Tag: heavy psych

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).

Continue reading “Album Review: Slift – Ilion” →

Best of 2023: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26

Welcome to the first half of The Elite Extremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2023. This article covers spots 50-26, and the top 25 will follow soon!

As a reminder: the label of “2023” is not entirely accurate. The music featured here covers December 2022 through November 2023. Trying to find new music in the month of December is a fool’s errand, as much of my time during that month is occupied with writing and editing this list.

As I always say, I’m sure there are some excellent albums not included on my list. This site is a one-man operation (in relation to reviewing, that is; my editors, Kelci and Dan, have been tremendously helpful), and I simply cannot listen to everything that gets released. I also have my personal biases against some rather popular trends in prog. (*cough* djent *cough*)

2023 wound up being an excellent year for the type of music I enjoy. While it wasn’t necessarily difficult to whittle the list down to fifty entries, some of the albums that failed to make the cut for this year’s list probably could place as high as the low thirties in weaker years. (Such acts include Loma Baja, The Ocean, Legendry, and Lil Yachty.) I contemplated expanding the list, but this already takes up a ton of my time as it is. So, let’s get to it!

Continue reading “Best of 2023: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26” →

Odds & Ends: December 11, 2023

Band: CHROMB! | Album: Cinq | Genre: RIO, Avant-prog | Bandcamp

CHROMB!’s appropriately-titled fifth album, Cinq, is a solid return to what I love about them. I wasn’t nuts about their 2020 release, Le livre des merveilles. One of their trademark characteristics is their frenetic, madcap energy, but that release saw them try to trim back those elements of their sound. Cinq has that irrepressible oddness and liveliness I love, but it’s been distilled into shorter, more focused compositions. As much as I love their sprawling 2016 release, 1000, sometimes you just want 33 minutes of to-the-point avant-prog.

Score: 78/100

Band: Howling Giant | Album: Glass Future | Genre: Heavy psych, Progressive rock | Bandcamp

Though nothing here matches the scope or scale of their 2020 epic, “Masamune”, Glass Future provides plenty of solid music. Hints of the band’s stoner roots can be heard in their riffs, but the arrangements are lush, thoughtful, and complex. Organ adds a powerful richness to the sound, and the vocal performances are strong. Melodies are catchy, yet inventive and unique. The songs on this album are all relatively short, but they don’t feel rushed. 

Score: 80/100

Continue reading “Odds & Ends: December 11, 2023” →

Odds & Ends: December 4, 2023

Band: Antisoph | Album: non satis | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp

This German band’s latest release is a pretty neat 3-song EP. The riffs are inventive, weird, and abstract, and the vocal performance is pretty strong as well. I like the bits of jazz and post-metal influence they included in this release. The one downside is that not all of these songs needed to exceed seven minutes. 

Score: 72/100

Band: The Flood | Album: Tail of the Whale | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp

I like this album a lot; probably more than most folks, and for pretty specific-to-me reasons. The music here is solid, even tossing aside my own specific fondness. It’s often slow-moving, lush, and impassioned. Jazz and classical touches are incorporated quite nicely. The vocals are a bit weak though, and I could see them grating on some people. But that’s honestly part of the reason why I like this album. When I was first really getting into progressive rock, I did it primarily through a number of now-long-dead-or-defunct Blogspot sites with links to Mediafire or Rapidshare. And The Flood reminds me a lot of the bands I discovered through those sites: rich, symphonic prog from mainland Europe with slightly-rough production and a vocalist with a noticeable accent. (For a few examples of bands like this, check out Prof. Wolfff, P2O5, Womega, or Phylter.) It’s a very specific sort of nostalgia from my high school and college years that I don’t expect many to relate to. But this is my site, and you’re here to read my opinion.

Score: 81/100

Continue reading “Odds & Ends: December 4, 2023” →

Odds & Ends: April 3, 2023

Band: Enslaved | Album: Heimdal | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp

If nothing else, Enslaved is a very consistent band. They’ve got a sound they stick to pretty well, and they release albums reasonably often. However, this can also lead to a number of their albums bleeding together into a vague mush of proggy, blackish metal. Heimdal is certainly better than Utgard, but it still doesn’t do much to stand out in their discography. Maybe it’ll grow on me; Enslaved’s best albums have always taken a few listens to sink in. But as it stands, after a couple listens, this is a perfectly fine–though inessential–release.

Score: 74/100

Band: Fistfights with Wolves | Album: The Sheep That Eats The Wolf | Genre: RIO, Zeuhl, Progressive rock | Bandcamp

This short release has some good ideas on it, but the problem is there aren’t quite enough of them to justify the 28-minute runtime. This band is clearly heavily influenced by Magma, especially in their vocal arrangements, but they feel like a bit of a one-trick pony. None of the songs stood out that much, and the 12-part mini-suite “RMFP” is scattershot and unfocused. The opening “Skeletons” is pretty good, so maybe this should have just been a single with one other tightened-up song.

Score: 61/100

Continue reading “Odds & Ends: April 3, 2023” →

Odds & Ends: February 6, 2023

Band: Astrochemists | Album: Starman Rising | Genre: Space rock | Bandcamp

The latest release from this instrumental Singaporean act consists of just one massive 32-minute epic. This composition is full of driving riffs and intergalactic synth embellishments. It’s got an infectious energy to it, and it holds up very well both as background music and as a showpiece.

Score: 79/100

Band: Bál | Album: Fénytelen | Genre: Black metal, Post-metal | Bandcamp

The latest release from this one-man project out of Hungary consists of just a pair of epic tracks. The first, “Sötétség”, features piano passages that remind me of Arcturus. The meat of this song is pummeling, but the effect of the distorted arpeggi as they float is quite pretty. “Homály” opens with similar artsy piano lines, and the riffs are punchier overall. Both tracks are pretty solid, and if you’re looking for moody, complex black metal, this is a good choice.

Score: 77/100

Continue reading “Odds & Ends: February 6, 2023” →

Top 50 Prog Albums of 2022, Part 1: 50-26

Welcome to the first half of The Elite Extremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2022. This article covers spots 50-26, and the top 25 can be found here!

Full disclosure: the label of “2022” is not entirely accurate. The music featured here covers December 2021 through November 2022. Trying to find new music in the month of December is a fool’s errand, as much of my time during that month is occupied with writing and editing this list.

As I always say, I’m sure there are some excellent albums not included in my list. This site is a one-man operation (in relation to reviewing, that is; my editors, Kelci and Dan, have been tremendously helpful), and I simply cannot listen to everything that gets released. I also have my personal biases against some rather popular trends in prog, which affects the composition of this list. But if you’ve got recommendations, do not hesitate to shoot them my way.

2022 wound up being a decent overall year for prog. It felt as if the year started off slowly, and there definitely were fewer albums that truly knocked my socks off, as compared to other years. However, there was still a lot of super-solid prog, psych, and otherwise-weird and experimental music to be heard. And I listened to more albums than ever before, which allowed me to draw from a larger pool. That meant I had to make some tough decisions about the final composition of this list, and deciding on the final order was challenging. Outside of the top 7 or 8, most of these albums could have easily been placed several spots higher or lower, depending on my mood.

Now, let’s get to it!

Continue reading “Top 50 Prog Albums of 2022, Part 1: 50-26” →

Album Review: Elder – Innate Passage

Band: Elder | Album: Innate Passage | Genre: Heavy psych, Progressive rock, Post-rock | Year: 2022

From: Boston, USA (originally); Berlin, Germany (currently) | Label: Armageddon Records (USA), Stickman Records (elsewhere)

Bandcamp

Elder is a big enough name in the world of progressive rock and progressive metal that I figured I could probably safely exclude the “For fans of” section from my header. Their sound is a distinctive mix of heavy psych, progressive rock, and stoner metal that is (usually) smart, technical, accessible, and expansive.

Continue reading “Album Review: Elder – Innate Passage” →