NIGHT DREAMS & WISHES

This is an interesting album but is it sufficiently interesting to warrant seven consecutive five star reviews within the space of a few days - never seen that before. So is this album one of the greatest ever released or is this a bit of manipulation of ProgArchives ratings system? I suspect that a few followers of this band have worked out how much weight is given to written album reviews (ten times) and made sure that they all write a 100 word minimum review to get the album to the top of the 2019 prog album chart. I applaud them for their excellent promotion of the album (which I am sure I would have listened to anyway as I enjoyed the debut). What I have seen other reviewers do is the opposite which I find difficult to forgive - rating a decent album as a "poor" one star because they think an album that they enjoy more should be above it. The issue is that if lots of followers do this, the chart will be skewed, which would be a shame. It will be interesting to see what moderation is applied by ProgArchives algorithms in this case. The key will be whether a PA Collaborator/ Reviewer agrees with the five stars - if they do then I suspect that this album will top the 2019 PA album chart. So does it deserve to top the chart?

Modern-Prog Ensemble are a Ukranian prog band. Their debut album Touch The Mystery was released in 2016 and is a worthy debut album. The majority of Night Dreams & Wishes is instrumental. You can tell from the range of instruments being played that this is an ensemble - the band's Bandcamp site lists nearly 20 different performers and almost as many instruments.

The work is described as a "suite" and it certainly has a classical symphonic sound in places. Like most progressive music, there is complexity but, as you listen to the album, the repeated themes draw you in and make the piece immediately accessible. There are some lovely melancholic melodies here interspersed with more up-tempo rock themes. There is certainly fine musicianship and the overall album is an enjoyable listen. In terms of a rating, I would say between 4 and 5 which I shall round down to 4 stars because I didn't hear any truly memorable tracks which I would say have to be a feature of any album rated higher.