With two days left in the new year, I got a sudden case of option paralysis: what albums to cover? There’s still so many left, just another sign of how great 2024 was for music. After staying up way too late listening to different albums and not getting anywhere, I slept, got up, made some coffee and popped on Garden Electric, the debut from Greek progressive rock duo Jupiter Fungus. It was a late release, coming out in November, and I honestly haven’t given it as many listens as I wanted to before putting it on the list. But for some reason the music washed over me as I played with my coffee setup (got a Hario Switch for Christmas, and yeah – it’s changing my coffee game…again), and it was exactly what I needed to hear. That album cover too, huh?

Jupiter Fungus is the brainchild of Ares Papatriantafillou who sings and handles keyboards and guitar, and Fotis Xenikoudakis who is all over Garden Electric with his flute and tun whistle. They handle all the songwriting, and employ additional studio musicians to round the arrangements out. Despite the copious flute, it would be a huge mistake to simply label the band a Jethro Tull clone – there is certainly some Ian Anderson DNA present, but you also get early King Crimson, especially in Papatriantafillou’s vocal delivery on opener “Underdog”. It start really funky, a great slinky bass pulse against the drums before the keyboards pick up the melody. At nearly 10 minutes it’s actually the shortest of the album’s four songs, but gives a nice taste of everything you can expect moving forward. When the vocals come in around the halfway mark, I’m reminded of songs like “Cat Food” and “The Great Deceiver” – granted, those songs are sung by two different vocalist (Greg Lake and John Wetton, respectively) but the vibe of the vocal delivery is definitely present.

“Circles” is a flute-driven instrument, showing the facility Xenikoudakis has on the instrument. Papatriantafillou comes in on the guitar as well, and despite my warning not to go too hard on the Tull worship, he definitely has a Martin Barre tone on his solos. I’m not going to complain: I love Martin Barre, and more than any other band Jethro Tull were my gateway to progressive rock, and my small circle of friends’ obsession when we were in high school. There’s more of a minor key menace to “Past Ground”; the flute opens the song, and it begins gently, keyboard washes padding out the background. Soon everything else kicks in and the arpeggiated riff on the keys has some real grit laying against the bass and drums, letting Xenikoudakis really go to town with the flute. It changes rhythm and kicks up a notch, really giving a sense of mood and tension to the track, maybe my personal favorite at the moment.

The influences do change up a bit for closer “Thoughts Of Revenge”; vocals return as well, and there’s a distinct Pink Floyd vibe that bumps shoulders with classic rock. I’ve read that others aren’t overly enthused about Papatriantafillou’s vocals, but I dig them: they’re not trying to have the range or emotive expression of a Jon Anderson (or an Ian Anderson for that matter), but they work really well with the kind of music Jupiter Fungus are putting out. As a debut, Garden Electric is fantastic, a real shot of vintage prog made modern and existing, and I can’t wait to hear how they grow.