Good grief, it's been a while hasn't it? This unplanned lull has come about due to many, many things going on from house moves to illness to Bloodstock. Suffice to say it's been a busy couple of months, and indeed continues to be so.
So what has happened since July? Quite a bit, it would seem.
Picking up from where I left off, A Forest Of Stars' new album, A Shadowplay For Yesterdays is as good as I had hoped. Gatherer Of The Pure is a somewhat isolated track, the others swirling and cascading around it. Which isn't to say the rest of the album isn't good. Far from it, in fact.
Gatherer Of The Pure is still my favourite track on the album, but I wonder if it's more based on familiarity than anything else. I'll be honest and say that I'm not entirely convinced by the rather overwrought voiceover on the first track, but that aside it jumps straight in to some beautifully eerie riffs and turns. There are little crossovers between tracks, such as the "I don't want to be left behind here" motif that appears a few times, and each track is distinct and yet blends wonderfully into the whole.
I also picked up Gojira's latest opus, L'Enfant Sauvage. I won't bother you with "Baby Sausage" jokes, but instead say that I enjoy it immensely. I know a lot of people have said that it's not a patch on The Way Of All Flesh, but rather than go down the route that so many have trod, writing off an album as bed when it's merely not topped their existing favourite, I'll say that it's a solid album with some good tracks that's kept me coming back for multiple listens. I'm not entirely sure what The Wild Healer is all about though. A bleepier or bloopier track I don't think I've heard since the early 90s. Most peculiar. And for some reason it puts me in mind of 80s action movies. Everything else, though, it tip-top Gojira material and it pleases me greatly.
And of course Bloodstock happened. I'll do a proper little post about what happened there in a bit, but for now let Vassily, the metal meerkat, sum it up for you all:
On the prog front, I have picked up the new albums from Big Big Train, Mostly Autumn and the mighty Threshold, and on the awesome front I am currently awaiting my copy of Epicloud and matching t-shirt from the man himself.
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