Electric Mud describe themselves as “post progressive rock”, and there is something more to this than the usual blurb you see on such publicity, because this fine instrumental album is most definitely not a retread of safe and familiar prog rock instrumentals from the days of yore. They call themselves playing “cinematic prog art”, and, indeed, my initial notes when beginning the process of reviewing the album a couple of weeks ago state that the beautiful opener has a passage which has to be a form of film, or television, soundtrack. In parts, you can identify a Vangelis influence, but there is far more to this outfit than simply cold synthesiser led music in its use of orchestration and a real band – indeed, Nico Walser & Hagen Bretschneider have added four musicians for this project, namely David Marlow on piano, Judith Retzlik on violins, violas, and cellos, Timo Aspelmeier on keyboards, drum programming and percussion, and Andrea Weiß with enhancing digital art and programming.

Throughout the album we have some lovely acoustic guitar work, in my opinion amongst the best I have heard on such an album since the heyday of Oldfield in his pomp. The female voices are particularly evocative, the keyboards are sometimes shimmering, sometimes coldly electronic, then soaring with organ & mellotron being used to great effect, especially the church organ used on Those Who Leave The World Behind. The electric guitar solos of Walser burst out of nowhere, the strings always evoke strong emotions, and on the aforementioned piece, there is fantastic use of medieval instruments and sounds.

What this album does very well, a key to all successful instrumental albums, is creating moods. On The Fear Within, the second track, you can feel the claustrophobia. The flute is mournful over a key sequence. This is a very sad piece of music with minor chords used with a bass lead before it opens up with a thumping single drum and choral voices akin to a requiem mass.

Around The Mind in 80 Lies is a singularly unique title. Guardians of the Weather Machine, another wonderful title, is almost industrial before turning into something which can only be described as minimalist – simple keys, a nice beat with mournful strings and an organ then rising above. This track is as eclectic as they come and is really rather strange in places.

There is a 10+ minute epic on the album, Silent Stranger Suite. The beginning is, perhaps, the least convincing to me on the album until a really very pretty acoustic guitar kicks in before moving aside to allow a deep, parochial organ to take centre stage, and this is really very powerful music. The contrasting moods we get throughout the whole album are, as you might expect, pretty perfectly encapsulated on this one longer piece. There is a passage I am not especially keen on with some noodly keys messing around before the mood shifts violently again with an achingly lovely violin.

On Serotonine, the music is almost code-like. The flute and violins then augment a really very sad lament before the track segues into a purely classical piece of music with keys and choral effects.

Descent Into The Forsaken Valley, with its sounds of birds and rain falling, is one of those pieces of music which allows the listener to visualise perfectly the descent into a rather scary and unforgiving place, thus allowing us to agree with the cinematic descriptor I alluded to above. The keyboards make you picture the processional walk down, and it is becoming a difficult place to live with. Getting there gives us a discordant piano and bass competing with each other, and then, to close the album we have the contrast of a rather lovely piano piece on Moving On.

This is a challenging album, but it is ultimately a rewarding one. It is a complex, moody, release which I will return to on a regular basis. You can buy the album on their Bandcamp page at; https://electricmud.bandcamp.com/