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.