The first monthly column I’ve created got a lot of eyeballs and positive reception, so here’s one for February 2018! I’ve not had as much as time as I did in January, and that has taken a toll on the quantity of music I listened to in the month, especially older and non-prog music. But the good news is I’ve still covered a lot of new prog, in addition to a few excellent prog albums of January that I missed in the last column. Gleb Kolyadin‘s debut record has gone completely under my radar until a few days back but will include that album for sure on the next edition. Check out Page 3 for my thoughts on the new MGMT album and of course Page 4 for fun series and movie reviews.

As always, feel free to let me know on Facebook or on Instagram (I have a new Instagram account for the blog now!) your thought on the albums and any feedback. If you like what I’m doing here and want to contribute – Shoot an email at pdsprogblog@gmail.com. I also have a Spotify account where I create fun playlists like this one –

Note: Starting from February 2018, I will only include short reviews (Like most of the ones on the page here) of albums that I rate above a 5 / 10. For those that I rate a 5 or below, I would include a couple of lines right at the end of the page on what went wrong. I’ve also decided to skip reviewing live albums for now and will instead make a compilation at the end of the year with the best live albums.

Quicklinks –

Page 1:

GREAT PROG ALBUMS I MISSED from January 2018

PROG ALBUM REVIEWS and ALBUM OF THE MONTH – February 2018

Page 2: GIG REVIEWS – February 2018

Page 3: NON-PROG / NON-METAL HIGHLIGHT – February 2018

Page 4: FILM and TV

Enjoy!

⊕ GREAT PROG ALBUMS I MISSED from January 2018⊕

Agrimonia – Awaken

Genre (RYM) – Atmospheric Sludge Metal, Progressive Metal (Harsh Vocals)

January 26 2018 was an excellent day for progressive music, as Orphaned Land, In Vain, Agrimonia and Howling Sycamore (More about it next) all put out great albums. But Agrimonia’s Awaken might just be the best of the bunch. It is also one that takes a bit more time to absorb – It is primarily atmospheric sludge metal in genre, with slight progressive and post metal influences, and therefore you would need give the album a few spins to truly absorb this atmosphere. Has to be noted that progressive nature comes more from the blending of genres rather than technical odd-time signatures, yet when music in 4/4 is this good, you cannot have many complains.

When you eventually give it a few spins, songs here tend to stick with you for a long time. The riffs, both for leads and rhythm guitar, are very well written and executed by Pontus and Magnus and are the best feature of the album. The range in writing is evident as shorter and quicker riffs fill up most of “Astray” and “Foreshadowed”, while elaborate, stretched ones give the music a post-metal feel in the outro of “A World Unseen” and in most of “The Sparrow”. The acoustic sections are great too, sounding a bit like those from fellow Swedish legends Opeth. The one in the bridge of “Withering” is stunning; it comes out nowhere and stings you deeply. The music is brought further to life by Cristina Blom‘s coarse sludgy growls, filled with energy as she chants through “Live through Hate, Love through Hate” and gets you off your seat during the chorus of “Foreshadowed” with “Watch out, it’s coming, to rise or crumble”. The bass and drums are solid as well and there’s an excellent, understated electronic beat that thumps along certain sections of the opening track that I found cool.

Few minor issues struck me on further run-throughs of the album – Sections in “Astray” are a bit repetitive, and while Cristina’s voice is amazing and suits the music wonderfully, I found it hard to decipher the lyrics with her style of enunciation. Speaking of lyrics (Thanks Pontus for sharing them); the energy of vocals partly covers up the fact that they make for extremely grim reading, but they further drench you in the atmosphere, so there’s that.

Rating – 9 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify // YouTube // Bandcamp

Howling Sycamore- Howling Sycamore

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals, leaning towards Clean)

Like Awaken, this extreme prog metal album took a while to get going in my eyes but now that I’ve got into it, it has been a constant in my weekly charts for almost a month. Howling Sycamore is an extremely competent debut album, featuring two major pluses that would be hard to contest by even the harshest of critics.

The first is Hannes Grossmann‘s colossal performance behind the drum kit. Remember, he is already a sort of a legend among extreme prog and death metal circles for his performances on older Obscura and Necrophagist albums. Right from the first kick off the double bass on “Upended”, he drives songs, shifting from relentless snare whacks to subtle cymbal crashes wonderfully to match the vocal variation, which is even more evident in one of the best extreme prog songs I’ve heard in a while – “Let Fall”. The next plus is the wild experimentation which is from where the progressive label appears on the album. Examples include sections with multiple asynchronized vocals seen on Gentle Giant and recently Haken, screaming saxophones, “free – vocal” outros, and acoustic-guitar duo magic (“Chant of Silliness”) – The band is full of great ideas.

Moving on to the elephant in the room – Jason McMaster‘s vocals are sure to either make or break the album for newcomers. They are influenced at times by the ‘screamy’ delivery of Halford and at times by the cleans of Jason Mendonça (Akercocke). They can be beautiful and emotional, such as those on “Descent to Light”, but can sometimes go slightly overboard; On the outro of “Obstinate Pace”, he even misses a few melodies. What I can say with confidence though is that these some of the most ambitious vocals I’ve ever heard – The higher notes crack under pressure and turn into screams naturally: It sometimes feels like the vocalist is practicing in his basement and testing his vocal range. I’m now extremely intrigued to check out his other works (Watchtower, Dangerous Toys) to see if this is his natural delivery or if he has produced something extravagant for this album.

All said and done, the few above-mentioned uncomfortable vocal moments prevent the album from perfectness in my eyes. In addition, another downside of the album – one that I don’t often complain about – The album is too short! Clocking at just 37 minutes, you’re always left wanting for more, further worsened by the fact that there is no back catalog of the band to explore.

Rating – 8.5 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify // YouTube // Bandcamp

⊕ BEST OF PROG – February 2018⊕

Long Distance Calling – Boundless

Genre (RYM) – Post-Rock, Progressive Rock (Instrumental)

Long Distance Calling is a German band that I’ve newly discovered which genre-wise produces post rock with some sprinkles of prog and, if I have read correctly, has moved from clean vocals to a purely instrumental approach on Boundless. I’ve always spoken about how instrumental music is extremely hard to make, which is why most albums of the genre rarely exceed three-fourths of an hour. It is just difficult to maintain attention spans of the audience when there are no lyrics to hold on to. So how does Boundless fare?

The first half of the album is solid if slightly repetitive. “Out There” keeps it simple at the start with a fun drum beat, before featuring some guitar bends and swerving that soundsvery similar to the recent Elder effort. The bridge and the buildup to the climax after is satisfying. “In the Cloud” implements a solid and mysterious electronic beat, which reminds me of Ulver, while the guitar squeals around in signature post-rock style. Instrumental music should make you feel things and generate emotions without vocals, and my favourite of the album “Like a River” does exactly that – It is fast, catchy and flows beautifully; Lifting you when your spirits are down. The album is filled with such tranquil moments that would be perfect for a car ride, for example.

However, this isn’t an album that would stick with you for a long time and I particularly find some tracks, especially in the second half of the album, such as “The Far Side”, “On the Verge” and “Weightless”, a bit too derivative. In general the psychedelic, Pink Floyd guitar bends don’t work very well, even though they are a staple in most modern psychedelic / post-rock projects.

Rating – 6.5 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify // YouTube

Rabea Massaad – Grinding Gears EP

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Metal (Instrumental)

For those who don’t know Rabea Massaad, he’s the lead guitarist of a pair of underrated progressive projects Dorje & Toska, and while I don’t generally cover EPs, Grinding Gears is a fun one which might find its fans, especially guitarists among the readers. It is also doing well commercially, much to the surprise of even the artist.

This instrumental album clocks at 23 minutes and entirely consists of fun riff ideas written by Rabea with backing drum beats. The length of the nine tracks vary from a minute to no more than four minutes. The first thing that immediately impressed me was how heavy the music sounded. The first riff of the opening track “Brute Force” hits you with the heaviness Gojira often does. And there are ideas spread throughout in the EP that would sound familiar to a prog instrumental fan (Animals as Leaders comes to mind). “Horizon” and “Pork Chops” have some enjoyable djent chugs. My favourite is the “The Rags”, whose seemingly calm chords selection at first soon morphs into heavy, squealing riffs.

Of course, as throwing out a bunch of ideas would do, there are some tracks that are more misses than hits and, in general, most of this EP isn’t going to be on your playlists for a long while. But Grinding Gears would be an option for you, if you want to take a break from your “Octavarium”s and “Supper’s Ready”s and want to listen to some good old heavy guitar-playing.

Rating – 7 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify // YouTube // Bandcamp

Good Tiger – We Will All Be Gone

Genre (RYM) – Post-Hardcore, Progressive Metal (Clean Vocals)

Adding to the list of seemingly popular bands whose music I’ve never heard before the last month is Good Tiger, a ‘post-hardcore’ band (which derives from the vocal delivery technique but more on it soon) from the UK. This album reminds me of two albums from the previous year – Bent Knee‘s Land Animal and Circa Survive‘s The Amulet. The buildup of riffs to catchy choruses, for one, are similarities, albeit with slightly lesser experimentation compared to the former album. And Elliot Coleman‘s vocals sound almost identical to those of Anthony Green from the latter album.

The instrumentation at large is adequate if a bit devoid of innovation but it serves the purpose intended, which is to set up some hooks for Coleman who then layers some vocals and gets the listener to tap his foot along. There are some particularly good moments by bassist Morgan Sinclair on “Blueshift” and “Just Shy” where the fat bass tone electrifies the lower audible range. Alex Rüdinger too adds to the groove with great drum beats; his skills are exemplified in the slow track of “Cherry Lemon” where he initially drums at twice the pace of the slower guitar, before slowing down to a cymbal-heavy outro.

My major problems with the album arise from the vocals – they just aren’t going to appease everyone. While it also took a while for me to get adjusted to them (Just like for the Circa Survive album as pointed out earlier), I still feel that each chorus starting with higher nasal notes is a bit disruptive to the catchiness. I find the songs where the vocals occupy lower notes with an occasional high flourish work better, such as on “Just Shy”. I would suggest you to try to one song and see if the vocals trouble you, and then proceed to the entire album or ignore it depending on how you find the song.

Rating – 7 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify // YouTube // Bandcamp

⊗ ALBUM OF THE MONTH⊗

Angra – ØMNI

Genre (RYM) – Power Metal, Progressive Metal (Clean Vocals)

Angra, a power prog metal band from Brazil, has released a new album Ømni, and if you’re a fan of power metal, this album should definitely be on your radar. There are also a few symphonic or straight-up opera pieces in it: The outro of the title track, titled “Infinite Nothing”, is an excellent finish to the album. In addition, there are some fun tribal beats on a few tracks. For a first time listener to the band though, two of the band members impressed me a lot in their execution.

The first is the bassist, Felipe Andreoli. The instrument is extremely audible during the album and that allows us to absorb some of the fantastic basslines and bass-tapping displayed. You can make them out easily them during the intro of “Black Widow’s Web” and even more so on “Insania”. “Caveman” has a beautiful and short bass solo during the bridge, adding to the latin and folk influences throughout the track.

The second is vocalist, Fabio Lione who throughout the album elevates it through its least inspired moments. Power metal bands are in general always driven by the vocalist and Fabio does so here with chutzpah. Whether it is powerful, high-note delivery on “Traveler of Time” or slower, subtle and softer delivery on “Always More” or “The Bottom of My Soul” (EDIT: I’ve actually been told it is Rafael Bittencourt who has sang on this, if yes we need more of him!) he’s always on point, and is complemented well by the occasional guest singer (Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy is on a track!).

What the album lacks ultimately is more ambition in its songwriting. The guitar riffs in particular are a bit stale and sound like the average power prog band, with sprinkles of some Dream Theater for good measure (not really). As far as I understand, this might be because long term guitarist Kiko Louvre is on a hiatus and has not taken part in the songwriting process for this album. All said and done, I believe this is a good start for newcomers to the band. Would love to hear from the older fans on how this album compares to the previous ones.

Rating – 7.5 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify

Feb 2018 Albums on review standby for March edition:

Ostura – The Room

Gleb Kolyadin – Gleb Kolyadin (I don’t know how this one slipped under my radar)

Dead Empires – Designed to Disappear

Note on Jan and Feb Albums that missed the cut:

Aviations – The Light Years

Letters from the Colony – Vignette

Both the albums suffer from similar problems so I’ll club them – They are filled with ‘djent’ riffs which by themselves aren’t the problem but they just don’t add up to anything either catchy (Much more evident in Vignette) or interesting, excluding a few songs, than some of the other bands that use djent riffs do. Even worse, they are both almost an hour long, which meant that it was a slog for me to sit through each album as the potential of these albums to get me hooked turned out to be minimal. There were no real standouts in instrumentation either.

⊕ SPOTIFY PLAYLIST – BEST OF FEB 2018 ⊕