If you would like an audio depiction of a girl taking a 2TB usb stick off her keychain, and plugging it squarely into a swamp of a tiny planet, here’s the place to come. This ambitious work is a prog rock opera. The artist helpfully describes it as “like a sonic journey through the last 50 years of prog and metal”. Beyond that it’s about remembering, memories and forgetting, and involves humans, aliens, a bird, boats and an outer space confrontation. With the dazzling artwork and the script from the sleeve notes in front of me, I set about listening to the journey of “I Have Little or No Memory of These Memories”, I confess with some scepticism but also with a sense of intrigue.

One thing I expected was Queen-style “Bohemian Rhapsody” style pomp, and it all starts with a barber shop harmony passage a little bit along these lines before bursting into a multi-coloured prog passage. But this doesn’t summarise the work’s sounds, of which there are many. Fluttering synths, djenty heavy prog and full of flamboyant prog melody, it floats along nicely. The vocals have typical prog expression, emphasising the emotive element and high in the range but in this case nice and clear and pleasing, reminding me of the fulsomeness of Tom de Wit and his Dreamwalkers Inc project. The synth plays a blinder, giving the higher-level feel. The acoustic work has the style of Opeth and provides a counterbalancing delicacy to the expansive prog soundscape and harmonies. So too does the jazzy passage, which itself blends into an exciting adrenaline-rush passage and heightened choral drama. The lofty music was taking me away so much that I lost track of the story and the words, which themselves are colourful and suggestive of someone with a highly vivid imagination or someone’s who’s on something.

The space journey carries on regardless. A powerful and moody hard rock passage introduces itself. The emotion of the delivery made me think to some degree of Threshold. Melodic and classic rock then combine before it gets heavy and stormy, but also playful and I think that’s the attraction of this mobile and accessible work. All this is in the midst of the story being played out theatrically. The mood swings between levity and dark clouds, with music to match. Synth combines with djent at one point to create a fizzing section of magic and emotive melancholy. There are many captivating sections and this is one of them. Having established that “Our anamnesis addition has maxed out all 1.44MB of my storage facility”, which has to be a contender for the most unusual lyric of all time, the girl pulls out her key and the promised audio depiction is a stellar guitar solo. As the vocalist reaches out and relates the story expansively, I realised how much he sounds like Chris Thompson of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. What matters however is not who he sounds like but the impact, and between the natural dramatic expression, the echoing sound and the fluent combination of rock and prog, it is utterly captivating, and I’m pleased to say, this 47-minute journey fittingly ends with an epic climax.

I can’t claim to know what was going on at all times, and I’m not sure I would if I listened to this work twenty times over, but this is a musical feast. “I Have Little or No Memory of These Memories” is an exposition of classic rock and prog, but put together in a way that it flows and immerses the senses. You’d have to like these styles but there’s no pretence, just plenty of life and expression. It’s original but most of all it offers indulgent aural pleasure.

(9/10 Andrew Doherty)

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