healium

Well, I like this album much more than "Prose Edda", which I found to lack coherent direction in the tracks - the tracks on that abum have lots of great details, but they aren't memorable because there aren't really any lead melodies or other elements that tie it together.. Reminds me a lot of much of the neo-goa genre - lots of pleasant little melodies and sounds but no real charisma or thematic elements..

Lots of dubstep is shite, as we know - but who produces the artistic, complex, and otherwise intelligent representations of this style?

Check out the new Slackbabba album - "Ask" Top shelf psychill in the Entheogenic and Androcell style.

Beat Bizarre - "Riot" 1. Beat Bizarre – Antikythera Mechanism (Original Mix) 2. Beat Bizarre – Robofresh (Original Mix) 3. Beat Bizarre – Swop (Original Mix) 4. Beat Bizarre – Digisnort (Original Mix) 5. Beat Bizarre – Tungsten (Original Mix) 6. Beat Bizarre – Amplifucked (Original Mix) Review: Following up on their spectacular album "Mukharv" from 2012, Beat Bizarre releases a 6 track album in 2013. How does it stack up? Well, to start with, I'm a huge Beat Bizarre fan. In my opinion they have the market cornered on the dark, hypnotic, and highly groovy, sexy type sound. There's some other dark progressive artists out there, but they sure don't sound groovy or sexy - examples are Hypogeo and Barby - both of those artists make excellent dark progressive, but it isn't really slick, booty-shaking type music. Beat Bizarre has this wonderful combination, and this album is no exception. Not going to do a track by track review, but the first track reminds me a lot of the style on Mukharv, whereas the others do not. Every track is solid - in general this album is a bit more minimal than Mukharv, and often not as colorful. This is serious hypnotic head-trip music. The stand out track for me so far is "Tungsten" - awesome repeating vocal sample which reminds me of a track from Koxbox's album "The Great Unknown", along with a characteristic dark and heavy vibe, but punctuated by an absolutely soaring, angelic melody that loops throughout the track - there's so much emotion and atmosphere in this track. Overall this is a stellar effort - a bit short - only 6 tracks - maybe he could have waited till he had a couple more? Along with Frequenweschel and the Sensient album though this is the highlight of 2013 progressive trance for me. 91/100

Liking this album even more as I listen to it - there's a good bit of subtle touches that add depth and atmosphere.. The magic and mystery are back in JR's music!

‎Juno Reactor - "The Golden Sun of the Great East" 1. Final Frontier 2. Invisible 3. Guillotine 4. Trans Siberian 5. Shine 6. Tempest 7. Zombie 8. To Byculla 9. Playing With Fire Review: Finally! A Juno Reactor album that isn't movie soundtrack cheese! No seriously though, this is a wonderful return to form for JR. While it has the movie soundtrack vibe like their last couple albums, it doesn't sacrifice depth and complexity. There is a lot of variety here in the tracks, and a lot of nice big hooks in the tracks. Nice melodies, some grooving rythms (some of these tracks could work well on the dancefloor). This is not a radical change for JR - I wouldn't say they have done anything groundbreaking here - the style has not gone in any particularly new direction. But what I love is that it takes the darkness and depth from an album like "Bible of Dreams" and combines it with the showy theatrical atmosphere of their more recent work. It's nice to see an artist album that is more psychedelic/complex than their previous album rather than less psychedelic/complex. It seems like once artists start going the way of making their music more commercially-oriented, they don't go back to their psychedelic roots - not the case here, as although this album has a mainstream accessibility, it has the real JR spirit to it. 90/100

Kurbeats – Folktronica 01 - The Noid 02 - Mono/Poly Wants A Cracker 03 - Molaren 04 - Perineum #1 05 - Sub Serum 06 - Lemming Leisures 07 - Phony Pony 08 - Perineum #2 09 - Celestial Lights Review: I'm writing this because this album has restored some of my faith in Psychill. The best psychill album I've heard all year, and I believe an instant classic. This album mixes acoustic instruments, trippy vocals, and beautiful synth work. Sounds like a typical psychill prescription in the Shpongle and Entheogenic vein doesn't it? Well, it has similarities to those two artists, but the way it all comes together is unique, and I find it more of a true journey than especially the Shpongle offerings of recent years. Shpongle has more of a happy hippie type vibe, whereas this has more of a forest and scando vibe to it. The album has a certain maturity and tastefullness to it that really stands out to me as well. The melodies are mostly fantastic - the contrast in sounds he uses creates tracks that have a lot of color and stand out from each other. The one criticism I have of this is that he doesn't let the melodies run long enough - now, that's just my personal preference, and some do go on for awhile - but it's frustrating when a killer euphoric melody floats in and just as I'm starting to enter blissful sonic trance to it, it goes away - boo! Anyway, with this album it is all so rich and sonically pleasing that disappointments are short-lived. Highly recommended! 96/100

Yea, TTMY knows how to write awesome reviews - great humor and style. Here's the issue I have: "6. The new psynews staff has decided that first review, or first post, should always be longer than normal. This doesn't mean an essay by any means. A nice example of a short but still informative review would be this which is around 400 words long without release details. People come here to read about the release, to get some information how it is and stuff like "this release is killagrgrhrhrg" won't tell them anything. After the first post you can post mini-reviews and discussion if you so wish, but no derailing of a thread is allowed. If you feel so strongly about something that does not generally have much to do with the release, please make a thread in an appropriate section and stop posting in the review thread." Can we relax that a bit? I could start multiple reviews for albums, and then others could write a good review. -- Anyway, back on topic - I'm digging this Filteria album - Dog Days Bliss is my fav so far - I go for the catchy melodies in goa trance - the tracks that are simpler but have catchier melodies are what I prefer - whereas with progressive I go for the more complex tracks.. Modern/neo-goa has one major flaw that I see - they do not keep a storyline or uniting theme throughout a track - lots of nice sounds and little melodies, but all disconnected. Goa needs a main lead melody that is used throughout the track - a recurring melody - or if not recurring, 2 or 3 melodies that has a lot of charisma and play for awhile. Think about tracks like Hallucinogen - "Alpha Centauri" or "Solstice", or Dimension 5 -"Antidote" - they have a melody or two that is used repeatedly and so have a strong sense of coherent story. Or Pleiadians "Alcyone", or Blue Planet Corp - "Alidade" - really charismatic and memorable lead melodies in those tracks. Most neo-goa seems to lack this, so what you wind up with are tracks that all sound pretty nice, but that aren't really memorable..

Haha I would but I can't write reviews well at all - they'd be like 2 sentences apiece.. I can't format the thread right either I tried it once..

That'd be great! We need more progressive psytrance and psychill reviews though.. This site is way too neo-goa heavy..

This is from 2012 but I've not heard anyone mention it - Artax - "Fossils Vol.1" has some great tracks on it

Nice - will check this one out - I feel the same way - "Beyond the Infinite" and "Bible of Dreams" and to a lesser extent "Shango" were awesome, but then they kinda went Hollywood movie soudtrack style which I found rather cheesy and uninspiring..

BB is on fire - their album "Mukharv" from 2012 was easily my favorite progressive album of the year, and now this one - woo!

Good call! This is Mathias Errikson - of M.E.E.O and Yggdrasil

The new Hedonix album "Guerrilla Ontology" is fantastic - this is semi-dark psytrance style - very psychedelic, no cheese, but also very catchy and great rhythms.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezeB8hTuhaw

Artifact303 - They Will Communicate Artifact303 - Tropical Sunsent Mindsphere - Patience for Heaven Filteria - Filtertraces Ocelot - Ducks

Iris is killer

Nice track! Reminds me a bit of older Koxbox style..

Oops yea I love the Stereofeld album - I forgot that was 2013 though! That's my favorite psy-progressive so far from this year.. Wow, thanks for the John '00' Fleming "WKO" recommendation! This is a superb artist album - hard to categorize - I'm super impressed by this..

Oh yea - checked out the new Lyctum - very good! Like that better than the first one I think.. I like that Ovnimoon also.. Bth albums I'm gonna spend more time with as they are obviously strong efforts..

2012 was an epic year for progressive - we had the superb new albums from Beat Bizarre, Atmos, Solar Fields, and Protonica as well as Lyctum, Hypogeo, and Barby debut albums. I'm sure there are others too, but those are the ones I have heard This year though the only album I have heard in the genre is the excellent effort by Sensient - "Way of the Sloth", which as is usual for Sensient's music, took me awhile to get into. Any recommendations for 2013 progressive? I see Lyctum has a new album but I haven't heard it..

Phony Orphants have some great dark progressive also - I like their first album "Symphony" the most.. "Dark disco" is how I've heard their style described on that album - I feel that vibe.. Anyhow, here's a compilation track that I think it pretty killer:

Liking this album a lot so far - catchy melodies are the most important part of goa trance for me and this one has some stormers!

I can't get into his music - seems aimless - no catchy hooks - sounds like a bunch of noodling..

Seriously, someone should create a spoof track and video by an artist called "Infected Mushroom vs. Skazi" and post it up on youtube and everywhere else.. I'd do it if I had any idea how to create electronic music..