For the uninitiated, Plini is a guitar player from Australia. His music is instrumental progressive metal. His EP “Sunhead” to be released on 7/27/018 has touches of smooth jazz, a mellotron, syncopation for days, and production as close to perfect as possible.

I had the opportunity to see Plini in concert with Astronoid and Tesseract a few months ago and I can see bassist Simon Grove smacking that beautiful five-string bass in my mind’s eye during “Salt + Charcoal.” The depth to these compositions remind me of Steve Vai as there are layers that can be discovered over repeated listens. Put this EP on repeat and not only does it not get tiresome but these songs transform over time.

Track 3 sticks out thanks to the piano and synth courtesy of Anomalie (I must find out who that is because the synth solo is ridiculous). Oh hell, a saxophone solo! Ok, so track 3 is a jazz fusion buffet. I also just got an Aristocrats/Snarky Puppy vibe which, if you are familiar with those groups, will encourage you even further to check out this EP and then back catalog of Plini because there is plenty out there to devour. I’d love to hear more jazz fusion compositions by Plini including keys and horns.

This is a story of a talented musician who hones his skills over time, making precisely the music he wants to make while not compromising his vision for anybody; Another bedroom producer releasing track after track of quality music. I visited Plini’s Bandcamp page and found that over 355 folks have pre-ordered this EP called “Sunhead.” Those are strong numbers for an EP of instrumental guitar-led prog-metal and come July 27th, 2018, when the music drops, there will be 355 thoroughly pleased fans.

Rating: 9/10

1. Kind
2. Salt + Charcoal
3. Flâneur
4. Sunhead

Bandcamp: plini.bandcamp.com/album/sunhead