Odds & Ends: November 4, 2024

Band: Arcane Atlas | Album: Constellation Plus | Genre: Progressive rock, Art rock | Bandcamp

Arcane Atlas plays a relatively light and relaxing variety of prog. Expansive atmospheres and lush textures have a calming effect, and there are some really enchanting passages here. ‘90s Rush and ‘90s Yes are the most obvious influences to my ear. This album’s instrumental moments are its best. This duo does a great job at establishing a mood and toying around with drama. Not everything here is a winner (“Sample”, in particular, was a tough listen for me), but this band’s occasional veers into soft rock are forgivable in the end. If you’re looking for something intelligent but soothing, Constellation Plus is a good choice.

Score: 76/100

Band: Bent Knee | Album: Twenty Pills Without Water | Genre: Art rock | Bandcamp

This is a welcome return to form for Bent Knee after their unimpressive last outing. Smart pop hooks are mixed in amidst creative and surprising arrangements. The textures are lush, and the vocals are strong, as usual. Parts of this record can veer into less-distinctive sorta-art-poppy-type stuff every now and then, but overall, Bent Knee does a great job at weaving together accessible and inventive elements.

Score: 79/100

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Album Review: Geordie Greep – The New Sound

Artist: Geordie Greep | Album: The New Sound | Genre: Progressive rock | Year: 2024

From: London, UK | Label: Rough Trade

For fans of: black midi (duh), Frank Zappa, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Bandcamp

Geordie Greep is the vocalist and guitarist for the recently-disbanded avant-prog band black midi. That act made quite a name for themselves over their last two albums, Cavalcade and Hellfire, both of which I like a lot. Their dissolution was sudden and seemed to catch everyone by surprise, but Geordie–whose unique voice and jumpy, angular guitar were key elements of their sound–has come out with his solo debut

The New Sound is a sprawling double-album that largely carries black midi’s flame. Some of his former band’s songs featured the occasional tropicalia influence, but that element is much more prominent here. Avant-garde tendencies are toned down, and jazziness is cranked up. Much of this record was recorded in Brazil with local musicians, so that likely further solidified Greep’s clear underlying love for this style of music.

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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.

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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

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Album Review: Beak> – >>>>

Band: Beak> | Album: >>>> | Genre: Post-rock, Krautrock | Year: 2024

From: Bristol, UK | Label: Invada Records

For fans of: late ‘60s Pink Floyd, Neu!, Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Bandcamp

I’m pretty sure this is the first record I’ve reviewed with a completely unpronounceable title. Thankfully, this is a text-based site, so I don’t need to say “greater-than sign, greater-than sign, greater-than sign, greater-than sign.” Such odd, ASCII-inspired titles are not entirely uncommon in certain styles of music. Math rock and many types of electronica dabble in it, and Beak> are math-rock adjacent. Most of this record is more in the vein of hazy, psychedelic, kraut-y post-rock, but post-rock and math rock do share quite a bit of DNA.

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Odds & Ends: September 2, 2024

Band: Burnt Log | Album: Time Is a Heron Waiting for Prey | Genre: Progressive rock, Dream pop | Bandcamp

Burnt Log is a one-man project based out of Scotland. The songs skillfully combine intelligent, progressive song structures with floating, dreamy atmospheres. Melodies are smart but accessible, and there’s a vague sense of nostalgia to much of the music here. Touches of post-punk, new wave, and even post-rock crop up here and there. Some passages are perhaps a bit too dream-poppy for my taste, but this is still an overall solid and interesting release.

Score: 72/100

Band: FILESHAREMAIDEN | Album: Veuve | Genre: Progressive metal, Technical death metal | Bandcamp

The first full-length release from Quebecois death metallers File Share Maiden is a swirling, tangled thicket of finger-twisting riffs, guttural vocals, and even moments of surprising lightness. There are many exciting, fun passages that demonstrate both technical skills and songwriting smarts. However, this band also falls victim to the common excesses of other tech-death acts. Many songs are longer than they need to be, and a number of cuts border on purposelessness. That said, there’s still plenty of great material here.

Score: 70/100

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Odds & Ends: July 15, 2024

Band: Абстрактор (Abstraktor) | Album: Мать (Mat’, Eng. Mother) | Genre: Progressive folk | Bandcamp

This Russian quartet plays a smart, artsy variety of folk rock. They blend their own Slavic roots with jazz, modern classical, indie rock, and other bits and pieces from around the globe. The instrumentation is often intricate and full of unexpected twists. They build lush and varied textures, and they’re able to blend strong pop sensibilities with a spirit of adventurousness and experimentation.

Score: 81/100

Band: Agusa | Album: Noir | Genre: Progressive rock, Space rock | Bandcamp

I liked this release a lot more than I expected to. Agusa is a band I like–each of their last two albums have made my year-end Top 50 lists, after all–but one of my gripes is that they can be a bit noodly and long-winded. This album is a soundtrack for a film, so I was particularly cautious. Would the scattershot nature of soundtracks hamstring this work? Instead, this is a delightfully varied yet purposeful and coherent release. Folk, jazz, and space rock elements are incorporated naturally, alongside Agusa’s usual prog stylings. This album is also more consistently lighthearted than much of their other work, which is a nice change of pace. The shorter runtimes for these tracks also behoove the band, as they’re able to put forward fun ideas and meditate on them for a bit without needing to build some huge suite. Things do sag and slow down a bit near the album’s end, but it’s far from a fatal flaw in this case.

Score: 76/100

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Lesser-Known Gem: T2 – It’ll All Work Out in Boomland

Band: T2 | Album: It’ll All Work Out in Boomland | Genre: Progressive rock, Hard rock | Year: 1970

From: London, UK | Label: Decca

For fans of: Cream, early King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix, Rush

Listen

As I mentioned in a recent review, I’ve been on something of an avant-prog kick, almost by accident. In the last month or so, the most exceptionally and intentionally weird things have leapt out the most to me. In turn, this oversaturation of weirdness is starting to cause a bit of avant-burnout on my end. I feel like I need a palate cleanser. So, instead of scouring through Bandcamp in the hopes of finding something new and wonderful to cover, I’ve dipped back into my (very) occasional series, Lesser-Known Gems. As far as potential candidates for this series go, T2’s debut album, It’ll All Work Out in Boomland, is probably the best-known that I’ll cover. I recently compiled a list of around forty potential LKG subjects, and this album has, by far, the most reviews and ratings on Rate Your Music of anything on that list.

It’ll All Work Out in Boomland may be the framing device I’ll use for this column, but you can almost think of this as a mini-Deep Dive (Shallow Dive?). Boomland will be the primary focus, but I’ll also write to some extent about the archival release, T.2., and their three albums they put out in the 1990s.

T2 was founded in 1970 and led by drummer-vocalist Pete Dunton. Dunton had been a member of a few psychedelic bands prior to this, including Please, Neon Pearl, and Gun (another future LKG candidate). Joining Dunton in T2 were Neon Pearl bassist Bernie Jinks and guitarist-keyboardist Keith Cross (who was only 17 at the time), whom Jinks knew from another band he was in, Bulldog Breed.

This trio captured lightning in a bottle on what was for many years their only release. They took the hard-charging, blues-influenced hard rock of acts like Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience and blended it with forward-thinking jazz, folk, and experimental flavors. This is one of those pieces of music where human language feels especially inadequate for describing it, but I’ll do my best. Seriously, just go listen to this.

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Album Review: Dvne – Voidkind

Band: Dvne | Album: Voidkind | Genre: Progressive metal | Year: 2024

From: Edinburgh, UK | Label: Metal Blade

For fans of: The Ocean, metallic Porcupine Tree, Inter Arma

Bandcamp

Dvne (presumably pronounced like “dune,” though Google Translate also tells me it’s Bosnian for “days ago”) is a Scottish quintet, and they’re one of the more talked-about bands on the parts of the Internet where I spend my time. Voidkind is their third full-length album, coming three years after their last release. Dvne is a band I’ve listened to and contemplated covering before, but for whatever reason Etemen Ænka, their 2021 album, just didn’t quite catch my fancy. (2021 was also an exceptionally good year for the type of music I like, so they had some stiff competition for my attention. 2024, in contrast, is shaping up to be a slower year for me.)

Disregarding my above disparaging of the current year, Voidkind is a legitimately good album. Dvne’s sludge metal roots have gone in a more atmospheric, post-metal-type direction. Normally, I’d be a bit wary about that–unless it’s preceding the word “punk,” the prefix “post-” is often an indicator there’s a higher risk I’ll be a bit bored–but the songwriting is smart, and the playing is crushing and dynamic.

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Deep Dive: King Crimson

Welcome again to Deep Dive, the roughly-yearly column exploring the extended studio discographies of the giants of progressive rock and metal. It’s here that I delve into releases beyond an act’s best-known albums.

For those who don’t feel like reading this massive entry, I’ve included a TL;DR and ranking of albums at the end. I choose to explore albums chronologically, as opposed to a ranked-list format. The context in which albums were made is important, and this is an element often missed in a ranked-list.

Prior to writing this column, I posted a poll asking for reader input for the act I should cover next. Had the results been more ambiguous, I probably would have covered Emerson, Lake & Palmer; but King Crimson was the runaway winner. They garnered roughly one-third of the vote, with the second-place finishers taking only about ten percent.

King Crimson was one of the earliest progressive rock bands, and no one man has done more to cement the image of progressive rock musicians as joyless and self-serious than guitarist and bandleader Robert Fripp. They’ve got some absolutely stellar albums under their belt, but there’s also plenty to criticize. A lot of my critiques of this band come from the fact that I’m simply not a big fan of improvised music. (That’s not to say improvised music can’t be fun or enjoyable, but it’s usually best enjoyed in a live setting. The magic is largely lost when it’s recorded, at least for me.)

There are also a few side-projects I’ve opted to include in this entry. Much in the way I included Univeria Zekt in the Magma entry and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe in the Yes entry, there have been a few releases that are King Crimson albums in all but name. Many of these are the “ProjeKcts” from the 1990s. Though ProjeKcts were primarily live endeavors, three of them did record in the studio, putting them in-scope for this column.

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