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

Continue reading →

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

Continue reading →

Odds & Ends: December 9, 2024

Band: Celeste | Album: Echi di un Futuro Passato | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp

Celeste is an Italian band that put out one album in 1976, disbanded, and then reunited in the late 2010s. Despite hailing from Italy, their style of prog has never felt particularly Italian. The music here (and throughout their discography) is light, breezy, and laid-back. Jazz flourishes are ample, and I really like the keyboard tones. This is a nice, relaxing bit of music to have on in the background, but it doesn’t really have enough to grab onto for active listening.

Score: 64/100

Band: Five the Hierophant | Album: Apeiron | Genre: Post-metal, Progressive metal | Bandcamp

Instrumental post-metal band Five the Hierophant blends biting, buzzy saxophone with sludgy guitars and plodding rhythms. In many ways, this band reminds me of a metallic, instrumental version of Van der Graaf Generator. They draw heavily from dark, jazz-influenced classic prog, like King Crimson and the aforementioned VdGG. Little bits of Middle Eastern music crop up on “Moon Over Ziggurat”, and the two-part “Tower of Silence” features unsettling drone and electronic elements. Though the songs are long, their length feels appropriate. The music is clearly carefully constructed, and no notes are wasted.

Score: 85/100

Continue reading →

Odds & Ends: December 2, 2024

Band: Anciients | Album: Beyond the Reach of the Sun | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp

“Anciients” is one of my least-favorite band names. Certain dumb misspellings can be fun (see: Kömmand, Toxik, Vektor), but just slapping another “i” in there seems stupid. That being said, the focus of this site isn’t on bands’ names, but rather on the music they put out. And if I weren’t able to look past names I dislike, I’d never be able to enjoy acts like Between the Buried and Me or And So I Watch You from Afar.

Anciients is one of those bands that is adored by the likes of r/progmetal, and which I enjoy but do not view quite so worshipfully. Think Caligula’s Horse, Devin Townsend, or recent Haken. Beyond the Reach of the Sun, though, resonates with me more than this band’s prior work. Melodic, Dream Theater-influenced prog metal coexists with heavier sludge-influenced passages, and it results in some exciting compositions. Some slower cuts can take a little long to get going (I’m especially looking at you, “Is It Your God”), but the payoff is usually worth it.

Score: 78/100

Band: delving | Album: All Paths Diverge | Genre: Post-rock, Progressive rock | Bandcamp

Elder frontman Nicholas DiSalvo is back with his second album under the delving name. It continues in a vein similar to the first delving record, but I like this one more. Hirschbrunnen, released in 2021, is a passable but forgettable post-rock album. All Paths Diverge has more complex and purposeful compositions. I really like how thoroughly keyboards have been integrated, and the guitar tones are lovely. This very much feels like a non-metallic, dreamier version of Elder, and that twist on Elder’s sound works really well. Like any hour-long instrumental post-rock record, there’s some bloat, but this is a release where the vibes and atmospheres are more important than any specific riff.

Score: 79/100

Continue reading →

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”.

Continue reading →

Album Review: Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja

Band: Oranssi Pazuzu | Album: Muuntautuja | Genre: Psychedelic black metal | Year: 2024

From: Tampere, Finland | Label: Nuclear Blast

For fans of: Hail Spirit Noir, Krallice, Sigh

Bandcamp

Black metal is one of relatively few styles of metal that seems to mesh well with psychedelia. (Or maybe only black metal acts are disproportionately willing to dabble in it.) It makes sense how one can make that leap, since classic psych often was categorized as such primarily on its instrumental tones, and black metal often focuses on having an atmosphere that ebbs and flows fluidly with searing tremolo picking and expansive walls of guitar. Just take a look at Sigh, Hail Spirit Noir, or these guys, Finnish five-piece Oranssi Pazuzu.

Their last release, 2020’s Mestarin kynsi, was a really solid release that I enjoyed a lot. Its hazy, swirling atmosphere made it a prime candidate for repeated listens, as something new always emerges from the sonic slurry. Muuntautuja sees Oranssi Pazuzu push some new boundaries, incorporating synthesizers and electronic elements to a significant degree.

Continue reading →

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.”

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

Odds & Ends: October 7, 2024

Band: Chafouin | Album: In C | Genre: Minimalism, Krautrock, Math rock | Bandcamp

For their latest release, Chafouin tackle minimalist composer Terry Riley’s 1968 work, In C. This work has been covered by a number of other rock bands, most notably Acid Mothers Temple. The music has a tense, anxious feel to it, and the ritualistic repetition calls to mind other proggy subgenres, like krautrock and zeuhl. King Crimson’s work on THRAK also bears similarities, with the jagged, hypnotic, interlocking guitar lines.

Score: 79/100

Artist: Clarissa Connelly | Album: World of Work | Genre: Progressive folk, Experimental pop | Bandcamp

Before addressing the music, let me just compliment this album cover. I love that goofy, devious-looking piano. The music on World of Work is piano-forward, and Connelly’s voice is distinctive and emotive. Arrangements are minimal but inventive, and the vocal arrangements are intricate and charming. Things are rather sonically similar song-to-song, so it can kinda bleed together into a bit of a mush by the end of the album. I still like it overall, but a bit more variation would’ve been nice.

Score: 75/100

Continue reading →

Album Review: Papangu – Lampião Rei

Band: Papangu | Album: Lampião Rei | Genre: Progressive rock, Zeuhl, Jazz-rock | Year: 2024

From: João Pessoa, Brazil | Label: Chumbo Grosso Records

For fans of: Magma, King Crimson, Sigh, Herbie Hancock’s ‘70s stuff

Bandcamp

Papangu are back three years after their absolutely spectacular debut album, Holoceno. Their new album, Lampião Rei, carries on in their unique vein of zeuhl, prog, and metal, but there have been some changes between the records. Holoceno is an unrelenting assault of Magma-tinged sludge metal. It’s an eco-apocalyptic tale, and the music serves to build intense senses of dread and unease. Lampião Rei, in contrast, is quite a bit lighter. Significant chunks of this album are metallic, but the band draws more clearly from jazz and classic prog here.

Part of the reason for this shift in sound (aside from adding new members to the band) is that the subject matter here isn’t quite as grim as on their debut. It tells the story of Lampião, a Brazilian bandit leader and folk hero whose heyday was in the 1920s and 30s. This album doesn’t cover Lampião’s betrayal, capture, and beheading (though the band says they’ll do that on a future release), so there isn’t the same need for Holoceno’s oppressive mood.

Continue reading →