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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Richard Nelson Dissolve Review by Gary Hill This is not precisely progressive rock, but it is definitely art music. Created by a large ensemble of musicians, the instrumental work here encompasses, jazz, classical, soundtrack music and more. This is dynamic, diverse and ever evolving. Each piece is of epic scope and scale. It's all effective and unique. This is such a magical sonic tapestry. I'd say that there is a good chance this will make my "best of 2024" list once the year is over. This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2024 Volume 2 More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2024.

Track by Track Review

Dissolve At over 15 minutes of music, this is the epic of the set. It combines jazz, classical and soundtrack type music into something dramatic, powerful and dynamic. This drop to quite mellow sounds for a time, definitely in keeping with that soundtrack then. It rises upward gradually from there getting into some pretty free-form territory. That eventually gives way to a delicious jam that has a real classic, old-school jazz groove to it. They get very expressive as that makes its way through. It also turns noisier and more crazed in its rather freeform jamming further down the road. The closing movement has some more crazed and dissonant sounds that lean toward classical music.

Float This comes in mellower and very gradually rises upward from atmospheric. This evolves into some killer jazzy music. This has hints of jazz prog for sure. It does turn to dramatic, symphonic sounds at times. It's another that covers a lot of musical territory and has a lot of moods. It's dramatic and powerful at times, and even feels a little dangerous at points. Yet, it also drops to very sedate stuff. At over 11-and-a-half-minutes of music, this is the shortest piece here.

Cohere I love the cool mellowish groove that gets this track underway. There is some killer organ work on the early parts of the track. The piece has some hints of funk. Percussion gets busy and takes a prominent role in this number further down the road. This gets into some driving and soaring jazz jamming further down the road. It's really powerful. The organ gets some chances to put in some smoking hot jamming later in the track, too.

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