Jim Griffin isn’t just making records—he’s building monuments. The veteran progressive rocker follows up his impressive 2023 release, Marginalia Suburbia with perhaps his best work yet. 

The Counterblast is a sprawling, cerebral, and deeply emotional suite that plays like a eulogy for the space age and a love letter to the idealism that launched it. Griffin has always leaned toward the literary, but here he goes full widescreen: referencing Carl Sagan and JFK, threading Challenger-era heartbreak through progressive-rock architecture, and exploring grief, discovery, and human smallness in the face of the infinite.

The epic opener, “Cosmic Law and Order,” sets the tone with cathedral-sized ambience and the weight of existential reckoning, unfolding slowly like a sunrise over a silent launchpad. Griffin’s one-man band approach on the song demonstrates he is indeed a master musician as he carries out complex time signatures while demonstrating his melodic finesse.

“Xenocide” hits with a darker pulse—Keith McCoy’s drums and Robbie Costelloe’s saxophone injecting real fire, while David Reece’s vocals arrive like a broadcast from a collapsing future.

The three-part “Sleeping Generation” suite is the emotional core of the album: Part 1 drifts in on soft electronics and hushed lament; Part 2 tightens into sharp, orchestral tension; and Part 3 erupts into a sweeping, exhausted farewell, as if mourning the loss of a collective mission bigger than any one life.

The Bandcamp-only extras are indeed icing on a very tasty cake.  “For the Dying Empire” swings with unexpected gravitas, and “January Sky” turns Griffin’s introspection into something shockingly danceable—proof that despair and groove can share the same bloodstream.

Griffin plays most of the instruments himself, and every track feels heavy yet nuanced. With production polished by Joe Gallagher and mastering by Richard Dowling, the album achieves that rare prog trick: sounding massive without sacrificing intimacy.

The Counterblast isn’t background music—it’s a reckoning. A cinematic prog-rock requiem for the age when we believed the stars were ours, and a reminder that even collapsed dreams leave light behind.

The album is available as a download and in physical formats at https://therangerandthecleric.bandcamp.com/merch