Dvne (presumably pronounced like "dune," though Google Translate also tells me it's Bosnian for "days ago") is a Scottish quintet, and they're one of the more talked-about bands on the parts of the Internet where I spend my time. Voidkind is their third full-length album, coming three years after their last release. Dvne is a band I've listened to and contemplated covering before, but for whatever reason Etemen Ænka, their 2021 album, just didn't quite catch my fancy. (2021 was also an exceptionally good year for the type of music I like, so they had some stiff competition for my attention. 2024, in contrast, is shaping up to be a slower year for me.)

Disregarding my above disparaging of the current year, Voidkind is a legitimately good album. Dvne's sludge metal roots have gone in a more atmospheric, post-metal-type direction. Normally, I'd be a bit wary about that?unless it's preceding the word "punk," the prefix "post-" is often an indicator there's a higher risk I'll be a bit bored?but the songwriting is smart, and the playing is crushing and dynamic.

The album kicks off with "Summa Blasphemia", and it's got an immediately-engaging rolling rhythm. There's something slightly askew about the meter, and I really like the band's guitar tones. As the song builds to its climax, there are some subtle but powerfully effective atmospheric touches that add to the drama and impact.

"Eleonora" has a jangly, tense arpeggiated opening. The vocals here are more delicate and match the nervous feel of the unconventional guitar line. Dvne does a great job of building the intensity of this piece across its nine-minute runtime.Things quiet down around the song's midpoint, and there's a lovely, jazzy little bass groove that keeps this cut moving. 

Things explode into high gear immediately on "Reaching for Telos". The vocals are a little post-hardcore-y for my taste, but the underlying composition is clever and satisfying. I'm also a big fan of the quieter moments; this band does a great job at weaving together guitar lines in a way that feels purposeful. "Reliquary" keeps the high-octane momentum of the previous cut going, and it features more smartly-tangled riffs and licks. Bits of doom metal crop up here, and that sort of variation is appreciated. Atmospheric sludge is a genre that can become samey to my ears quickly.

"Path of Dust" is a 90-second breather of quiet guitar that serves as an introduction to "Sarmatæ", where distortion blasts back to the forefront. There's a vaguely-Middle Eastern vibe to the guitar parts, which I like a lot. It builds to an especially strong apex, with guitar and bass anxiously jumping around each other. "Path of Ether" is another 90-second interlude. It functions as a necessary breather, but it probably didn't need to be 90 seconds.

Another impactful riff gets things going on "Abode of the Perfect Soul", and it's around here that I was finally able to articulate why I often struggle to really enjoy bands like Dvne. In isolation, these songs are all good, but I usually listen to whole albums at once. There is something of a limited sound palette, and song after song after song of this can lead to things bleeding together. None of the songs on Voidkind are bad. They're just kinda similar. And this is one of the more distinctive songs on the album. There's a ton of dynamism, varied riffs, and vocals in different styles. It's probably my favorite on the record.

"Plērōma" slowly fades in, and it's not my favorite cut. Something about the vocals?especially in the chorus?rubs me the wrong way. This cut is a bit major-key for my taste, and it doesn't really suit the band's style too well. The bridge, though, is strong, with more subtle and creepy atmospherics.

Voidkind ends with the ten-minute "Cobalt Sun Necropolis". After a slow, ringing solo guitar intro, the verse has a determined, marching feel to it, with an emphasis on the melodic, multilayered vocal performance. As with elsewhere on the album, there's a good, natural build in this song.

Dvne's newest album is pretty good. I don't think it's sonically varied enough to justify its hourlong runtime, but aside from "Plērōma", there are no obvious songs to cut. If you're looking for some sludgy, post-ish prog metal that blends pummeling distortion and lighter melody, this is a strong choice.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/29/album-review-dvne-voidkind/

Definitely Jazz-Rock Fusion of the Third or "Smooth Jazz" Wave from this band from Appleton, Wisconsin's Lawrence University.

1. "The Fly" (4:04) pseudo-funk that sounds like it came from a high school "big" band/orchestra--recorded in their own gymnasium. (8.75/10)

2. "Tale Of The Whale" (10:35) sounds like someone crossed an exaggerated Eberhard Weber bass with some VANGELIS music in an effort to try to replicate whale music in the ocean. Not quite Paul Winter Consort, but close. Around the fourth minute the band tries to go full PAUL WINTER Consort with a WEATHER REPORT rhythm section. Very catchy and engaging. The bass player, Randy Tico, is very good: very melodic. Too bad the opening four minutes wasn't so corny. (17.75/20)

3. "Homage" (3:38) (bass) trombone soloing over piano, fretless bass, and drummer's mostly-cymbal play. A bit of an early Pat Metheny vibe to this. Horn section takes over in the third minute for a crescendo before settling in for a gentle let down to finish. (8.75/10)

4. "Galadriel" (7:04) cinematic VANGELIS-like soundtrack music over which Randy Tico solos on his fretless bass. Horn section and drums kick in around the one-minute mark giving it a Broadway musical sound and feel. Piano solo that follows is very easy listening lounge music. It's a nice song--but definitely more elevator/Adult Contemporary music than hard-drivin' or funk J-R F. (13.125/15)

5. "Nessim" (4:57) definitely some late night street creepin' cinematic stuff. Randy Tico's fretless bass is once again in the driver's seat though the chatter of the horns in the back seat and toms of the road noise certainly play a role. Then we get the input of the choral male vocalists singing wordless "Aaah"s. Dreamy and somnambulistic--and perhaps a little too repetitive and, therefore, monotonous. (8.66667/10)

6. "Narouz" (7:40) opens with the enticing promise of SHAKTI's "Mind Ecology" before muted trumpet and chorale vocalese takes on a. When the band settles into its full form, it is over a near-Latin rhythm track of a single speedy fretless bass riff, fast drum pace, and Herbie Hancock-like Fender Rhodes support. Bridge into refresh over which Larry Darling's trumpet lashes out with the Fender Rhodes just beneath. At 2:45 there is a slow down for a solo from John Harmon on his electric piano. The band gradually--almost imperceptibly--rejoins and pushes John farther. Michael Murphy's drums are quite impressive. This is definitely the most vibrant, dynamic, and true example of Jazz- Rock Fusion on the album--maybe the only exemplary example. (13.75/15)

Total Time 37:58

A mixed bag of wide-spectrum samples of Jazz-Rock Fusion styles--from Latin, funk, cinematic, New Age, Smooth, and "big band," there's a lot of J-R Fuse's history represented here.

B/four stars; an excellent eclectic sampler of many styles of Jazz-Rock Fusion with some very clean sound and very tight performances. Recommended!

— First review of this album —

P'cock was an excellent german progressive electronic/rock band from early '80s. Formed by drummer Tommy Betzler in 1975 and releasing 3 albums in the '80s before disbanding in 1988.

First two albums The prophet from 1980 and In'cognito from 1981 are among the most intresting electronic meets prog rock albums ever.

The prophet issued in 1980 offers a journey of mutitude of rich sounds, specially from the top notch keyboard player Peter Herrmann who sadly passed away last year. What a fenomenal keyboard player was. Pieces like The Actors Fun, instrumental N 1.4, Fly Your Kite or the beautiful spacy La mer. Overall a sublime effort from this unknown german band who was under the wing of Klaus Schulze and his IC (Innovative Communication) label. Imagine a combination of Eloy same period, Anyone's Daugher, Klaus Schulze, Tangerime Dream all melted in a unique manner. The album is highly melodic but not dull or mellow, is very well composed , played by all members involved, very nice druming and vocal passages. So, definetly a winner in my book , recommended for sure and 4.5 stars easy. Very nice little record for all prog electronic and prog rock listners.

The second album In'cognito issued in 1981 at same label IC aswell with Schulze under command in producing and mixing the album and another gold record from them. Exploring further more the sound of prog electronic music toying even with some neo prog passages here and there as on previous album. Forte pieces the opening lenghty House In The Storm nearly 11 min of pure joy, the keyboards passages are such intelligent made, superb, another worthy tunes are Funtime Sorrow and Ban'cock. Again 4.5 stars

All in all MIG label issued both albums in 2023, worth every second of it, this compilation of their best albums, first two, the issue containing their history and some nice pictures from that period. I was really impressed by both albums. Simply put two of the best amd most intresting albums I've heared from early '80s from prog electronic/prog rock scene, unfairly unnoticed.

Review Nº 771

Supersister was a Dutch progressive rock band that was founded in The Hague, Netherlands in 1967. When it comes to Dutch prog rock, many people think of, Finch, Kayak, Trace, Earth And Fire and Golden Earring. However, there is another super group in the Netherlands that has gained international fame, Supersister. They became known as one of the best Canterbury bands, which is very ironic because they weren't from Canterbury not even British. Supersister melted strongly the influences of the Canterbury style with jazz and some typical Dutch progressive rock trademarks.

'Present From Nancy' is the debut studio album of Supersister that was released in 1970. The line up on 'Present From Nancy' is Robert Jan Stips (lead vocals, keyboard and vibes), Sacha Van Geest (vocals and flutes), Ron Van Eck (bass guitar and fuzz bass guitar) and Marco Vrolijk (vocal, drums and percussion). 'Present From Nancy' has also the participation of Gehard Smid (vocals and guitars).

There are few bands who have managed to record such a strong, fully developed first album after only two years of existence. Supersister's debut effort remains as one of the Netherland's best progressive rock albums and a classic of the genre worldwide, even though the group garnered only fringe interest outside of Europe. All the elements of the band's sound are already firmly in place on this album. It presents tracks that fuse the Dutch rock with the experimental jazz rock of Canterbury, where occasionally classical melodies appear. It received high praise from many critics and was relatively successful commercially. You can feel the Canterbury's elements in almost all of the tracks with their unique sense of humour. 'Present From Nancy' is one of the finest debuts from a Dutch progressive rock band, really.

'Present From Nancy' has ten tracks. The album consists of three suites divided into several tracks and two separated tracks. The three suites are 'Present From Nancy', 'Memories Are New (Boomchick)' and 'Metamorphosis' and the two isolated tracks are 'Corporation Combo Boys' and 'Dona Nobis Pacem'. So, 'Present From Nancy' suite has two tracks, 'Introduction' and 'Present From Nancy'. 'Introduction' is a jazz/rock piece that opens with drums and piano as flute follows in this up tempo number. This is a nice jazzy piece with great flute and piano over an energetic drum work. 'Present From Nancy' is another up tempo piece. It introduces some more jazzy complexity with a prominent piano. This one is light and breezy with the flute taking a prominent role. It's a great instrumental piece of jazzy prog. The 'Memories Are New' suite has three tracks, 'Memories Are New', '11/8' and 'Dreaming Wheelwhile'. 'Memories Are New' is a great vocal track with an experimental and eerie sounding and vocals in Richard Sinclair's style. It has a fine melody and nice instrumental passages combined with complex and interesting moments. '11/8' is a frenetic track that sounds a lot like the early sound of The Soft Machine. It shines through with progressive rock explorations beyond the Canterbury scene. Here you can see how much The Soft Machine influenced Supersister. 'Dreaming Wheelwhile' has very relaxed and dreamy ambience with its quiet flute heading the bass and cymbals. It's a floating meditative piece that offers some breathing space with its cosmic melody elongated. 'Corporation Combo Boys' is a short piece, a brief musical parody including some silly ensemble chanting and a final applause. It's a vocal track with references to Frank Zappa. The 'Metamorphosis' suite has also three tracks, 'Mexico', 'Metamorphosis' and 'Eight Miles High'. 'Mexico' is a more aggressive number with a clear Soft Machine influence. It fuses their two styles quite well, the jazz patterns and the fun soft rock with a slightly psychedelic attitude. This is a very beautiful and powerful piece. 'Metamorphosis' is a typical Supersister number that includes some of the densest passages on the entire album. It's probably the most experimental and odd of the all pieces on the album. 'Eight Miles High' is a very brief piece, The Byrds' song combined with George Gershwin's 'Summertime'. It leads us to the contemplative final track on the album. 'Dona Nobis Pacem' is completely different from the rest of the album. It can best be described as experimental and improvised progressive mood music, and makes a mind expanding finale to one of the finest debuts from a Dutch progressive rock 70's band.

Conclusion: As I mentioned above, one of the best Canterbury's bands was ironically enough not from Canterbury or even British at all. The excellent debut album of these young lads brings to us partly a very energetic and frenetic Canterbury sound but also touches classical music. The closest connection would be The Soft Machine around 1969 but Supersister had slightly less jazz feeling were more accessible, less academic and had classical elements. But, unfortunately, 'Present From Nancy' was a successful debut album by a band that has rightly been almost forgotten today, despite the high quality of their works in the 70's. However, anyone who appreciates Soft Machine and Caravan or the Canterbury sound in general shouldn't have any problems with it. This is an album that must be recommended.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Hello fellow music lovers. Caught by surprise, this album didn't have much hype before its release apart from the great video of impossible tightrope which is how I found out about the album.

This album seems to be in a similar category to "to the bone" however Steven Wilson as usual has put together an album that conjures up different styles of progy music into one package which I like.

This album,in typical Steven Wilson fashion has absolutely great sonic excellence throughout, songs like "what life brings" has beautiful acoustic guitar and those beautiful lush vocal harmonies I really enjoy more so it's a nicely arranged with elements of rock, Pop and very slightly prog which is a throw back to the "lightbulb sun" album days.

The stand out track for most prog rockers will obviously be impossible tightrope. This tracks has elements that could be a 70's ECM record (but heavier) or something fusiony from a vertigo label album, it also has a great requiem/choir part in the middle and there are individual solos for key, sax and guitar so it explores some interesting territory.

Songs such as Economies of scale, then basically all tracks 7-10 have what I would describe as prog electronica rock but superbly executed in terms of additional acoustic instrumentation,theme of lyrics and arrangement etc. Whether the tracks are rock or electronica type of songs they all have great space, atmosphere and depth with cool guitars, keys and of course Gavin Harrison on drums mixed in there. If your into your audiophile Hi-Fi stuff you will really enjoy this album and it has a lot of dynamic range.

The song "The Harmony Codex" has an excellent monologue which is deep and touching in itself with an interesting audio trick which I forgotten what it's called.

In summary another great album from Steven that covers a lot of ground, has a very high degree of sonic excellence if listened to form start to finish it has a nice flow to it. A nice addition to any music lovers collection.

I rate it 3.75

4.5 stars. ONCE AND FUTURE BAND are from Oakland, California and this is their debut from 2017. Seasoned musicians, in fact a trio here with two guest female backing singers and two guest guitarists, and one of those would become the fourth member on their next record. This is jaw dropping music that took me completely by surprise. The drummer is outstanding and the best musician on here in my opinion but the vocalist has to share the spotlight for just being off the charts good. He's also a multi-instrumentalist as is the bass player both adding guitar and keyboards here.

I still can't believe how good this record is. It is consistently great to be truthful and yes bands like ELO, 10CC and STEELY DAN came to mind the latter more for those sophisticated, thought provoking lyrics. Yet as catchy and poppy as it is, it also exhibits some demanding compositions with long instrumental breaks revealing a very proggy band with chops. I mean you can focus on the bass which I love or the drums or synths or vocals and just be blown away. The guitars on here are good but not on that level in my opinions. We get seven tracks and just under 39 minutes.

And like I said consistent. First listen I kept waiting for the throw away, the "I wish they didn't go there" song but it didn't come! I have trouble picking a top three because of this and to pick a top five out of the seven seems silly but I do have a favourite "Hide & Seek" which is about this beautiful girl named Sarah and the lyrics are so witty and well done. This is the first track where they slowed things down and it's track three. Hearing is believing but this is so good. It's so meaningful! There are so many sections on this album where it's the combo of drums and synths or drums and bass leading the way and it's the synths and drums late to end this one.

I have to mention the next song "Rolando" for that jazzy start and yes this drummer could be in a Jazz band he's that good. Drums and bass only at one point here. The other track where they slow it down to great results is "Magnetic Memory". The vocals and sound are a beautiful thing. More great drumming on that instrumental break. The bass is most impressive on the closer "Standing In The Wake Of Violence". The vocals are a little different here too. ELO comes to mind the most on "I'll Be Fine" and that opener "How Does It Make You Feel" could have been a hit despite being six minutes long. The vocals kill.

It doesn't look like I can get a physical release of the followup at this point but man I'm pretty content with owning this.

So (pun intended), here we have it. This is Peter Gabriel releasing his inner Phil Collins in this magnificent double vinyl disc (single cd) album. It was after his parting from Rosanna Arquette that PG released this, one of his finest albums, with several oblique references to the breakup (break down?) of his relationship with the said RA. While certainly not as explicitly painful as PC's expressions on the same subject, Gabriel does get his point across in some of his compositions here, "Come Talk To Me", "Love to be Loved", "Blood of Eden", "Only Us" and "Secret World". That's nearly half the album. But whereas his old mucker PC gets his own point on the subject across very clearly and in simple terms, Gabriel broadcasts the same message here, in utterly compelling complexity. Did I say, "complexity"? Simply put, once this album goes onto the turntable (or into the cd player), the listener can't stop listening, to everything, and again listening to everything, until the end of song number twelve. And then listening again, just to try to take it all in. The musical quality here is just so good that its great. Yes, it does have to be said that like all great albums, US requires more than just a couple of spins for the listener to appreciate all that it has to offer (reference The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway as an example). But if the listener can invest a little more time that would be required by, say, something akin to a Take That offering, then the rewards will be exponentially more. A Big Five Stars Here for this magnificent album.

"Giant for a day" is again a wrongly chosen album title that suggests a good familiar progressive music by the band. It starts on a relatively good note by strongly reminding of the modern Yes (vocals, rhythm section) but the music gets even more straightforward (and boring) after that. GG produce mildly memorable melodies and vocals got more digestible ("It's only good-bye" is a good attempt). Apart from 2-3 songs, the album is really bland. The lyrics could not have been earnest after years of high standards. This is best to be avoided or forget about the Gentle Giant moniker to avoid disappointment.

Gentle Giant really started to cut down on their ambitions and aspirations on the deceivingly ambitiously titled "The missing piece". Music gets less complex, somewhat more accessible but in the end, none of the audience may be happy. It's not that the band cannot produce memorable radio friendly cuts - listen to "I'm turning around", the band seems awkward at merging pop with prog unlike Genesis, Yes and Camel did it, more naturally. Vocals were already an acquired taste and even more so for the pop material. The only mastermind who still deserves high praise is the keyboard player who still tastily supports the overall band sound. The rhythm section sounds bored. "Memories of old days" is far away from their previously complex suites but let's recognize the band for attempting to create a listenable epic. Not recommended to anybody but GG fans.

More on the psychedelic/experimental side than the prog side, Gracious debut is a mixed bag of what has been done during the late sixties and early seventies. It is one of those ecletic mixes of songs that could only be made during those days were recording companies and producers were willing to let the bands record their ideas without much constraint.

If, to a certain degree, it was a great thing for artists willing to explore their creativity, on the other hand you have a very unfocused effort where the best and the worst ideas are sometimes mixed in the same song and the overall result is good, but not great.

There are some parts that are amazing, like the intro of Heaven, with ethereal mellotron. There are others that are disjointed, parts of Hell and The Dream, songs that mix psychedelic, baroque pop and even long classical quotes (in the case of the latter) or Zappaesque spoken parts (the former).

There classically influenced passages and direct quotations, and the prevalence of keyboard instrumentos in the sound help giving a more symphonic feel to the album, but overall I'd classify if more as psychedelic weirdness than anything else, which is very good, of course, but not exactly the "lost" progressive gem one would expect. They'd get better and more focused on the following album, unfortunately their last before disbanding.