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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Komara Komara Review by Gary Hill Although there are some spoken vocals, this album is instrumental. It’s definitely progressive music, but along the noisy, almost industrial end of that spectrum. Still, there is quite a bit of jazz here. It’s varied and quite stunning in a lot of ways. I suppose the closest comparison I can make out would be Bruford Levin Upper Extremities. If you dig that act, you should love this. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2015 Volume 5 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review

Dirty Smelly Dark, heavy and a bit creepy, this is also very progressive. Imagine modern King Crimson merged with Tool and death metal. Add in some techno and you’ll be close.

37 Forms After the noisy chaos of the previous track, this is a huge change. It comes in with percussion and the melody brings some real jazz to the table. As it continues hints of something noisier and more techno emerge. As this builds, it’s quite percussive and very jazz oriented. There is some great jamming on this thing. There is a drop back mid-track and atmospheric jazz takes control. A drum solo comes next. From there it shifts out to some seriously modern Crimson styled music for a moment. It gets stranger as this energized jam continues. This gets into some killer hard rocking progressive music as it continues. There is a drop back to extremely mellow jazz at the end.

A Collision of Fingerprints I love the groove to this jam. It’s definitely full of jazz elements alongside techno/industrial and King Crimson-like sounds. This does get quite noisy and heavy at times.

She Sat in Black Silt Mellower, open, freeform jazz styled music is the idea as this starts. It has a real soaring kind of element at play. In some ways this makes me think of Bruford Levin Upper Extremities. It works through some different types of modes and tones. It gets louder and more industrial, but is still grounded in the jazzy and ethereal.

2cfac Experimental and a bit weird, this also comes in on the quieter side of things. This is arguably the most freeform and seemingly random piece here. It gets pretty noisy at times. It’s bombastic at times, too.

God Has Left This Place An angry weird, spoken element starts this piece. As musical strangeness enters and wanders about some samples of the voice and another get placed here and there. There is some killer jazz meets techno space rock as the song explodes out later.

Pasquinade Opening with mellower, slow space jazz, this builds out from there. There are hints of world music in some of the jamming that emerges later. Some of the music gets pretty intense at times, too. It gets into a powered up arrangement further down the road that’s jazz merged with hard edged prog.

Abraso Only 17 seconds in length, this is a bit noisy, rather weird, but also classy.

Afterbirth Although there are no huge changes here, the heavy jamming with the jazz over the top is certainly top-notch. This again definitely makes me think of something BLUE might have done. It’s a real powerhouse with a lot of great soloing and energy. This gets noisy and a bit weird in the chaotic jamming later. There’s a section of silence at the end.

Inciting Incidents White noise brings this in from the silence left behind when the previous cut ended. About thirty seconds in the voice from “God Has Left This Place” enters. This is a weird theatrical kind of piece. It feels like part of a horror movie or science fiction film.

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