NATURALIS

I wondered if Maschine would be able to match the superb 'Rubidium'. Their latest offering is, I think more polished, but loses something of the raw freshness of the earlier work. I think it is, though, a superb album, with a variety of moods and styles. Great guitar work, as expected, but also an improvement in the vocals. There are loud sections, fast sections, and some dreamy atmospheric parts. The live tracks are sufficiently different from the studio recordings to be interesting.

I cannot recognise 'Naturalis' as Prog Metal, though. To me, it is simply Prog Rock, with elements of Metal, Jazz and even Pop - an excellent, quirky album, my favourite from an unspectacular year of Prog.