Issue 2025-003
Achelas — Echoes Of Virtue


Powell and Pressburger's much-loved masterpiece A Matter Of Life And Death opens with a heartbreaking scene of concentrated drama and emotional intensity more conventionally reserved for the climax of a film, with the dialogue between the young air traffic controller and the pilot of the doomed Lancaster bomber reaching out in his final moments prior to bailing out without a parachute. As a narrative framing device, it possesses enormous power, immediately drawing the viewer in. Echoes Of Virtue, the fifth studio album by Achraf El Asraoui, begins in similar fashion, with Dialogue 33, recording, with black box-like clinical detachment, the last words exchanged between pilot and co-pilot before a fatal helicopter crash, the deliberately prosaic title downplaying the horror of the event, which acts as a metaphor for a society veering dangerously out of control. As the rotor blades spin, a hypnotically repetitive bass line resembling a distress signal in Morse code lends a sense of imminent catastrophe, juxtaposed with a mournful yet almost serene chant, leaving it to the guitars to convey the full gravity and urgency of the situation.
This sets the tone for what follows, a richly rewarding meditation on grief and loss and how these feelings reverberate through the decades, set against a backdrop of disillusionment and alienation in a society that appears to be inexorably unravelling.
Veils Of Unseen Realities offers a brilliantly executed piece of gorgeously melodic yet full-blooded prog metal, the subdued, ethereal vocals reminiscent of Mariusz Duda (indeed the entire album has a Lunatic Soul feel to it) floating above the increasingly plaintive and brooding guitars in a plea expressing sentiments with which I can wholeheartedly concur (Elon Musks of the world pay heed!):
Open the doors, I think you have the keys
Reside in you, in your time and place
Protect your planet, then you can go to space
Maybe you should invest in life, not in death instead
The longest track on the album, and my personal favourite, is Echoes Across The Cosmos, a deeply moving personal tribute to Eric Bouillette, Achraf's former bandmate in Nine Skies, whom he describes as "a beacon of intelligence and moral integrity". Contemplative and steeped in melancholy, as befits the subject, it beautifully conveys the uncomprehending bewilderment and disorientatedness felt by the grieving:
My friend, can you hear my song for you? Thought I haven't lost you, I feel adrift. Somewhere amidst the heavens, you reside, Like a solitary flower in the desert's embrace
Piano, guitar and a mournfully pealing bell express the finality of the loss, tempered only by the fond and cherished memories residing in the hearts of those left behind.
The stripped back, restrained and beautifully poetic Celestial Paradox follows, the acoustic guitar and pensive vocals underpinned by the sound of waves breaking on the shore. The sparse simplicity of the flowing melody an eloquent reminder that prog does not need to be showy to have an impact, brashly wearing its virtuosity on its sleeve. Within the vastness and cold indifference of the universe, we are but brief and transient flickers of light, the knowledge of our insignificance could engulf us with despair, yet a sense of hope and resigned acceptance pervades the piece.
One of the album's most striking features is the beguiling contrasts it provides. Dazt Laawam, sung entirely in Darija, explores the passage of time and its effect on perceptions, the picking up of pace matched by a more upbeat, lighter and carefree inflection, funkier and almost reggae-like in part. With its multiple key changes and more intricate structure incorporating a glorious guitar solo, it is perhaps the proggiest and most expansive track, its effortless forward motion akin to a falcon's skimming flight above the endless desert dunes.
Once again adopting an understated approach both musically and lyrically, in keeping with its theme of disillusionment, Lies in Their Eyes is not permeated with outrage, as it could have been. More subtly, like Eurydice glimpsed before receding into the shadows, it remains impalpable and elusive, just beyond reach. At the 2 minute 18 mark, Karibow's Philipp Dauenhauer contributes an opulent, heartfelt guitar solo, which fades out all too soon, leaving the listener yearning for more. This is true of much of the album: the individual tracks could be given more opportunity to breathe and expand to their full potential, as they are certainly strong enough from a melodic and compositional standpoint.
The darkly atmospheric Echoes Of The Unseen revisits the disconnect between our insignificance as individuals and our conscious experience placing us at the centre of our own perceptual universe. Acoustic and electric guitar passages alternate in a continuous ebb and flow which gradually builds in intensity, encapsulating the tensions inherent to this irreducible aspect of the human condition, with the broader context of wars and rumours of wars a menacing backdrop.
The album concludes with Honest Dream, an all too brief and melancholy-steeped instrumental providing a resolution of sorts, a shimmering gossamer thread illuminated by the autumn sunshine.
The album is only available in digital format, understandable given the severe budgetary constraints involved (the perennial challenge faced by independent artists). Achelas began as a solo project in 2017 and has since developed into a full band, multi-instrumentalist Achraf joined by the superbly talented Mouad Azizi on drums. The production values are impressive, yielding a richly textured and nuanced sound.
Echoes Of Virtue is both haunting and wistful, delicate like the hidden chambers of a seashell or the tender wrap of petals before the rose has unfolded in bloom, shifting in tone and mood from hard-edged and sombrely brooding prog metal to acoustic meditations resembling the gentle caress of a sea breeze on a hot summer shore, whilst retaining its coherence. The very definition of a hidden treasure, it deserves to be far more widely known and appreciated for its seamless blending of cultural and musical influences and styles, its originality and quietly unassuming emotional and spiritual depth.
Aeternal Chambers — Aeternal Chambers


A country long-established as a realm of prog and heavy music, the UK has a rich and vibrant scene. Out of this scene comes Aeternal Chambers, an “instrumental trio mixing up flourishes of melancholy, electronics, heavy riffs and ambience o'plenty”.
From the opening of Husk Of Mortal Despair — they aren't lying. Sorrowful guitars feed into crushing chugs powerful lead licks and riffs while crashing drums and thick bass lines create a solid platform to springboard the music out the speakers. Repeating patters build steadily until the wall of sound kicks in towards the crescendo and leads us into Drive Me To Ruin. A similar, clean intro layers over itself for the first part, then the heavy starts again. The rhythm section does a stalwart job here of creating an air of atmosphere and ambience, despite retaining the distortion and anticipatory leads.
Paved With Gold has a steady line through it, a minimalistic rhythm with some slightly discordant clean guitars. When the full distortion comes back, it is still a fairly “simple” riff, but it catches you and holds you down. The second half of the track is categorized by doom-laden vibes that ooze emotion while staying full throttle. Closer Glitch In The Mist is a slow burner, straddling between atmosphere and prog tinged doom. Its heavy, oppressive and solid. In short, a culmination of all that came before it and a superb closing statement.
An enjoyable EP, I'd recommend for fans of Tryptikon, Solstafir, Mogwai or Russian Circles.
SomeWhereOut — Providence


The album Providence by SomeWhereOut marks the third full-length effort by the Spanish progressive metal band, following their previous albums Eternity, Eternity and Deep In The Old Forest. The latter holds a personal significance for me due to its evocative character and execution and I enjoyed it quite a lot. More Tales From The Old Forest, which received a very good score here at DPRP, was actually an EP, as are several other releases the band has put out between their main albums.
Musically, this new effort opens with Under The Black Stars, a solid track blending intricate riffs with a dense atmosphere, reminiscent at times of Opeth's more progressive phases, even with some harsh vocals. Alba Bermejo's vocal contribution and Begoña Ramos' violin add depth, though the composition lacks the emotional intensity and dynamic shifts that could elevate it further. I guess the programmed drums don´t help much with this. It's like something is not right in the mix.
Tracks like The Sword, featuring guest vocalist Abraham Linares, stand out for a more direct structure, drawing clear influences from bands like Riverside. Clearly my personal favourite although again I'm missing more power in the drumming, again. The Green Book showcases a final guitar solo by Israel Lupi, which improves the track and makes it my second favourite. And I'm afraid I haven't enjoyed the soft songs Gone and The Willows. Buried, with Andrés Gabarrón on vocals and Féliz Morales on bass, tries to keep the energy going but suffers from a sense of repetitiveness.
The album's most ambitious piece is the title track Providence, clocking in at eighteen minutes. It demonstrates the band's ability to construct expansive sonic landscapes, with highlights like Begoña Ramos' violin, Dante Martín's vocals, and a guitar solo by David Santana, although it sometimes feels like a collage of ideas rather than a cohesive piece, or at least that is the feeling that I have experienced after several listenings. Good song but it's not going to be remembered as one of the best epic song of last year.
Raúl Lupiáñez, the sole composer and main man behind SomeWhereOut, showcases his skills across various instruments, including six and eight-string guitars, piano, and synthesizers. However, the absence of a dedicated drummer, with programmed drums taking their place, weakens the impact of the tracks and detracts from the energy a live drummer could have provided. It could be my main complaint about this album since I feel like it needs an extra punch of energy.
In summary, Providence is not a bad album with good moments that highlight SomeWhereOut's talent, but it lacks the consistency that brought them recognition in earlier works. While worth a listen, it doesn't establish itself as a genre-defining release. I guess my rating is leaving room for the band to reignite their creative spark in future projects, which I'm sure they will.
Teodicea — Il mondo esausto


Teodicea is a project born from an idea of Enrico Filippi, keyboarder of the Italian prog trio Aliante, whom he released two albums with in 2017 and 2019 respectively, both reviewed on DPRP.net. Enrico left that band after the release of the second album to pursue his own musical ideas, which resulted in the foundation of Teodicea, together with Giacomo Putrino (drums and percussion), and Jacopo Morandi (bass) and the release of their debut album. Teodicea (Theodicy means “God's Justice”) is a branch of philosophy (theology) that studies the relationship between God's justice and the presence of evil in the world, which, as expressed in the naming of the release, the band deems to be "Esausto" (exhausted). On this entirely instrumental album, Teodicea musically displays their vision of the contemporary world and the feelings that human beings encounter in day-to-day life. Hence, various emotions are generated by listening to the music, whereby it is up to the individual listener to decide which ones each track evokes.
I personally find it difficult to derive any kind of emotions from a purely instrumental music. However, calling an album "The exhausted world" suggests a rather gloomy prevailing mood of the music, and, indeed, to my ears some of the tracks rather sound melancholic, that kind of mood quite frequently encountered in the music of Rock Progressivo Italiano (RPI).
Teodicea's music is characterized by the dominance of analogue sounding keyboards: strings/mellotron, organ, synthesizer, but also a healthy dose of acoustic piano. The overall presence of keyboards should not belie the importance and the efficient input of the rhythm section, though. Throughout the entire release, drums and bass come into their own and are clearly audible, also thanks to the well-balanced mixing.
The music on Il mondo esausto can be classified as symphonic rock, being full of breaks, showing an alteration of softer, and more dynamic parts, changes of mood and atmosphere, and melodic soloing of organ and synthesizer. The songs are dense without lengthy elaborations, their structures are clearly recognisable. A striking characteristic for me is an excellent complementarity of the various keyboard instruments used. Specific hooks and melodies in each song are played by one instrument and subsequently taken over by another and transformed as the song progresses. This effective complementarity also holds true for keyboards and bass guitar, as the latter fits seamlessly into the song structures, whilst the drums provide a perfect basis to appropriately bring across the prevailing mood of each song, basically melancholy, and fierceness.
Whilst being played by very talented musicians showing strong musical abilities, Teodicea's focus is not on pure virtuosity as one is used to by listening to comparable keyboard-led trios such as ELP, and Triumvirat. Instead, Teodica is committed to melodiousness and puts an emphasis on accessibility and catchiness. That provides for this release to be easy to listen to, without getting bored even after having done so for the umpteenth time (like I did).
This music has many strong moments, and I am unable to discover any weak spots. Although the principle of playing melodious, pleasing and accessible music runs like a red thread through this album and no song really stands out from the crowd (except maybe Punto di fusione due to its jazz rock elements), the music sounds varied. Every song has its own characteristics and particularities that make it something special. Take the pulsating drive of 777, the alteration of dreamy piano passages with multilayered, roaring organ sounds and fierce synth soloing of Gioia e risoluzione (I think that track is my primus inter pares). There is the pathos and melancholy of the piano-led song Weltschmerz (which expression should describe the forlornness of a Mondo Esausto more appropriately than this Germanism?), the great bass/keyboards interplay of Intro 442. Ripresa di coscienza, and L'ineluttabile show beautiful melodies, whilst the dreamy Lofoten makes me think of music accompanying a drone's flight over the fascinating landscapes of these Norwegian islands.
The fact that Teodicea are a symphonic RPI trio means that finding musical similarities is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Many of their peers are not a trio, or, if they are, they don't make instrumental music. Seen this way, Teodicea are quite unique. The most obvious comparison thus would be Enricos previous band Aliante (which are a quartet now including a guitarist). However, their music sounds more psychedelic, and complex to me, with longer song structures and not as melodious and smooth as Teodicea. Indeed, I found similarities with the keyboard-driven instrumental music of the Russian duo Shalash Band. The complexity of the track Punto Di Fusione and the way the piano is used throughout the album sometimes make me think of Banco, the organ here and there reminds me of Le Orme, the melodious synthesizer soloing and the mellotron evoke German lesser-known bands Choice, Tritonus, and Epidaurus. These latter bands use vocals, though, such as Reegonetti Band from Sweden, who also came to my mind.
Being a keyboards aficionado and a strong lover of RPI, I knew that it would just take me a brief listening of the first bars of each song to be certain that Il Mondo Esausto is 100% my kind of prog. The fact that the keyboard playing on two of my favourite albums of all times, Sagrado E Le Mille Gru Di Carta by LogoS, and Cut The Tongue by Julius Project, is close to what can be heard on Il Mondo Esausto certainly reinforces that impression. I fully appreciate that Teodicea are "just" a trio making instrumental music, and as such must compensate for the missing (RPI-typical) vocals and the guitar as a lead instrument. I think they have succeeded remarkably well in doing that. I just wrote this album on my "2024 Albums of the year"-list and hope for a successor in the not-too-distant future.
The Tirith — Earth Songs


Since their reformation in 2010, the guitar-orientated prog trio of The Tirith released three albums: Tales From The Tower, A Leap In The Dark and Return Of The Lydia. All were generally met by high critical acclaim. The one exception being, ahem, my own assessment of the bands latest studio offering Return Of The Lydia. An album which in some ways contradicted the "all good things come in threes" rule. Time for a new rule then, for this fourth effort is the perfect demonstration that four is definitely more!
Or we want more! Because Earth Songs represents a live album that comprises seven songs from their performance recorded at The Musician in Leicester in 2022, which they played as a foursome consisting out of Tim Cox (guitar), Paul Williams (drums), Richard Cory (vocals, bass, acoustic guitar) and newcomer Anthony Hill on keyboards. To this a trilogy of acoustic songs from their 2018 performance at 't Blok in Nieuwerkerk Aan Den Ijssel, a town located near the vicinity of Rotterdam, has been added.
Still a threesome formation at the time, these three acoustic compositions beautifully showcase the intricate melodic soft side of the band. And wonderfully demonstrate the enjoyable naked truth behind the compositional strength of their genuine 70s Rush and classic rock inspired song material. Which together with the pristine sound, a quality the recordings made at Leicester sometimes lacks, makes this a fine memento addition to the album.
Personally though I much prefer the plugged-in electrifying recordings that were made at Leicester, seeing this successfully captures The Tirith in what they do best. Namely rock dynamically with passion, energy, dedication, enthusiasm, and chemistry of interplay in a heavy prog setting that frequently reminds of Rush, Pallas, and British Omega to which a sprinkle of Uriah Heep and Deep Purple is added. The latter two for instance surfacing in opener Go The Drifter which in comparison to its tame studio version now exhibits great upgrades in both energy and dynamic oomph.
The same applies to the subsequent Crystalwell, another composition from Return Of The Lydia that I admit to also having had some reservations for when I reviewed that album. In this excellent live version many of these views, if not all, have now disappeared like snow in the sun and overall give the impression that this song may well have been written with live performances in mind. A thought that also comes to mind in The Meeting Of Ways which, elevated by its towering Yes inspired passage, satisfyingly rounds of the 2022 Leicester recordings in a very moreish way.
Older songs like Gin Lil and Farewell Fair Laurien, both from their debut, are equally satisfying. Demonstrating excellent moments of magnificent interplay and a healthy level of heavy Rush inspired prog, these songs dash by with beautiful symphonic embellishments from Hill and spectacular guitar work from Cox. And at the same time to the fullest radiate the marvellous recreated sensation of Pallas in their early Arrive Alive eighties on to me. Which comes down to sounding raw, organic, bombastic, abundantly varied, progressively compelling and wholesomely pleasing through the various accompanying keyboard parts that embrace the strong guitar melodies.
The term raw can also be said of the production values of the Leicester recordings. As mentioned these are not pristine. During Kalaya I did for instance have slight trouble to find the correct settings for treble, bass and loudness on my various sound systems to make the mix ultimately work. Yet curiously this less than ideal sound, which still places all the individual performances apart, adds bags of live feel to the album and as such works out splendidly.
And who am I to complain when the phenomenal A Leap Into The Dark / The Autumn Of Our Days is part of the set. Thriving on a fantastic riff and a fiercely thunderous opening statement played with full dedicated focus and bombastic dynamics whilst completed by eerie keyboards and ravishing guitar pyrotechnics reminiscent of early Pallas and Omega, this composition is by far my favourite The Tirith composition. Loving the way how this enthralling heavy composition meticulously shifts from its ominous dark atmospheres into its concluding melodies shining brightly with hopeful relieve, I find this imposing showstopper totally worth the price of admission alone. Either on CD or at the door of an actual The Tirith concert opportunity.
A little more attention to the fade outs and applause transitions between songs would have been appreciated. But this is only a minor detail and basically of no consequence for the excellent enjoyment factor of this honest live presentation.
With selections from all three of their studio albums, I'll round up by stating that Live Earth Songs is an excellent intermission purchase for fans and a great introduction to the music of The Tirith for those still unacquainted. I'll try to minimize my expectations for their next stage. The 'revenge' achieved with this highly recommendable album does make it rather difficult for it truly rocks and abundantly progs!