Reports from the (progressive metal) underground: January 2018 (revisited)

Good day reader! This time will be a little bit different. As it’s Christmas holiday season and I had a lot of time on my hands, I wanted to use that to revisit and revamp older editions from this blog from a time before we had a website. This blog started out as me (Sam) writing a couple of notes on cool albums I found from searching the depths of Metal-Archives, and posting them to /r/progmetal. As such, the “reviews” you see here are not so much reviews as that they’re a short collection of initial thoughts on the music. Everything was a lot less professional than it is now, so please excuse me if some of these are a bit amateurish. I’ve largely tried to keep true to their original spirit, but since some of these notes were so amateurish, I felt the need to update them. It’s still largely the same text, but some reviews are altered a bit from the first time to reflect my thoughts on these albums more accurately. I also updated the FFO for each album, added recommended tracks, and updated the score if necessary. All reviews here are by me (Sam).

As promised, I would be starting a series in which I write about underground progressive metal released this year. What I do is I search for “progressive” on metal-archives.com ‘s advanced search function and I click on literally everything releases and I intuitively shift through them. Be it in song lengths or that there’s a positive review somewhere or that I just get a good impression from scanning their album on bandcamp. Not nearly everything I come across is good, but on the other hand I’ve found some of my favorite bands this way, and hence I thought it’d be a cool idea to write down a few notes in Google Drive on what I came across to and post them here.

I first wanted to give a recap of the first half of 2018 so I could just proceed to go on monthly, but there was just so much to check out that I decided to just give you a month-per-month showcase of what’s out there. This way I can make my primer much more diverse and thorough.

So with all said and done, let’s get to it! I’ll list the releases in chronological order below and I’ll give you an idea of the general style of prog the band plays.

EDIT: I forgot to say that metal-archives does not list any prog rock, alternative, djent or core genres. So if you want something featured in that department in future installments of this series, feel free to PM me and I’ll include it!

EDIT 2: This post will be stikied to my profile. So if you want to find it in the future, just click on my profile and it’ll be at the top. I’ll also link to the previous month in every future installment.

Odin’s Court – Turtless All the Way Down, Vol II (US-MD, 05-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: traditional (clean vocals)

If you had your hopes up that I was only gonna feature good or great bands on this primer, be ready for disappointment, because the music here is downright terrible. The album title is almost the only redeeming factor here (seriously, look at that, it’s hilarious). Vol II is Odin’s Court 9th album (yes you read that correctly), and it really doesn’t give any incentive whatsoever to check out the rest of their discography. Vol II comes across as a watered down version of Dream Theater, but then not just watered down, but it swam all the way through the Nile river and the remains were picked up by a fisherman in Italy. The riffs are either uninspired or ripped off from other bands, the synths are cheesy and way overbearing and the vocals aren’t any good either. There’s a 20 minute epic, but it’s so poorly executed and cluttered you’d be better off listening to I Walk Beside You four times over again.

Is it all bad? No. Unmoved Mover and Burning Tides of Time have some pretty decent synth work and the latter is easily the best thing on the album. However, I wouldn’t give either track higher than a 7/10 so yeah, still not really worth your time. Maybe you’ll find more enjoyment in this than I did, but Lorne, to me, this was boring as hell.

Recommended tracks: Burning Tides of Time, I guess
Recommended for fans of: self-hate, I Walk Beside You
Final verdict: 3/10

Phendrana – Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (Mexico, 08-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: avant-garde/atmospheric black (harsh/mixed vocals)

A very nice atmospheric prog metal album that’s great if you want something relaxed. Don’t let the black metal part shun you, aside from the vocals there’s very little actual black metal. A lot of it is carried by modern prog metal riffs. Phendrana easily carry you from one mood to the other. It’s a very organic record in which you can relax as you are carried along the waves of Phendrana’s soundscapes. Don’t expect any flashy guitar solos though.

Recommended tracks: Where Ages Meet, Gjenganger
Recommended for fans of: Agalloch, Opeth, Saor
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Hadeon – Sunrise (Italy, 12-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: Traditional/Hard Rock (clean vocals)

Now I don’t have much to say about this band except that you should just give them a listen if you enjoy the lighter side of prog metal. Hadeon has generally sound songwriting, pleasant vocals and soundscapes and pretty guitar solos. Don’t expect to be blown away, but if you want something light and easy on the ear, this is for you. A very promising debut from the Italians.

Recommended tracks: Chaotic Picture; I, Divided; Sunrise
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater’s lighter songs, late Sieges Even/Subsignal, Kingcrow, Riverside
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Roman Khrustalev – Fallen Kingdom (Kazakhstan, 12-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: Power/Traditional (instrumental)

Man, what an album! This will surely make my end of the year list, even though I barely listen to (or like) instrumental stuff. Fallen Kingdom is full of heavy-as-hell riffs, amazing guitar and synth leads and solos and just very captivating compositions all around. My only qualm with this record is that the guitar is tuned to almost djent levels of heavyness, but I imagine that won’t be a problem for most of you here.

Recommended tracks: The Mistress of Copper Mountain, The Dreamweaver, Fallen Kingdom I & II
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater instrumentals/Liquid Tension Experiment, Pagan’s Mind, Circus Maximus, etc.
Final verdict: 8/10

Deconstructing Sequence – Cosmic Progression-an Agonizing Journey Through Oddities of Space
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: black/death (harsh vocals)

Well this truly is an ungodly abomination of an album. Someone on the discord server described it as “technical death metal disco with St Anger blast beats”, which hit the mark horrifyingly well. Whoever thought it was a good idea to combine cheesy 80s synths with Tech Death should really start reflecting on his life choices. The synths aren’t synchronized with the rest of the music and the drummer does his own thing entirely, leaving the guitarist guessing on what he should do. The vocals also aren’t anything to write home about. And did I mention the snare sound? Jesus Christ, this is St Anger levels of terrible. Now imagine blast beats with that snare, and yeah… rather not…

There are some moments this band hits the mark (and those moments are truly awesome) but at least 80% of the time this is just plain terror for your ears. The only reason why you would listen to this is to meme about St Anger blast beats and tech death disco because this is really, really poor. Truly an Agonizing Journey if you will.

Recommended tracks: no
Recommended for fans of: masochism, self-loathing, /r/2meirl4meirl, St Anger snare
Final Verdict: 2/10

Ferhan Başaran – Avantgarde (Turkey, 18-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: look at the album title ffs (mixed vocals)

I have very little to say about this. It’s just very solid avantgarde metal with lots of electronics incorporated. Sometimes there’s a flute and on track 3 there’s also a trumpet playing. Like almost all avant-garde metal this also contains some black metal elements, but it’s not much and it’s well executed. It’s a good album and it’s well worth your time. It sounds like something that’ll grow on you with repeated listens.

Recommended tracks: idk
Recommended for fans of: ???
Final verdict: 6/10

Sisare – Leaving the Land (Finland, 18-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: 70s prog rock (clean vocals)

I think this is the only straight up Prog Rock album I came across to. According to Metal-Archives they played “melodic extreme metal” earlier so I guess that’s why I found them. Leaving the Land is a very relaxed record. It’s got a light sound with very pretty guitar solos. The first half of the record is very good. The riffs in this have some of that old-school 70s swagger to them and the drums never fail to get you grooving. It dies off a bit near the end, but the first half alone makes this totally worth your time.

Recommended tracks: Escape, Mountain, Geno
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Black Sabbath, 70s prog
Final Verdict: 7.5/10

Auerkallio – Auerkallio (Finland, 26-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: light prog metal/rock with some death elements (clean/mixed vocals)

“It’s as if Opeth wanted to follow a more mellow path”. This is my second favorite release from January 2018. Auerkallio is a solo-project by Matti Auerkallio, who has also featured as a drummer in other bands. Matti manages to create a sound here that is unique, but doesn’t shun away from showing his influences. There’s bits of Opeth and Katatonia all over the place (especially in the vocal department), but his synth work is more akin to 70s prog and the guitars have a very djent-y feel to them. The band used to write death metal and you can still hear that in a lot of places here. You can hear the home production, but it doesn’t distract from the music by any means. My reviewing skills are quite shitty so this paragraph ends here, but Auerkallio is overall just an excellent effort which you shouldn’t miss.

Recommended tracks: You May Call It Madness, Walk Away, Once and for All
Recommended for fans of: Subsignal, Opeth soft parts, later Katatonia, Fates Warning (Mark Zonder era)
Final verdict: 8/10

Howling Sycamore – Howling Sycamore (US-CA, 26-01)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: extreme metal with clean vocals (?)

Howling Sycamore is kind of hard to describe. It’s a super group featuring Jason McMaster on vocals (ex-Watchtower), Davide Tiso on guitar (Aborym) and Hannes Grossman on drums (Alkaloid). The instrumentation sounds like death metal, but on the other hand it’s too melodic, only clean vocals and there’s a sax. It’s a weird combination, but it works. The good of this album lies in the drumming, the sax and the unique sound that this band creates. Oh yeah and there’s the vocals, but they’re very much an acquired taste as McMaster is well, unique.. What’s bad is that the riffs tend to get a bit droning, but on the other hand it also creates a nice industrial metal vibe. It doesn’t really reach the heights you want it to considering how unique it is, but Howling Sycamore is an excellent debut on the whole.

Recommended tracks: Upended, Midway
Recommended for fans of: death metal without the death metal vocals, saxophones
Final Verdict: 8/10