Here’s a hot take for the prog nerds: most of y’all don’t actually want music to be progressive. You want your progressive rock to sit safe and snug in the catacombs of bands laid to rest 40-50 years ago. You want the comfort and familiarity of long tracks, keyboard jack offs and clean, soaring vocals (god forbid there’s some death growls in there, y’all seem to be losing your minds at the new Opeth). How else to describe the general lack of discussion around an album as ambitiously and confrontationally titled as The New Sound, the debut offering from former black midi (RIP) guitarist and vocalist Geordie Greep?¹ It takes Greep’s former band’s sonic exploration and stuttering rhythms and slaps a fresh coat of Latin and lounge and fiery rock for one of the best progressive albums of the year.

That’s not to push The New Sound as some universal landmark of progressive rock everyone should bow down to (though maybe they should). Greep hasn’t changed his very unique vocal delivery one whit, so if that was a barrier to entry to the wonderfully chaotic world of black midi (reviewed extensively here) it’s an even larger hurdle to clear here. Many of the lyrics on The New Sound are purposefully exaggerated characters, cheap personas Greep puts on and takes off with ease as the music gets more and more frenetic, lock-snapping into strange rhythms and cadences. Opener “Blues” is anything but, its riff circling back on itself in odd time signatures, flashes of 80s King Crimson filtered through flamenco as Greep vocally conjures a stereotype of toxic masculinity hiding massive insecurities. I know people like this – hell, I’m related to people like this, and Greep is spot on in his depiction. The indie rock/lounge disco threat of “Holy, Holy” treads similar ground, but is so damn catchy even if you don’t jibe with the vocals there are dozens of interesting things happening in the music that draw your ear in.

The aesthetic of black midi is certainly here – drum whiz Morgan Simpson even guests on a few tracks, but the show is firmly focused on Greep’s broad facility with a range of musical stylings. Employing over 30 musicians and recording in both London and São Paulo, each song has roots in Brazilian rhythms and songs structures, and its a delight to hear how Greep incorporates his progressive and indie rock tendencies over them. And as wild as his songs can be, when it calls for it he can also be a extremely beautiful and melodic: the title track is a sumptuous instrumental workout that scurries back and forth from from funk to jazz fusion and might be one of the most tuneful songs of Greep’s career.

He’s also one HELL of a guitar player – he just live-streamed a concert and if you doubt the man’s virtuoso bonafides, I encourage you to check the whole show out. His current live band is simply on fire. Listen to the soloing going on behind the percussion on the short “Bongo Season” for one flavor of what Greep can do, and then hang around for some real fire on the skronky follow-up “Motorbike”. You even get a 12+ minute opus in penultimate track “The Magician” for prog nerds to fawn over, except that, sneaky devil, the song is anything but the standard prog rock epic. Over a variety of tones and moods it’s for me the most affecting song on The New Sound, a lament for losing love, for losing the things that brought you life and wonder in the aftermath, what is left?

Is anything left?

What’s left is The New Sound, one of the best records I’ve heard this year, an album that has not stopped yielding new secrets and nuances with every listen. It’s an all-timer.

Take that, prog nerds.

¹ Obviously not everyone. There’s been a few YouTube prog guys who have gone out and championed Greep and the album (while admitting death growls are a bit of a bridge too far). And the mainstream/alternative press seems as enamored of Greep as they were of black midi, so don’t fret over the man’s career – he’s fine.