Marillion continues their series of deluxe reissues with their 1995 album “Afraid of Sunlight.” Heading into neo-prog based on their progressive roots after Fish left the band a few albums earlier, fans will find strong moments such as “Cannibal Surf Babe” a sort of tribute to the '60s. Starting similar to the Beach Boys' “California Girls” before falling into a nightmarish tale of a cannibal woman, and assuming you survive, you may find the best moments are on the second half of the album. Therein lie tracks such as “Out of This World,” “Afraid of Sunlight,” and “King.” Keyboards stand out throughout with some very lovely melodic moments and a nice movement between calm and heavier… Continue Reading

For me there is a diverse dimensional aspect to music written by drummers, and the 2020 release “Coming Back, Leaving Again” by Andrea Scala absolutely takes listeners there. The Italian born musician has worked with many artists over the past two decades and now has released his first solo album on Shifting Paradigm Records. His natural inclination towards percussive instruments finds advance time signatures blended across tracks that range beyond the bounds of fusion jazz crossing into electronic, modern, avant garde, deep nu, standard and some swinging jazz. It was during Scala’s 2017 trip to North America where he observed the cultures, places, art and music in great detail that… Continue Reading

For the uninitiated, Anubis is a progressive rock band with strong neo-prog leanings from Australia. I have collected their previous five studio albums, and immediately picked up their 2020 release “Homeless.” I can easily see this becoming my new favorite from the band, but sadly Homeless is also their shortest. This comes as a surprise given their previous lengthy albums, but apparently it has been written with the vinyl revival in mind. Thus, it is available on a single LP, Compact Disc, and of significance to high resolution fans, as an 88.2kHz / 24-bit download in WAVE or FLAC from their BandCamp page. Fans can pick up either of the physical media formats and still receive the hi-res… Continue Reading

For fusion and progressive fans that have followed MoonJune Records over the past 19 years, and maybe even collected all of their releases, the latest album “Truce” from guitarist Markus Reuter marks the 100th release from this one man operation run by Leonardo Pavkovic. It is fitting that we get an expansive aural assault with ripping solos from guitar maestro Markus Reuter who follows in the steps of many power trio formatted albums on the label, Reuter sparks his magical music with spell binding textural wizardry taking fans into a new realm. A few dimensions are also encountered here on Truce with both a quad and surround mix that are reviewed below alongside the hi-res stereo download.… Continue Reading