Tag: new york

Odds & Ends: September 6, 2022

Band: General Admin | Album: techno techno techno techno | Genre: Math rock | Bandcamp

Leave it to a math rock band to have such an odd album title. (Then again, I might be disappointed by a math act giving a record a straightforward name.) The four tracks on this EP are energetic, anxious, yet also fun. The riffs are flashy, of course, and many of the melodies are surprising. It’s a to-the-point release that comes in, makes a statement, and does its job well.

Score: 77/100

Band: Gospel | Album: MVDM | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp

MVDM is made up of just the titular 21-minute song (which actually has a much longer full title). The song was originally written back in the mid-2000s but lay unfinished for over a decade. This epic features lush, languid synths, technical, mathy riffs, and impassioned hardcore punk-style vocals. The song is exhilarating and features a ton of raw intensity.

Score: 91/100

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Odds & Ends: July 11, 2022

Band: Artificial Brain | Album:Artificial Brain | Genre: Technical death metal, progressive death metal | Bandcamp

I remember there being a lot of hype around this band’s last album–2017’s Infrared Horizon–but it just never quite clicked with me. Their new self-titled album, though, is great. The riffs are blistering, dizzying, and mind-bendingly dissonant. The songs are well-built and feature some wonderful hairpin turns. Amid the mucky morass of gurgling vocals and growling guitars, lead guitar lines are often surprisingly melodic.

Score: 78/100

Band: Bess of Bedlam | Album: Dance until the Crimes End | Genre: Psychedelic folk, Canterbury sound | Bandcamp

This album varies between idyllic folk with psychedelic tinges and some Canterbury-leaning prog-pop. There’s a lot of good music here, but unfortunately, there’s also a fair amount of unspectacular indie-folk-pop. The weak moments are never bad, per se–just dull. And it’s usually quickly counteracted with a good song. If you’re looking for something arty but light, this isn’t a bad option.

Score: 68/100

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Odds & Ends: April 4, 2022

Band: Besna | Album:Zverstvá | Genre: Post-metal | Bandcamp

Besna hails from Slovakia, and they play a variety of melodic black metal and post-metal which artfully weaves together multiple musical ideas. Each of the six songs on this album sprawl without being overlong. The passages blend together seamlessly, and the emotional intensity makes these tracks that much more impactful. I’m also glad that this band sings in their native language, as I quite like the sound of Slovak (and Czech, since they sound so similar, aside from that terrible ř sound the Czechs have).

Score: 82/100

Artist: Tanshuman Das | Album: Progress Report | Genre: Progressive metal, Progressive rock | Bandcamp

Tanshuman Das is a bassist and composer from India who writes music in the vein of ‘90s Dream Theater and similar acts. The music on Progress Report is epic, dramatic, and cinematic. The compositions are intelligently-assembled, and the playing is skillful. This album is a bit longer than it needs to be, but that’s a pretty common issue in this style of music. Overall, though, this is a fun, enjoyable release.

Score: 75/100

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Album Review: Krallice – Crystalline Exhaustion

Band: Krallice |Album:Crystalline Exhaustion | Genre: Progressive metal, Black metal | Year: 2022

From: Queens, USA | Label: Independent

For fans of: Kayo Dot, Kekal, Mgła

Bandcamp

Krallice, a New York-based quartet, are stalwarts of the experimental/progressive black metal scene. From their self-titled debut in 2008 to now, they have consistently put out high-quality music, and each album has had its own distinctive hallmarks.

Crystalline Exhaustion is the band’s eleventh full-length release. I haven’t listened to their previous album (2021’s Demonic Wealth), but I did enjoy their 2020 release, Mass Cathexis. Crystalline Exhaustion continues in their general vein of spaced-out, proggy black metal. 

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Odds & Ends: May 4, 2021

Band: Cicada the Burrower | Album: Corpseflower | Genre: Black metal, Progressive metal | Bandcamp

Corpseflower is a record built around contrasts. One moment, the music is based around murky vocals and jazzy clean guitars, and the next it’s all harsh shrieks and icily distorted guitars. The instrumental work is deft, and the compositional choices are diverse and interesting. My only real complaint is that the two lengthy instrumental cuts feel too long. It’s not a fatal flaw by any means, but both could have been tightened up.

Score: 78/100

Band: Cosmic Void | Album: All Is Lost in Time | Genre: Black metal, Post-metal | Bandcamp

This 30-minute EP doesn’t stray too far outside the normal aesthetic bounds of somewhat-proggy post-black-metal, but it’s done quite well. The quiet moments are haunting with folky undertones, and the loud moments manage to be both icy and expansive. There are some rather inventive riffs and plenty of uncommon chords. I’m also impressed by the structuring of the four songs here. Though the tones and textures are typical of post-black-metal, the songs’ structures are more akin to classic prog acts with multiple distinct movements.

Score: 83/100

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Album Review: Genghis Tron – Dream Weapon

Band: Genghis Tron | Album: Dream Weapon | Genre: Progressive metal, Cybergrind | Year: 2021

From: Poughkeepsie, USA | Label: Relapse

For fans of: Cynic, Gorguts, Justice, the more electronic side of krautrock

Bandcamp

Part of the reason these reviews have been less frequent as of late is that I’m simply having a harder-than-usual time finding new music which really speaks to me. Unless it’s a fairly big-name act, I don’t have much motivation to write 400-800 words on a record where the score will be in the 50s. Thankfully, Dream Weapon came along and snapped me out of that funk.

I’d never heard of Genghis Tron before this album, and I can see why that might have been. They were initially active in the mid-2000s before taking a 13-year hiatus. I’d also never heard of the cybergrind genre, but it’s a fitting name. It takes the aggression and energy of genres like mathcore and grindcore and pumps it through synthesizers galore. (Interesting sidenote: “mathcore” is considered a real word by MS Word, but “grindcore” is not.)

What this record almost reminds me of is Justice’s debut album. Where † is an electronic album with a significant hard rock/heavy metal substrate, Dream Weapon feels like it’s coming from the other direction. It’s definitely a metal album, but electronic music thoroughly imbues its DNA.

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Album Review: Louis de Mieulle – Sid€show 2

Artist: Louis de Mieulle | Album: Sid€show 2 | Genre: Jazz fusion | Year: 2020

From: New York, USA | Label: Dalang Records

For fans of: Return to Forever, Brainticket

Bandcamp | Spotify

Last year, New York-based bassist and composer Louis de Mieulle released Side$how, an instrumental, improvisation consisting of himself, a drummer, and two keyboardists. That album was one of my most pleasant surprises of 2019, given my usual leeriness about instrumental records. He deftly blended a jazzy backbone with proggy flourishes and touches of krautrock, zeuhl, and even electronic music.

On Sid€show 2, de Mieulle follows the same general template. Himself, a drummer, and two keyboardists improvise over a preconceived structure, employing the musical vocabulary of both jazz and progressive rock. Despite the similarities in how these two albums were composed and recorded, they have vastly different characters. Side$how had a bright, sunny atmosphere, but Sid€show 2 has a colder feel to it. Continue reading “Album Review: Louis de Mieulle – Sid€show 2” →

Odds & Ends – March 9, 2020

a1331639050_10Band: Ak’chamel, The Giver Of Illness | Album: The Totemist | Genre: Krautrock, Psychedelic folk | Bandcamp

The Totemist is a swirl of ritualistic atmosphere and repetition. The murky aura augments the contrasts between the sharp notes of the acoustic instruments and the omnipresent, sinister drone. The compositions morph in naturalistic ways, and subtle touches of jazz are worked in amid the faux-shamanic folk, resulting in something quite creative.

Score: 75/100

a2807075973_10Band: Cthulhu Rise | Album: Last | Genre: Progressive rock, Jazz-fusion | Bandcamp

This instrumental Ukrainian band reminds me a lot of Liquid Tension Experiment. The roots of the act’s sound clearly derive from Dream Theater-style melodic prog metal, but jazz plays a large role here too. The individual musicians flaunt their chops on the three songs here, but the soloing always comes off as purposeful. Each track is full of surprising twists and turns, with few ideas sticking around for more than about a minute at a time. Somehow, it avoids feeling disjointed.

Score: 84/100 Continue reading “Odds & Ends – March 9, 2020” →

Album Review: Louis de Mieulle – Side$how

ldmArtist: Louis de Mieulle | Album: Side$how | Genre: Progressive rock, Jazz fusion | Year: 2019

From: New York, USA | Label: Dalang Records

For fans of: Return to Forever, Magma, Brainticket, Probably a lot of those jazzy instrumental metal acts I don’t like

Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music

I’ve been pretty open in my general hesitance toward instrumental albums. I’m not the kind of person to pay attention to lyrics, but the human voice adds so much character to music, which can be quite difficult to make up for with just instruments. I don’t believe I’ve discussed it in any great detail on this site—though I’ve made a few comments about it on Reddit—but I am also not a fan of the current zeitgeist of jazzy, instrumental rock and metal epitomized by acts like Intervals, Plini, and Sithu Aye. So much of it just sounds like aimless, speedy noodling. Thank God this album avoids those pitfalls magnificently.

French-born bassist and composer Louis de Mieulle’s newest album, Side$how, is a constantly-engaging blend of ambitious instrumental progressive rock with many trappings of jazz. Touches of electronic genres and krautrock crop up throughout this release’s 41-minute runtime. Consisting of eight songs, titled “Bed of Nails, Part 1-8”, the music was mostly improvised and recorded live by de Mieulle, a pair of keyboardists, and a drummer. Continue reading “Album Review: Louis de Mieulle – Side$how” →