I have good news and bad for my readers.

First, the upside. We have a new album from the collective of Dave Bandana, Peter Jones, Gareth Cole, and Tim Gehrt, namely The Bardic Depths entitled Some Things Are Worth Remembering, which you can pre-order at https://buy.stripe.com/fZuaEQ1pT4fr2eMdlA0x200 (UK link) and https://buy.stripe.com/3cIfZad8B13f2eM0yO0x204 (outside the UK), with the digital product available on their Bandcamp page.

The bad news is this, the fourth full-length release, will also be their last, and I, for one, mourn, because we have yet another work which fans of melodic, pastoral progressive rock should be swooning over. Certainly, those of you who enjoy the music of mid-period Genesis and Big Big Train will find a huge amount to enjoy on this.

So, we start off with Islands, and immediately, the co-founder and lyricist Brad Birzer confirms the above sentence, because this is based on an essay he wrote about The Underfall Yard, his favourite BBT song. It is, incidentally, my favourite album from them, but Victorian Brickwork is my personal favourite track. However, I digress. The words are gorgeous; “The song that cries to the skies”; “memories comfort you finding beauty and truth”; “some things are worth remembering” – well, indeed they are, and this song just short of nine minutes is as well. The gentle soundscapes created by the synths, guitar, brass effects before Jones enters with that memorable voice of his, surely one of the finest vocalists in modern progressive music. Gareth Cole does have a knack of creating a picture with his guitars, none more so here. Tim Gerht & Dave Bandana are a seamlessly effective rhythm section, and the collective switch so well to the punchier stuff in much the same manner as BBT, and when Jones’s smoky sax takes centre stage, you are utterly hooked. One of my favourite pieces of music in 2026 and embedded at the foot of this review for you to immerse yourselves in, atmospheric music at its very best.

Fallen Leaves is our first instrumental, and this homage is to Crosby, Stills, and Nash – David Crosby released Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves) on his first album. It is a suitable tribute, with some lovely vocal harmonies, a slab of light Americana with a fine guitar riff.

Arribabok is a “nonsense” word, and Birzer here discusses the evolution of words, language continually moving forward, but as the name might suggest, the opening sounds come direct from the Middle East, and it does remind me a bit of the material Page & Plant played live and subsequently released in the 1990’s. The sax from Jones is a delight, and there is a great sense of mystery in this fine piece, the repeated word compelling and catchy.

October Sun follows. This is based upon another Birzer essay, and simply about his favourite time of year, much of the vista on the verge of death, but exploding in imagery, colour, and energy as if in a rage against the inevitable falling from the sky of the powerful sun. Another nice lengthy slab of music at over eight minutes. There is some corking bass guitar melody created by Bandana on this, and Jones is about the perfect narrator, his voice creating pictures in our minds in much the same way, I imagine, as he does in his sightless world. A gorgeous piece of music with more of the vocalisations which made Fallen Leaves stand out and is embedded below for you, where you can lose yourself in the intensity as these give way to a stunning guitar solo and thence to the sax filling the senses. The only negative I can write? This band will not create something so lovely again.

From Empty Trees is the second instrumental, and, as might be expected, a direct follow on from Fallen Leaves. Jones provides the keyboards on this track, the one and only time he has done so with the band. It is a fine song, a collective comfortable in each other’s musical company, a great groove coming out, the synths reminiscent of a certain Mr Banks back in the day to these ears, and there is a rollocking bassline, the blues dripping out of Cole’s guitar. Tremendous fun, soaring to the clouds at the denouement.

A View follows. This is a rewrite of a Birzer Bandana song from 2019, about a man in space who awakes after his craft has been attacked and after finding out he is the only one left on board sees the Earth below in a totally different light – the lyrics are by Birzer, and I like the reference to the blue and beautiful sight below – we mess with this planet at our peril. Guitars and keys are panoramic, with some nice orchestration behind Jones’s voice, the vista of our world perfectly captured, the sax dancing across the sky, choral voices, and is that a mellotron I hear in that mix as well?

The penultimate track is Harder to See, which has lyrics from Bandana, a man who wants to be an antagonist, a hard man, but struggles to figure out precisely what he is. There is a nice flourish of noise to begin, and as we move along, we get a thoughtful song, the protagonist having to find out what to do, what he is, how to react, dreaming and wondering. I really like Cole’s understated deep guitar underneath the main action, before his main riff steps out of the shadows, questing, the synths accompanying as opposed to dominating the track.

We close with Rewind, and it references Bandana going to see The Lamb live back in the day, describing how the march of time can rob one of the precise details, and how a digital viewing of a classic event can never quite replace being in that space physically. This track is only just short of the epic length, and immediately, you hear that Hackett and Rutherford influence on the guitars and bass, the song awash with the mellotron, the lyrics gorgeously evocative of a special event, even if he can’t remember all of it. There is not merely Genesis in the “influenced by” category here. I hear late Beatles, BBT, classical acoustic guitar, a gorgeous classic rock guitar solo, the symphonic rock dial turned up to max behind this. Then, suddenly, the five-minute-mark brings a complete volte face, flute, ghostly guitar, pulsing notes giving us a gorgeous soundwave, sounding, in fact, more like SEBTP than The Lamb – did Bandana prefer this to what he saw, or is this memory playing tricks again?

This is another triumph from The Bardic Depths, and if a band is to go out, then going out on a creative high is imperative.

Very highly recommended. A stunning creation of progressive rock.