ProgRockRecords is a California label run by Shawn Gordon. The label has been releasing
melodic progressive rock for many years now and many famous artists have been
able to express themselves due to the labels sheer dedication to this style of
semi-mainstream prog music. I will give short overviews of these records in the
order that they have been released.
Everwood- Without Saving (PRR605)
This is the 3rd record
from the Hungarian act, Everwood. The CD features 12 tracks in 53mins. They
have some pretty heavy and hard rocking riffs mixed with very melodic singing
and sometimes intense keyboard playing as well. Some of the tracks are more
mainstream that others but musically they have a lot of intensity. At times
they remind me of a more progressive Soundgarden. The booklet has all the lyrics
and beautiful artwork.
Xanadu- The Last Sunrise (PRR608)
Xanadu
is from Poland and play some intense music. They are a five piece band with two
guitars and a very good singer. They mix some really heavy riffs, some more
spacey synths and keyboards, which are played by two guest musicians, and
melodious singing. The track Violent Dream features some really excellent lead
guitar work, which is not that present on many of the other tracks. This is
really an amazing song. The last and title track also features a guest female
vocalist, Paulina Tomaszweska. Quite an impressive record.
Akin- The way things End (PRR318)
Akin
are a 7 piece French band that features a string quartet of viola, violin and
cello on many of the 15 tracks on this hour long CD. I was really caught by
surprise by the very special and intense female voice. There will be many
people who will not like Adeline. Musically, they are very diverse with a lot
of different instruments taking the lead in different songs, sometimes it is
the strings, the piano, darbuka, tablas, electric guitar. Unhearted is a
particularly diverse track. Sometimes the music is rocking pretty hard with a
70s style progressive lead guitar work while other times is very much modern
melodic prog, so that bands stretch across both styles.
Profusion- RewoTower (PRR565)
This
is Profusion’s 2nd record. The band is a mixture of musicians from
Italy and Georgia (not the USA). The CD features 11 tracks in 55 minutes. The
opening track has quite a catchy groove to it and a hard edge. The music is
more slick and mainstream than any of the other bands in this review.
Occasionally, they mix it up a bit more with tracks like Treasure Island, which
has a very different vocal style and musical approach to start and then they go
back to the same sort of style that I am not really digging. This band is just
a bit too poppy for me somehow, despite having some quite cool elements and
heavy guitar riffs at times. It is probably the 80’s style vocals and choruses.
Check them out.
Centric Jones- The Antikythera Method (PRR077)
This
CD caught me quite by surprise. From what I can tell this is the 2nd
record by Chris Fournier (Guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion) and Tobe London
(Drums, percussion and keyboards). They are joined by the impressive Laurie
Larson or Tessa Anderson on vocals. Only 5 of the 12 tracks have vocals though.
This record is really different with a super cool floating, spacey feel to it
and some fantastic acoustic guitar playing and on other tracks, really cool
electric guitar, keyboards. Think of a sort of really cool spacey Enya, with
lots of progressive elements and deep musical textures and layers and not all
the new age garbage. There are a few of these type of tracks. They even cover
Then by Yes. The band has some detailed notes about each and everyone song with
what instruments were used and their thoughts about the tracks in general. What
more to say???
Gekko Projekt- Electric Forest (PRR238)
This
is a four piece band featuring US and British musicians. The music is mostly
instrumental with some intense guitar work. Vance, the keyboard player also
does some singing and has written the majority of the music. The band is at its
best when it is just playing. Cognitive Dissonance has a really great bass line
to start off. Vance uses a wide range of different keyboards which provides a
lot of different textures on the different songs. Peter certainly has a
favourite lead guitar tone that you hear a lot on his solo sections but this is
not to say he does not also have a diverse range of sounds. This is more jazz
rock at times rather than hard rock but it has these very melodic vocals (he
does not have a great range but a lot of passion). I am not a big fan of these
pad synths behind the vocals that are often used, to give it this more pop feel
or something.. Anyway, a very good album. I love the bands web page as well. 
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