Collegium Musicum s/t
For those who feel that the model of the classical/keyboards-led rock group was set by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Collegium Musicum are well worth checking out. It’s not that they don’t both share their penchant for rocking the classics (and thus boring the critics), but when they’re not setting something tedious to rock music, Collegium Musicum are far more likely to show some other shades of musical interest like a bit of R&B or hard rock. I was actually a bit surprised by this debut as it was a lot better than I remembered, although the tedious parts would make it hard for me to rate over a 9. I think I now want another listen to Konvergencie.
Skinless - Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead
Kind of a disappointment overall, Skinless strike me as being somewhat generic death metal and certainly not a band I’d consider technical death (although often even the simplest of these groups can have some of these aspirations). They remind me more of latter day Deicide or perhaps Deeds of Flesh or some Incantation in that they tend to beat a formula to death while occasionally providing an interesting moment or two. But the cover of Sabbath’s Wicked World was generally more irritating than interesting, as it seems Skinless aren’t really going for sublime with their style. And in particular the band seems a little blunt to be on Relapse, who often astonish with how experimental their choices can be.
Eccentric Orbit - Attack of the Martians
OK here’s one keyboard led rock group definitely square in the ELP model, although the heavy bass playing gives it a bit of a bite, which is nice. An album like this to my ears sounds almost self-consciously retro-prog, although I like the fact the band’s gone for a bit of humor with the title and album cover, sounding more tongue in cheek about the subject matter than the usual group of this nature. Anyway, I’m not usually one to like this sort of thing, I almost always feel like the presence of an electric guitar would lift the game, but overall this is a pretty solid effort, one I feel pretty comfortable to give a 9 and to hang onto for a while. It’s definitely Prog with the capitol P, but it’s also not your typical indie/studio prog project either.