Welcome back to TheEliteExtremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2019. If you missed Part 1, covering entries 50-26, you can read it here. Continue reading “Top 50 Prog Albums of 2019, Part 2: 25-1”
Top 50 Prog Albums of 2019, Part 2: 25-1
Tag: spain
Top 50 Prog Albums of 2019, Part 1: 50-26
Though this blog is only about a year old, I’ve been publishing music-oriented year-end lists on my personal Facebook since 2010. Those lists have usually covered all releases—albums and EPs—as well as music from genres outside the progosphere. Since starting this blog, I listened to more new music in 2019 than I had in any previous year, and it was even more skewed toward prog and prog-related output than in years past.
To save myself from having to write (and you from having to read) a 100-plus-entry list full of mediocre releases, I’ve instead opted to publish TheEliteExtremophile’s Top 50 Prog Albums of 2019. This post will cover entries 50-26. Part 2, covering the top 25, will be published on Monday.
I’m not publishing album scores here, and past album scores should not be read into too much. Reviews generally reflect something of a first impression, and after months of listening, albums’ standings rise and fall. This list also features some very good albums which I just never reviewed in full.
As a disclaimer, I’m sure there are some excellent albums not included. This 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 affected the composition of this list. But if you’ve got recommendations, do not hesitate to shoot them my way, either through this site, via email, or through my Facebook page. Continue reading “Top 50 Prog Albums of 2019, Part 1: 50-26”
Album Review: Híbrido – I
Band: Híbrido | Album: I | Genre: Progressive rock, Heavy psych | Year: 2019
From: Algeciras, Spain | Label: Spinda Records
For fans of: Mastodon, Antemasque, Yes
Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music
Spain has thriving progressive/experimental rock and metal scenes, and Spanish bands have been featured on this site multiple times. The Spanish label Spinda Records is a recent discovery of mine, and they’re the sort of label I love. Based just north of the border with Gibraltar, they focus on underground, local acts that play progressive and psychedelic music. This support provides such acts with a valuable link to the outside world.
One act which particularly stood out to me was Híbrido. Híbrido’s music straddles a line between desert rock and more traditional progressive rock, which occasionally veers into the territory of a somewhat light version of post-metal. Continue reading “Album Review: Híbrido – I”
Odds & Ends – September 23, 2019
Band: Chaos Over Cosmos | Album: The Unknown Voyage | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp
Chaos Over Cosmos’s debut album draws heavily from acts like Fates Warning and Symphony X. The music is fleshed out with lush synths. There’s no shortage of power metal cheese, both vocally and instrumentally. The songs themselves tend to be pretty long, but they do a good job of keeping the momentum up and not overstaying their welcome.
Score: 73/100
Artist: Richard Henshall | Album: The Cocoon | Genre: Progressive metal, Progressive rock | Bandcamp
The latest album from Haken’s guitarist/keyboardist is exactly what you’d expect. There are tons of speedy, intricate riffs, and smart contrasts of metallic heaviness with moments of jazzy and poppy levity. The soloing is restrained, avoiding the common pitfall of virtuosic masturbation that you often find in this corner of prog. My one real complaint here is that Henshal’s vocals are pretty weak. His chops as a guitarist are solid, but his voice is often weak or strained.
Score: 80/100 Continue reading “Odds & Ends – September 23, 2019”
Odds & Ends – July 11, 2019
Odds & Ends is a recurring column where I cover short releases and albums I wasn’t able to commit enough time to for a full-length review.
Band: Custard Flux | Album: Echo | Genre: Psychedelic rock, folk rock | Bandcamp
Custard Flux has a neat little gimmick. With the exception of one electric guitar solo, all instrumentation is acoustic. This band’s particular blend of psychedelic pop and folk rock with progressive leanings results in something unique. Despite being almost all acoustic, the music is bombastic and impactful, and there’s a nice mix of the straightforward and the weird.
Score: 80/100 Continue reading “Odds & Ends – July 11, 2019”
Album Review: Adrift – Pure
Band: Adrift | Album: Pure | Genre: Post metal, Sludge metal, Progressive metal | Year: 2019
From: Madrid, Spain | Label: Temple of Torturous
For fans of: Isis, Neurosis, early Mastodon
Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon | Apple Music
While not entirely synonymous, “post metal” and “atmospheric doom” are used interchangeably to describe quite a few bands. For some acts, one label is an obviously better fit than the other. For Madrid’s Adrift—with their blend of massive, destructive riffs and spacier, meditative moments—I’d apply both without hesitation.
Pure, this quartet’s fourth full-length album (and their first since 2012), is one of the least overtly “proggy” records I’ve written about so far, but that doesn’t take away from its ambition, experimentation, or adventurous spirit. The album is filled with insistent, tumultuous riffs the charge forward in strange rhythms and engaging structures. Continue reading “Album Review: Adrift – Pure”
Album Review: Pyramidal – Pyramidal
Band: Pyramidal | Album: Pyramidal | Genre: Space rock, Progressive rock | Year: 2019
From: Alicante, Spain | Label: Krauted Mind Records/Lay Bare Recordings
For fans of: Hawkwind, Änglagård, Magma, Elder
Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon | Apple Music
If there’s one thing the current progressive rock scene does not lack, it’s mostly-instrumental stoner metal acts which bill themselves as “progressive” despite lacking any real musical adventurousness. An upsetting number of bands regularly release albums full of uninteresting 15-minute heavy blues jams and label it as “space rock” or “progressive rock”. Thankfully, Pyramidal are not one of those acts. They lean heavily on early Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath influences, like many of those aforementioned stoner acts, but Pyramidal couple those influence with more daring jazz, krautrock, and even zeuhl influences.
Pyramidal is a band that’s been on my radar for a while, and with the release of their self-titled fourth studio album, I’m pleased to find that they’ve hit a new high in their songwriting and instrumental skill. In addition to the core band members, the group brought in a few guests to contribute saxophone, violin, and synthesizers. This is doubtless their most ambitious, progressive release to date. Continue reading “Album Review: Pyramidal – Pyramidal”
Album Review: Pervy Perkin – Comedia: Inferno
Band: Pervy Perkin | Album: Comedia: Inferno | Genre: Progressive metal, Progressive rock, Death metal | Year: 2019
From: Madrid, Spain | Label: Independent
For fans of: Dream Theater, Between the Buried and Me, Cynic, Porcupine Tree
Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music
Literary references are nothing new in the fields of rock and metal. Grim writings, in particular, have provided musical inspiration to artists ranging from metal bands like Mastodon to acts as impressively-un-metallic as The Alan Parsons Project. The Inferno section of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is one of the most-referenced works in the whole of the literary canon. In spite of this, Comedia: Inferno, is an inventive, original, and enthralling album.
Each of the nine songs represents one of Dante’s nine concentric circles of Hell. Pervy Perkin’s music has always been heavy, but they turned up the aggression sharply here to match the dark subject matter. Continue reading “Album Review: Pervy Perkin – Comedia: Inferno”
Odds and Ends – March 21, 2019
Odds and Ends is a segment where I do brief reviews of albums I either didn’t prioritize for longer-form reviews, or ones for which I don’t have that much to say.
Band: Cheeto’s Magazine | Album: Amazingous | Genre: Progressive rock, Pop, Progressive metal | Bandcamp
This album was a disorienting experience. Cheeto’s Magazine blend sunshiny pop with metal riffs and complex structures. The closest analogue I can think of would be A.C.T., though this has an even more aggressively poppy edge. The songwriting is consistently ambitious, and there are some moments reminiscent of Dream Theater’s better output. I give them a lot of credit for ambition, but the juxtaposition of metal with those bubblegum synths is often jarring.
Score: 69/100 Continue reading “Odds and Ends – March 21, 2019”
Lesser-Known Gem: Mezquita – Recuerdos de mi tierra
Band: Mezquita | Album: Recuerdos de mi tierra | Year: 1979 | Genre: Progressive rock, Flamenco-rock
From: Córdoba, Spain | Label: Chapa Discos
For Fans Of: Yezda Urfa, Gentle Giant, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Flamenco music
Córdoba was a stronghold of Islamic culture and influence from its conquest by the Umayyads in 711 until its recapture by the Castilian-Leonese king in 1231. Those five centuries of Islamic rule left an indelible influence on the region’s culture, most notably in music and architecture.
Mezquita was formed in Córdoba in 1978, in the wake of the death of Francisco Franco and Spain’s transition to democracy. This quartet drew heavily upon local Andalusian history as a center of Islamic culture: “mezquita” is Spanish for mosque, the album cover features Arabic text, and the music is powered by Moorish influences alongside Spanish ones. Continue reading “Lesser-Known Gem: Mezquita – Recuerdos de mi tierra”
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