October and November were a bit of a blur, and I ended up sitting on a draft post for most of November before suddenly, BANG, it was December! Doh. Anyway, things have slowed down a little in the music world, but there"s still literally more amazing music release each month than a standard pair of human ears can cope with. Rather than rattle on for ages, here are a few of my top picks.

Riverside - Eye of the Soundscape

Fans of Riverside will know that their amazing guitarist Piotr Grudziński died in February and that the rest of the band took a while to absorb things before decide ding to push on and carry on. Eye of the Soundscape is their first album since then, and unsurprisingly it"s pretty different from previous offerings. Feeling more like Lunatic Soul than recent Riverside. There"s nothing particularly heavy here, but their sound is still recognisable, as prog as you can get, and topped off with a dreamlike and hopeful atmosphere.

Listen on:

Crippled Black Phoenix - Bronze

OK, so I"m getting a bit more poncy here, but I always think there"s something deliciously understated about CBP releases, like Greaves is holding back a bit from the vocals – on purpose of course – and maybe he"s secretly in a death metal band. Anyway, this is pretty standard Crippled Black Phoenix fayre, which means it"s full of interesting samples, and that amazing signature guitar sound. I love it!

My favourite sample is this one:

What is your one purpose in life? To explode of course!

Mostly because I recognised it as being from Dark Star, John Carpenter"s (stupid but fun!) Alien forerunner.

Listen on:

Jason Sharp - A Boat Upon Its Blood

This is a bit of an experimental electro-acoustic masterpiece, which stands alone in its awesomeness but still reminds me of Godspeed and acts of that ilk. Full of rich drones and layered strings that anyone who likes things like Dead Flag Blues will love, but with extra experimental insanity sprinkled throughout. I can"t find any videos of this, but check out http://cstrecords.com/jason-sharp, where you"ll see that he"s from Montreal, home of a rather large amount of epic electro-acoustic goodness!

Listen on:

Mono - Requiem for Hell

Here"s some high quality post-rock for you. This Japanese group has a great guitar sound and some decent music videos, and the title track is 18 minutes long, which probably tell you a lot!

Listen on:

WIFE - Standard Nature

This is an experimental electronica album, and so it"s a bit everything else in this post. I"ve no real idea how to describe this, so just watch this video:

Then, listen on:

Jinnwoo - Strangers Bring me No Light

Here"s an amazing singer with an excellent acoustic sound, reminiscent of Martin Grech, but much more folky, and with an even more distinctive voice.

Listen on:

Khemis - Hunted

To wrap up, here"s some pretty epic doom metal from Khemmis. This is a slow and sludgy beast of a record with some tremendous riffs, and generally clean vocals. If you enjoy doom with a bit of an old school feel you need this in your ears.

Listen on:

While I"m proselytising, make sure you check out Doom Charts. I had no idea there was so much amazing doom metal about until I discovered this blog, and I"ve had great fun working my way through their lists.