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.

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.

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: August 5, 2024

Band: Ceiling Spirits | Album: The Bloodwren | Genre: Post-rock | Bandcamp

Hailing from Milwaukee, this classical-influenced ensemble plays a spacey, morose variety of post-rock. Violin and piano weave evocative textures, and the individual passages range from fluid and mournful to jittery and technical. Guitar is minimized overall on this release, but when it shows up, either as a lead instrument or as support, the tones utilized are always a perfect complement to the atmosphere. I often find post-rock to be aimless, but this album does a great job at maintaining focus. The rich orchestration does an amazing job of adding emotional weight to everything as well. The closing drone track isn’t even that bad, though it definitely didn’t need to be 8 minutes long.

Score: 77/100

Band: Gender Studies | Album: Далекий Лиман | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp

Gender Studies is a Ukrainian band that plays a garage-y, jazz-inflected variety of progressive rock. The six songs on this LP demonstrate intelligent and creative writing, catchy melodies, and diverse influences. Slavic folk crops up here and there amid Return to Forever-style jazz-rock and harder-rocking passages.

Score: 81/100

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Album Review: Arctic Sleep – Kindred Spirits

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Band: Arctic Sleep | Album: Kindred Spirits | Genre: Doom metal, Progressive metal, Post metal | Year: 2019

From: Milwaukee, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Agalloch, Fates Warning, Subrosa, Yob

Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon | Apple Music

The story of this album began late last year, when I received an email announcing a Kickstarter campaign to fund a physical release of Kindred Spirits. I’m often hesitant about pre-ordering much of anything, but I liked 2014’s Passage of Gaia enough that I decided to go for it. I received the LP a few days before the album’s official release, and I was pleased to find I liked this album even better than the last.

Arctic Sleep, hailing from Wisconsin, is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Keith D, who handles every instrument except for drums. Kindred Spirits is the seventh release from the band. It’s not a radical departure from Arctic Sleep’s usual sound, but it’s an evolutionary step that sees continued refinement and development of a unique niche. Continue reading “Album Review: Arctic Sleep – Kindred Spirits” →