After an incredible March, it would be unfair keep the same level of expectations for April, but a few underground or relatively underground bands have offered up a few great albums. And there is more variety in genre too, after the Prog-Death profusion the last time around. There is an incredible Doom album waiting for you on Page 2 followed by a sweet country-pop one on Page 3. And another 9/10 movie on Page 4. Go on, find out what I’m talking about!

Quicklinks –

Page 1:

GREAT PROG ALBUMS I MISSED from February/ March 2018

PROG ALBUM DISCUSSION and ALBUM OF THE MONTH – April 2018

Page 2: METAL HIGHLIGHTS – April 2018

Page 3: NON-PROG / NON-METAL HIGHLIGHT (March 2018 release)

Page 4: FILM and SERIES

Enjoy!

⊕ GREAT PROG ALBUMS I MISSED from February / March 2018⊕

Kino – Radio Voltaire

Genre (RYM) – Neo-Prog (Clean Vocals)

Kino is a neo-prog super-group including former and current members off prog rock and neo-prog bands such as Marillion, Transatlantic, It Bites and Porcupine Tree. The album from the get-go announces that this is a journey where pop and rock melange and never needs to apologize for it, because it does have the ability to get you hooked more often that not.

The title track is the lengthiest one, opening with singalong-able lyrics and choruses, before John Mitchell goes on a lengthy caper on the guitar. “The Dead Club” begins with a snappy piano melody before whistling sound effects and electronics dominate the verses as Mitchell announces “Welcome to the Dead Club!” The lyrics are shamelessly silly and appropriate for its ‘parody’ intentions. There’s enough variety between tracks to keep you going, between the ballad-structured “Idlewind”, Queen-inspired and incredibly snappy “I Don’t Know Why” and The Who-like quick keys-picking on “I Won’t Break So Easily Any More”. Craig Blundell, new to the band, is particularly excellent on the latter track, changing tempo between the verses and bridges expertly. The tracks are spaced well, the slower tracks giving appropriate cushions to the sonorous pop ones. The production is adequate, with the synth, bass and drums all getting their moments to shine.

Overall though, the second half of the album loses some of the catchiness of the pop sensibilities of the first half, with tracks such as “Keep the Faith” being too slow and laboured and forcing Mitchell into nasal territory in which he doesn’t sound comfortable. Similarly, the calmer tracks, “Idlewind” and “The Silent Fighter Pilot” are both a bit too long and unmemorable. Also, even if it isn’t the band’s purpose, the album almost does nothing innovative, a parameter worth its weight in gold for my ratings. If you’re a fan of any of the band members’ original bands or other neo-prog ones such as Frost*, you’d find enough material to enjoy here. If you absolutely hate any sort of pop influence in your prog, you’d find better albums in this list.

Rating – 6 / 10

Notable Tracks – I Don’t Know Why, The Dead Club, I Won’t Break So Easily Any More

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music

Ostura – The Room

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

Ostura is the first ever metal band I’ve heard from Lebanon and they already seem to be have quite the pull – They’re signed to Universal MG and have brought on artists such Thomas Lang, Michael Mills, among others, as guests on a few of their songs. And this is just their second effort.

The Room has a lot to offer for fans of power-prog efforts such as Ayreon, as well as fans of symphonic metal. It brings about all the cinematic experience along with wonderful clean vocals that the bands from the latter genre generally have to offer, with an orchestra contributing heavily to the songwriting process. In songs such as “Escape”, you often get the feeling that the song is a back-and-forth between the orchestra and the vocals, with the guitar and drums taking the backseat. Power-prog as a genre is heavily dependent on the competency of front-men, and Youmna Jreissati and Elia Monsef alternate to represent the genre perfectly. Their vocal performances are quite easily the main reason you should listen to the album. The production is extraordinary and quite possibly bests the recent Ayreon efforts, which is saying something considering just how much is going on at the same time here due to the live orchestra. The drums in particular are expertly mixed and mastered. There is also some delightful electronic experimentation on the outro of “Surge”, reminding me of what Haken tried to implement on “The Endless Knot”. “Deathless”, another favourite, has a very catchy chorus and Michael Mills on the high notes.

Unfortunately where the album suffers heavily is in its originality of songwriting. The guitar especially, both riffs and solos included, doesn’t distinguish itself from other generic power metal efforts. As a band with a strong Middle-Eastern identity, I was surprised by how underutilized the native string instruments were. Other than the bridge of “Erosion” and a section off “The Surge”, none of the the tracks give a hint of the band’s roots. More importantly, it is an opportunity lost for the band to develop a more unique identity in the overall power-prog and cinematic metal circuit. As of this year, Angra‘s Ømni does almost all the things this one does, but in a more compact manner.

Rating – 7 / 10

Notable Tracks – The Surge, Erosion, Deathless

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music

⊕ BEST OF PROG – April 2018⊕

The Dali Thundering Concept – Savages

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

The Dali Thundering Concept are from Paris and are supposed to be ‘revolutionizing’ the metalcore scene, so I decided to give it a go. France is a good place to start a revolution, right?

I can understand the usage of the word from one perspective: The album is a riff-machine. And not the repetitive, monochrome ones you might find in the metal-core scene. The entire album is filled with complex and fiendish djent riffs. Tracks such as “There is no Calm before the Storm” and “The Myth of Hapiness” (What is up with these track titles?), among a host of others, employ excellent chug-leading, melody-latching ones. “Ink” is a bit more-straight up “Bleed” sounding 0-0-0-0. “Utopia” combines similar chugs while breaking down into a great, unexpected sax melody, before reprising into the guitar. I also enjoy the ‘instrumental’ bits of Cassandra, a sinister synth and electronic interlude. “Demeter” is on the opposite instrumental spectrum, jazzy and upbeat in nature. The voice and musical samples used in the intro of more than half of the songs are intriguing, to say the least, and fit the music surprisingly well. Dali is right in the name of the band, so some sort of surrealism wouldn’t go amiss.

What I absolutely cannot tolerate is the harsh vocals in the album. They are the primary reason, among quite a few others, why I don’t like metalcore. I try to avoid using the term ‘cookie monster’ vocals as it is primarily used by non-metal fans for any band involving growls, but it is absolutely appropriate here. They are screamo-, barely comprehensible and nigh on identical from track to track, making it almost impossible for me to enjoy the instrumentation. And if the vocals are sporadically tolerable, the lyrics are downright awful. They are loosely based on a concept revolving the future humanity in three eras, but the band make it hard for other to take them seriously with phrases such as “Sadness has no price for everything else there’s MasterCard” and “Select a minority, Black, Latino, Muslim; Will it be refugees ? They’ll bomb them on the fucking beach”. I feel embarrassed just typing them out.

Chances are you’ll be as taken aback as the vocals as I am, so I’ve linked a guitar walk-through of a track to present some of the adept guitar-playing on the album.

Rating – 5.5 / 10

Notable Tracks – Utopia, Empty the Void, Cassandra

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

Frequency Drift – Letters to Maro

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

Frequency Drift from Germany have been around for a while but not quite exploded yet in popularity, because of the inherent clutter of bands and artists in art / cinematic rock. Considering the new album carefully, I would say that there a few tracks that are slightly progressive, but these are of infrequent occurrence.

Letters to Maro is influenced by the works of Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer whose works communicated feelings of loneliness and melancholy. These emotions are communicated through, Irini Alexia‘s vocals, melodies from the keys and the harp, as well as overall atmospherics. The album starts off well, displaying enough variation to grip you but finally loses momentum as the minutes roll on due to a few forgettable tracks. After a vocals-focused “Dear Maro”, the next few tracks have enjoyable instrumentation. “Underground” has a piano-driven melody with a naturalistic, percussion-heavy cinematic bridge. “Electricity” imitates the title of the track with an underlying buzz and a catchy chorus. “Neon”, the best of the album, has a Vangelis feel to its buzzing, hurting synth and a bridge filled with an explosion of delicate instrumentation, transporting you to the vibrant streets they are meant to describe and representing its cinematic tag aptly. This is even more noticeable on “Ghost When it Rains”, an instrumental that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Blade Runner soundtrack. I could go on, but these few tracks give you an idea what to expect from the rest of the album – Delicate usage of harps, synth and other ‘exotic’ instruments; cinematic orchestration, understated guitar and bass and resounding vocals.

The slower tracks drag on and are internally inconsistent. The album suffers from trying to integrate the rock bits with the cinematic sections, and this dissection is obvious on “Deprivation”, where most of the song is mousy until the last orchestral snippet. The same can be said of the “Nine”, whose vocal passages sound derived but the final, electronic flourish keeps things going. The longer track, “Who’s Master?” also failed to impress me, achieving little musically but for an excellent vocal performance by Alexia.

Rating – 6.5 / 10

Notable Tracks – Neon, Electricity, Underground

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music

The Reign of Kindo – Happy However After

Genre (RYM) – Jazz-Rock, Progressive Rock (Clean Vocals)

The Reign of Kindo or just Kindo’s Happy However After has a fun The Dear Hunter vibe going for it that would be sure to attract the band’s swelling fan following.

“Human Convention” is groovy and filled with drum-driven beats and jazzy undertones with vocal sections resembling those of Casey Crescenzo. In addition to The Dear Hunter resemblance, a few tracks such as “Let Me Be” with its bass-heavy and million-things-going-on approach remind me of the recent Thank You Scientist album. “Smell of a Rose”, my favourite off the album, also has a “Mr. Invisible” in the implementation of an addictive chorus, notwithstanding the high intensity experimentation of TYS. The drumming and percussion is consistently excellent from Steven Padin with support from a few other members. The off-beat nature of “Return to Me” sound like a track off the recent Owane effort. Joey Secchiaroli is another star member, his voice as significant to the album’s identity as Crescenzo’s and Marrano‘s are to their bands respectively. Another enjoyable track is “Colder than December”, tippy-tappy in nature and combining the bass with a repressed electronic beat, and ultimately including a melodious sax solo.

The album lacks the consistent ability to entertain that the aforementioned bands’ recent efforts do though. “One in a Million”, for example, has a chorus that is humdrum while “About Love” is an entirely skippable slow effort. In addition, while The Dear Hunter has mastered this fun formula already, they had another thing going for them – a concept revolving various albums and chapters. I wasn’t as invested in the lyrics of Happy However After, which, truth be said, takes out a major chunk of the fun involved. This, in addition to hit in the innovation variable that I give so much important to, contributes to the lower score. However I can give it a +/- 0.5 benefit of doubt as I’ve listened to it relatively fewer times than I’ve done for most of the others albums in the column.

Rating – 7 / 10

Notable Tracks – Smell of a Rose, Human Convention, Let Me Be

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music

TesseracT – Sonder

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

I got to review this album at the end of the last month through a pre-release, the detailed review is here for those interested. I’ll keep it short in the summary below.

The positives include brilliant execution by the entire band, especially by Daniel Tompkins, who puts in the best performance of his career. Songs such as “King” and “Smile” portray his ridiculous ability to switch from screams and extremely high-pitched sections to low, emotional ones in a flick of the wrist. There are enough of the signature groovy riffs on tracks such as “Luminary” and “Juno” while new influences come from other prog rock bands such as Steven Wilson and The Contortionist, evident in the atmospherics of “Orbital”, transition of “King” and vocal delivery of “The Arrow”. The lyrics are historically a strength of the band and the concept around “insignificance” is played out in an intriguing manner.

Contrary to the negative opinion about the short length of the album, I’d have been fine completely fine with it if there were better tracks in place of “Beneath My Skin” and “Mirror Image”, both of which represent the sort of tracks off Polaris that didn’t appeal to me. In addition, I find the mixing a bit uneven. The introductory riffs off “Luminary” and “King” come off too loud, intended or not, and jars my experience. The vocals are sometimes mixed too low as well, such as on “Beneath the Skin”, for example.

Overall this is still a good album in a genre that I don’t enjoy much and is one of the only djent records that I have frequented during the last month, along with another slightly below on this same list.

Rating – 7.5 / 10

Notable Tracks – King, Juno, The Arrow

Links (Album): Spotify // Apple Music

King Goat – Debt of Aeons

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

King Goat created quite the buzz last year from more than a few metal publications that I visit for their debut effort, Conduit, a unique and progressive take on doom metal, a genre where experimentation is hardly crucial. I took my time with it to try to get the hype, but, truth be said, it didn’t appeal to me that much. Debt of Aeons, however, is much more up my alley.

The guitar is used more forcefully this time around and even the slower, doom moments appeal to me more than they ever did on Conduit. “Rapture” opens with an odd-time riff, before picking up pace and allowing space for Trim’s plump voice. The ‘progressive’ tag comes, just as for my album of the month, from the incorporation of more experimental riffing in a genre (doom here and stoner for the AOTM) where it is rare. After a short guitar solo, the track adds another attractive riff and a final one during the climax for confirmation. This trend continues during the faster paced “Eremite’s Rest” while the best sequence comes off after the first verse on album highlight “Doldrum Sentinels”, where the chord regression is sumptuous and the to and fro with the harsh vocals during the outro is already one of the year’s highlights.

Trim‘s vocals are very divisive to me. They’re loud, thick (Someone on AMG pointed out that they sound like those of Jack Black, which I found funny). They’re definitely unique, but are the primary reason why I didn’t enjoy Conduit, while supposedly being a huge reason why others enjoyed it so much. There’s enough variety in Debt of Aeons for me to work on, though Conduit is a bit buried in my memory so comparisons may be fraught. His high notes hit hard on “Rapture”, while the persistent high notes, my biggest pet-peeve are spaced out. “On Dusty Avenues” is the one track that has more than a minute of them, but that is a rare occasion. And again, that harsh sequence in “Doldrum Sentinels” is so magnificent that it partially covers up few of the other irksome moments in the album. Elsewhere, the drumming is sufficient without standing out and the production is just about satisfactory.

I would say those who do enjoy Trim’s vocals will again find the album to rise up to the debut album’s expectations while those who don’t should still give it a try, especially “Doldrum Sentinels”, one of my favourite tracks of the year.

Rating – 8 / 10

Notable Tracks – Doldrum Sentinels, Rapture, Debt of Aeons

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

Harvs – Illuminate

Genre (RYM) – Progressive Metal, Djent, Shred (Instrumental)

I caught this from a recommendation someone made on r/progmetal and I’m very happy that I gave this a go. I have found instrumental albums very lacking for a while now but this one has me getting back to it more often than not. Let’s try to see what it is about through a track-by-track overview.

The album opens with “Temptation”, a loud, energetic and rapid motley of synth, bass and guitar. The bridge after the midway point is delightfully complex yet comprehensible at the same time. The title track is similar, adding a few pleasant xylophone-sounding tinks and electronics. The album also uses calmer sections well to alleviate the building tension from the technical explosion, best seen on this track. “Desire” single-handedly contributes to the ‘shred’ label of this album. It is a monumental and esoteric effort with Jakub Zytecki (from Disperse) going into a shred marathon without ever getting frivolous with respect to the track’s theme. There’s a pleasant chink to every drum-beat that is also quite noticeable. “The Escape” is more of the same, adding a few voice samples and djent riffs for variety, while “Under the Illusion” has an extrordinary intro riff while the drum beats are excellently spliced (I’m assuming they’re sampled) in the track. “Whirlwind” is much heavier and goes into blast-beat territory while retaining much of what the album has already successfully introduced. “Parallel Universe” provides a welcome change, opting for a more sweeter, melody-based approach in songwriting, influenced by Sithu Aye, who is the guest instrumentalist. The solo during the bridge is reminiscent of his and fellow prodigy Plini‘s works. Finally, “As Nature Intended” ends on a djenty note, with chugs supporting some shred twiddling, but this track didn’t appeal to me as much as the rest of the albums.

I have only one negative – well two actually, but they’re connected. From what I understand, Adam Bentley from Arch Echo (I haven’t had the chance to listen to them yet, but someday) has mastered and mixed this album. I have to say I’m very disappointed by how the bass and drums sound in the mix. The bass is way too loud and craggy, while the drums are even worse. It clearly sounds to me like some drum beats have been added over the music using a software. If this isn’t the case, then the mix is even more criminal. I also feel the drums could have been avoided in some of the more melody-driven tracks such as “Parallel Universe”, as the combination of poor-sounding drums and relentless thudding exasperates the ear. Only the guitars sound well mixed, along with the occasional sample.

The good news is the negative of the album can be easily worked out on for the next effort, while the positives, that of Harvs‘ songwriting and execution, which are obviously the more difficult tasks; are very promising. Hopefully with a drummer and more vigilant mixing, the next record will be even better. But for now, I’m more than satisfied to keep listening to this gem!

Rating – 8.5 / 10

Notable Tracks – Temptation, Desire, Under the Illusion

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

⊗ ALBUM OF THE MONTH⊗

Boss Keloid – Melted on the Itch

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

Boss Keloid‘s Melted on the Itch is a beautiful example of how experimentation can make tried and tested genres spring to life. The band’s combination of progressive songwriting within the frameworks of stoner rock / metal is easily my favourite record of the month.

The progressive rock influence in composition is scattered throughout the album. About two and a half minutes into “Chronosiam”, you hear a sweet, recurring piece that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Yes record, for example. The same can be said of the groovy opening off “Peykruve” and the synth appearance during the bridge. Elsewhere, “Jromalih” has a percussion-heavy, Tool-sounding intro that is expertly constructed. All the bridges and interludes have similar snippets sprinkled over, making the record entirely filler-free.

The stoner foundation is discernible from the vocals and the riffs that accompany them. Powerful, varied and very addictive, Alex Hurst‘s voice complements the progressive nature of the riffs perfectly to create a blessed marriage of genres. These “dad-vocals” are honestly more up my alley than those from King Goat. On “Chronosiam”, they switch from faster, rap-like nature to non-lexical vocables smoothly. Aided by stronger, hard-hitting riffs, the choruses are where they are their best, on “Jromalih” for example. Strong stoner riff influences lie outside of just the vocal underpins. The final solo off “Peykruve” sounds so much like Elder, my favorite stoner/prog band, that I had to verify that I hadn’t switched up bands by error. The outro of “Tarku Shavel” reminds me of a sequence off the new Weedpecker album. I don’t mean to insinuate that Boss Keloid takes off these bands, but more that they seem to have common influences from classic stoner acts that I’m not as aware of.

The negatives on the record are almost non-existent. I would have a liked a bit of breather at the mid-way point, but there’s enough variety and breathing space in between the tracks to make this seem redundant. Also, compared to the other tracks, “Griffinbass” didn’t stick to me that much, perhaps because it is much more straightforward than the rest in composition. But it is far from mediocre.

There are a few more further surprises in composition that I’ll leave you to explore. Rest assured, this one will get you coming back more often than not.

Rating – 9 / 10

Notable Tracks – Chronosiam, Tarku Shavel, Jromalih

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

March and April 2018 Prog Albums on review standby for May edition:

Valis Ablaze – Boundless

Mile Marker Zero – The Fifth Row

Voices – Frightened

Poly-Math – House of Wisdom / We are the Devil

⊕ SPOTIFY PLAYLIST – BEST OF APRIL 2018 ⊕