DPRP.net: 30 Years, 12,000 Album Reviews, Part 3
...And Still Counting
We're not exactly sure, but many years after the fact, it was deduced that it must have been October 1995 that Martijn Albering and Jerry van Kooten founded the Dutch Progressive Rock Page.
Some time before that, Martijn had started an Arena fan page but had started to include information on other bands as well. He asked Jerry to help, and together they decided to make it about progressive rock in general. Although "Dutch" is part of the name, the site has always been in English. It was just set up by a couple of people from Holland.
Within a couple of years the site had grown to welcome up to 350 visitors per day. More and more bands were covered and in 1998 the very first DPRP review was published.
DPRP.net has continued growing and is now one of the biggest websites specialising in this genre of music, with 1.3 million annual page views and 18,000 unique visitors per month. We don't allow advertising. We cover the costs ourselves.
We currently have 25 reviewers from 12 different countries. We publish around 500 reviews a year plus interviews, special features, a new releases blog and a podcast.
To celebrate the publication of our 12,000th review and our 30th anniversary year, we take a pause to look back on some of the highlights.
Our year-by-year summary includes one landmark album review from every year in our massive archive. The third and final part of this special feature is below and covers the years 2016 to 2025.
The first part covers the years 1998 to 2005.
The second part covers the years 2006-2015.
Andy Read
2016
After shattering all records with an incredible 805 reviews in 2015, there was a return to our normal output in 2016. You can read the full list of 69 issues and 500 reviews in the Searh page.
Haken — Affinity
One of the progressive bands to firmly establish themselves as a leader in this genre during this decade was a British prog-metal band by the name of Haken. In a duo review of their fourth studio album, our reviewer concluded that with Affinity, Haken have "delivered an album that should be considered as an all-time iconic piece of progressive metal".
2017
You can read the full list of the 92 issues and 421 reviews her on the Search page.
DPRP offers much more than album reviews. Our live review archive offers a fascinating collection of shows by some of the biggest names in progressive music, plus detailed records of some of prog's biggest annual festivals.
This year our international coverage included concerts by Solaris in Hungary, Steve Hackett in The Netherlands, Shattered Fortress in Sweden and Kaprekar's Constant in England.
Our top selection however is Patrick McAfee's report on Jean-Michel Jarre's concert in Los Angeles, on his first-ever North American tour!
2018
You can read the full list of the 90 issues, and 388 reviews on the Search page.
This far down the list of years, I am running out of criteria by which to select an album. So let's go random. My birthday is on March 17th. Snowpoet's second album was the focus of the final review in the edition that came out a day after my birthday.
Snowpoet — Thought You Knew
Most of you have probably never heard of Snowpoet but our long-standing writer Mark Hughes gave it an 8 out of 10, so it must be worth a listen.
2019
Another new record. This was the first time that we managed to publish 100 issues in a year. That's pretty much two editions every week. You can read the full list of the 464 albums that we reviewed on the Search page.
We no longer give scores for albums, but one thing DPRP has never done is dish out a high number of top scores. Ten-out-of-ten reviews were a rare thing. For this year I had to scroll through eleven editions until I came across one. It seems pretty genuine, as our two reviewers for the Flower Kings' Waiting For Miracles opus gave it a 10 and a 9.5 respectively.
The Flower Kings — Waiting For Miracles
In concluding, one opined: "Sounding as musically assured as they have in many years, The Flower Kings prove that they are once again a force to be reckoned with. No hyperbole folks, this is a great album!"
2020
And within a year we have beaten that record again. A massive 120 issues came out in 2020 containing 491 reviews. You can read the full list on the Search page.
In addition, this was the year that saw the sixth anniversary of Something For The Weekend, our regular new releases blog. Ever since our very first edition in February 2014, the idea was a simple one: to introduce you to new albums by some of the best up-and-coming progressive artists from around the world.
This was the year that our most-read edition ever was published: The Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums Of The 10s has so far clocked-up more than 12,000 page views.
It is impossible to pick a favourite album, but Darkwater is a band that released two brilliant prog-metal discs at either end of the decade. We gave positive reviews to both When Stories End and Human.
2021
Again we don't remember how (or why) we did it, but this was another record-breaking year with an amazing 173 issues - more than three every single week. We are too kind!
Read the full list of the 576 reviews on the Search page.
Something we did for a few years, was to have a special Progtober. In the tenth month of the year we published one edition every single day. It allowed us to cover a few bands and albums that we had missed along the way.
This year we began Progtober with a special edition looking at the London-based prog-rock band England whose music had just been made available again via Bandcamp.
2022
Another successful Progtober helped us reach 120 issues. Check out the full list of the 481 reviews on the Search page.
Another key part of DPRP has always been our feature articles. It's got a little bit of everything, from interviews and features on specific genres, to a series about album covers and even a few more humorous looks at prog.
Prog Andaluz, Part 1
Collectors Corner, Part 4
Synchronicity: Yes vs. Kansas
This year we published 18 feature editions. Some of the highlights include:
Erik Neuteboom looked back at the Prog Adaluz movement featuring the bands Medina Azahara, Mezquita, Diego de Morón, Smash, Triana, and Vega.
Menno von Brucken Fock's Collectors Corner series look back at the bands Load and Azahar.
Connor Shelton created a career trajectory comparison between Yes and Kansas.
Supper's Ready
Prog Rock Woo Woo: Double Albums
Interview Arjen Lucassen
Rush — A Personal Story
Erik Neuteboom describes how and why Supper's Ready defines symphonic rock.
David Taylor found strange similarities between some famous prog rock double albums.
Greg Cummins chatted with Arjen Lucassen about the latest Star One release, performing live, and a lot of other things!
And to mark the day of Neil Peart's birth, Erik Neuteboom told how the music of Rush found its way into his heart.
2023
This was a quieter year, with a mere 95 issues and 448 reviews for your reading and listening pleasure. You can read the full list of albums that we reviewed on the Search page.
In the early days of DPRP we published an annual Readers Poll. For various reasons this was dropped, but we replaced it with an annual DPRP Writers' Top 10 Albums Of The Year. This began in 2014 and ran until 2023. It proved to be one of DPRP's most-popular features. Here is a list of our Top 10s from every year.
Our Number One Album for 2023 was by a band that has been plugging away in prog circles for a very long time. Overhead are from Finland and Telepathic Minds was much loved by DPRP writers.
2024
Almost exactly the same number of issues (97) and reviews (444) as the previous year. You can read the full list of albums that we reviewed on the Search page.
Jadis — More Questions Than Answers
Sylvan — Back To Live
Between them, prog-rock stalwarts Sylvan and Jadis have had 24 of their albums reviewed by us at DPRP. Halfway through this year, we brought both bands together for an edition where their latest releases each received one of our Duo Reviews. Sylvan came out slightly ahead in terms of the scores.
2025
Nearing the end, we can see this year will have produced over 70 editions and 440 reviews. You can read the full list of albums that we reviewed on the Search page.
Everon — Shells
Like a mighty oak tree, from the small acorn of an idea, one of the world's biggest and longest-running progressive music websites has grown. This year DPRP.net presented our 12,000th album review! Of course, it had to be one of our much-loved Round Table Reviews, and of course it had to be an album by a band that we have supported from the very beginning of their career. Shells is the eighth album released by German prog rockers Everon. As an added bonus we also conducted an interview with main man Oliver Philipps.
