#1 – Prog Album Of The Year
Ben Craven (Australia)
Monsters From The Id
Self-Released [2022]
And here it is!!! Ben Craven has been flirting with greatness for a while now. He has a lot of things going for him – not least of which is having Roger Dean on speed dial. He can play every instrument, he has a serviceable voice and his compositional skills have (all of a sudden) jumped off the charts. This album consists of exactly two twenty minute songs. Both of them are absolutely perfect. “Die Before You Wake” has the audacity to stay in 7/8 time during its entire runtime and “Amnis Flows Aeternum” is every bit as Prog as its title implies. An almost perfect marriage of Yes and Pink Floyd, Craven could be accused of cleaving to closely to those greats of yesteryear but I strongly disagree. He takes the rhythms and timbres from the Golden Era Of Prog and truly makes them his own. Monsters From The Id is one of those records that must be heard to be believed. And once heard, may you never say: “They just don’t write ’em like that anymore.” Because, obviously, they do.