Chimpan A’s ‘The Empathy Machine’ was an interesting album. Its songs took on the kind of lengths that would normally be associated with prog rock, but its sounds were far more pop oriented. The best tracks blended layers of synth with perfectly pitched melodic vocals, straddling the musical gulf between pop, AOR and electronica, almost in a way that pre-empted Alex Lifeson’s commercial sounds on the Envy of None debut, released just a few years later.
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WITCHCRAFT – IDAG
Five years on from their lockdown release, ‘Black Metal’, which saw Witchcraft trading in their trademark stoner riffs for a bleak, stripped down occult folk sound, and almost a decade after the release of the brilliant ‘Nucleus’, the Swedes play things fairly safely on their 2025 long player ‘IDAG’. In this case, though, the feeling of safety has its own strength: founding member Magnus Pelande sounds more comfortable than ever working within a classic doomy metal format, and for the band’s fans, this return to a more “classic” Witchcraft sound will certainly present a welcome move, even if in some ways it feels like a step backwards.
THE CHELSEA CURVE – Jamie C’mon (Andy Lewis Remix) / Hey Sah-Lo-Ney
Across a series of digital singles in 2021, Boston’s The Chelsea Curve delivered a bunch of top notch tunes. At their best, the tracks sounded like unreleased gems by the likes of Pearl Harbor & The Explosions and Holly & The Italians put through a mod-ish filter, such was the band’s knack for hitting the listener with a world of classic riffs and big, very retro hooks.
KPT – Claw EP
During 2020, when the world was in turmoil and a lot of musicians and gig goers were feeling socially lost, KPT (pronounced “Kept”) delivered a record that felt suitably dark and befitting of the time. ‘Big Witch’ jumped between electronic genres, sharing soundscapes that blended deep drone (‘Lament’), heady beats (‘Untamed’), and even ventured into into industrial sounds (‘Second Thoughts’). The relatively minimalist album really came into its own, though, when KPT explored some wonderfully bleak soundscapes that evoked ominous sounding film scores. It wasn’t the kind of album you’d necessarily pull off the shelf every day, but within its half hour playing time, it offered some enjoyable instrumental noise when approached in the right – suitably detached – frame of mind.
DRAGON WELDING – The Naughty Step
In terms of musical invention, Dragon Welding’s self titled debut from 2019 was a very interesting record. The duo mixed genres with glee: ‘The Builders’ hit the audience with a huge post-punk riff; ‘One Miserable Summer’ flaunted a lo-fi indie sound; ‘Join The Dots’ took the rock-centric core and applied that to a fuzzy backdrop that sounded like a Queens of The Stone Age cast off, and ‘Lament For Common Sense’ closed everything with a seven minute experimental drone owing a little more to Krautrock. Not that any of this prepared their audience for the sonic experiments that would follow. 2021’s completely instrumental ‘Lights Behind The Eyes’ took in elements of post-rock (‘Liquid’), the intricacies of California Guitar Trio (the brilliant title track) and even something that sounded like Mike Oldfield in a very bad mood (‘On’).