Reports from the (progressive metal) underground: November 2018

To introduction or not to introduction, that is the question. Especially if you’re short on time. This is an introduction about an introduction. What the hell, this makes no sense. Sorry I just really have nothing to say this time, except for that this website still looks like shit. Well anyway, we have some 10s this time! So maybe there’s something to say after all. Choo choo, next station (ok I’ll stop with this incomprehensible ramble, just go on to the next paragraph already).

As always, here’s a link to the Spotify playlist with all recommended tracks in advance, and the links to all previous editions:
– January
– February
– March
– April
– May
– June
– July
– August
– September

What is this place? We have an about page now! So take a look at it if you’re unfamiliar. Now let’s get to it!

11-01 Seventh Dimension – The Corrupted Lullaby (Sweden)
Style: traditional/power (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Sam

“Album over 2 hours? Holy shit. 95% review? Holy shit. No one knows about this band. Holy shit even more. Samples sound good! Holyshitholyshitholyshit. A bit close to DT at times, but many of my favorites share that trait so I don’t mind.”
Such was my thought process when I stumbled upon this record. A 2 hour underground album is usually underground for a reason, but on the other hand there’s a serious chance it’s one of the best albums of the year. Such ridiculous length signifies a vast amount of boldness and ambition that is usually only seen with the absolute best of the genre. It can also be a sign of overestimating oneself, which is more likely than not, but in this case I chose to take a huge leap of faith and take the plunge.
It pains me to say that, this is undoubtedly not great. While I love Dream Theater-adjacent bands, this steers a little too close to them. Add in Seventh Wonder and Symphony X to the mix and you have basically all Seventh Dimension have to offer. There are other bands very close to DT which I enjoy immensely like Vanden Plas or Circus Maximus, but both of them still have distinct attributes which separate them from the New Yorkers. Seventh Dimension however lack such attributes. Basically all they do can be traced back to the first three bands I mentioned.
What’s most annoying about this record is the lack of songwriting ability. Sure these guy can play the hell out of their instruments, but there’s just no cohesion. And that their singer is utterly forgettable doesn’t help either. Sure he can sing, but his vocal lines and delivery are predictable and boring as hell. And it seems like the bands thinks this as well, because their instrumental sections go on forever, almost as if they’re afraid of letting their vocalist get back to his mic. It’s really stupid. Imagine the unison solo at the end of Beyond This Life’s bridge, and instead of LaBrie coming back with “All that we learned this tiiiiiimmmeee // Is caaarried beyond this liiiifffeee”, they continue the instrumentals, and almost immediately begin building up to another climactic unison solo, but this time we’re in The Glass Prison. Sure, both solos are awesome, but without the transition back into the song they become meaningless. That’s basically what you get with Seventh Dimension (see the 18-minute epic The Dreamer’s Escape for example, which on another note also completely rips off Symphony X on the opening riff).
So on the whole this band is just not worth it. They are certainly ambitious, but right now they first need someone who can actually write songs (and interesting vocal lines). This is just a bloated, unoriginal, incohesive mess of an album. And then I even forgot to mention it’s a concept album, which you can read about it on their website. I did not dig into the concept however as the music is just subpar. Not recommended.

Recommended tracks: none
Recommended for fans of: Seventh Wonder, Symphony X, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 5/10

11-08 Lost in Thought – Renascence (United Kingdom)
Style: traditional (clean vocals)
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Dylan

If there is something we can all agree on, is that there is a very small margin of music that clicks with you like no other. This usually comes from your favorite albums/bands ever, mine being (along a couple more) Dream Theater and Haken. It had been a good year or so since I found an album that I was instantly fascinated by, until this album came around.
Lost in Thought have a very traditional prog metal sound. It is essentially dream theater with less wankery, and a good amount of Caligula’s Horse/Haken influence. It tries to go for catchiness, and memorability, rather than technicality.
And just like that, this album seemed to hit ALL of my sweet spots. It’s traditional prog metal done to perfection. Anthemic choruses are present along heavy awesome riffs, with some nice moments of technical show off that add to the song itself. The album is overwhelmed by beautiful interludes, crescendos and climaxes, and never feels hectic. It’s the tightest underground prog metal albums I know of. And one of the tightest in the scene overall.
Every one of the members pulls out an A+ performance, but the singer is what shines the most. He has a very typical voice for this style of music, yet manages to make it unique. This guy has got some pipes, which he uses perfectly to either make you want to shout the chorus out loud, or completely astonished by how beautiful he accompanies every acoustic break.
Honestly, I wish I could keep writing more and more about this release, just to convince you to listen to it, but I’ve got no more to say. This is a phenomenal release,that captures everything done right by the most classic of albums such as Images & Words. AOTY contender? For sure!
The ONLY reason that’s keeping me from giving it the perfect rating, is that you can only call an album perfect when you know every note of it, to the point where you can predict passages and recognize the entire brilliance of the album.

Recommended tracks: A New Life, Ascendance, Save Me, Open your Eyes
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Haken, Caligula’s Horse, Seventh Wonder
Final verdict: 9.5/10

11-09 Four Stroke Baron – Planet Silver Screen (US-NV)
Style: rock (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Dylan

Four Stroke Baron are damn bold musicians. They went out and mixed hard rock/metal riffs with synth pop vocals, and made it work!
Upon first listen, there’s like a 50 second Depeche Mode-esque introduction, which is interrupted by a wall of chaos, followed by cohesive instrumentation which kicks off the second track. I find this intro to be, simply put, brilliant. It transitions both sounds so well, and sets the tone of the album perfectly.
The synth pop/metal fusion makes for a very cool, unique experience. You’re constantly getting fantastic riffs throughout, accompanied by beautiful, somewhat dreamy vocals. Tight drums are present throughout the whole record, and the bass is groovy and put nicely into the mix.
Only thing keeping this release from being a masterpiece is that it gets somewhat repetitive with it’s main gimmick, with the exception of the beautiful ballad “Duplex”. That aside, this is a fantastic release for those tired of formulaic prog.

Recommended tracks: Cut/Planet Silver Screen, Cyborg City Pt. 2, Duplex
Recommended for fans of: Karnivool, (late) The Contortionist
Final verdict: 8.5/10

11-09 Hex A.D. – Netherworld Triumphant (Norway)
Style: epic doom (clean vocals)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Nostrebor68

I’m really spoiled when it comes to Doom Metal. It’s the genre I spend the most time with regularly, so I’m well-versed in the big names, and I’ve definitely found my own personal Doom niche. Because of this, I tend to be pretty damn picky with new Doom bands, and often I’ll be heavily disappointed because they’re just doing the same thing one of those bigger bands did, but not nearly as well. Epic Doom especially has this issue, as I grew up listening to Candlemass. Between them and recently discovering King Goat, blowing me away with an Epic Doom album is difficult on a good day. So my question going into this Hex A.D. album was simply whether I would find anything at all to be excited by, or if I would be bored to tears.
Thankfully Hex A.D. have a pretty killer sound going for them here. It’s not perfect, and it’s not Candlemass (I’m spoiled I’m sorry), but they’re doing justice to the genre for sure. The guitars are chunky, and the riffs are enjoyable, if not particularly exciting. However, the lead guitar-work occasionally drifts away from the traditional epic doom sound to something closer to Maiden-esque NWOBHM solos and I absolutely love it. It makes the songs really pop. The drumming hasn’t particularly caught my ear, but it does an admirable job of pushing the songs forward. There are also organs pretty consistently throughout the album, and it definitely beefs up an otherwise somewhat traditional sound.
The vocals are my biggest sticking point here. They’re not bad by any means, but by the standards of this particular doom subgenre they’re solidly unimpressive. They drift between NWOBHM style cleans just make me wish I was listening to Satan or Iron Maiden, and harsher, throaty growls that I prefer between the two, as they do a great job filling out the heavier moments on the album.
Is Hex A.D. the next big Epic Doom release? Absolutely not, but it was quite fun to listen to, and I encourage fans of the style to give it at least one or two spins, you’ll probably hear a few things that you really enjoy.

Recommended tracks: Netherworld Triumphant Part 1 and 2
Recommended for fans of: Candlemass, Sorcerer
Final verdict: 7/10

11-09 Lucifer’s Child – The Order (Greece)
Style: black (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Sam

There’s one thing we all dread in life, and that’s the question: “What music do you listen to?”. While the question itself is not bad, and could certainly spark an interesting conversation, you’re already shivering about the reaction you know will inevitably come when you painstakingly say “I listen to metal”. Yes, you know which one I’m talking about. The: “Oh so you like screamo shit?” response. REEEEE goes in your mind, but you’ve learned to just ignore it at this point in your life so you act like you don’t care. However, deep down you’re already conjuring up an essay of how wrong the person is. “First of all, screamo is a punk thing (and sounds god awful indeed if you ask me), and second of all, there is plenty of metal with clean vocals. Not everything is black and/or death metal. UGH”
Well, not here. This band is almost exactly everything that goes through the mind of such a person when the dreaded words of “I listen to metal” echo in their skulls. From the first note you’re bombarded with insane black metal shrieks, huge riffs and blast beats. Even the band name just screams EVIL. And with lyrics like “Satan light my way through the darkness” you’ve successfully perpetuated the horrifying stereotype of a metalhead. And finally now that all the weak plebs have left the hall, it’s time to delve into the music.
This album sounds massive as hell. There are some nice symphonic touches, but mostly it’s thanks to the amazing sound of the guitars. If I had to describe, it sounds like a dramatic wall of doom coming your way in the armageddon. The guitars fill the soundscape, but at the same time you can clearly hear every detail of their playing. The drums also sound full and pounding, almost like you’re in a cave, but then with the clarity of good studio production. They clearly nailed the production aspect.
Now on about the music. If you’re into black metal, this is probably nothing you haven’t heard before. However, it’s executed damn well. Good riffs, properly Satanic vocals, menacing guitar solos and haunting acoustic passages. Lucifer’s Child make for a very enjoyable black metal act. It’s not very progressive, but, honestly, it’s not necessary when you sound as epic as this. If you’re in the mood for some riffy, balls to the walls black metal, give this a spin. You won’t regret it.

Recommended tracks: The Order, Through Fire We Burn, Siste Farvel
Recommended for fans of: Emperor, Mgla, (early) Enslaved, The Antichrist Imperium
Final verdict: 6.66 8/10

11-09 Stellar Circuits – Ways We Haunt (US-NC)
Style: alternative/djent (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Nostrebor68

There’s this huge stigma against djent in the prog community right now, and often it’s somewhat well-deserved. In the early 2010s djent exploded, and a swath of underwhelming periphery copycats flooded the scene. Many of these bands were as non-progressive as could be, but got lumped into the umbrella anyway because of the djent elements. This is where much of the current contention lies, I believe, and unfortunately it means that a lot of people avoid djent-tagged bands principle. In the case of Stellar Circuits this would be a real shame, as the band has put out a pretty stellar release in “Ways We Haunt”.
I don’t bash djent as much as most of the community, but I do tend to get quite bored of the bands that rely on that singular guitar sound as only defining feature of their music. Stellar Circuits does a fantastic job of layering in the djent when needed, and then pulling back for some absolutely lovely melodic sections. This formula has been done before, for sure, but something about the way these guys pull it off just seriously impresses me. It might be the guitarwork, which when not djenting is focused on finger-picked leads and some surprising acoustic layering which was easily one of my favorite bits of the album. The vocals are pretty standard djent/core fare, utilizing a high tenor tone and an ethereal and flightly tone, but they work very well. The vocalist even dips close to some more traditionally baritone notes which caught me off guard after mostly sounding like Dan Tompkins twin brother for most of the album. The harshes on the album are all heavily fuzzed up and pushed back in the mix, which is a somewhat strange but ultimately effective stylistic choice. They never overpower the sound, and instead just layer in with the riffs to create a wave of heaviness. The bass is also quite audible, and provides some killer grooves for a few tracks that I was pleasantly surprised by. I have no complaints about the instrumentation or the songwriting on this album, really.
In fact, the only critique I have of this band is incredibly minor. I’d love to see a tad more experimentation from them. They have the djent formula down pretty tight, and they deviate from it occasionally, but I’d love to see them pull a full Caligula’s Horse and incorporate those djent sounds into something entirely their own. Otherwise, I fully recommend this album to anyone with an open enough mind to listen to a djent band for 48 minutes, as it’s absolutely worth it.

Recommended tracks: Fell Under a Spell, Sleepless Goddess
Recommended for fans of: TesseracT, Textures, Opus of a Machine
Final verdict: 9/10

11-15 Gnosys – Deux: The Origin of Species (Mexico)
Style: traditional/power (clean vocals)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Dylan

This is some of the most standard underground prog out there, by that I mean standard BAD underground prog. The singer? You’ve heard him a million times before, most generic voice on prog metal ever. Technical ability? It’s there, but used just for the sake of showing off, rather than adding a layer of complexity to their songwriting. Is there an epic? Yep, 26 mins long. And it’s dull, overblown, and will have you wishing it could just END already.
I can’t really write much more about an album that gives me nothing to say.

Recommended tracks: no
Recommended for fans of: no
Final verdict: 4/10

11-16 All Traps on Earth – A Drop of Light (Sweden)
Style: classic 70s prog rock (instrumental)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Sam’s DAD!!

So you expected me to review this. Wahahau. Since I have next to no knowledge of prog rock, and my dad is a huge fan of the 70s, I asked him to write the review instead. I’m not entirely sure if this album is underground enough for this site since RYM’s prog rock fanbase already collectively wanked over it, but it hasn’t gotten any hype anywhere else on the internet as far as I could tell, so whatever. Anyway, from here on it’s my dad typing:
This band is composed of 3 out of 4 members from Swedish prog rock band Änglagård, so its sound is definitely comparable to them, but less mellow and pleasing. This is VERY experimental prog rock. It’s a (purely instrumental) collage of short parts in many different styles (jazz, rock, folk, symphonic rock, among other things). There’s an abundance of original ideas and textures. The parts by themselves are quite interesting, but there is no recognisable higher level song structure tying everything together. This lack of structure and it’s relatively long length of 63 minutes makes the album a bit tiring after a while. If you’re in for something unusual, this might be for you.

Recommended tracks: all or none
Recommended for fans of: Frank Zappa, Residents, Änglagård
Final verdict: 6/10

11-16 Ravaged Spleen Outburst – The Church of Anemia (Serbia)
Style: brutal/slam death (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Sam

This is the debut album of u/welyyt, a friend of mine of Reddit. He asked me my opinion of it a while ago, but I told him I saved it for November reviews instead, since there were enough prog influences.
If you are a prog head first and value clean production, stay far far away from this. He told me he was figuring out the production on the fly, and it’s certainly noticeable, to say in the least. This record is ugly, ugly as the depths of Donald Trump’s twitter account. On the virtue of welyyt’s demonic, incomprehensible guttural vocals and the muffled, but very weighty guitars, this sounds like it came straight out of a cavern. The drums (which are programmed) also do not come anywhere close to sounding good. Only thing that is clearly audible would be the mid and high-end of the guitars, which means you can still properly distinguish the riffs.
But at the same time that same all this ugliness is the record’s primary strength. Like I mentioned before, the vocals are hellishly brutal. Though technically they could certainly use some work, I like how they function in the music. A caveman doesn’t take singing classes either lol. The riffs are also ugly as hell, but you can properly headbang to them. The record is littered with slam breakdowns and there are also some Gothernburg stylings to be found. What’s jarring though, is the seemingly random placement of everything. Every song if filled with ideas, but the cohesion between them is definitely lacking.
This record is decent for if you need something brutal with riffs and have low production standards, but in any other case stay far away from this.

Recommended tracks: Anointing of the Sick
Recommended for fans of: I really have no idea. Carcass?
Final verdict: 4.5/10

11-16 Steorrah – The Altstadt Abyss (Germany)
Style: death/Opeth (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Dylan

Usually Sam has the curse to review these type of bands, but this month, it was my turn. Steorrah are one of maaany prog metal bands that take inspiration from Opeth. Except that, they just worship opeth rather than adding their own twist to it. Everything here is a lesser great version of opeth’s album from ‘99 to ‘05. The mix lacks punch badly, the vocal delivery is competent at best, and hardly any memorable passages are to be found.
There’s only one good thing about the album, which even pisses me of more. Steorrah has piano passages, and surprisingly, these are absolutely beautiful, and well timed. It’s a shame that everything before and after it is literally Opeth 0.5.

Recommended tracks: nah
Recommended for fans of: literally Opeth
Final verdict: 4/10

11-16 Sunless Dawn – Timeweaver (death, Denmark)
Style: melodeath (harsh/mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Nostrebor68

Hooooooooooly shit. This album leaves me speechless. I saw this album floating around a bit when it first came out, and kind of avoided it because a lot of “BTBAM-esque Prog Death” as it was described just doesn’t do it for me. That was an enormous mistake on my part, because this album is absolutely mind-blowing. The songwriting, the performances, the production, everything is just divine, and I can’t stop listening.
First and foremost, the guitars, man. The guitars are punchy and technical and just create this wave of power that shoves you through every song, until they need to slow down and fade out for the atmosphere at which point they provide a more gentle support for the rest of the sound. But every moment provides constant and surprising lead and riff work that I just can’t get out of my head. The bass tone is thick and present, leaving me bobbing my head to the rhythm, and the drumming is absolutely wild, flying between various beats and fills with ease, while never feeling too chaotic at the same time. I think the biggest point of contention many people with have with this album is the vocal performance, as it definitely sounds like a slightly beefier Thomas Giles. I’m not a fan of Tommy’s harshes generally speaking, I think they sound overly throaty and flat, but whatever Sunless Dawn’s vocalist is doing with his throat is working, because the extra punch in his tone blows Tommy’s out of the water.
One my first listen I was a little bothered by the length of the album, as an hour is a tad long for my taste and ending on a 15 minute track is risky. However, as I’ve gone back and re-listened over and over again I just can’t find anything on the album I would want cut, or trimmed, or edited in any way. The songwriting is just so damn tight that I find myself coming back over and over again, and as far as I’m concerned that means everything is just fine how it is, even if it’s a tad longer than I usually prefer.
I don’t like giving albums perfect scores. Even if I have nothing to specifically complain about, often I’ll assign a 9 to a band because they just haven’t done anything that I consider actual perfection from a musical standpoint, they’ve just impressed the hell out of me. Sunless Dawn though, deserves the perfect 10. Every single element of this music blows me away every time, the songwriting is sublime, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what they have in store for us in the future. You’ve set the bar high boys, keep it coming.

Recommended tracks: Aether, Grand Inquisitor
Recommended for fans of: Persefone, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, good music
Final verdict: 10/10