YURT – Rippling Mirrors of the Other
Release Date: 5th December 2025
Label: Yurt / Little Plastic Tapes
Bandcamp
Genre: Prog Rock
FFO: Yes, Mastodon, Crumb, Hum.
Review By: Jeff Finch
For a band to have delivered an album that a listener truly enjoys, from a genre they don’t typically care for, that band has crafted something special. Yurt, a 3-piece prog rock band from Ireland, over the course of 6 songs, has managed to sway this listener, one who is going to give prog rock more chances, because if any of it out there is half as good as Rippling Mirrors of the Other, then there is a limitless selection of music out there for me to digest.
The opening track The Cormorant Tree wows with its Mastodon like riffs and soundscapes, circa Crack the Skye, its insane synth work, ripped right from the 70s harkening back to Yes, and even post-Watershed Opeth melodies. The build-up for the first five minutes gets a little repetitive, never boring, but it’s captivating and when the main groove hits, one barely notices that five minutes have already elapsed. And it’s here where the praise for this album comes from: this build-up flows so smoothly, each musician playing off the others as they come into focus. Truly a tandem effort, and somewhat surprising that only three Irish blokes are creating it. It’s chaotic but never messy; layers feel dense, transitions unhinged, and the atmosphere feels all encompassing but not crushing: the brilliant use of synths reminds listeners of otherworldly presences, the band shifting their sound into even more experimental realms like post-rock and doom. The album is simply covered with weird, Sci-Fi alien textures, all the while pushing weird time signatures and pointed interplay between the bass and the ever present synths. The trippy sounds and organized chaos of the band, according to previous listeners, shows the rhythm section to be even more off balance and filthy, a trademark of the band that this listener needs more of.
What strikes most about Yurt is the complete and utter lack of pretentiousness in their songs; they aren’t flashy for the sake of being flashy, they don’t throw in unnecessary parts that ruin a song just to show off their skills. No, they craft 15-minute rides from the 70s through 2000s, incorporating wildly trippy synth riffs, a bevy of time signature and tempo shifts, and something missing from a lot of music today: patience. And as somebody that really requires vocals as part of the music, the fact that this band only throws in Pink Floyd harmonies for about a minute per song, and still manages to make a new fan, displays a band that has mastered their craft and is clearly doing something very right. Yurt has a new fan, and this listener has a lot to listen to.
(4.5 / 5)
