Arriving three years after their last effort, Perilymph’s fourth album, Progressions Imaginaires, is this group’s newest output. I’ve covered this band a couple times in the past, and I’ve always enjoyed their work. They have always done a great job at contrasting spare, acoustic passages with big, warm retro synth tones.
Perilymph’s past work has often straddled the always-fuzzy line between psych and prog. That has a lot to do with the way that they evoke the instrumental tones of the late 1960s, when psych and prog were both in their infancies and it was all a big mushy blob of forward-thinking rock music. This album, though, sees the band pushing in a more clearly progressive direction. The tones and textures are as lush and psychedelic as ever, but the songwriting is more dynamic, mature, and inventive.
Band: 55YT MQRT | Album:55YT MQRT | Genre: Space rock, Progressive rock | Bandcamp
This band’s name might look like a license plate number, but their sound isn’t nearly that ordinary. They play a vast, cosmic variety of heavy psych and prog, and the album art of an astronaut traveling through an ancient temple is weirdly fitting. The soundscapes are vast and huge, and everything has a massive amount of weight behind it. Even though this album is a bit on the long side, it works. This is the sort of music where stretching out benefits the band.
Score: 80/100
Band: AKU | Album:Solipsism | Genre: Jazz-fusion | Bandcamp
The six songs on Solipsism effortlessly blend jazz and progressive rock into a rich, organic melange. Each of the four members of the band puts on a great showing. Guitar is the lead instrument more often than not, but the keys are smartly deployed and add a great depth. The bass playing is punchy and energetic, and the drumming is skillful and varied.
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).
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!
Welcome to The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog EPs of 2023. The two-part Top 50 Albums list will be posted in the coming days.
As I stated last year, due to the variable number of short releases I run across year-to-year, this list is not limited to a firm number. This year, there were eight EPs I felt worth highlighting.
And where last year had all releases clocking in at under 30 minutes, this year’s collection is a bit more vibes-based. Some EPs fall within last year’s parameters, but others are noticeably longer. I’ve always taken an “I’ll know it when I see it” approach to categorizing EPs and LPs.
Welcome to the fifth annual installment of The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Releases. 2023 was an exceptional year for prog and prog-adjacent genres, and I was left with a glut of good music that wasn’t going to make my year-end lists. Even in less-stellar years, there are often records that I’m overall unimpressed with, which just so happen to have a great song or two on them. Thus, from a desire to not give such releases the short shrift, I’ve decided to highlight ten Cool Songs from this year.
This segment is meant to show off great tracks that otherwise do not appear on my year-end lists. If a release makes my best EPs or best albums list, it is disqualified from appearing in this particular segment.
Band: Frankie and the Witch Fingers | Album:Data Doom | Genre: Progressive rock, Krautrock | Bandcamp
Frankie and the Witch Fingers remind me a lot of Osees. The music is fierce, energetic, and shot-through with punk influences. But the riffs are usually weird and angular, with uncommon meters. Despite a lot of the overt, aggressive tendencies of this band, the music remains relatively accessible. There are plenty of melodic hooks and catchy riffs and themes. “Syster System” is one hell of an earworm, and “Doom Boom” has a groovy, King Gizzard-esque feel to it.
Score: 80/100
Band: Gong | Album:Unending Ascending | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp
Once you get outside the very big names of progressive rock (Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, etc), Gong is one of the better-known second-echelon prog acts. I’m honestly not that familiar with their output beyond their Pot Head Pixie trilogy of the early 1970s. Looking over their Wikipedia article however, they have been incredibly prolific, with numerous projects labeled “So-and-so’s Gong” also being considered part of their oeuvre. Maybe I’ll eventually do a Gong Deep Dive, but seeing all the various Gong-adjacent projects makes that a daunting prospect. I’ve also discussed Yes being a ship of Theseus, but they ain’t got nothin’ on Gong. There’s a whole damn Wikipedia article on the topic. Just look at this graphic!
Moving onto the music of Unending Ascending, it’s pretty decent. It’s psychedelic in feel, with a lot of space rock elements. The playing and compositions are complex and thoughtful. There are some weaker moments, like the sleepy and overlong “Ship of Ishtar”, but most of the record manages to be engaging and entertaining. Despite none of the current members of Gong having been in the band prior to 2007, they do a great job of maintaining the spirit of the classic Gong sound.
The latest release from this Australian act draws upon the Central Asian folk-meets-progressive metal flavors of their last release and hones them even more. Here, much of the focus is on an Afghan instrument, the rubab. It lends a distinct folky and esoteric character to these three songs. This EP is both meditative and impactful, drawing from Afghan folk traditions and modern progressive and post-rock scenes.
Score: 74/100
Band: Mellow Beast | Album:Reactor | Genre: Space rock, Progressive rock | Bandcamp
Mellow Beast’s third release of the year is their strongest of the bunch. Many of this band’s releases are interconnected and tell the story of the land of Hyperion. As such, this release focuses on the story of a gnome trying to save Hyperion after a great cataclysm. The music is psychedelic and awash in effects-laden guitar lines. There’s a fine line being tread here between tight, focused, melodic passages and a desire to stretch things out and jam. It all works together excellently, and I love the way musical themes are occasionally repeated to give everything a sense of continuity.
Band: Agusa | Album:Prima Materia | Genre: Progressive rock, Psychedelic rock | Bandcamp
The newest release from this (mostly) instrumental Swedish act sees them push in a more overtly psychedelic direction. In the opening track, blues flavors are prominent alongside jazzy flourishes. “Under bar himmel” has a dreamier feel to it; it strongly channels Camel’s gentlest moments. This cut features a great slow build, and it’s probably my favorite on the album. “Ur askan” is bouncy and organ-forward, and the closing “Så ock på jorden” has some fun, funky wah-wahed guitar that complements the band’s usual Camel-isms quite well. Parts of this album can run a bit long, but it’s overall another solid release from this band. If you like Camel or some of the jazzier classic prog acts, you’ll probably like this one a lot.
Bands like Bear Ghost always split my opinion. On the one hand, there is no denying that they’re fantastic musicians who write unique, creative music full of twists and surprises. On the other hand, there’s an overwhelming atmosphere of camp, corniness, and self-aware goofiness. I don’t need my prog to be as dour as King Crimson, but I’m not looking for something with its tongue always and invariably in-cheek. In that way, they remind me a lot of Devin Townsend, an artist for whom I have similarly mixed feelings. Despite their technical prowess, a lot of this material comes off as purposelessly weird-for-weirdness’s-sake. (The vocals are also just way too over-enunciated, and that gets under my skin. It reminds me of children’s music at times.) So, I would say, if you like the overt silliness of acts like Cheeto’s Magazine, or Devin Townsend’s cartoonier music (such as Z2), you’ll probably like this a lot. But if you’re like me, and you tend to be more annoyed than enthused by kitchen-sink weirdness, you might want to skip it.
I generally do my best to be positive on this site. I cover music I like (mostly), and I aim to give acts the benefit of the doubt when possible. I’ve heard it said that critics should be curators, not gatekeepers, and that is an ethos I strive for. But every now and then, you run across a flaming pile of shit so spectacularly bad, you have to stop and gawk. It’s a trainwreck with bodies strewn everywhere, and the mere sight of it makes you sick, but you can’t look away. And to top it all off, the person driving the train is a notoriously unpleasant curmudgeon. When a situation like this arises, it’s hard not to react to the spectacle.
Having a nice, long hate on an album can be a fun, cathartic exercise on occasion. I haven’t really done that on this site before now, but it’s something I did a number of times when I was writing reviews on my personal Facebook page. The Astonishing, Dream Theater’s overblown, under-thought rock opera, was a particularly fun record to bash. I’m looking forward to expanding on that in my eventual Dream Theater Deep Dive. (I did bash Leprous’s last two albums pretty hard, but even my Aphelion review found some limited good.)
I touched on this briefly in my Pink Floyd Deep Dive, but Roger Waters is pretty easy and fun to dislike. He often comes off as a self-important douche who is deeply unpleasant to spend time around. Normal, likable people don’t get married five times or have irreparable rifts with coworkers. Sure, his politics are not too terribly different from my own on most fronts, but his sanctimony goes a long way in making me second-guess those overlapping views.
He only seems to have gotten more unpleasant in his old age, too. His spats with David Gilmour, which seemed to have quieted down a bit in the mid-2000s, have only flared back up as nasty as ever in recent years. And the dude is even on Russia’s side in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Add into that mix some additional ridiculous, egotistical statements–like his bitter, petulant outburst that he is “far, far, far more important” than The Weeknd when the Canadian press didn’t give his tour enough attention–and it’s easy to see why it’s hard to look away from his nonsense.
Now, to Roger’s credit, he’s not intending for this to be a replacement for The Dark Side of the Moon. This work is presented as a different take on things. The album is a reflection on life and death, and re-recording it with another fifty years of life experience sounds like a concept that could work… theoretically. The problem is, Roger’s best work was always strongly reliant on David Gilmour and Rick Wright providing significant musical input. This manifestation of Dark Side simply lacks that ineffable spark that made the original one of the greatest rock albums of all time. In many ways, this release feels like him attempting to diminish the importance of the other members of Pink Floyd and cast himself as the act’s true creative force.
The Elite Extremophile 