Progressive Rock
iapetus · 4 September 2026
“Let’s THRAK Again” comes in two complete versions and neither of them is the definitive one. The same material was mixed by two different engineers: Stefano Castagna did Reel One, Fabio Trentini Reel Two. The advertised difference is the running order, and it is real: Reel One opens with the title track, Reel Two with “Dark Birthday”. There is a second one that gets explained less, which is that “Brutal” is sung by Tony Levin on one disc and by Pat Mastelotto on the other. Added up track by track, the two mixes run 53:55 and 53:59. It is the same record twice.
This is Stick Men’s first studio album since “Prog Noir”, which came out on 21 October 2016, and it is dedicated to the “THRAK” King Crimson released in 1995, with Robert Fripp’s blessing and without containing a single track from it. Levin and Mastelotto were half the rhythm section of the double trio that recorded that album; Markus Reuter takes the guitar chair here with Touch Guitars U8 Deluxe. Two of the twelve tracks were already out: “Brutal” appeared on an EP on 26 September 2025 and the vocal version of “Swimming in Tea” as a single on 1 July 2026.
“Haggin Triptych” (5:55) and “The Well” (6:04) are the two places where the trio stops pushing all at once. The first is split into three named sections, “Renoir”, “Carriage Parade” and “Yosemite Sunset”, and on Reel Two they are laid out as three separate tracks instead of one: that is why one disc has twelve tracks and the other fourteen, and not because either of them holds anything exclusive. The rest of the programme goes the other way. “Bash Machine” and “Brutal” do what their titles say, “Swimming in Tea” moves in odd time, and “Dark Birthday” ends up in slow, thick territory, the closest to doom these three have ever been.
None of the twelve tracks reaches seven minutes and the average is four and a half. The “THRAK” of 1995 found its identity in the long, half-improvised pieces the double trio left on it, and this tribute has none of those: twelve closed songs, written and resolved. It works as a Stick Men album and falls short as a reading of that one. And of the two mixes, Trentini’s softens the harshest moments that Castagna’s magnifies, and neither sleeve says so: whoever buys one has no way of knowing whether they are getting the rough version or the other.
iapetus, 4 September 2026. Reel One, twelve tracks, 53:55; Reel Two, fourteen tracks, 53:59. Tony Levin on Chapman Stick, Markus Reuter on Touch Guitars U8 Deluxe and Pat Mastelotto on acoustic and electronic drums.
Rating: 7.6/10
Text by Guillem Cardós