Album Review: Geordie Greep – The New Sound

Artist: Geordie Greep | Album: The New Sound | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: London, UK | Label: Rough Trade

For fans of: black midi (duh), Frank Zappa, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Geordie Greep is the vocalist and guitarist for the recently-disbanded avant-prog band black midi. That act made quite a name for themselves over their last two albums, Cavalcade and Hellfire, both of which I like a lot. Their dissolution was sudden and seemed to catch everyone by surprise, but Geordie–whose unique voice and jumpy, angular guitar were key elements of their sound–has come out with his solo debut

The New Sound is a sprawling double-album that largely carries black midi’s flame. Some of his former band’s songs featured the occasional tropicalia influence, but that element is much more prominent here. Avant-garde tendencies are toned down, and jazziness is cranked up. Much of this record was recorded in Brazil with local musicians, so that likely further solidified Greep’s clear underlying love for this style of music.

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Album Review: Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

Band: Blood Incantation | Album: Absolute Elsewhere | Genre: Progressive death metal, Space rock | Year: 2024

From: Denver, USA | Label: Century Media

For fans of: Wills Dissolve, Cynic, Morbid Angel, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream

Bandcamp

Blood Incantation has been a bit all over the place on their last few releases. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. 2019’s Hidden History of the Human Race is both brutal and intelligent. It features nasty, complex riffs alongside brief interludes of Floydian atmospherics. Their last two releases, though, have seen them go in a much more explicitly astral direction. 2022’s Timewave Zero was fully electronic and honestly not really my jam. If you’re more into Tangerine Dream than I am, it might be for you. Then last year, they released the EP Luminescent Bridge. One of the two songs on it was a fantastic synthesis of their usual death metal alongside more cosmic space rock and classic prog. The title track, though, is simply too ambient for my taste.

Their new LP, Absolute Elsewhere, sees the band expand upon the ideas put forth in “Obliquity of the Ecliptic”, off Luminescent Bridge. Death metal and intergalactic progressive rock both feature prominently, and the band strikes a great balance. (Though, like so many other metal bands that decide to incorporate non-metal elements into their music, they go on about “leaving the notion of genre behind” on their Bandcamp page. And I’m just not nuts about that sort of framing. Blood Incantation didn’t leave “genre” behind. They’re just playing two genres on this album, instead of one.)

Like their last EP and the ambient LP before it, this record consists of just two long compositions: “The Stargate” and “The Message”. Each of these pieces is split up into three parts, called “tablets.”

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Album Review: Diskord/Atvm – Bipolarities

Band: Diskord/Atvm | Album: Bipolarities | Genre: Technical death metal, Progressive metal | Year: 2024

From: Oslo, Norway/London, UK | Label: Transcending Obscurity

For fans of: Atheist, Artificial Brain, Gorguts

Bandcamp

I’ve covered at least two split records on here before, both from Ripple Music. (There have been a couple others I’ve considered, but I’m not sure I’ve actually written about them.) One is the stellar stoner/post-/prog metal collaboration between Howling Giant and Sergeant Thunderhoof. And the other is a study in contrasts with Wizzerd and Merlin taking opposing spins on stoner metal and heavy psych. Bipolarities is more in line with the former, as both Diskord and Atvm play complex, tangled varieties of death metal.

Diskord hails from Norway, and they’ve been around for a while. They’re not the most prolific band out there, but they’ve got three solid albums of tech-death under their belt. Atvm, meanwhile, is a newer band whose debut record I absolutely loved.

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Album Review: Beak> – >>>>

Band: Beak> | Album: >>>> | Genre: Post-rock, Krautrock | Year: 2024

From: Bristol, UK | Label: Invada Records

For fans of: late ‘60s Pink Floyd, Neu!, Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Bandcamp

I’m pretty sure this is the first record I’ve reviewed with a completely unpronounceable title. Thankfully, this is a text-based site, so I don’t need to say “greater-than sign, greater-than sign, greater-than sign, greater-than sign.” Such odd, ASCII-inspired titles are not entirely uncommon in certain styles of music. Math rock and many types of electronica dabble in it, and Beak> are math-rock adjacent. Most of this record is more in the vein of hazy, psychedelic, kraut-y post-rock, but post-rock and math rock do share quite a bit of DNA.

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Album Review: Cime – The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble

Band: Cime | Album: The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble | Genre: Avant-prog, Art-punk | Year: 2024

From: Aliso Viejo, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: black midi, At the Drive-In, Frank Zappa

Bandcamp

Monty Cime is the eponymous leader of this album’s titular ensemble. She covers vocals and bass, but beyond her, a huge cast of other musicians pitch in to flesh things out. On the Bandcamp page for this record, a friend of Monty’s describes how she recorded all the demos on a guitar and a cheap keyboard in their closet over the span of several days. It really is impressive knowing that these huge, sprawling, and lush tracks had such humble origins.

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Album Review: Papangu – Lampião Rei

Band: Papangu | Album: Lampião Rei | Genre: Progressive rock, Zeuhl, Jazz-rock | Year: 2024

From: João Pessoa, Brazil | Label: Chumbo Grosso Records

For fans of: Magma, King Crimson, Sigh, Herbie Hancock’s ‘70s stuff

Bandcamp

Papangu are back three years after their absolutely spectacular debut album, Holoceno. Their new album, Lampião Rei, carries on in their unique vein of zeuhl, prog, and metal, but there have been some changes between the records. Holoceno is an unrelenting assault of Magma-tinged sludge metal. It’s an eco-apocalyptic tale, and the music serves to build intense senses of dread and unease. Lampião Rei, in contrast, is quite a bit lighter. Significant chunks of this album are metallic, but the band draws more clearly from jazz and classic prog here.

Part of the reason for this shift in sound (aside from adding new members to the band) is that the subject matter here isn’t quite as grim as on their debut. It tells the story of Lampião, a Brazilian bandit leader and folk hero whose heyday was in the 1920s and 30s. This album doesn’t cover Lampião’s betrayal, capture, and beheading (though the band says they’ll do that on a future release), so there isn’t the same need for Holoceno’s oppressive mood.

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Album Review: Leprous – Melodies of Atonement

Band: Leprous | Album: Melodies of Atonement | Genre: Art rock | Year: 2024

From: Notodden, Norway | Label: InsideOut Music

Bandcamp

Leprous have returned three years after their last release. I’ve been pretty blunt in my disappointment with Aphelion, Pitfalls, and Malina. (Malina came out before I started this site, but I’ve mentioned it.) They went from being an inventive, dynamic metal act with some creative songwriting to a rather bland art-rock act that leaned way too heavily on sudden quiet-loud contrasts. Bilateral is one of my favorite albums of all time, so the last decade or so has been rather disappointing.

Vocalist and primary songwriter Einar Solberg said he wanted to strip away the orchestral elements that have been prominent on their last few records for this release, and that experiment largely pays dividends. Melodies of Atonement is Leprous’s best album since The Congregation, though I wouldn’t quite call this “good” as a whole. They’re on the right path, however!

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Album Review: Ætheria Conscientia – The Blossoming

Band: Ætheria Conscientia | Album: The Blossoming | Genre: Progressive metal, Atmospheric black metal | Year: 2024

From: Nantes, France | Label: Frozen Records

For fans of: ‘70s King Crimson, Krallice, Mare Cognitum

Bandcamp

I always like it when bands work in non-conventional rock instruments to their music. Even if it’s just a one-off solo in one song, that sort of timbral variation can go a long way in making a band’s music that much more enjoyable. What I like even more is when a band can fully integrate a non-typical rock instrument into their music in a key way, like Kansas’s violin, or Titus Groan’s many wind and reed instruments.

Ætheria Conscientia is a band that does an excellent job of integrating saxophone into their music. Their 2021 release, Corrupted Pillars of Vanity, saw them weaving saxes into every nook and cranny of their compositions. That warm, reedy buzziness complemented the chug and crunch of their guitars, while also underscoring their jazz influences. Saxophone remains prominent on The Blossoming, their new release; it is an integral part of their overall sound.

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Album Review: Ulcerate – Cutting the Throat of God

Band: Ulcerate | Album: Cutting the Throat of God | Genre: Death metal, Progressive metal | Year: 2024

From: Auckland, New Zealand | Label: Debemur Morti

For fans of: Gorguts, Artificial Brain, Blood Incantation

Bandcamp

Barely a month ago, I commented on how infrequently New Zealand shows up on this site. (Indeed, that was the first time I had featured any Kiwis here in three-and-a-half years.) And now here I am, covering (what is most likely) that country’s most respected metal band!

I covered Ulcerate’s last album, 2020’s Stare into Death and Be Still, and I liked it. I didn’t revere it quite as much as many others, but it’s a solid album overall. My thoughts on it haven’t moved much since my original review. This trio’s new release though, Cutting the Throat of God, takes the thundering, intelligent death metal of their last album and further refines it into something spectacular.

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Album Review: Hail Spirit Noir – Fossil Gardens

Band: Hail Spirit Noir | Album: Fossil Gardens | Genre: Psychedelic black metal | Year: 2024

From: Thessaloniki, Greece | Label: Agonia Records

For fans of: Sigh, Riverside, Thy Catafalque

Bandcamp

Hail Spirit Noir is a Greek experimental metal act hailing from the Macedonian city of Thessaloniki. I have briefly touched on Greece’s relative influence within the metal scene before, and I have covered Hail Spirit Noir once before, as well. HSN is one of my favorite contemporary metal bands, and they are responsible for two of my favorite albums of the 2010s: their 2012 debut, Pneuma, and their 2016 third album, Mayhem in Blue. 2020’s Eden in Reverse was a solid release, too, though their last album–2021’s Mannequins–was a weird, one-off synthwave project. And I’m really not a fan of synthwave.

Fossil Gardens, the band’s sixth full-length release, sees HSN get back to their core sound. I once saw someone describe their music as “blackened psychedelic folk,” and while I don’t necessarily agree with that description, they were admittedly onto something. This band’s sound is undoubtedly and undeniably metallic, but influences from psychedelic rock pervade their music more than any metal band this side of Sigh.

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