Album Review: Snooze – I Know How You Will Die

Band: Snooze | Album: I Know How You Will Die | Genre: Math rock, Progressive metal | Year: 2025

From: Chicago, USA | Label: Choke Artist

For fans of: Between the Buried and Me, Tera Melos, And So I Watch You From Afar, Emberside

I’ve been pretty open about my general distaste for subgenres that end in “-core.” And that goes double for most things classifiable as djent. So, had I not had this album specifically recommended to me, I probably would have skipped it had I found it on my own on Bandcamp. “Mathcore” and “djent” are usually good signs I’ll find a record tedious and repetitious. There are outliers, of course, but I do do some prioritization of stuff to listen to in looking for records for this site.

I am very happy I had this album recommended to me. Snooze is a Chicago-based quartet that plays a pretty heavy variety of math rock. I Know How You Will Die is their third full-length release and their first in six years. It’s also their heaviest by a significant margin. The band’s roots in math rock and Midwest emo are evident, especially in the vocal lines, but everything comes together in an incredibly satisfying way.

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Album Review: Lars Fredrik Frøislie – Gamle Mester

Artist: Lars Fredrik Frøislie | Album: Gamle Mester | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Oslo, Norway | Label: Karisma Records

For fans of: Yes, Camel, Jethro Tull, Tusmørke

Bandcamp

Wobbler’s keyboard player is back with his second solo album. Lars Fredrik Frøislie’s solo debut, 2023’s Fire Fortellinger, was a pretty solid release. It didn’t break any new ground, but I enjoyed it a fair bit. I do like Wobbler, and Frøislie’s solo stuff is very much in the same vein. Gamle Mester (Eng.: Old Master) continues in the same general style, but it demonstrates some continued growth and development in his songwriting, which I like a lot.

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Album Review: Custard Flux – Enter Xenon

Band: Custard Flux | Album: Enter Xenon | Genre: Psychedelic rock | Year: 2025

From: Detroit, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: early ‘70s Pink Floyd, Moon Letters, Regal Worm

Bandcamp

Custard Flux is an act I’ve covered a number of times. Begun as an all-acoustic psych-rock act, the band has evolved their sound over the years. Oxygen saw them take a decidedly more progressive turn, and last year’s Einsteinium Delirium had them ditch their all-acoustic gimmick. Enter Xenon, in addition to continuing with their elemental album names, keeps with Einsteinium’s electric sound. The songs are punchy and energetic with a great blend of psychedelic whimsy and forward-thinking grit.

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Album Review: Moon Letters – This Dark Earth

Band: Moon Letters | Album: This Dark Earth | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Seattle, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Genesis, Yes, Marillion

Bandcamp

Three years after their last release, 2022’s excellent Thank You from the Future, Moon Letters have returned with their third full-length album. I’ve mentioned a few times that they’re one of my favorite local acts, and if you follow me on Facebook, you will occasionally see photos of their rather theatrical live shows. If you get a chance to see them perform, I highly recommend it.

My first experience hearing this album was at one of those performances. It was their album release show, and they played This Dark Earth in its entirety. That performance was part of a larger musical festival called Cascadence, formerly Seaprog. Occurring most Junes (there have been a few years it did not occur), it’s a fantastic highlight of mostly-local progressive music acts.

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Album Review: Chercán – Chercán

Band: Chercán | Album: Chercán | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Valdivia, Chile | Label: Independent

For fans of: Tool, The Mars Volta

Bandcamp

Chercán is a Chilean quintet that plays a lush, complex, and engaging variety of progressive rock. Things are densely layered and smartly composed, and the band incorporates jazz and sounds from their homeland. Everything about this record really impresses me.

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Album Review: Firmament – A New World If You Can Take It

Band: Firmament | Album: A New World If You Can Take It | Genre: Progressive metal | Year: 2025

From: Canton (OH), USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Haken, Thank You Scientist, Between the Buried and Me

Bandcamp

I don’t claim to like everything. I know there are just certain styles of music which don’t resonate with me for one reason or another. I can articulate why I don’t like some genres (for example, most singer-songwriter stuff), while I struggle to find the words to describe my distaste for other genres (like reggae or ska or calypso; the Caribbean is just not my musical realm). Metalcore and post-hardcore are two styles of music that fall somewhere in between for me. I don’t really like the vocals common to them (and many other “-core” genres), but there’s also something else I can’t quite put my finger on. Despite this, every now and then I find a band that I like that incorporates these elements into their music.

Firmament is an Ohio-based duo that plays an energetic and emotive brand of post-hardcore-influenced progressive metal. Yes, there are elements on this record which don’t tickle me, but there’s still plenty here that I like. And when you handicap this album for my built-in biases, A New World If You Can Take It is quite strong. This review is going to sound more negative than I intend it, but rest assured, I strongly recommend this release.

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Album Review: Edensong – Our Road to Dust

Band: Edensong | Album: Our Road to Dust | Genre: Progressive rock, Progressive metal | Year: 2025

From: Middletown, USA | Label: The Laser’s Edge

For fans of: The Dear Hunter, Phideaux, Dream Theater, Jethro Tull

Bandcamp

Edensong is not a band I was familiar with before writing this review. They play a brand of semi-metallic progressive rock with significant folk influences. The band also has a dedicated flutist, so the comparisons to Jethro Tull are pretty easy. Those comparisons are also pretty apt, as Tull’s influence can be heard throughout this record.

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Album Review: Saint Vayu – Eternal Returns

Band: Saint Vayu | Album: Eternal Returns | Genre: Progressive rock, Neo-prog | Year: 2025

From: Los Angeles, USA | Label: Wave Racers Collective

For fans of: Spock’s Beard, Wobbler, Marillion

Bandcamp

I’ve dipped my toes into electronica a handful of times on this site. I often feel somewhat out of my depth, but there is the occasional act which crosses into my wheelhouse. One of the first electronic acts I covered was Vayu and their 2021 album, Wrath. That was solidly an electronic album with prog-rock influences, and the vocals were performed with a Vocaloid synthesizer. I liked it overall, and obviously, so did Pope Francis, hence the canonization and name change.

(Note: I started writing this review before Pope Francis died.)

(Second note: Francis contributed to a progressive rock album in 2015, which is fucking wild. Wake Up! is actually an alright record. Not amazing, but alright.)

In the four years since Wrath, more has changed in the band than just the name. Where Wrath was primarily electronic, Eternal Returns is unquestionably a rock album. Vocaloid has been eschewed, as well, with the sole member of this band contributing his own vocals.

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Album Review: Kuunatic – Wheels of Ömon

Band: Kuunatic | Album: Wheels of Ömon | Genre: Avant-garde psychedelic tribal folk zeuhl? | Year: 2025

From: Tokyo, Japan | Label: Glitterbeat

For fans of: Kikagaku Moyo, Magma, Osamu Kitajima

Bandcamp

Kuunatic’s sound is pretty difficult to describe, and that’s a big part of why I love them. I lumped all those genre descriptors above into a big chimera rather than split them up more granularly for a reason. The elements are noticeable but impossible to truly pick apart or isolate. At its base, this is a drums-bass-keys trio where all three members sing, but they also include a multitude of traditional Japanese folk instruments, including the sho, sasara, and ryuteki.

Much as Magma’s music is largely about and set on Kobaïa, Kuunatic’s is about their own mythic world, Kuurandia. (They go into great detail about the story of both this album and their 2021 debut, Gate of Klüna, in this article, as well as on the Bandcamp page for this release.) The music is fittingly odd, experimental, and ritualistic for such heady concepts.

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Album Review: Fulguromatic – Fulguromatic

Band: Fulguromatic | Album: Fulguromatic | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025

From: Rennes, France | Label: áMARXE

For fans of: Zopp, Frank Zappa, Gong

Bandcamp

Fulguromatic is a French duo, about which there is relatively little information online. Their self-titled debut album is a fascinating blend of styles. “Progressive rock” is certainly a safe label for this act, but they incorporate a lot of jazz into their sound, as well as weirder, more experimental and improvisational elements. Fulguromatic has a rich and enthralling sound, and each song is impressively inventive.

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