Album Review: Dvne – Voidkind

Band: Dvne | Album: Voidkind | Genre: Progressive metal | Year: 2024

From: Edinburgh, UK | Label: Metal Blade

For fans of: The Ocean, metallic Porcupine Tree, Inter Arma

Dvne (presumably pronounced like “dune,” though Google Translate also tells me it’s Bosnian for “days ago”) is a Scottish quintet, and they’re one of the more talked-about bands on the parts of the Internet where I spend my time. Voidkind is their third full-length album, coming three years after their last release. Dvne is a band I’ve listened to and contemplated covering before, but for whatever reason Etemen Ænka, their 2021 album, just didn’t quite catch my fancy. (2021 was also an exceptionally good year for the type of music I like, so they had some stiff competition for my attention. 2024, in contrast, is shaping up to be a slower year for me.)

Disregarding my above disparaging of the current year, Voidkind is a legitimately good album. Dvne’s sludge metal roots have gone in a more atmospheric, post-metal-type direction. Normally, I’d be a bit wary about that–unless it’s preceding the word “punk,” the prefix “post-” is often an indicator there’s a higher risk I’ll be a bit bored–but the songwriting is smart, and the playing is crushing and dynamic.

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Album Review: Stuart Wicke – Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Artist: Stuart Wicke | Album: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: Louisville, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Blue Öyster Cult, Pink Floyd, The Decemberists’ proggier stuff

Bandcamp

Poetry isn’t really my thing, and that is borne out in my usual disinterest in lyrics. Obviously, though, poetry and lyrics speak strongly to some folks, and one of those folks is Kentuckian singer-songwriter Stuart Wicke. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is Wicke’s eighth full-length release, coming just four months after his last effort. Consisting of just two long songs, each of them draws their lyrics from poetry.

Opening the album is “Song on the End of the World”, a three-part, 15-minute epic. Part two draws its inspiration from the poem of the same by Czesław Miłosz, and parts one and three are based on “America: A Prophecy” by poet William Blake.

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Album Review: Perilymph – Progressions Imaginaires

Band: Perilymph | Album: Progressions Imaginaires | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: Berlin, Germany | Label: Six Tonnes de Chair

For fans of: Patrick Moraz, Phideaux, early Pink Floyd

Bandcamp

Arriving three years after their last effort, Perilymph’s fourth album, Progressions Imaginaires, is this group’s newest output. I’ve covered this band a couple times in the past, and I’ve always enjoyed their work. They have always done a great job at contrasting spare, acoustic passages with big, warm retro synth tones.

Perilymph’s past work has often straddled the always-fuzzy line between psych and prog. That has a lot to do with the way that they evoke the instrumental tones of the late 1960s, when psych and prog were both in their infancies and it was all a big mushy blob of forward-thinking rock music. This album, though, sees the band pushing in a more clearly progressive direction. The tones and textures are as lush and psychedelic as ever, but the songwriting is more dynamic, mature, and inventive.

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Album Review: Job for a Cowboy – Moon Healer

Band: Job for a Cowboy | Album: Moon Healer | Genre: Technical death metal, Progressive metal | Year: 2024

From: Glendale, USA | Label: Metal Blade

For fans of: The Faceless, early Opeth, Gorguts

Bandcamp

When Job for a Cowboy first came onto the scene in the late ‘00s, I remember them being derided as just another deathcore band with a stupid name. I listened to some of their early work, and I agreed with that assessment. I don’t like deathcore, and their name is dumb. Seriously, it sounds like a lousy innuendo from a bro-country song. There are some bands I haven taken too long to give a shot because of how much I dislike their name (for example, Between the Buried and Me, And So I Watch You from Afar; pretty much any band whose name is a full clause), but JfaC is a band where my distaste for their name was backed up by a distaste for their music.

In the ensuing decade-and-a-half, though, they’ve taken a considerably more technical and progressive turn. When I saw Moon Healer rather high up on the 2024 chart on Rate Your Music, I was baffled. Aren’t these guys just some shitty deathcore band? I thought. My curiosity was piqued, so I gave Moon Healer a listen. I’m glad I did.

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Album Review: Plantoid – Terrapath

Band: Plantoid | Album: Terrapath | Genre: Progressive rock, Psychedelic rock | Year: 2024

From: Brighton, UK | Label: Bella Union

For fans of: RX Bandits, Diagonal, black midi, Pink Floyd

Bandcamp

Plantoid is a Brighton-based four-piece that expertly manipulates textures to create an enveloping auditory experience. Jazz and psychedelia commingle on Terrapath, along with progressive rock, indie rock, and bits of folk. The sci-fi album art matches the hazy, otherworldly feel of the music. The band manages to establish a sense of musical continuity without coming off as repetitious or uncreative.

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Album Review: L’Ombra – Soli

Band: L’Ombra | Album: Soli | Genre: Progressive rock, Art rock | Year: 2024

From: Chambéry, France | Label: Independent

For fans of: Harmonium, The Strawbs

Bandcamp

Back in 2019, L’Ombra’s debut EP took the top spot on my inaugural Top EPs list. Their music was relatively accessible, but it still featured plenty of artsy, inventive playing and arrangements. One of the things I liked most about it was how it used language. The five songs were in Italian, French, and English. The Italian and French songs had influences that drew from the classic eras of Italian and French progressive rock.

Five years later, they’ve come back with their debut full-length album, Soli. It stays in a similar overall vein as their self-titled EP, but the obvious linguistic-musical dynamics are less pronounced here. The Italian bits aren’t as reminiscent of classic Italian prog, and the French bits don’t necessarily feel all that French. The overall tenor is jazzy and rather relaxed, and it winds up being pretty solid.

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Album Review: The Chronicles of Father Robin – The Songs & Tales of Airoea – Book III (+Airoea overview)

Band: The Chronicles of Father Robin | Album: The Songs & Tales of Airoea – Book III | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 204

From: Oslo, Norway | Label: Karisma Records

For fans of: Yes, Wobbler

Bandcamp

The Chronicles of Father Robin return with the conclusion of their Airoea trilogy. Book I covered the land of Airoea, and Book II its waterways. You can read about my thoughts on those, as well as some notes on this band’s background, in my original reviews. Book III, now, is exploring the skies of Airoea.

With the Airoea trilogy now concluded, I’ve included my thoughts on the project as a whole at the end of this review.

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Album Review: Sgàile – Traverse the Bealach

Band: Sgàile | Album: Traverse the Bealach | Genre: Progressive metal, Post-metal | Year: 2024

From: Glasgow, UK | Label: Independent

For fans of: Devin Townsend, Avandra, Elder

Bandcamp

I pride myself on generally being pretty good at pronouncing non-English words reasonably closely to how they would be by a native speaker. (I make no claims about my ability to string together a coherent sentence, mind you.) However, the spelling systems of Irish and Scottish Gaelic truly baffle me. I’ve been told that they actually make a lot of sense and are fairly consistent, if you sit down and learn the conventions. I haven’t done that, though, so this band’s name, Sgàile, made me raise an eyebrow. It turns out it’s pronounced roughly “sky-lee,” (which is not too far off what I would have guessed), and it means “shade” in Scottish Gaelic.

Sgàile is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Tony Dunn, and Traverse the Bealach is their second full-length release. (“Bealach” means something like “way” or “road,” according to Google Translate.) There is an unmistakable Scottishness to this music, and there are some passing similarities to Saor, another notably Caledonian metal act. But where Saor tends to be more atmospheric and impressionistic, Sgàile’s riffs have a bit more punch and definition behind them.

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Album Review: Slift – Ilion

Band: Slift | Album: Ilion | Genre: Heavy psych, Space rock | Year: 2024

From: Toulouse, France | Label: Sub Pop

For fans of: Elder, Hawkwind, Ash Ra Tempel

Bandcamp

Slift is back after a four-year gap with their new album, Ilion. The band has stated that Ilion can be thought of as a direct sequel to Ummon, their 2020 release. There is a lot of sonic continuity between the two records. Both prominently feature bludgeoning doom metal riffs, crossed with krautrock-like repetition, and interstellar aesthetics. Much like Ummon, Ilion is a challenging listen. It’s a nearly-unrelenting onslaught of heavy riffs that cascade effortlessly from your speakers. I saw Slift when they came to Seattle last year, and if they come again, I’m going to go once more. They put on a great show, and I’m sure these cuts will be great additions to their live set.

In many ways, Ilion takes what Ummon did and cranks it up even further. Ummon saw Slift shift from spacey garage rock to a more metallic sound, and that progression has continued here. Not only are doom metal influences present, but post-metal, too. Ummon runs 72 minutes across 11 songs, but Ilion pumps that to 79 minutes across only eight songs (only two of which are under nine minutes, and none of which are below five).

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Album Review: Anarchÿ – Eyeclöser

Band: Anarchÿ | Album: Eyeclöser | Genre: Progressive thrash metal | Year: 2023

From: St. Louis, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Vektor, Coroner, Voivod

Bandcamp

When I covered Anarchÿ’s debut album a couple years ago, I noted that thrash (and especially prog-thrash) is not the most widespread or vibrant metal subgenre at the moment, but the few bands in the current vanguard are pretty solid. Vektor is not known for a rigorous release schedule, and Droid–a Canadian prog-thrash act I like a lot–put out one album seven years ago, and it’s been radio silence since. With Anarchÿ, it’s nice to have a semi-regular flow of new music.

Or, well, mostly new music. Eyeclöser, the band’s second full-length record is three-quarters new material, but it does feature a handful of rerecorded songs originally from their 2021 EP Breathing Necropolis. As a proportion of this album’s total runtime, rerecordings have a combined length less than this album’s centerpiece suite. This is a long record, so get comfortable before settling in for it.

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