Regal Worm - Pig Views (2018)

New Regal Worm album 'Pig Views' released July 13th 2018. A panoply of borborygmic bliss and simultaneous sonic febrile compositions, dealing with the usual variety of subject matter, from Nordic vampire folk tales, potential antichrists, volcanoes, the sun to a ghostly doomed love affair. All the important stuff.

Jarrod Gosling returns with his latest album, bringing in a few select guests to help out here and there, but as with the other Regal Worm albums he fully relishes the opportunity to showcase his skills on multiple instruments. Although he brings in pop mentalities and themes, these are heavily indoctrinated with Psyche before all being wrapped up in a solid dose of Canterbury to create something that is very English, very dated, and certainly very delicious. Here is someone who is using Mellotron, Hammond L112 and Fender Rhodes among multiple other keyboards so the notes he is performing are coming through a depth of history. But, although he is very much a keyboard player at heart, he provides multiple types of guitars as well as employing four singers and some sax and flute players. There is very much a sense of dated reality, why use samples when a real musician can do the job so much better?

There is no way that this sounds like an album that has been released in 2018, but feels much more like a lost album from fifty years ago. Even the complex album artwork seems to be from a time gone by when that was an important part of the whole package, but as it has been released as a double pink vinyl album then for this one it actually is. There are times when early Floyd and early Genesis trade blows with Caravan, before Van Der Graaf Generator step in to act as referee, and Camel take the high ground. Some of the vocals also remind of the really naff cinema adverts we used to get back in the day, and it all adds to the sheer delight of this album which is essential to all progheads.