Wow, sixteen albums covered in what has been an interesting month of September. They cover a vast variety of genres too, from power prog to djent to prog death to avant-garde. I’ve also added a few categories (Songwriting, Originality, Execution, Production) to the ratings so that the final one makes a bit more sense to both the reader as well as myself. Since the list is so long, I’ve tried to edit my descriptions to keep them as short as possible.

Due to this massive list of albums I wanted to cover, I’ve skipped over summarizing a few excellent gigs I went for during the month, notably Leprous and Agent Fresco at Vauréal (Though the full review of this one is here), and Alcest in Paris, both of which were thoroughly memorable.

Lastly, special mention to the Deeply Woven EP (Bandcamp Link), a short and very sweet effort that would please instrumental fans.

Go ahead and dive in! This is a long one, so take your time 😀

Quicklinks –

Page 1:

BEST OF PROG and ALBUM OF THE MONTH – September 2018

Notes on albums that didn’t make the cut

Page 2:

NON-PROG SHOWCASE of September 2018: Satan: ‘Cruel Magic’

Page 3:

FILM and SERIES – September 2018

⊕ BEST OF PROG – September 2018⊕

Freak Kitchen – Confusion to the Enemy

Genre (RYM) – Alternative Rock, Progressive Rock (Clean Vocals)

Label – Thunderstruck Productions

Adding to the endless list of new bands I’ve discovered this year is Freak Kitchen from Sweden, who, from what I’ve learnt, have the knack of making spoofs, both lyrically and musically, of rock music in general. ‘Confusion to the Enemy’ is a more dialed-down and accessible version of their early stuff and is barely prog, truth be said. In fact, if my ears have served me right, there are two proggy moments in the entire album. The first is a bunch of heavy and unexpected chugs, Meshuggah style, on the title track, while the riffs are irregular too. The second is the last couple minutes of “Auto”, an instrumental track that employs good screeches and noodles on the guitar, and fun percussion. Other than that, you have a bunch of straightforward tracks with a verse-verse-solo-verse tracks that are passable material. The lyrics are hilarious and I particularly crack up to “I don’t wanna hold your hand, I just wanna hold my phone, I don’t wanna join your band, I just wanna be alone with my phone” from “Alone With My Phone”, which employs an interference clip that made me check my phone for a second the first time I heard it. “Så kan det gå när inte haspen är på” is entirely in Swedish, but so much fun to listen to thanks to it’s rap-rock style of delivery and riffing. In general, the solos (Mattias Eklundh on the guitars and vocals) are very well executed. Musically the album just ain’t engaging enough to keep you coming back to it, and it also gets boring after “Auto”. Good for a one-time listen and a few laughs.

Rating – 5.5 / 10 (Songwriting: 5, Originality: 3, Execution: 6, Production: 9)

Notable Tracks – “Alone With My Phone”, “Auto”, “Så kan det gå när inte haspen är på”

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music// YouTube

Tauk – Shapeshifter II: Outbreak

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Rock, Jazz Fusion (Instrumental)

Label – TAUK Management

While I seemed to have missed the first part of the ‘Shapeshifter’ series released earlier this year, I haven’t missed out on sharing the vivid poster of this one, especially because I heard the band is quite keys-centric and my August album of the month was quintessentially one. “Prelude” hints at a few synth-wave elements and “Recreational Outrage” includes sprinkles of them throughout, along with a few electronic touches. The synth tone is perfect on the album and the best performance of the instrument itself is on “CMF 9000”. Extremely groovy from start to finish (hip-hop is an influence of the band), the buzzing bass and short-picked guitars are sure to make you shake a leg. The synth is full of delectable hooks and the guitar solo close to the finish is marvelous. “Convoy” is like modern prog instrumentals in construction, while “Pioneer” is more of the same. “Pitter Pattern” dabbles in a bit of jazz, with the saxophone, and funk. The overall album, though, never reaches the heights of “CMF 9000”, even with all the variety in the tracks. The slow tracks especially (“Checkmate”, for example) drag a fair bit and I generally found the guitar songwriting on the album inadequate, while the drums and bass could be more busy than they are too.

Rating – 6.5 / 10 (Songwriting: 5, Originality: 6, Execution: 7, Production: 8)

Notable Tracks – “CMF 9000”, “Recreational Outrage”, “Pioneer”

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music // Bandcamp

Crippled Black Phoenix – Great Escape

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Rock, Post Rock (Clean Vocals)

Label – Season of Mist

I’ve been quite critical of post- prog efforts since the turn of the year (New albums by Long Distance Calling and Tides of Man come to mind) , and I’ve grown to realize that the genre doesn’t fit in well with what I enjoy most in music, even if I try to approach it with an open mind. So it wouldn’t come as a big surprise if I say the new Crippled Black Phoenix album didn’t impress me much. It does start off really strong. “You Brought it Upon Yourselves” features a few voice samples and atmospherics before contorting into “To You I Give”, the strongest track on the album. A pleasant riff accompanies most of the song, with lovely vocal passages and noticeable drumming patterns, before building up in heaviness over its length, something that most post- bands do so well. “Madman” is another highlight, opting for a sound that is akin to the 80’s era with the synth prominence and a standalone electronic beat, while the vocals are markedly intimidating and the drums get more busy over time. “Reign Black, Reign Heavy” is sung by the female ‘guest’ vocals and features a soft accordion initially and a flowing trumpet a few minutes in. The large title suite opts for a psychedelic turn of events, especially on the latter part, which has a bunch of atmospherics and outstretched guitar passages that are commonplace in the Pink Floyd songs of “Echoes” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. The biggest negative for me is the length. “Times, They are a’Raging”, as well as the title suite, takes far too long to build, though the distant tremolo picking after the first breakdown is well executed. There is inherent repetitiveness in most of the album (again, a post- intrinsic) and I was also not very impressed by the overall songwriting on the duo of “Nebulas” and “Las Diabolicas”.

Rating – 6.5 / 10 (Songwriting: 6, Originality: 6, Execution: 7, Production: 8)

Notable Tracks – “To You I Give”, “Madman”, “Reign Black, Reign Heavy”

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

Madder Mortem – Marrow

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Metal (Clean / Mixed Vocals)

Label – Dark Essence Records

About an year ago, I noted that a band called Madder Mortem was opening for Soen during a gig and picked up a few albums to check out the music. My first impressions weren’t good. Agnete Kirkevaag, the front-woman, of the band has a vocal style that grates me. Her high notes hit the wrong way and she does it way too often for my liking. They also don’t quite suit the progressive nature of the instrumentation. ‘Marrow’ thus doesn’t do much to change my earlier opinions of her vocals. But it does establish that the band knows how to compose songs. The guitarists are capable of writing good riffs, both in punch and variation. “White Snow, Red Shadows”, for example, has a very hooky riff, measured clean vocals and death metal harshes right at the end. “Stumble On” is similar, but uses well-placed breaks and competent drumming. The eerie screams right at the end as well as the overall vibe of “Waiting to Fall” remind me of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ by Leprous, which shouldn’t be surprising as the bands share a country and avant-garde influences. “Until you Return” is a slower track with a dreamy atmosphere initially. The lyrical quality of the album is strong, and I found myself amused by the Snow White rendition on “White Snow, Red Shadows”. The songwriting still lacks consistency, but would I rate it higher if there was another vocalist? Hard yes, so I invite you to check out the music and judge for yourself.

Rating – 7 / 10 (Songwriting: 7, Originality: 7, Execution: 7, Production: 8)

Notable Tracks – “White Snow, Red Shadows”, “Stumble On”, “Moonlight over Silver White”

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

Voivod – The Wake

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

Label – Century Media Records

Voivod, Canadian progressive thrashers are thirty-five years old now, and yet, and as we saw with Judas Priest‘s ‘Firepower‘, it shouldn’t be a deterrent to producing good music. The album opens very strongly: The pace of “Obsolete Beings” is infectious, the riffs are gorgeous, the bass sounds huge and the chord progression is ever-changing. Chewy‘s guitar solo is perfect. “The End of Dormancy” is the 10/10 track on the album. A marching band intro on the drums eventually develops into a sequence that can be best described as a thrash metal version of Vertigo‘s theme, filled with spiraling guitars and spoken word bits. “Sonic Mycelium” is the ‘epic’ on here. After a softer verse, one hears the song’s primary tune. A hook is repeated twice during ‘the wake’ phrase while the bass bounces in the mix. Jam-packed with variation every half-a-minute, this one keeps you on the edge of the seat, ending with a cinematic, orchestral passage. Most of the other tracks have solid songwriting too, even though the hooks can be hit and miss, and they feel a bit samey in the middle of the album. I do have a problem with the Snake‘s vocals though. I am not very proficient with older material, but his delivery and tones on this are one of the big reasons I don’t come back to the album more often than I should. Production-wise, the drums are quite hidden (This applies to a good bunch of albums on this list) and I need to keeps ears peeled to listen to them, but the rest are good.

Rating – 7 / 10 (Songwriting: 7, Originality: 7, Execution: 7, Production: 7)

Notable Tracks – “The End of Dormancy”, “Obsolete Beings”, “Sonic Mycelium”

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music // YouTube

Skyharbor – Sunshine Dust

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Metal (Clean / Mixed Vocals)

Label – Basick Records

The Indian / American progressive band Skyharbor have put out a new effort after three years, the last one proving to be very popular among djent fans, helped by the fact that one of the best vocalists of this generation, Dan Tompkins, was heavily involved. Now that he’s back with TesseracT, Eric Emery has joined the ranks, and he proves on ‘Sunshine Dust’ that he’s capable of stepping into his predecessor’s shoes. The album has some excellent moments throughout, only to be let down by the overall consistency. I noticed that on songs such as “Dim”, “Out of Time” and “Menace”, the guitarists write initial riffs that are so-so but suddenly switch to more lively ones a verse or two in. I appreciate the thinking, switching up things midway into a track can often give it a good boost, but cognitive science would say that the first minute or two of a song is when a listener’s attention is maximum. “Synthetic Hands” is deliberately slow in the build-up, employing some of the atmospherics that TesseracT are also engaged in recently, but culminates in a fantastic chorus, with Emery rendering the high notes in a beautiful manner and guitarists Keshav Dhar and Devesh Dayal impressing on the riffs. The second half of the album is consistently strong, starting from the fun “Ugly Heart” up until the closer title track. The instrumental “The Reckoning” is impressive in its extended buildup, introducing an electronic flavour, and the drums come alive like it’s never done elsewhere on the album. It could’ve used more trim but is a welcome variation. “Dissent” is the strongest track in my eyes, going straight-up core with the aggressive nature of the riffing and screams, while “Menace” also tilts in the same direction. The bassist, Krishna Jhaveri impresses throughout and his roaring lines are allowed to shine thanks to a dynamic mix.

Rating – 7 / 10 (Songwriting: 7, Originality: 5, Execution: 8, Production: 9)

Notable Tracks – “Dissent”, “Synthetic Hands”, “Sunshine Dust”

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music // YouTube

Kingcrow – The Persistence

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

Label – The Laser’s Edge / Sensory Records

If RYM is anything to go by, Kingcrow must be one of the most underrated prog bands around, as they’ve been consistently putting out good material for the last decade yet haven’t reached anywhere near the popularity of several of its peer bands. And ‘The Persistence’ proves that the band indeed does deserve more attention. I was taken aback by how heavy the instrumentation is a few tracks in. “Drenched” reveals this once a few piano twiddles settle in and immerses one in a forlorn atmosphere. The vocals are a nice balance between contemporary prog-rock and prog-metal styles, with Daniel Gildenlöw being the closest parallel I can come up with, who coincidentally also has a few lines on the song “Night’s Descending”. “Everything Goes” is another lovely song, opening up in a ballad format, with a few industrial undertones, and closing in a spectacular riff. I got a few Haken vibes from “Every Broken Piece of Me”, and there’s definitely a Leprous influence in the key usage and vocal delivery of “Night’s Descending” and “Father”. Now that I’ve cited three of the most popular prog metal bands out, you can see why the band should be ripe for wider appeal. However, while the vocals are good, they do not match up to the ones on either of these bands and get a bit dry as the album goes on. The few verses with Gildenlöw proves why he’s among the elite tier of vocalists, he just oozes emotion effortlessly. The sound does a good job of capturing the atmosphere through the keys, riffs and an odd electronic beat, but fails to give more room to the bass, while the drum sampling could be better. Overall, I do recommend ‘The Persistence’, I believe it has something to offer to all prog fans.

Rating – 7.5 / 10 (Songwriting: 8, Originality: 6, Execution: 8, Production: 7)

Notable Tracks – “Drenched”, “Everything Goes”, “Closer”

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

Immortal Guardian – Age of Revolution

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

Label – M-Theory Audio

Don’t let the hilariously shoddy poster fool you, Immortal Guardian‘s debut effort, ‘Age of Revolution’ is a fantastic power-prog effort, filled with dynamic instrumentation and catchy choruses. Much like the Manticora album I reviewed in the last column, it is filled with fun, if not as original, riffing. After the melodious intro of “Excitare”, “Zephon” introduces them along with a roaring bass and vocals that drift more often than not to the higher range, though not as often as on Manticora. “Aoelian” is similar, with a memorable chorus and an excellent keys solo, while the drums include a few double bass thuds. “Trail of Tears” teases a latin-themed piano intro, before switching into a massive riff. The vocal work (Carlos Zema) in general is excellent, and they are superimposed on the occasional harsh lines. “Never to Return” has a sensational breakdown of the piano, bass (best of the bunch), keys and finally the synth; while the ‘never to return‘ scream is gorgeous. It also uses some sax at the outro, but it doesn’t sound very pleasant. The best track is the closer “Awake”: After a cinematic intro and a couple of vocal lines in the build-up, the guitar plays the album’s primary melody, a well-written one. The vocals and guitars parallel each other points, the bass (Thad Stevens) is again magnificent and the outro allows the drummer (Cody Gilliand) to throw around a few fills. Among the negatives are the overproduced guitars and drums, with the former especially sounding too chunky for my liking, though the bass is mixed in beautifully. Lyrics are a bit cheesy but far from cringe-y. The album loses a bit of momentum once you get to “Hunters” and the rhythm riffs are generic even on the better tracks. This is still easily one of the better power-prog efforts of the year, so do check it out.

Rating – 7.5 / 10 (Songwriting: 8, Originality: 6, Execution: 9, Production: 7)

Notable Tracks – “Awake”, “Aeolian”, “Trail of Tears”

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

Riverside – Waste7and

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Rock (Clean Vocals)

Label – Inside Out Music

Do bands put out better albums after tragedies? In just the past year, Pain of Salvation and The Contortionist have put out excellent albums exuding emotion that would be difficult to emulate otherwise. Guitarist Piotr Grudziński‘s passing away had made the band’s future uncertain, but the decision to continue is redeemed on ‘Wasteland’. The album, set in a post-apocalyptic world, has lyrics with influences from Cormac McCarthy‘s book, “The Road”, as well as from the Fallout series, but also clearly from contemplating on the tragedy that has befallen the band. The album is equal measure beautiful and heavy. “The Day After” opens with vocal passages over a subtle viola, before quickly switching into the album’s heaviest sound on “Acid Rain”. Aided by soft piano and synth touches, the guitar develops a funk feel and midway into the track the bass enters the fray in a spectacular, Lunatic Soul fashion. The “oh-oh-oh” chants that succeed would be lapped up by audiences in the coming tour. “Vale of Tears” continues with the heaviness, before collapsing into “Guardian Angel”, a pleasant acoustic song with piano melodies and low-end vocals. “Lament” has a few folk strings, but is my least favorite song, the lyric being too repetitive for my liking. “The Struggle to Survive” is an entirely instrumental track, opening with a riff that soon turns into two, and they consequently play off each other. It eventually gets groovy and finishes with an adept synth solo. The other lengthy track, the title one, is also notable: An acoustic riff is followed by a fast-picked electric one and drumming is set aside for a good bit. What follows is another lengthy instrumental section with continuously evolving keys-guitar combos.

The biggest negative for me is the drum sound, one which I didn’t notice carefully until someone pointed it out a few days after its release but they close to break the album for me now. The snare sounds especially awful: I am surprised that a band that’s been around for so long has allowed this to happen. It’s a shame because the rest of the instrumentation sounds great.

Rating – 8 / 10 (Songwriting: 8, Originality: 7, Execution: 9, Production: 7)

Notable Tracks – “Acid Rain”, “Wasteland”, “The Struggle to Survive”

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music // YouTube

Potmos Hetoimos – Vox Medusae

Genre (RYM) – Avant-Garde Metal, Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals)

Label – Not Music

Adding to the list of albums from musicians that I’ve discovered thanks to the discord server is ‘Vox Medusae’, a fabulous effort by one-man band Potmos Hetoimos, the one man being Matt Matheson. The album thematically is a concept album involving a personal story on pornography addition and uses nine different characters, each with different vocal effects (cleans, screams, growls) and, for music theory fans, a different non-traditional scale. As a consequence, you not only have a cool concept on paper, but also a unique, far-reaching combination of genres, from jazz to sludge metal to black metal, hence the fitting ‘avant-garde’ title. “I: Idyll Anathema” opens with a few screams and a sludgy riff with lovely sax undertones, before breaking down into a bass sequence with drums and piano. “II: Voracious Embrace” has a meditative second half with harrowing vocal superimposition on the ensuing riffs. It overall has an eerie jazz-noir feel, which is also present on my favourite track, “IV B: Perseus Pyrrhic”. It opens with a lovely sax intro, dives into a swerving guitar solo a few phrases in, and in general, is very coherent from start to finish. “III: The Silicon Mirror” is more thrashy, is filled with great hooks, and has a memorable outro. The best outro sequence is however on the ‘epic’ track “V: Braid of Ouroboros”, a strangely upbeat, headbanging one with blast beats that further intensify after a scream. The album is best experienced with the lyrics (available on Bandcamp) and their religious connotations.

Negatives are few and far between, mostly to do with slightly repetitive sections on the epic track and the ‘filler’ one, “-Fits & Fevers”, which has a distorted vocal sound effect initially that drags a fair bit, but culminates in a pleasant piano section. The production is quite solid, considering it is still an underground act, though I feel the drums could have had a bigger impact: I’d have loved to hear stronger bass drum thuds (from a sound POV) but also more variety in the playing. That said, if you’d like to hear something refreshing and true to the word ‘progressive’, ‘Vox Medusae’ is a must-try.

Rating – 8 / 10 (Songwriting: 8, Originality: 10, Execution: 7, Production: 8)

Notable Tracks – “IV B: Perseus Pyrrhic”, “III: The Silicon Mirror”, “II: Voracious Embrace”

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music // Bandcamp

⊗ ALBUM OF THE MONTH⊗

Horrendous – Idol

Genre (RYM) – Death Metal, Progressive Metal (Harsh Vocals)

Label – Season of Mist

Season of Mist has to be one of the best labels currently for the progressive scene: Horrendous is another on a list of great bands that I’ve discovered this year signed on to them. They have moved a bit away from the heavy / death metal style of previous albums and incorporated a host of progressive nuances in their songwriting on ‘Idol’. After the instrumental opener “..Prescience”, played entirely on the bass, “Soothsayer” immediately announces that the listener is in for a ride to savour. The riffs are heavy, constantly switching up in pace and time sigs, and the solos are tastefully executed. The production is absolutely stunning, right up there with the best sounding albums I’ve heard this year: I love the weight of each snare beat, the fact that the bass is audible throughout, the tone of the guitars and of course, the mix of the vocals. Speaking of, I adore the throaty, OSDM vocal styles and deliveries of vocalists/ guitarists Matt Knox and Damian Herring, the one aspect of the band that is polarizing from what I’ve observed online. Back to the songs, “Divine Anhedonia” is a good example of the variation in riffs I talked about earlier; one moment it goes ham death-metal style, next moment it picks up the pace, thrash style, with a lovely bass intro to boot. A special mention for “Devotion – Blood for Ink”, whose screamy guitar riff intro, clean vocal bridge and stunning outro, filled with gorgeous twin guitar solos and diverse fills-strewn drumming, elevate it into one of the best tracks I’ve heard all year. The lyrics, rooted strongly in mythology, are dark and make for grim reading.

There’s not much to dislike in here. Among the various riffs written for the album, a couple of them hit less hard than the others, particularly on “Golgothan Tongues”. The final track, “Obulus” promises to be an ‘epic’ on paper, just based on its length, but is just a more stretched-out version of earlier tracks, with clean chants reminiscent of Enslaved. These minute pickings aside, this is another album of the proggy death / tech death genres that has impressed me a lot this year and, after much chopping and changing, is my album of the month for September.

Rating – 8.5 / 10 (Songwriting: 8, Originality: 7, Execution: 9, Production: 10)

Notable Tracks – “Devotion – Blood for Ink”, “Soothsayer”, “Divine Anhedonia”

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

Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page for the Spotify playlist of the month 🙂

⊕ Notes on Albums that didn’t make the cut⊕

Great Leap Skyward – Map of Broken Dreams

(August Release)

Genre – Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals)

This effort by Great Leap Skyward has is moments, notably decent riffing and able drumming, and the general variation in songwriting is well thought of, with “Kindred” and “Sepulcral Y Sin Nombre” being the highlights. The latter even has a few fun latin strings. But the overall consistency just isn’t there, exasperated by the fact the vocalist is average and the vocals get overbearing way too fast. The change in harshes doesn’t help either, they are cookie-cutter at best. The production is an issue as well, the riffs sound too chunky and the drums aren’t sampled very well.

Ethernity – The Human Race Extinction

Genre – Progressive Metal, Power Metal (Clean Vocals)

While I’m always happy if there are more women in the prog scene, what I do not appreciate is lackluster efforts by bands who label themselves as progressive, but are quit the opposite, predictable more like. While the first half of the album does have a few good power metal riffs, the song construction is always the same: Two verses, two solos (Guitars and keys) and a final verse. The vocalist has a polished voice that does fit the genre, but her high range feels forced to me and her flourishes feel excessive. The solos are generally well executed, but, again, superfluous. The first half at least has a few memorable choruses, but the second misses out on even that.

Irreversible Mechanism – Immersion

Genre – Technical Death Metal, Progressive Metal (Harsh Vocals)

Irreversible Mechanism hail from Belarus and are supposed to have a fair bit of Fallujah worship going on for them. ‘Immersion’ starts off in a good way, I like the “Existence” suite, the first mostly trying to capture the atmosphere (Reminds me of a few shooter video games) while the second going into typical tech death fashion of driving riffs and rapid, wafer-thin drums (The production is not so good). The cleans are akin to the Cynic ones (without the vocoder stuff, that is). “Simulacra” is a bit similar to the first part of the suite, and has a lovely melody right at the end. But the rest is just monotonous stuff: I particularly dislike the mouthy harsh vocals, the solos are pure excess and the lyrics are quite basic. Apart from a few moments here and there, this tech death effort didn’t do much for me.

Mestís – Eikasia

Genre – Progressive Metal (Instrumental)

Mestís is Javier Reyes‘ (Animals as Leaders) side-project, and the debut album ‘Polysemy’ gives one a good impression of what Reyes contributes regularly to AaL. But ‘Eikasia’ is well and truly disappointing. Not only is it way too short (thirty minutes), a decent chunk of the album isn’t even good. The title track and “Azul” are just one melody (a nice one, albeit) repeated far too many times, while “Plato” is literally six minutes of some robotic voice samples with no instrumentation. The first few tracks are alright, but nothing drastically different from what you’d hear in the softer songs of Animals and Leaders and Plini, while even those meander in their final sections.

⊕ SPOTIFY Playlist – Best of September 2018⊕