7. Avkrvst - "The Approbation"

Prog time. Best of the Prog releases this year and probably the best Prog album released in absolutely years. Avkst hail from Norway and are ludicrously young. They are embracing a musical form created long before they were born. This is a concept album (aren’t they all) about a bleak soul isolating themselves with their thoughts in a cabin far far from civilization. To achieve the right frame of mind they decamped to a ramshackle building deep in the forests of west Norway and created.

This is a fantastic record. Instrumentally dense and highly intelligent. It is (as you would expect from the narrative) a deeply thoughtful album that slowly and with great intent reveals itself. It captures wonderfully that feeling of complete isolation and self-dependence. Astonishingly accomplished for a band so youthful.