Swiss artist, producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, even photographer, Roland Bühlmann does a little bit of everything. As a musician, his take on progressive music has been captured on several albums over the last decade, including his latest work, Figurative. A fully instrumental album, Figurative takes the experimental nature of acts like The Alan Parsons Project and mixes in some light industrial influence, all while maintaining a slower tempo and contemplative energy. Bühlmann takes his time, letting each track breathe and have its moment, with "Figurative" and "Camouflaging" each exceeding ten minutes (and "Exteroception" getting really close). The title track makes good use of its time, pairing with opener "Pareidolia" to make an interesting opening segment for the album. The closer, "Onomatopoeic," is intriguing as well; the nerd in me loves the spacey sounds that feel like they could have fit on one of the Portal video game soundtracks. However, the tracks in-between the open and close of the album tend to get tiresome. While the music and melodies can occasionally be interesting and catchy, it's also easy to get lost in some of the aimlessness and meandering sounds. Again, this doesn't describe Figurative as a whole, but it is unfortunately a large portion of it. That being said, there are definitely a few highlight tracks, as mentioned above, so inquiring minds should surely come away from the album with something to enjoy.

- Review date: 10/12/24, written by Scott Fryberger of Jesusfreakhideout.com