Progressive rockers are a much-maligned lot, often with good reason. But you can't say they don't know how to make some eye-catching album artwork.

On their self-titled 1980 album, the South Korean prog quintet Linus made music that aptly matched their bizarre album cover. 

The nine cosmic compositions on "Linus" create an atmosphere meant to evoke the fantastic. And, like their album cover, it can seem a little ridiculous as well. This is not at all unusual for progressive rock albums released in 1980, and it's not even necessarily a bad thing.

The era is defined by a willingness to expand on rock music's ambitions towards the upper range of the middlebrow. Songs became "suites," and entire LP sides were dominated by lengthy excursions into musical muscle-flexing.

Linus's approach to progressive rock finds them acting as descendants of the psychedelic sounds coming out of Korea in the early 1970s, but with added heft.

While they don't demonstrate the same technical acrobatics displayed by, say, King Crimson, they have the progressive "feel" down to a science. Theirs is a reflection of the earlier days of progressive rock, betraying a kinship with the more meat and potatoes groups that preceded the fussier side of the genre.Think Pink Floyd (specifically "Interstellar Overdrive") or the headier side of Black Sabbath.

The common thread between Linus and these aforementioned groups comes from a seriousness of intent, an unsmiling (but still fully rocking) drive towards displays of musical power. Dense heaviness is a premium, rather than Yes-like dervishes.

By the album's second track, "Narrow Gate" (also translated as "Narrow Door"), the full extent of Linus' ambition is evident in keyboardist Kwang Min's expansive organ playing.This is the ingredient that adds the kind of depth that these sorts of "proto-prog" bands were looking for.

On "Wish" (or "Hope"), the organ evokes the same kind of mystical wonder that Procol Harum conjured on their classic hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale."

Elsewhere, that same keyboard finds itself morphing into the kind of early analog synthesizer that wouldn't have sounded out of place in Rick Wakeman's arsenal (visual proof on whether or not anyone in Linus wore a Wakeman-style cape is, at press time, still unavailable).

Kim Kwang Hyun's guitar playing is really what's front and center on the "Linus" album.

Kim is capable of the same kind of psychedelic hysterics offered by anyone armed with a wah-wah pedal and nowhere to go, but his leads are tasteful, rooted in a blues-rock tradition. The wailing guitar player would later record with the short-lived Korean progressive rock band Magma, unrelated to the French progressive rock band of the same name.

The band occasionally tips the scales into the absurd. This sort of heroic music has its limits in terms of plausibility.

I'm speaking specifically of when Linus make a few ill-advised attempts at vocal harmonies. This is very much part of the progressive rock tradition too; great instrumentalists often make lousy vocalists. We can't hold it against them for trying, though.

While progressive rock really has become a dirty word in some circles, Linus' music is refreshingly unpretentious. The vastness of their sonic world is really rather modest when compared to the gargantuan egos of their international peers. Their concerns seem to be with channeling the potential power of rock music, rather than intellectualizing it.

While Linus's tenure as a band was short-lived, they did produce a minor hit with the song "Kite," the album's closing track.

Here, the amps are turned down to make room for a wrist-flicking jangle in the guitars, and suddenly Linus have transformed into a power-pop group with a disco twist.

This concession to pop music on the album's final track says a lot about Linus's intentions as a band. Whereas they could have easily made an entire album of songs like "Kite," the fact that they pursued their muse--even if it came in the form of a flying yellow bird-planet--speaks to their musical character.

I, for one, salute them.

Listen to Linus's classic 1980 album "Linus" RIGHT HERE

Jeff Tobias is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Most recently, he has been researching the history of tuning systems and working on his jump shot.