Neo Progressive

Stunning limited edition box set by this great Swiss neo prog band. Box set includes all 4 studio CD's that are remastered with bonus tracks, booklet with biography and photos as well as an autographed certificate of authenticity. Hand-numbered edition of 1,000.
Many aspects feature in their beautiful music, mainly the outstanding voice of Aluisio Magini, which fits perfectly on top of a well structured instrumentation. Although this band continues the path signed by IQ or Pendragon, they do it in a more bombastic and powerful way, keeping the sense of melody and beauty at the same time. Listener won't find tons of originality, but this album guarantees an excellent hour, specially to neo-prog fans.

Millenium is a Polish five-piece neo-progressive band with Polish vocals on their 1st album and English vocals dominating after their 2nd production, generally in the Pendragon and early Marillion styles but also with some spices of Pink Floyd and classical Genesis. There are influences of older Polish bands like Collage (as you can in every Polish neo-prog band).

It was formed in 1994 by Nick Jackson as a psychedelic and multi-media band based in both London, England and Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Citing influences such as Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, Opeth, The Cure, the band combines progressive rock along with several other influences, including country, heavy metal, hard rock and pop. The band released it first full-length album, "The Stranger Inside the Self" the same year (1994). At this point, It was purely Nick Jackson's vehicle as he was the only full member of the band. Guest musicians were used to provide additional instrumentation for the album. During It's live shows promoting the album, the band began to use multi-media techniques, such as playing short films behind the band on stage. It's second album, "Two Worlds" was released early the following year…

Visible Wind is a Progressive quartet from Quebec, which music alternates instrumental and vocal parts sung in English and French. The band offers an elaborated, contrasted, climatic, energetic, feverish Progressive music. They can evoke Genesis, Marillion, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Camel or Yes by their melodies mixing virtuosity with a very interesting music that combines Mellotron and Harmonium with a more contemporary sound. Extra instruments include violin and flute.

The history of Galleon from Sweden goes back to he year 1985 when the band made their first demos under the name Aragon. Their music could be described as melodic keyboard-based neo-progressive rock with reminiscences to Genesis, Marillion, Rush and IQ. In 1992 the band presented their first work "Lynx". At that time Galleon was still a trio with Micke Värn, guitars - Göran Fors, bass and Vocals and Dan Fors, drums. They got help from producer and keyboard player Ulf Pettersson, who became later a permanent member of the band. At that time there were some Rush influences in their music…

Not exactly a staple in the progressive world, Italy's Fancyfluid attempted to make their mark by being a hybrid of 80's style neo with Italian symph prog from the 70's bands like Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso and PFM. In 1990 the band debuted with Weak Waving. Attempts to sound fresh fell flat despite the use of violin, flute and sax. Fancyfluid failed to capture an international audience, but maybe that was due to the heavily accented vocals of singer Fabrizio Goria. Fancyfluid's 1992 sophomore conceptual effort, King's Journey, actually showed some promise and they even recruited Banco's Rodolfo Maltese to play guitar and trumpet. 1995 gave us The Sheltering Sea, which by all accounts was a cohesive effort that proved that the band had finally gelled. The album features lively, complex and sophisticated music with delicate touches of acoustic guitar, holding true the 70's Italian symphonic prog tradition…

Metamorphosis is the project of Swiss composer/keyboardist/drummer Jean-Pierre Schenk. In 1971, alongwith guitarist Giovanni Esposito, he created the band Nature whose music was very much inspired by Pink Floyd. Years later, and after looking for the ever-elusive manager, Nature split up. In 2001, Schenk and Esposito joined forces again and invited bassist Dominique Schlafer aboard. Guitarist David Grillon and flutist Milena Zaharieva, who appear on their first album, would soon become permanent band members also. All of Metamorphosis' albums still bear a strong Floydian streak, with shades of Eloy and especially Alan Parsons: extremely laid-back music, even melancholic, full of magnificent keyboards and wailing guitars…

The origins of Pangaea can be traced to the band Artica, which was founded by the brothers Corey Schenck (keyboards/guitars) and Andi Schenck(drums/percussion). Artica, which gigged in the area throughout the early and mid 1990's, Ron Poulsen (bass guitars) took his position in the group and early the following year, Darrell Masingale (vocals, guitars) joined and the definitive line-up was born. The concept for the band was to create a sound based on the classic rock and progressive rock of the past while utilizing modern sounds and styles. The idea was simple: amalgamate memorable melodies; rich harmonies; powerful rhythms, and other musical elements into compact song structures…

Krakow is the place to search if you like melodic Neo Prog and Polish band Loonypark is another act from the city trying to be sidelined somewhere in the proggy map of the country. The band was formed in 2008 with Krzysztof Lepiarczyk on keyboards (formerly of Liquid Shadow), Sabina Godula-Zajac on vocals (also with Liquid Shadow), Jakub Grzeslo on drums, Piotr Grodecki on guitars and Piotr Lipka on bass, while Maciej Tomczyk contributes on lead guitars in five tracks of their debut ''Egoist'', launched in 2008 by Lynx Music and co-produced by the founder of the label Ryszard Kramarski. Loonypark's style has strong links with the Polish Neo Prog movement, though the sound is less flexible than to say the approach of Millenium or Satellite, while all lyrics are written in English.

US is a Dutch neo-prog band formed in 1998 by Jos Wernars (guitars) and Ernest Wernars (bass), but the musicians career dated back from 1978 when first incarnation of the band was named Saga, releasing one album and disappered in to oblivion. They reunite in 1998 and give the band name US, releasing first album in 2000. The second album from 2003 named "Eamon's Day" is a perfect neo-prog album. Everything is well done, elegant arrangements, brilliant vocal parts and above all the bass lines are very intristing. The voice of Stephan Christiaans is very smooth very good, with many jaw dropping moments and fits very well in the music they play. What is more intristing is that the bass is very predominant, sometimes is used like a prime instrument, with excellent chops and elegant interluding with the rest…