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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Todd Cochran From The Vault: Notes For The Future Review by Gary Hill This release is not progressive rock precisely. It is definitely progressive music. It's also art music. It has all kinds of musical reference points in its structure. It encompasses things ranging from classical music to jazz, soundtracks, psychedelia, electronic music and more. This is instrumental, varied, unique and intriguing. This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2023 Volume 4 More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2023.

Track by Track Review

Painted By The Sun This comes in quite symphonic with a lot of bombast. It drops to mellower textures that feel like soundtrack music. There is a sense of mystery and magic here. World music, classical and more is on the menu as this works forward. It's powerful and cinematic stuff.

In You I See Endless Memories Not a huge change, this is a shorter piece that showcases much of the same musical concept as the opener.

Isms Prisms Now, this is very different. It's got a lot of electronic elements at play. There are even some hints of EDM, but also plenty of space music here. Then, as it approaches the two-minute mark, it shifts to a full jazz treatment. As that continues the electronic elements are re-added to the mix. This has intriguing musical concepts and changes. It is the kind of thing that defies classification, except as art music.

Transparencies Gentle world music motifs get this going. The track turns more toward electronic proggy zones from there.

We Make Two, Two Make We Prog and jazz seem to merge as this gets underway. Shortly there are some more electronic, trance-like things that show up in the mix.

Eye Dreaming Trippy and creepy, art rock merges with jazzy concepts and more on this cut. There is definitely a symphonic and soundtrack like thing at play here, but also more electronic stuff, as well.

Moon Glow There are dramatic and bombastic things here. We get some world music and other elements. This is another piece that lands fully under the art music label.

Hymn For the Hidden People Piano gets things underway here, but this eventually expands out into more of a full arrangement. Still, the piano dominates and plays some particularly classical passages as it does. There are parts of this later that turn dark and dangerous through the additional instrumentation.

The Spinning Circle Symphonic, soundtrack like sounds are on the menu as this gets underway.

Inseperable More of an electronic vibe is on the menu here. It turns later toward mellower and more organic territory. There are hints of psychedelia in the mix, too. Those hints take over when the sitar moves out into the front of everything. Electronic textures eventually take over, turning into something a bit like Synergy or Tangerine Dream. There is some classical bombast in the mix as it continues.

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