Reports from the (progressive metal) underground: This YEAR in underground progressive metal – our 2018 albums of the year list!

Hey there everyone! What a journey it has been. Starting back in July last year, this blog has come a long way. In the beginning I was still an amateur at reviewing, and my reviews were admittedly bang average, or even outright terrible. However, my enthusiasm was enough to drive me forward. My inner hipster rejoiced at the obscurity of all the new music I listened to, which resulted in some scores being waaay higher than they should have been (the opposite was true as well, the better the record, the more skeptic I got).
As time went on though, my reviews got better. But after the June edition I got so burnt out I was basically fucking up my entire life because I did nothing besides sitting behind my computer all day to listen to, and review more than 10 albums in two weeks for three months straight. Since I don’t know any other way than being completely honest, I laid my soul on the table and poured out all my woes to Reddit, asking for help. After that low point, two fine gentlemen by the names of Dylan and Nostrebor68 offered their help to me (along with quite a bunch of others), and everything got better. Doing only 4 reviews at the time instead of 12 really helped my focus, to say the least.
Now, finally, after lots of turbulent times, we’re at the end of 2018. So now it’s time to recap. An album of the year list in April may be a bit late, but who cares. 2019 has been slow for the hype releases anyway, so maybe we can still steal some thunder.

But, not all is good news. This is gonna be the last post featuring Nostrebor68. He’s been too busy with life, basically. Married life and a 50 hour work week take their toll, so to say. The stress of the deadlines was weighing too much on him. Last three weeks he hasn’t had the time either for this blog. So if you’re wondering why the review text on his picks seem familiar, it’s because they’re made up of excerpts from his previous reviews. I really want to thank him for all he has given to this blog and wish him all the best in the future.

Since Nostrebor, Dylan and I haven’t actually listened to all of each other’s albums, this is not going to be a count down list. It’d be impossible to say which album is better if we haven’t listened to everything. Plus, we all have our biases. So instead, we decided to group it into three separate tiers: the great, the excellent and the albums of the year. All the albums are listed in alphabetical order within their respective tiers to prevent a feeling of that we’re ranking them anyway.
So now let’s get started! Since this post would become absurdly long if everything was on one page, I’ve put all the tiers on separate pages. Every tier will have its own playlist of recommended songs you can listen to (if you don’t want to listen to everything in its entirety for example). The links of which will be inside the tiers’ respective pages. Also, if you don’t want/have time to read the entire thing, here’s a spreadsheet with all the albums and info on them inside. Know that you will be spoiling yourself though :P.

And now for the usual yada-yada: What is this place? We have an about page now, so check it out! If you want to suggest an album, or want your album review in the future, send me (u/genderlessperson) a PM on Reddit or hit me up on the r/progmetal Discord, and I’ll bookmark it. Finally, here are the links to the previous editions:
– January
– February
– March
– April
– May
– June
– July
– August
– September
– October
– November
– December
– Missed albums edition

Before we get into the final list though, I must first cover the honorable mentions. These are very good albums that could have easily made the list on another day, but for the sake of length have missed the cut. These are the albums, ordered by date of featuring on this blog. The missed edition albums will be separated by a paragraph.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

01-12 Hadeon – Sunrise (rock/traditional, Italy)
01-19 Sisare – Leaving the Land (rock, Finland)
01-26 Howling Sycamore – Howling Sycamore (avantgarde, US-CA))
02-02 Astrakhan – Without New Growth Process Is Bloodshed (sludge a la Mastodon, Canada)
02-23 Maladie – …of Harm and Salvation… (avant-black with a cello and a sax, Germany)
03-11 Leviathan – Can’t Be Seen by Looking: Blurring the Lines, Clouding the Truth (USPM, US-CO)
03-16 Monotheist – Scourge (death, US-FL)
04-06 Messa – Feast for Water (doom, Italy)
04-27 Boss Keloid – Melted on the Inch (sludge, England)
06-08 Fire Down Below – Hymn of the Cosmic Man (stoner, Belgium)
06-30 Skyglow – Thousand Years of Terror (death, Russia)
09-21 Ghost Ship Octavius – Delirium (power, US-WA)
09-26 Immortal Guardian – Age of Revolution (power, US-TE)
09-28 Uroboros – Le Rose est le Nouveau Noir (death/Argentinian folk, Argentina)
10-01 The Artifice Precept – Premonition (symphonic deathcore, US-CA)
11-09 Four Stroke Baron – Planet Silver Screen (alternative, US-NV)
12-03 The Wright Valley Trio – Submarine Funeral (funeral doom, Germany)
12-28 Well of Sacrifice – Primal Conquest (melodeath, US-CO)
12-31 Riverwood – Fairytale (oriental/folk, Egypt)

03-26 Axios – Erased (traditional/alternative, US-IL)
06-01 The Konsortium – Rogaland (black, Norway)
09-26 Sky Empire – The Dark Tower (traditional, UK)
09-28 The Arusha Accord – Juracan (mathcore, UK)
10-19 Voragine of Autumn – Aphelion (black, Chile)

So now, finally, we’ve covered everything that needed to be said. Can’t wait any longer? Let’s jump into it:

TIER 3: THE GREAT