Odds & Ends: June 2, 2025

Band: Ancient Death | Album: Ego Dissolution | Genre: Progressive metal, Death metal | Bandcamp

Ego Dissolution is an exciting record that deftly weaves progressive and cosmic elements into a solid death metal base. This album is somewhat comparable to Blood Incantation’s recent work, minus the overt Floydianisms. There are pummeling, stormy riffs and gut-rattling bass and drums, but the occasional pared-back moment (like on “Breathe”) really helps this album shine.

Score: 83/100

Band: Cosmic Cathedral | Album: Deep Water | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp

The latest Neal Morse project certainly sounds like a Neal Morse project. And as usual, where Neal is the creative lead on a project, he has one question for you: “Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior: Jesus Christ?”

The music is fine. Do you like early Spock’s Beard? Do you like Transatlantic? Do you have enough lactase in your system to handle the staggering amount of cheese here? Then you’re probably going to enjoy this, especially if you like (or at least don’t mind) the overt religiosity. There are some genuinely fun passages, and for all my quibbles, Morse is a very talented arranger. He’s got his signature sound, and he’s good at varying it enough between releases to (mostly) stay interesting on a musical level.

That said, this does suffer from some ills endemic to his other works. First and foremost is the album’s length. Deep Water is 71 minutes long, and it is absolutely not deserving of that length. The most obvious culprits here are the 13-minute opener and the 9-part, 38-minute title track. There’s simply an immense amount of bloat and music that doesn’t really lead to or add anything.

Secondly, it’s Jesus. Like, I get it, Neal. You found God. Now find something else to write about. Or at least be less obvious about it. If I, an avowed lyric-zone-outer, am noticing how thoroughly you’re beating a dead horse, try shifting topics. Or at least pick some obscure Bible stories. There’s a lot of material there.

Score: 70/100

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Album Review: Frogg – Eclipse

Bad: Frogg | Album: Eclipse | Genre: Progressive death metal, Technical death metal | Year: 2025

From: New York, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Atheist, Atvm, Between the Buried and Me, Vektor

Bandcamp

I covered Frogg’s debut EP, A Reptilian Dystopia, back in 2020, and I really liked it. It was one of my favorite short releases of that year. In the intervening years, they’ve put out a handful of songs (all of which show up here), but now they’re finally back with their first LP.

Frogg’s brand of music is fast, dense, and powerful. I often have somewhat mixed feelings on tech-death bands, as it’s easy for such acts to get lost in their own intricate guitar lines. Frogg, though, demonstrates both a keen ear for melody and a certain compositional ambition often lacking elsewhere in this micro-genre.

Plus, just look at that album cover. 10/10, no notes.

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Best of 2024: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1

Welcome back to The Elite Extremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2024. Today covers the top 25, and you can read about the first half in Part 1.

As a reminder, the music on this list covers December 2023 to November 2024. I spend much of December compiling and editing this list, so I push releases from that month into the following year’s list.

This is also a one-man operation, in regard to reviewing. (Many thanks to my proofreaders/editors, Kelci and Dan.) I’m sure there’s plenty of great music out there I simply didn’t get to. I’ve also got my own biases against certain styles and trends.

Now, onto the list!

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Best of 2024: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26

It’s time for The Elite Extremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2024! This is the first half of the list, and you can find the second half here.

2024 wound up being an alright year for the sort of stuff I cover here. It felt like it started off somewhat slow, but in the end, it wasn’t too challenging for me to find 50 records worthy of being highlighted.

Now, onto the list!

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Odds & Ends: December 30, 2024

Band: Anarchÿ | Album: Xenötech and the Cosmic Anarchÿ | Genre: Progressive thrash metal | Bandcamp

Anarchÿ’s third full-length release sees this St. Louis-based thrash duo both stay in their usual niche and also push some sonic boundaries. Verbose sci-fi storytelling, blazing guitar lines, and more umlauts than any reasonable person would ever use all abound here. Synth pads do a great job at adding richness and lushness to the music, and the occasional acoustic interlude helps to keep this record varied and interesting. There is even a splash of sitar for some truly unexpected sonic variance.

Score: 83/100

Band: Avneya | Album: Road to I | Genre: Progressive death metal | Bandcamp

Avneya’s debut record is a great example of progressive death metal. There’s a strong focus on contrasts between delicate, melodic passages and moments of crushing heaviness. Dashes of strings here and there add some nice contrast, and folk motifs from the band’s native Israel also add to this record’s distinctiveness.

Score: 79/100

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Odds & Ends: December 23, 2024

Band: Aeon Nexus | Album: Positive Disintegration | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp

Aeon Nexus’s debut EP is a fun, to-the-point bit of progressive death(-ish) metal. Their vocalist displays impressive range, belting out powerful clean vocals and coarse gutturals. This reminds me of certain early prog-death bands, like Atheist, Cynic, or Death, as well as a more recent crop of artists who strive to evoke this sound. Piano adds a lot of textural depth and richness, which really helps this band stand out from their peers.

Score: 80/100

Band: Ærkenbrand | Album: Hedenfarne æventyr | Genre: Avant-prog, Noise rock | Bandcamp

The newest release from this Danish act is a warbling, wobbling melange of influences drawn from across the spectrum of forward-thinking rock music. Squealing saxophones and mad, buzzing guitars cultivate uneasy moods that can shift on a dime. One moment, there’s a maelstrom of reeds and clattering drums, and the next, things have moved in a more spaced-out and contemplative direction. The closing “Alting Sammen” features some nice electronic touches, too.

Score: 82/100

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Odds & Ends: December 16, 2024

Band: Å | Album: Åtråvärld | Genre: Progressive rock, Folk rock | Bandcamp

The latest release from this Swedish act sounds almost as if late ‘70s Jethro Tull were from Scandinavia. It’s lightly-crunchy progressive folk rock with a healthy dose of flute. The mood here is a little hazier and more psychedelic than anything Tull ever did. Jazz elements are apparent, too, and this whole record has a wonderfully laid-back feel to it. This is very much music for walking through the woods. But, y’know, proggy.

Score: 81/100

Band: amalakamala | Album: LaaMaKaMaaL | Genre: Jazz-fusion, Progressive rock | Bandcamp

This lovely little EP does an incredible job blending the smooth sounds of 1980s Japanese jazz with biting, acidic guitar tones and progressive songwriting. The three songs presented here provide a wonderful mix of sounds and moods, and the closing epic “Traveling Sleepers” is especially emotive and powerful.

Score: 91/100

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Album Review: Opeth – The Last Will and Testament

Band: Opeth | Album: The Last Will and Testament | Genre: Progressive metal, Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: Stockholm, Sweden | Label: Reigning Phoenix

Apple Music

Opeth is a band that really needs no introduction, so I’ll try to keep this brief. They’re one of the giants of progressive metal with some of the best albums ever in that genre. Their run from 1996-2008 is nigh unimpeachable.

But ever since Mikael Åkerfeldt decided to move the band away from metal with their 2011 record Heritage, I’ve been less taken with their music. None of the albums since then have been bad, but they’ve all just kinda lacked that ineffable spark that makes a truly great record. It’s been a lot of decent, fairly heavy retro-prog, but Opeth doesn’t really stand out from the field in that particular style. There’s even a difference between their recent stretch of records and 2003’s Damnation, their first foray into non-metal. Damnation feels much more like classic Opeth than, say, Sorceress. Damnation’s contemplative folkiness suits Mikael’s voice and songwriting better than his recent attempts at drawing from acts like Uriah Heep and Jethro Tull (or at least Tull’s heavier stuff).

The Last Will and Testament, Opeth’s fourteenth full-length album, sees the band return to something closer to their classic mid-aughts sound, making this their strongest release in a while. The album tells the story of a wealthy family and their sordid secrets in the form of the reading of the recently-passed patriarch’s will. Seven of the eight songs on this record are titled “§1-7”.

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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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