Jupiter Society (Sweden) – “Terraform”
Ajalon:
Featuring Randy George (who is known for his work on over half a dozen albums with Neal Morse), “This Good Place” is the third album from his band Ajalon. Seven new songs which will no doubt reinvent the band as we know it. This CD will tell a story and has an underlying concept to it. Yet it is not intentionally a concept CD. Most will find it quite different from anything the band has done in the past. With this release the band wanted to make an album that speaks to everyone, leaving room for listeners to draw their own conclusions. Much life-changing experiences were brought to bear on this project making it unique and different. The performances and the songwriting is much heavier with a great deal of impact. There are some special guests on the CD to help round out the sound. Band members have appeared individually on other artist recordings with Steve Hackett, Adrian Belew, Paul Gilbert, Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Phil Keaggy and Michael Manring just name a few.
Factory Of Dreams:
Multi-instrumentalist Hugo Flores is back with the sophomore outing of his scifi/goth/prog project Factory of Dreams. The album features guest performances from David Ragsdale (Kansas), Tadashi Goto, Chris Brown (Roswell Six, Ghost Circus) and Shawn Gordon (President of ProgRock Records).
Dead Heroes Club:
The band, hailing from Derry in the north of Ireland, wears their influences firmly on their sleeve and yet manages to achieve an original and inventive approach to their music. Beyond the prog-rock tag, however, the band describe themselves as belonging to the ‘song for song's sake’ category of music, and it becomes clear from the first listen that Dead Heroes Club place a lot of emphasis on melody and try to deliver melody with passion and power through all the various moods and shades that their music offers. The words too are a leading component of the band’s compositional make up, and in a sense Dead Heroes Club’s new album “A Time of Shadow” could be described as a lyrical album – the song ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’, for example, was inspired by Irish poet and mystic W.B. Yeats. The songs are grounded in reality, dealing with issues or themes that reflect the world today rather than being flights of fantasy.
Jupiter Society
In 2008 keyboardist Carl Westholm took time out from his duties with Carptree to put together the Jupiter Society and release the amazing album "First Contact, Last Warning". The response was so overwhelmingly positive that Carl is back with a second installment, with guests from Royal Hunt, Tiamat, Krux and Candlemass; the release is called "Terraform".
