The Fender Stratocaster
From Hendrix to Van Halen’s Frankenstrat: the story of the most famous guitar in rock history, and how it shaped everything from Prog to shredding.
Tesseract + Unprocessed + The Callous Daoboys
Photo report: Tesseract’s first Barcelona show in five years, with Unprocessed and The Callous Daoboys, at Apolo, 20 January 2024.
Gringos, “Banzim Banzam” (1994)
A rediscovered gem of Catalan avant-garde music: Gringos’ “Banzim Banzam” (1994), thirty years on — a sampling-driven masterpiece far ahead of its time.
Santacreu – Cançons d’amor, dol i enyorança
A grief-soaked doom-tinged debut from a local band whose quality has nothing to envy internationally known acts.
Rabea Massaad – Grinding Gears, Vol. 4
A multi-instrumentalist guitar virtuoso proves progressive rock doesn’t need long songs — short, punchy tracks packed with technique.
Interview with Saturna
Saturna on ‘The Reset’, chasing a more modern sound without losing their seventies-rooted hard rock soul, and their plans for 2024.
Marco Minnemann – Their Colors Fade
A drummer’s album loaded with stellar guests, but held back by the same drummer’s constant urge to steal the spotlight.
Wake Arkane – Awakenings
A theatrical concept album blending guttural death metal with classical harmonies and hospital-drama narration.
The Haas Company – Galactic Tide Vol. 1
A jazz-rock debut bankrolled by a Texan ex-executive and stacked with elite session guitarists, Andy Timmons especially.
Interview with Stoned Statues
Finnish trio Stoned Statues on their genre-blending second album ‘The Guardian’, songwriting without a fixed method, and dreaming of a European tour.
The Hammond Organ
From church pews to Deep Purple: the story of the Hammond organ, its tonewheels and drawbars, and how it became Progressive Rock’s most iconic keyboard.
Small Strides – The Ground Beneath Our Feet
A refined, distinguished German debut with real promise, though two tracks could have been left off entirely.
Art Against Agony – Sound of Inevitability
94 minutes of masked, pseudonymous jazz-metal from Stuttgart — demanding, sprawling, and technically flawless.
Orphaned Land+Azteca+Royal Rage+Ring of Gyges+Strale
Orphaned Land, Azteca, Royal Rage, Ring of Gyges and Strale live at Razzmatazz 2, 21 January 2024.
Kuervos del Sur – De la luz
A Chilean band fuses rock with Andean roots music — charango, quena and triple metre — into what they call “rock de raíz”.
Moon Safari – Himlabacken Vol. 2
Sweden’s sweetest AOR sextet returns after a decade with a record that is wonderful in its first half and saccharine overkill in its second.
Polkadot Cadaver – Echoes Across The Hellscape
The former members of Dog Fashion Disco deliver a wild, genre-hopping record that is equal parts hilarious and unsettling.
Suffocation + Sanguisugabogg + Enterprise Earth + Organectomy
Suffocation, Sanguisugabogg, Enterprise Earth and Organectomy live at Sala Salamandra, 31 January 2024.
Verneri Pohjola – Monkey Mind
A hard-to-classify, demanding ninth record from the Finnish trumpeter, closing with a genuinely disturbing final track.
Chris Squire’s Wal Triple-Neck Bass
How Rick Wakeman commissioned a spectacular triple-neck bass in 1974, and how it ended up in Chris Squire’s hands, becoming the iconic instrument behind Yes’s ‘Awaken’.
Helga – Wrapped in Mist
A Swedish-in-York debut swinging between complex, Indukti-esque prog and softer folk detours — uneven but promising.
Tesseract + Unprocessed + The Callous Daoboys
Tesseract, Unprocessed and The Callous Daoboys live at Apolo 1, 20 January 2024.
TodoMal – A Greater Good
A Spanish duo’s smooth, sophisticated take on epic doom — reviewed without saying the word “epic” too many times.
Saturna – The Reset
The Barcelona band’s cleanest, most impeccably produced record yet, without losing the retro hard-rock edge that defines them.
Peter Gabriel – i/o
21 years on, Gabriel’s dual-mix comeback record has flashes of brilliance but mostly recycles a formula that technology has hollowed out.
Crack the Sky, “Crack the Sky” (1975)
Crack the Sky’s self-titled 1975 debut deserved a far bigger career than it got: an ambitious, witty, richly orchestrated slice of progressive rock.
Big Bang – Causas naturales
A Badalona rock band’s fifth album deserves more attention than it gets — a solid, varied record with nothing to envy its foreign peers.
Glass Hammer – Arise
A reshuffled line-up sends this concept album into deliberately lo-fi space-rock territory, anchored by the album’s real star: the bass.
Richard Bona
Photo report: Richard Bona with the Liceu Big Band at the Voll-Damm Barcelona Jazz Festival, 14 November 2023.
The Birotron
The Mellotron’s forgotten rival: how Rick Wakeman poured his own money into the Birotron, and why it became one of the rarest instruments ever built.