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November 2024

• Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
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October 2024

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September 2024

• Sinner's Blood: Dark Horizons
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August 2024

• Siege Perilous: Creation's Call EP
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Spiral: Mind Trip in A Minor

Progressive/Space Rock

4.0/5.0

Website (Bandcamp) Facebook Twitter YouTube
Unsigned/Self-released
by Craig Hartranft,  07.13.2012

Wrapping your head around Spiral's music isn't all that difficult. But their vivid imagination, that could take some time and resolve. This prolific duo, which has released nine singles and seven albums since 2009, brings atmospheric and ethereal prog rock, near to early space rock. As for the stories or concepts, let's just say that these guys think, well, differently.

Spiral: outside their spartan but modern studio.

At the very least, Aaron Frale (g,v) Chris Boat (b,k,v) are sci-fi geeks, or better imaginative fiction wonks. The story behind Mind Trip in A Minor certainly flows from the latter. At the Bandcamp link, you can read more about a man traveling in his own mind, or not, finding a beast who eats his own heart, a snake that 'takes half of what he gives,' and girl who seems to save our hero, or not, from the same.

A description of their sound was given away at the start. There's something Seventies about the sound, maybe some Pink Floyd, Nektar, Tangerine Dream or a more creepy Ambrosia. It's at once lush, then also eerie and transcending. Take note of the closing track The Way Out is the Way In. If they leaned towards modern or alternative prog, with their imaginative storytelling, they might be compared to Coheed and Cambria. But not sounding anything like them either. There's some vocals here, but neither player is a vocalist. What you hear is muted or mashed down. The lengthier pieces, Down the Rabbit Hole and The Snake, were better thanks to some nice guitar work.

Spiral's Mind Trip in A Minor is equally inspired and entertaining material, a different take on modern prog that reinterprets the past. Recommended.

Spiral's Mind Trip in A Minor is equally inspired and entertaining material, a different take on modern prog that reinterprets the past. Recommended.

Alphabetical Index

eviewing my archives, I was pleased to find that I have had the privilege to review every Lionville since their self-titled debut in 2011. Formed by Stefano Lionetti, a songwriter, singer and guitarist based in ... [ Read More ]