great artistic vision on this album, but the execution wasn't perfected yet, like on Illusion of Choice, and Melting Clocks consequently feels simultaneously dated and brilliant, making it contentious and hard to grade. I'm stuck deciding between a B- or a C+. My brain says the latter, but my heart says the former, such that I want to like it more than I really do... I think if the album were given a little more dynamic range, I'd like it quite some more.

For fans of "Steve Hackett and the Oriental Rock Orchestra."

悲痛なる跫音は哀しき邂逅 Mode:α

黄泉より聴こゆ、皇国の燈と焔の少女。- 殯 -

悲痛なる跫音は哀しき邂逅 Mode:Ω

天聲

嚮導 Bring + 瞳 Eyes = 死 Death + 齎 Invite

神罰を辿り狂骨に至る

禊祓の神産は宣い、禍祓の贖罪は誓う。

黒キ桜ハ愛∴其ノ死ヲ乞ウ

夜葉:罪と罰の螺旋――。

腐蝕ルサンチマン、不死欲の猿楽座。

分裂した道化と≒発狂の修道女

百鬼夜行 -Pandemonic Night Parade-

Imperial Circus Dead Decadence

殯――死へ耽る想いは戮辱すら喰らい、彼方の生を愛する為に命を讃える――。

I'm very conflicted on this. The songwriting, compositions and musicianship are impeccable, but this is essentially brickwalled. Just how much weight should engineering have on the album's score? The way I view it, if the album is unenjoyable because of it, then it would get a relatively low rating, but in this case, it is still possible to like it, though I still hate how overbeefed the master is, to the point I can't ignore it. I'm dropping it two grades (S to B), but in normal circumstances, I wouldn't rate an album with a 4.5 DR above a D.

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.

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