New year, new PD’s Prog Blog!

After a pretty successful Progscars, I came up with the idea of writing a monthly update on the best releases of prog and non-prog metal, as well as sections dedicated to classics, non-prog highlight and film/TV. Here’s my first edition!

As always, feel free to let me know follow the page on Facebook or me on Instagram let me know what you think. Also follow me on Spotify for fun playlists.

Everything Covered –

Page 1: BEST OF PROG – January 2018

Page 2: METAL HIGHLIGHTS – January 2018

Page 3: PROG – CLASSICS

Page 4: NON-PROG / NON-METAL SHOWCASE – January 2018

Page 5: POP CULTURE

Enjoy!

⊕ BEST OF PROG – January 2018⊕

Orphaned Land – Unsung Prophets and Dead Messiahs

Genre – Folk Metal, Progressive Metal

Orphaned Land is an extremely awesome but still lesser known band from Israel and is revolutionary in the folk metal scene. In my eyes, Mabool (More on it in its review later) is THE greatest metal album with Middle-Eastern influences I’ve heard. Its most recent release All is One has its moments and is a fun listen, but is evidently weaker on the metal side of things. It’s been a five year wait for the new album, and it takes off in stunning fashion. “The Cave” is already my favorite song of the year – the booming bass by Uri Zelcha, the backing vocals chorus, the combo of bazouki riffs and metal ones, the excellent vocals by Kobi Furhi – it sounds like an epic metal version of a Bollywood song.

The album continues strongly, with the next few songs similar in their catchiness to the last few albums, even if the lyrics are a bit cheesy. “Yedidi” serves as the standard Arabic ‘yodeling’ track of the album. Steve Hackett is on “Chains Falls to Gravity” and contributes a guitar solo that will go down as one of his best – quite remarkable for someone whose solos are already cemented in prog rock history books. On that note, kudos to the band for the excellent selection of guest musicians – In addition to Hackett, there are guest vocals by Hansi Kirsch (Blind Guardian) and Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates) and their contributions gel beautifully with the music. The production by Jens Borgen is also very good. The deliberately censored sections are jarring at first, but I weirdly started looking forward to them, especially on “We do not Resist”.

Unfortunately, the album drops off right after “Like Orpheus”, failing to keep up the albeit extraordinary level of the precedent tracks. In fact, other than a couple of riffs and the guest vocals on “Only the Dead… “, I fail to recall any of them. The politically and religiously charged lyrics vary from inspirational to banal.

Looking at the overall picture though, this is an excellent effort by Orphaned Land, sure to appear on many ends-of-the-year lists. Looking forward to seeing them live with Subterranean Masquerade and In Vain, that promises to be hell of a show.

Rating – 8 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify // YouTube

Perfect Beings – Vier

Genre – Progressive Rock

Perfect Beings is a new discovery for me, mainly because I heard Sein Reinert, after a prolonged feud with Cynic front-man Paul Masvidal, quit the band to join this one. An assumption that led me to think that it was a tech metal band. It is actually on the opposite end of the prog spectrum – a mixture of prog and art rock, with intermingled jazz elements and orchestras.

Vier, which means ‘four’ in Dutch, is naturally composed of four chapters, a structural tribute to Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes. Each element is coherent internally but largely different from the others – The band members took separate songwriting duties for these chapters. The album starts off really well – “Guedra” is largely excellent, and its final section “Enter the Center” is very enjoyable : Coupled with the echoing beat, Ryan Hurtgen‘s soft voice tickles your eardrum.

The next chapter “Golden Arc” is my personal favorite. The Opener “The Persimmon Tree” is an orchestra-instrumental. It could fit perfectly as a background track to a adventure movie or even a documentary on animals. “For a Pound of Flesh” is the sort of sweet finisher that always puts a smile on my face.



This is unfortunately where the album takes a turn for the worse, with the last two sections fizzing out with a whimper. The folkish chapter of “Anunnaki” is only slight better than the electronic one of “Vibrational”, which is way too slow for my liking. There are other problems that recur too – the guitarist employs very annoying Pink Floyd imitations (not even influences) in almost each section – “The Golden Arc – America” being the most jarring one. For that matter, “Vibrational” starts off EXACTLY like “Welcome to the Machine”. Finally, I feel the music, in trying to demonstrate Sein Reinhart’s technical skills, ends up having a few sections where his fills and frills feel forced. The album rarely requires extremely technical drumming, especially with respect to the other instruments. Even then I can actually imagine him taking just an evening to track the whole thing at once, the guy’s a beast.

Rating – 6.5 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify

Kayak – Seventeen

Genre – Progressive Rock

First off let me get things straight. I’m not particularly a fan of poppy rock elements in the modern prog. If you’ve read my To the Bone review, I particularly criticized Steven Wilson for taking the easy way out in trying to expand his audience. Which brings me to Kayak’s Seventeen. Unlike the former, the latter has plenty of such tracks. The very first song is a sign – “Somebody” has an Electric Light Orchestra vibe in the vocal and keyboard delivery. And this remains a consistent feature throughout the album.

The tracks where the band tries something more ambitious though, are those that really capture my attention. For example, “La Peregrina”, based on the infamous pearl, is the first example. As a band known to put out rock operas, it is of no surprise that the song lyrically and musically exudes grandiosity. Keyboardist Ton Scherpenzeel (Founder and mainstay of the band) puts in a performance for the ages, his chords reflecting the ‘classical’ definition implied in progressive rock, with the piano breakdown being the cherry on top. Among the shorter tracks, “X Marks the Spot” and “Love, Sail Way” are enjoyable and are where you can see vocalist Bart Schwertmann’s enthusiasm is infectious. On the other hand, tracks such as “All That I Want” are the sort of cheesy ones that are sure to cause a hit in my final rating of the album.

The album has it moments and is also very well produced, but is ultimately similar to the kind of movie you enjoy during a lazy evening but which you tend to forget the next morning. Extra points for “La Peregrina” – this track is a must-listen for prog rock fans.

Rating – 5.5 / 10

Links (Album): Spotify

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Gumboot Soup

Genre – Psychedelic Rock with prog elements

I got on to the King Gizzard wagon last year, when I came across the excellent Polygondwanaland. Gumboot Soup isn’t technically a January 2018 release – It actually released on the morning of 31st December marking the band’s fifth (!) release of the year – but I thought I’d put in some words on the album here. It is a good compilation of several compositional ideas adopted by the Aussie band during the length of last year. The core elements are all present – A prominent bass, soothing vocals and captivating lyrics, covering topics from gambling to environment, albeit they are a bit muddled on this album.

The ‘country’ riff and lyrics on “Muddy Water” are addictive – I cannot stop singing along – “I prefer the muddy water…”. “Superposition” is a beautiful bass-led track that uses slight voice modulation to excellent effect. “The Great Chain of Being” has a distorting, heavy guitar riff and booming vocals, dwelling into doom territory all out of sudden. “I’m Sleepin’ In” features electronic beats with claps and a clever down-tempo as the track goes along is as psychedelic as it gets. And the exact reverse gimmick takes place on “The Wheel”. However, the recurrent lack of variety within a track particularly tends to grind my gears as a prog fan, only partially placated by good variety between them, as explained above.

Rating – 7 / 10

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

⊗ ALBUM OF THE MONTH⊗

In Vain – Currents

Genre – Progressive Death Metal

Album of the month guys! And it is from a Norwegian band that I only discovered a week back. Yup, I was pretty much hooked from the first listen. The genre of the album is primarily melodic death metal, but regular time signature changes are sure to satisfy a typical prog snob’s complexity urges. It also features one of my favourite modern drummers, Baard Kolstad (Leprous) as a guest drummer in a style of music which is quite the radical departure from his usual.

Briefly examining the tracks, “Seekers of the Truth” is a melodeath one with metalcore-ish vocals – it reminds me of August Burns Red. “Soul Adventurer” is more proggy and features excellent guest vocals from Matthew Healy (Trivium) on vocals. “Blood We Shed” and “As the Black Horde Storms” have those thrashy, fast riffs coupled with blast beats. “Origin” is my current favourite : The Norwegian bands are clearing feeding off each other as I hear a Leprous-like guitar riff (“Stuck”?), while the prominent bass and the excellent cleans make me think this one would be replayed many a times this year. But the core of each track involves a catchy chorus, aided by the excellent clean and harsh vocals of Andreas Frigstad and Sindre Nedland.



The album isn’t perfect though. It falls into some prog metal tropes, such as including an unnecessary short mellotron-sounding (synth?) section. Baard is an amazing drummer, but his style (He’s more known for groovy beats and subtle ghost notes) doesn’t quite suit the music and his effort while technically sound lacks energy. It also doesn’t help his case when the drums are a bit too low in the mix. But he is only a guest drummer and the band might find someone more suited to their music soon.

Rating – 8.5 / 10

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

*Edit* Great Albums of Jan covered in Feb Edition:

Howling Sycamore – Howling Sycamore

Agrimonia – Awaken

⊕ SPOTIFY PLAYLIST – BEST OF JAN 2018 ⊕