THE BLACK CHORD

If you're going to do retro-prog thing you're already running the risk of churning out something that prog fans have heard all too many times before; Astra manage to avoid that pitfall by not opting for the standard circa-1972 Genesis or Yes influences that dominate the work of so many other retro-prog and neo-prog groups, but instead go all out to recapture the sound of a somewhat earlier phase of progressive rock, that organ-tastic era from 1969 to 1971ish where the roots of prog in the earlier psychedelic scene were much more apparent and the divisions between psych, prog, and heavy music were not so finely delineated. The end result is an album which could have happily come out with a Vertigo swirl label back in the day alongside the likes of Cressida, Catapilla, or Colosseum.