Arena
Double Vision

May 25, 2018, couldn't have been a better date for music: three dragons of modern progressive rock, Arena, Subsignal, and Spock’s Beard, simultaneously release their new albums.

Let's start with Arena (I'll get to the other two in due time...). Exactly twenty years after "The Visitor" (remastered for the occasion), the title "Double Vision" is blatantly recycled, which already named the third track of that album. It’s probably no coincidence, many surely thought this might be a prelude to a return to the origins (first 3 albums), when the band's sound was less dark and more symphonic and romantic. Instead, the direction continues on that dark prog with slightly hard and edgy sounds (though never truly reaching hard rock/metal peaks) that was already inaugurated in 2000 with "Immortal?" and has continued and strengthened over the years. The previous album "The Unquiet Sky" had reached, in my opinion, a remarkable maturity of sound and ideas; it was one of my top listens of 2015. Here, Clive Nolan's band opts for seemingly more straightforward and accessible tracks, leaning towards a not too rigid song form; a sound that appears very simplified, without great instrumental dynamism, thus without too many rhythmic departures but always strong in its dark and slightly hard mood. The keyboardist seems to take fewer risks than in the previous album, and for someone who sees the use of keyboards as an important evaluation element for a genre meant to be creative like prog, this might mean a less inspired album. Indeed, I find it a notch below the previous album, but there are truly interesting ideas. An album that at first might make one wrinkle their nose a bit and seem monotonous, but with more listening, you realize that the dark-prog essence of Arena is all there. To raise the overall level is the 22-minute suite "The Legend of Elijah Shade," the longest ever composed by the group, varying in both sounds and rhythms, although it must be said that perhaps there are not the true suites of the past anymore, well distinguished in the various movements and of stratospheric epicness, it often seems that the running time is extended to feel in tune with the prog material... but in the end, they always have their charm, they’re cool, and I think that's just fine.

Overall, an album that defends itself well in Arena's discography, neither elevating nor diminishing them, it simply provides a valid and concrete example of dark and slightly hard neo-prog, which certainly proved suitable to honor the summer of 2018, defending against the terrible threats of summer hits by various Alvaro Soler, Baby K, and the like, and from kids with smartphones blasting trap music at full volume.