Uriah Heep - Conquest (1980)

 

The 13th album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, piano, organ, synths and vocals.

The band returned two years after their last album. 

Conquest is clocking in at three quarters of an hour.

There is a new vocalist in the band, John Sloman. He stayed in the band for two years and later released around ten solo albums, the latest one last year.

His vocals are softer and more rounded than their original vocalist. The music is therefore more like stadium rock on this album. The music is still hard, but still softer than on their previous twelve albums.

The sound is also very commercial and this album is the band going mainstream, seeking commercial success.

Maybe they got commercial success with this album. The music is decent enough. This album is still a bit of a low for this band. It is an album best avoided.

2 points 

 

 

Kikagaku Moyo - Mammatus Clouds (2020)

 

The third album from this band from Japan.

The band was a quintet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, sitar and vocals.

I have quite liked this band's blend of psych rock, raga rock and space rock on their first two albums. So I was looking forward to review this album too.

This album is clocking in at fifty minutes. The album is a break with their past, their first two albums.

This album is a space rock album with sitar as the dominant instrument.

There are one or two minutes with vocals, make that a voice here. The rest of the music is pure instrumental space rock.

Their take on space rock is at times gentle while it is pretty harsh and brutal at the end of the album.

The music has a great Indian and Eastern Asian feel and ambience. The music is also appealing and good.

This is an album space rock fans should check out.

3 points 

Cravinkel - Garden of Loneliness (1971)

 

The second album from this band from Germany.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars and vocals. 

This is the final album from this band.

Their self-titled 1970 debut album was a pretty poor album as I wrote in my review some days ago. But I still had some hope for Garden Of Loneliness, the follow up album.

This album clocks in at forty minutes.

The music is hard rock with a lot of psych rock influences.

Some of the songs are fluently running into psych/space rock improvisations. There are some wild guitars and vocals in these improvisations. 

Those improvisations are probably why Cravinkel has been put in the krautrock genre/label. Which is justified in my view. The vocals are still in English though and pretty bluesy. 

The music is still pretty melodic and in the 1970s rock and psych tradition. This is by far their best album and a decent album.

2 points 

Corvus Stone - Corvus Stone Unscrewed (2015)

 

The third album from this multi-national band.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and backing vocals.

A handful of guests added drums, guitars, keyboards and vocals.

This is the latest album from this band and very probably their final album. 

This fifty minutes long album has four new songs and nine remixes of old songs. This is strictly not a proper new studio album. 

Stef Fleming and the late Colin Tench were the main people in this project. Stef Fleming, Blake Carpenter and Sean Filkins are some of the vocalists here. 

The music is a blend of heavy prog, folk rock and symphonic prog. The organ sound is great here and the band has got that one right.

The vocals are good. Most of the music is instrumental though and remixes has taken the music more into a symphonic prog direction than the original songs.  

The result is a good album and that is a surprise as the remixes and the new songs are superior to their first two albums. Their journey ended with Colin Tench's tragic passing. This album is another tribute to him and his musical visions.

3 points 

Telegraph - Topography of Mind (2026)

 

The second album from this band from Israel.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, synths, flute and vocals.

One guest added flute.

I reviewed their 2018 debut album Mir back in December that year for # 2 of this blog and that was a good album. You can find my review here.

I was back then hoping for a new album a lot sooner than eight years. However, that is how long it has taken to release Topography Of Mind.

The music on this three quarters of an hour long album is again mostly instrumental. 

There are four songs here. Each of them is eleven minutes long. 

The music is again a blend of Eloy, Genesis and Focus. Add Camel to this list too. There is some cinematic rock and some hints of fusion here. The right label on this music is symphonic prog.

The music is mid-temp, pastoral and melodic. It is also at times, beautiful. 

The result is a very good album indeed. It is a bit of a surprise of an album too and one that will rank pretty high anyone's list of album of the year. 

3.5 points 

  

 

Scree - August (2025)

 

The second album from this band from USA.

The band was a nine-pieces big band with a lineup of drums, percussion, glockenspiel, bass, guitars, pedal steel guitars, violin, cello, organ, keyboards, clarinet, saxophones, loops and programming.

I reviewed their 2023 debut album Jasmine On A Night In July some days ago and that was a pretty good album. The music was a blend of jazz and post-rock.

August is clocking in at forty-two minutes and we are getting more of the same here.

That means minimalistic jazz with a lot of post-rock influences.

It can in fact be argued that the music here is a blend of jazz and folk-rock. An argument I will make here. 

The music is mostly acoustic with some woodwinds in between the acoustic and half-acoustic guitars. 

The music is very subtle and modest. 

There are some good stuff and some not so good stuff. I am still a bit unsure about this band. Nevertheless, check out this band.

2.5 points 

Man - Anachronism Tango (2019)

 

The 17th album from this band from Great Britain.

The band was a quartet with a lineup of drums, bass, guitars, piano, organ and vocals.

This is their latest album and very probable the final ever album from Man.

I have not been impressed by their latest five albums and did not have any expectations for Anachronism Tango.

This album is clocking in at three quarters of an hour. The music is a blend of mainstream rock, Americana and rock'n'roll.

The vocals here only pretty decent and a drop in quality from the previous albums. The music is pretty uninteresting. One old-school rock'n'roll track livens things up a bit. 

This album is a good candidate for their worst ever album. A couple of decent tracks are the only saving grace on this album. Man was a good band in the 1970s and their albums from that era should be purchased. The rest of their albums are a waste of time and money.

1.5 points