Welcome to the top half of The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Albums of 2025. Part One can be found here.
Continue reading “Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1”Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 2: 25-1
Tag: portland
Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26
Welcome to The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Albums of 2025! As usual, this is a two-part list of 50 total entries. Part two is here.
As a reminder, the music on this list spans December 2024 through November 2025. Music from December 2025 will be on the 2026 list. I’m sure there is plenty of good music I missed, but when it comes to the reviewing, this is a one-man operation. (My proofreaders/editors, Kelci and Dan, have been very helpful, as always.) There are also certain trends and styles I simply don’t like very much.
2025 was a fantastic year for progressive rock and related genres. I was spoiled for choice with this list, and this may be the overall-strongest batch of recommendations I’ve given to date.
Continue reading “Best of 2025: Top 50 Prog Albums Part 1: 50-26”Odds & Ends: December 4, 2025
Artist: William Covert | Album: Dream Vessel | Genre: Post-rock, Drone | Bandcamp
Drone is a genre that I largely dislike but do occasionally dabble in. When I run across a drone artist that I do enjoy, it’s usually because they’ve melded those influences with something else. With Neptunian Maximalism, they married drone with heavy, experimental metal. And with William Covert, he has blended it with post-rock and avant-garde jazz. Textures are wide and airy, but it’s not just aimless ambience. Drumming helps give this record a sense of direction, and there are clear structures and throughlines in the individual compositions. The music is spooky, spacy, and artful.
Score: 73/100
Band: Cratophane | Album: Exode | Genre: Progressive rock, Post-metal | Bandcamp
Cratophane’s sophomore album sees this self-described “angular rock” band take a lot of stoner and doom metal influences into their music. There are still jagged riffs and irregular rhythms aplenty, but the band also slows down significantly for extended periods of time. Magma’s influence looms large here, but so does that of bands like Pelican. This is a dark, moody, and semi-psychedelic record that goes to some interesting places. As with many instrumental records, I feel a number of the songs are longer than they need to be, but it’s not too bad.
Score: 76/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: December 4, 2025”Album Review: Stinkbug – Between Timid and Timbuktu
Band: Stinkbug | Album: Between Timid and Timbuktu | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2025
From: Portland, (OR,) USA | Label: Independent
For fans of: Yes, Yezda Urfa, K’mono
Stinkbug is a prime example of why I like going to live music. I discovered them about five days ago (at time of writing) when I went to see Dust Mice perform. (Dust Mice is a Seattle-based space rock band very heavily influenced by Hawkwind, and I only discovered them when I went to go see Everything Oscillating play. And I only know about Everything Oscillating because they’re a Moon Letters side project, whom I first discovered opening for Pinkish Black. Support local live music, folks!) Stinkbug was the second band on the bill, and I was absolutely blown away.
Their sound is definitely rooted in a lot of classic progressive rock, and all four members have experience in jazz. Accordingly, there is a ton of speedy, technical playing and unconventional songwriting on their debut record, Between Timid and Timbuktu. They also add in heavier music, especially thrash metal and punk, but the sound is overall rather sunny and bright.
Continue reading “Album Review: Stinkbug – Between Timid and Timbuktu”Album Review: Rainbow Face – Enjoy This Ruin
Band: Rainbow Face | Album: Enjoy This Ruin | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024
From: Portland, USA | Label: Independent
For fans of: King Crimson, Cardiacs, late ‘70s Pink Floyd
Rainbow Face is a Portland, Oregon-based quartet that plays a brand of prog that draws from some of the heavier classic acts. National Diet is an associated band I’ve covered before, and they’re broadly similar in many regards. Enjoy This Ruin is Rainbow Face’s second full-length release, and the seven songs here have a certain auditory roughness to them that I like a lot. The mood here isn’t too cheery (shocking with an album title like this, I know), but they utilize it to make some really solid music.
Continue reading “Album Review: Rainbow Face – Enjoy This Ruin”Best of 2024: Cool Songs
Welcome to the first installment of The Elite Extremophile’s Best of 2024. Today we’re starting off with Cool Songs, to be followed by the Top EPs tomorrow and the Top Albums on Wednesday and Thursday.
Before we get to it, let me give my usual Best-Of disclaimers. This is a one-man operation, in regard to writing the reviews. My proofreaders Kelci and Dan are very helpful, but I’m sure there was plenty of great music I just simply couldn’t get around to. I’ve also got my own personal biases against certain styles and trends.
And as a reminder, these year-end lists cover music released between December 2023 and November 2024. I spend much of December compiling and editing these lists, so I don’t bother searching for new music released in December until the new year.
This segment is meant to show off great tracks that do not appear on my other year-end lists. If a release makes my best EPs or best albums list, it is disqualified from appearing in this particular segment.
Without further ado, let’s get to it!
Continue reading “Best of 2024: Cool Songs”Album Review: Vylet Pony – Monarch of Monsters
Band: Vylet Pony | Album: Monarch of Monsters | Genre: Alternative rock, Progressive rock | Year: 2024
From: Portland, USA | Label: Horse Friends Music
For fans of: Meer, Tool, angsty music from 1998-2006
This record has been generating a lot of buzz lately, and I think it’s only about 60% related to the semi-erotic furry artwork that graces the album cover. And considering Vylet Pony’s origins, such album art makes sense.
Vylet Pony is a one-woman project based out of Portland. She got her start in music in the early 2010s making My Little Pony-themed electronic music. I’ve never seen My Little Pony. I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine show, but it’s one of those things that had (has? Is brony-dom still going? I don’t wanna research it.) one of the most irritating fanbases I’ve ever encountered. I classify it the same way as things like Steven Universe and Doctor Who: shows I’ve heard generally positive things about but with a fandom so annoying, I’m never going to watch any of it.
However, I strive to be a serious music critic on this site, and acts can evolve well beyond their origins. Hell, if you told me back in college that I’d like a Job for a Cowboy record, I would’ve said you were nuts. If someone got their start in music in a niche I found personally grating, I think I can set that aside if they really have put out a great album.
Now, as regular readers of my site know by now, I’m not a lyrics guy. I like the sound of the human voice, but I usually don’t care about the specific words themselves. There are exceptions, and when there are those exceptions, it’s usually a bad sign for the album in question (*cough* Somalgia *cough*). Monarch of Monsters is based on a novella by the artist. I didn’t read it, and I’m not planning to. I’m writing this during Thanksgiving week, and I don’t really have the time to. (I’m also honestly not much of a fiction reader, either.) I wanted to get that out there for full disclosure.
Continue reading “Album Review: Vylet Pony – Monarch of Monsters”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”Odds & Ends: December 19, 2022
Band: Call Me Ishmael | Album: Cosmic Travellers | Genre: Progressive folk, English folk | Bandcamp
This is some pretty enjoyable prog-folk, with a very heavy emphasis on the folk part. I’m not an expert in the folk music of the British Isles, but when I think of “English folk music,” something not too far off from this pops into my mind. Mixed into that, though, are smart, inventive structures and melodies. And aside from a rather regrettable synth-brass tone on one track, the tonal choices are pleasant. This album does feature the eight-millionth version of “The Unquiet Grave,” though, and this band doesn’t bring anything new to the table there.
Score: 75/100
Artist: Paul Gunn | Album: The Ludwig Suite | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp
This is a lovely little EP. The music incorporates bits of jazz and classical music, and Gunn has a distinctive voice. I get echoes of acts like Gentle Giant, Bubu, and Magma throughout, and I appreciate that this release doesn’t try to do too much. It’s 15 minutes of thoughtful progressive rock that focuses on a few strong ideas. Most of this release is instrumental, but those cuts maintain a strong sense of purpose while weaving together diverse influences
Score: 81/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: December 19, 2022”Odds & Ends: May 16, 2022
Band: Cró! | Album:Buah! | Genre: Progressive rock, Psychedelic rock | Bandcamp
On such a short album, this Spanish quartet manages to cover a huge amount of territory. The title track strongly reminds me of classic Italian acts like PFM or BDMS, and “Coia” is slow-moving and creepy. Other songs touch on alt-rock, funk, and jazzy art-rock. It’s a wonderfully diverse release, and all those different styles are played excellently.
Score: 88/100
Band: Envy of None | Album: Envy of None | Genre: Post-rock | Bandcamp
Envy of None is Alex Lifeson’s new band, and it sounds absolutely nothing like Rush. I went in expecting that, based off the lead single. I knew it was going to be a lot spacier, more atmospheric, and mellower. And while there are a few good songs on the album (“Look Inside”, “Spy House”, “Dog’s Life”), most of this album is a bore. It reminds me of trip-hop–a genre I’m really not crazy about–but without much creativity. Most songs are slow and relatively unvaried. This might be good background music, but I was hoping for dynamism.
Score: 52/100
Continue reading “Odds & Ends: May 16, 2022”
The Elite Extremophile 