The Counterblast by Jim Griffin

released November 15, 2025

Written and performed by Jim Griffin, featuring:

Robbie Costelloe - Saxophones on Track 2
Keith McCoy - Drums on Track 2
David Reece - Vocals on Tracks 2 and 3

Album artwork by Unlovely Frankenstein

Mixed by Joe Gallagher at GAF Studios, Tipperary
Mastered by Richard Dowling at WAV Mastering, Limerick

REVIEWS:
SAITEN KULT MAGAZINE says:
"On ́The Counterblast, Jim Griffin succeeds in combining pathos and introspection, bombast and vulnerability into a body of work that is literary, cinematic and deeply human. Anyone who has listened to ́"The Signal" ́will now realize that ́The Counterblast is the emotional center of gravity of his work, an obituary for the space age and perhaps the last science fiction album that still knows why we wanted to set off for the stars in the first place." (Michael Haifl, 26-10-25)
www.saitenkult.de/2025/10/26/jim-griffin-the-counterblast/

NEW UNDERGROUND MUSIC says:
"The Counterblast" by Jim Griffin is a great record, which is full of great progressive music, which I enjoyed immensely and I highly recommend this disc to every lover of this genre.

Then the bonus songs follow, the first of which is "For The Dying Empire" and in this Jim Griffin presents me with a nice sounding swinging rock song with a slightly hypnotic recurring rhythm and an average tempo, where sitting still is not an issue and in "January Sky" I get to hear an excellent danceable rock song with dance and disco related elements, it swings like a train." (Carry Munter, 27-10-25)
carrysnewundergroundmusic.blogspot.com/2025/10/review-jim-griffin-counterblast-sound.html

PROG ETPLUS says:
The Counterblast sometimes evokes the dreamlike atmospheres of Pink Floyd or the timeless power of Deep Purple. There are also echoes of the universes of Cosmograf on The Man Left in Space, Steven Wilson on The Overview, or Current 93 in some acoustic parts (A Counterblast To Astral Travel in particular). But never the shadow of an imitation hangs over: Jim Griffin forges his own path, weaving his soundscapes with a personality and intensity all his own.

With The Counterblast, the Irish artist transforms his disillusionment into sound material. Behind each note emerges the melancholy of a shattered dream - that of a child of the stars forced to look down at the ground. The album sounds like a confession, both personal and universal. As long as men continue to scan the sky, Jim Griffin's music will shine like a fragile but persistent glow. A must-have, quite simply. (Marc, 27-10-25)
progetplus.over-blog.com/2025/10/jim-griffin-the-counterblast.html?

HOUSE OF PROG says:
The three-part “Sleeping Generation” suite forms the core of this release, creating as such a novel departure with a variety of twists, as Jim handles all the instruments including the vocalizations. The Challenger disaster serves as the momentous inspiration for the lyrical content, a highly personal take on how lofty ideals for mankind vanished with less than 2 minutes, leaving humanity to ponder a withdrawal from space travel that has been in effect ever since. The sedate electronics come as a most welcome distraction, as if a sense of serious thought has taken over, a reflection that only provides subtlety of words and sounds. The lyrical content is substantially contemporary, the JFK snippet particularly alluring, but the clever musicality is what appeals the most, the bass mirroring the melancholia, the e-piano droplets meditating on a lost chance to further or even improve our knowledge, perhaps even regressing in many ways if one cares to look at our present condition... The sweeping symphonics on part 2 are highlighted by delicate acoustic guitar playing that is off the charts, the Ronald Reagan fragment serving as a lesson in acceptance and a eulogy for a time when innocence began evaporating into the mist of eternity. The third section describes a sense of abject finality in our common failures, of dreams replaced by opinion-based nonsense that favors the endlessly easy road and not the hardship of labor, as brilliantly expressed by Kennedy. The electricity of the guitar joins in with the elaborate anthem, where assorted orchestral electronics, a redolent bass and a respectful rhythmic alliance painstakingly carry the burden of humanity on already exhausted shoulders. (THE PROG ROGUE, 2-11-25)
houseofprog.com/jim-griffin-eire-the-counter-blast/

THE TERRASCOPE says:
This time around Griffin uses the 1986 explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger as his springboard into a cautionary tale of the hubris that has twisted our ideals of the ‘60s into the global crises we face today. ‘Cosmic Law And Order’ resurrects an unfinished foot stomper from Griffin’s Zombie Picnic days - strap yourself in and get ready for an interplanetary hayride that wouldn’t be out of place on a peak-period Hawkwind album. Soundbytes from Carl Sagan and Charles Lawson add to the fun.

Heavy metal shouter David Reece (Accept, Bangalore Choir, et. al.) delivers a maniacal rant throughout ‘Xenocide’ that may best be described as Frank Zappa fronting Black Sabbath whilst serpentining around Robbie Costelloe’s Crimsonesque sax wailing. It’s frenetic, frightening, quite psychotic and perfectly encapsulates our current state of affairs. (Jeff Penczak, 14-11-25)
www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Reviews_November25.htm

IT'S PSYCHEDELIC BABY! MAGAZINE says:
Jim Griffin’s ‘The Counterblast’ is conceptually ambitious, drawing its narrative from a highly specific, eclectic syllabus of influences. The album’s philosophical background is directly inspired by the expansive cosmic visions of scientists and authors such as Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, complemented by the profound, nuanced emotional lexicon of John Koenig. (Klemen Breznikar, 17-11-25)
www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2025/11/jim-griffin-unveils-xenocide-from-the-counterblast.html

SLANG OF AGES says:
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.
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. (Preston M. Frazier, 17-11-25)
slangofages.com/short-tracks-the-counterblast-a-cinematic-prog-rock-reckoning-by-jim-griffin-2025/

SEA OF TRANQUILITY says:
The album gets underway with "Cosmic Law and Order", which is apparently a leftover, or incomplete track from Jim’s psych-rock instrumental project Zombie Picnic. I like this track a lot. it's spacey, trippy and features some tidy and creative guitar work. Sound bites of Carl Sagan and Charles Lawson add extra layers of space to the cake.

"Xenocide" is up next. It’s a cool tune that reminds me simultaneously of both Paranoid era by Black Sabbath and Court of the Crimson King era King Crimson - heavy riffing, vocal melodies that don’t stray too far from the melody of the riff, and that iconic combination of heavy guitars and sax lines.

"A Counterblast to Astral Travel" is up next and it’s a beast of a track that is fitting of the album’s title. It’s heavy by Jim’s standards, has some pretty wild and spacey lyrics and David Reece is laying down an impressive vocal performance. (Chris Reid, 18-11-25)
www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=25403

PROGRESSIVE ROCK JOURNAL says:
"[T]he album unfolds as a reflection on order, conflict, memory, and the faint light that binds individual stories to something larger.The sonic palette is wide but cohesive: layered keyboards, guitars alternating between texture and definition, a rhythm section capable of being both patient and incisive. Griffin’s writing shows a mature understanding of contrasts—density versus space, clarity versus distortion, introspection versus confrontation—resulting in an album that reveals its full depth only through repeated listening. The music never chases excess; instead, it constructs a narrative made of shifts, tensions, dissolutions and reconstructions, very much in line with the exploratory spirit of modern Progressive Rock." (Jacopo Vigezzi, 18-11-25)
progrockjournal.com/review-jim-griffin-the-counterblast/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOJz0pleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEerdtEq4mraSvQa2NUMDNFpTl9y_OFgwXwNeMzYTv2IgHrNnTrF0d1PHzuWXM_aem_viS9tQ_X8o9vyUXqgC2LXw

TimeMazine FanZine says:
"Somewhere between the smoke trails of Challenger and the crumbling temples of classic prog, Jim Griffin lights the fuse again. “The Counterblast” isn’t just another concept record, it’s a transmission from the wreckage of lost futures, a Lovecraftian distress call encoded in doom riffs and cosmic static. Griffin, ever the galactic cartographer of Ireland’s psych underground, threads Carl Sagan samples through Sabbath gravity, folds space-time with Crimsonesque sax, and drags the ghost of Zombie Picnic out for one more orbit. With David Reece roaring from the cockpit and a rhythm section that sounds like it’s cracking planets in half, this is Griffin’s most expansive – and most personal – voyage yet.

“The Counterblast” is the sound of a musician unafraid to wrestle with ghosts, scientific, cultural, and personal. It’s prog for the lost space age, psych-rock for those who still believe that distortion can be devotional. If “The Signal” was the transmission, “The Counterblast” is the reckoning…" (TimeLord Michalis, 27-11-25)
timemachine-productions.gr/2025/11/27/jim-griffin-the-counterblast-2025-lp-sound-effect-records/



PROGRESSIVE VOYAGES says:
"..a deeply involved and personal album from Jim and his collaborators... This is an excellent album" (John Wenlock Smith, 26-11-25)
www.progressivevoyages.co.uk/reviews/h4qytkz35d534jqjrbhorsbf8bgitu