What have I been listening to this year? A few things have come out that I might go so far as to recommend. I have to say, what I’ve heard up to this point is better than a lot of what I heard last year; 2024 was one of the more mediocre years for music I can recall. I have a lot of hope for 2025.
The way things are going so far, this year looks to be one of those instrumental years. Not everything obviously, but there seems to be a fair amount of post-metal/post-rock, prog/jazz fusion, and atmospheric ambience/electronica in the pipeline. Speaking of upcoming albums, of course the BIG anticipatory release for 2025 is the new Lunatic Soul, which, last I heard, is supposed to be long enough to make into an old-school-style double album, 90 minutes worth of music (as opposed to a regular-length album stretched over two discs) and will hit in the fall. I expect we’ll learn more about that at some point (trust me…I’m a LOT more excited than I sound here!).
For some of ya, the BIG album is already out, the new Steven Wilson solo. Yeah, I’ll say some words about that.
Starting with:
Singles
Pelican: “Cascading Crescent” and “Indelible”, from the album Flickering Resonance, out May 16 (available on Bandcamp)
Pelican apparently have got back with their founding guitarist, and have put out a couple of heavy, sludgy, no-holds-barred Pelican post-rock/metal singles that bode well for the upcoming release. If you like Pelican you’ll love these.
Gösta Berlings Saga: “Through the Arches” from the upcoming album Forever Now, out June 6 (available on Bandcamp)
These guys are an interesting collective from Sweden with a long history together, making sophisticated fusion-flavoured instrumental tunes. It can go prog, it can go jazz, it can go in all kinds of similar directions, but it is always interesting. I liked their 2016 album Sersophane quite a bit, and their 2018 album Et Ex less so. This sounds like the good stuff, with a focus on melody and atmosphere, charging headlong, plenty of energy and with clear references to Canterbury-like influences (i.e. Caravan, Camel)—but not derivative at all.
Albums/EPs
For this section I’ll go roughly in the order they were released.
Sisters of… Marie Michel (EP) (January 10)
It’s been a while since this post/doom-metal duo out of Missouri has released anything lengthy. They started out back in 2013 with a short album called Follow Me as a Ghost, and then followed that with a full-length in 2015 called The Serpent, the Angel, and The Adversary, and then a few scattered singles over the years in between—just often enough to maintain the hope that they were still around. Sisters of… creates dense instrumental metal, moving smoothly between skull-crushingly heavy layered guitar riffage and pounding drums, and passages of contemplative delicacy; Marie Michel, two tracks that merge seamlessly together to make over 17 minutes of music, is a powerful example of what these guys can do. “Marie” builds slow and sludgy into a massive headbanging middle section and then slides away, only to blast without pause into the ten-minute “Michel”, crazy and face-melting and utterly merciless. Man I love these guys.
Riverside: Live ID. (January 23)
The third official live album from a band that doesn’t put out very many official live albums despite more-or-less continual fan-importuning for them to do so. This one was recorded on June 1, 2024 in Warsaw, as a sort of grand finale concert to their massive world tour for 2023’s ID.Entity (the other two official lives are: Reality Dream from 2008 and Live in Tilburg from 2017; no, I don’t know why any of the others aren’t “official”).
I’m including this because I was at this concert, and when I listed my top 3 gigs of last year, it was #3. At the time, despite great organization and design and frankly superb sound (even at the rail), I felt that the performance itself was a bit flat. However, editing magic has turned the show into a dynamic and lively example of Riverside on stage that sounds (and looks, if you have the blu-ray) phenomenal.
Niechęć: Reckless Things (February 28)
These guys are, I guess, a nu-jazz/fusion/electronic (hey…what I know about jazz would fit in my back pocket and leave room for my keys) outfit from Poland, and a couple or so years ago someone recommended their last album, Unsubscribe, which I liked a lot better than I expected I would. I’m told that these guys are dynamite live. This new album seems more heavily electronic than the last, and it’s taken a few listens for this version of their sound to settle in, but I do like it. Very dynamic and atmospheric with lots of melody, lots of saxophone, and really quite proggy at times. This is a band with chemistry—you can hear it. Outstanding track: “Noumen”, which really captures their energy.
Amplifier: Gargantuan (March 7)
The space-epic prog guys are back with their new album, released rather soon after 2023’s Hologram, which tied for the top spot (with ID.Entity) on my list of releases for that year. It’s funny to rediscover them after so many years since the last album (before Hologram, that is) I really liked by them was 2013’s Echo Street.
Gargantuan is a much longer album than Hologram was, and more ambitious, dominated by synths and guitars and programming (there are, after all, only two of them to create this lush soundscape), anchored by Matt Brobin’s dynamic drumming and Sel Belamir’s vocals—you always know when you are listening to Amplifier.
The first third of the album is the strongest, with the glorious trifecta of “Gateway”, “Invader” and “Black Hole” (which was a highlight of their recent live stream), beautiful melodies over dense and powerful layers of instrumentation; these tracks are followed by the slightly poppier but rather unfocussed “King Kong” which breaks the mood some. After that the album loses some coherence, becoming long and rambly. A good album, but maybe not quite as strong as the last one, and it lacks a great ballad.
I like to whine about how derivative and samey so much of modern prog is, so it is nice to be able to love a band or two that are not that. Amplifier is one of those bands. It is for that reason I don’t give up on the genre altogether–some outfits seem to understand what “progressive” means.
The Thumpmonks: Just Under the Skin (March 11, 2025)
Thumpmonks are from New York and established themselves as providing “[S]ound design and music for all media” (from their website), and they have some old podcasts on Spotify about how to break into that part of the music industry; apart from that there is not a lot of information about them. However, they have for years provided the sonic background washes for Polish game designer Mateusz Skutnik’s Submachine series (as well as his 2021 standalone game Slice of Sea). I don’t know how long I’ve been playing Skutnik’s games but it’s got to be a couple of decades at least. Anyway a few days ago Skutnik announced the release of this album, ostensibly to “accompany” the physical Submachine card game, so hey, I figured I’d check it out.
The album is surprisingly good: ambient and somewhat electronic soundscapes, much livelier and more dynamic than the video game soundtracks. Eerie and moody, haunting and jittery at times, even though the different tracks to tend to start to sound the same, overall this is effective background music for those dark nights when the restless spirits walk.
Steven Wilson: The Overview (Mar. 14)
Back in 2023 when I reviewed The Harmony Codex, which I liked better than almost all his other solo albums, I observed: “This is what happens when you stop trying to Make A Grand Statement, or be A Prog Legend, and just write some damned music.” Alas, it seems that this year he will be A Prog Legend, and…The Overview is what we got.
I put it on and about ten minutes in I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the end, but I persevered, and after three or four tries it has grown on me some–mostly because he seems to have created a rather impressive mashup of almost every idea he’s ever had over the past fifteen years. There is a kind of genius in how seamlessly he’s woven it all together, but it’s so incredibly familiar. Just as with Closure/Continuation, he’s retracing a well-worn path.
Truth be told, I could cut-and-paste big chunks from my past SW-solo reviews without having to change a whole lot, because…well, not much, in the grand scheme of things, has changed. At least he is consistent, I’ll give him that:
√ Ambitious concept
√ Excellent guest musicians
√ Insanely intricate and involved pre-release hype
√ A result that ranges between 90% meh and 10% actual great music
The Overview is musically competent, impeccably produced, and completely self-indulgent. Decent background music, but not even the best of that. Besides, the cover continues to piss me off.
Gadi Caplan: Play It Again (April release)
Caplan is an Israeli guitarist who’s been around for quite a few years, but because he does not have a big social media profile he tends to fly under the radar. He writes music that is of many genres and yet not really any of them: pop, jazzy fusion, prog, alternative, anchored by his brilliantly understated guitar playing. His 2016 album Morning Sun made my Albums of the Decade list at #6.
The new one follows the pattern of Morning Sun: several ballads and short songs, with an extended instrumental section. It feels like a very gentle and contemplative album, but don’t be fooled: it is so nuanced it might be easy to overlook just how accomplished it is. There are very energetic bits, for example the jazzy dynamism in the first track “Get Out the Door”; but I think the truly outstanding section is the wonderfully evocative and atmospheric instrumental suite: “Evoke”/”Passage”/”Memory”, which starts out thoughtful, exotic, oriental-flavoured before it slides into a remarkable heavy prog section of blasting drums and a great bassline, finishing with an exemplary display of jazz-tinged prog and a massive guitar solo. This is such great music.
Play it Again is not due to be officially released until April, but he’s sent it out already if pre-ordered, and a couple singles have been released—again, not incredibly easy to find, but they are out there. I don’t think it is quite as strong as the previous album—honestly I don’t think it would have lost a lot if the title track had been the last song, but it is definitely worth checking out. You might be surprised.
Honourable mention:
Quiet Sun: Mainstream 2024
This is a Japanese hybrid SACD re-release of the only album Phil Manzanera’s “other” band managed to make, a classic 1975 prog/psych/fusion album that has more than held its own over the decades; it clearly was ahead of its time and given things like Niechęć and Gösta Berlings Saga, is not out of place in this list (and the CD sounds great, btw!)
There are hints and rumours (okay, Bill MacCormick has already revealed that he’s been dusting off his bass guitars) of a 50th anniversary new Quiet Sun album. We await with bated breath.
