ALL THE PRETTY DAYS

A fantastic love letter to a variety of classic prog musicians all performed through this very lush, melancholic lens that clearly also ends up taking a lot of cues from the compositional style of post rock as well, with these longer drawn out passages that seem more invested in crafting a delicate and often majestic atmosphere above all else. A big thing that makes All the Pretty Days so interesting then is the way that there's still clearly a lot of the underlying prog approach combined with all of this, with impressive bouts of technicality and complexity being interspersed throughout these sweeping passages of pure beauty. The title track ends up representing one of the main instances of this mixing of sounds and then takes it one step further to differentiate itself with its vaguely darker tone that's reinforced by the heavier electric guitar, all of this mixed with a lot of sparse moments that give everything a bit of room to breathe and really allow the listener some time to sit back and absorb what they're listening to. In general this is one element of the album as a whole that I heavily, heavily appreciate, with it being clearly comfortable to take its time and allow the listener to slowly digest what they're listening to, making those empty spaces in between the biggest, most bombastic moments feel just as significant to the imagery evoked as the climaxes themselves.

All of this isn't to say that the album is lacking in its more direct and instantly memorable elements either, it's definitely interested in striking a balance between its complexity and something to easily latch onto, such as with the central melody of Romantik or the punchy piano rhythms playing off the psychedelic background about 6 minutes into Turque. It's all a careful balancing act that isn't afraid to challenge the listener at points while also ensuring that it never gets lost in a sense of madness, and the end result is an album that feels truly beautiful while having a lot that can appeal to the prog lovers out there. This album definitely surprised me quite a lot with how much underlying nuance there was while never losing sight of the sense of cohesion that it was able to establish near-immediately and keep throughout. Heavily recommended for fans of instrumental prog because this is some of the best stuff out there in that vein that I've heard in quite a while, especially with how much of a genuine masterpiece the final track is.