Reports from the (progressive metal) underground: February 2019

Good day to all you readers! This time, I have both good and bad news. Good news is that we can welcome a new reviewer, so say hello to Volarus! Those active on the r/progmetal Discord might know him as his name there is Archopin, but he wanted to use his standard online username of Volarus from this. Bad news though, is, unfortunately, quite bad. I am hereby announcing that I will quit writing for this blog for the foreseeable future. I will still write reviews for the March edition, but that is only so I can handle the reigns over smoothly. Dylan will take over this blog when I’m gone, so you don’t need to panic just yet.
Reason for this is that reviewing has begun to take its toll on me. It’s not that I don’t like doing this, I do a lot. But it’s drawing me way too much my computer, which I just can’t handle right now. The moments I’m actually reviewing and working on this blog are fine, but the thing is just that before I know it I wasted five hours with browsing Reddit or similar sites. With enough time away from the screen (30 days or so) I can limit myself to doing something productive and nothing else, but with all the reviewing that just doesn’t work. Hence I want to focus on going r/nosurf (abstaining from computer/phone completely bar practical use) for the summer. Then after that I might (good chance I will) come back, but I can give you no promises. Creating a new habit takes three months, and even then it still might not be a good idea.
Another reason for this is that I want to focus on other aspects of life than music. Lately I’ve noticed I haven’t really been enjoying listening to music as much anymore. The objectivity for writing reviews has made me a bit detached from what listening to music is all about: simply enjoying it. After the humongous guide to progressive metal I put up on r/progmetal about a month ago, it feels a bit like I’ve put out my final piece of work (as far as this lifestyle is concerned) and need to rest for a while, if that makes sense. All I do when I’m not studying is sitting behind my computer browsing Reddit and listening to music. Music listening should be a supplementary thing in life, not the main activity (like it is now for me). And to change that I feel I really need to go cold turkey for a while.
However before I leave this place (and r/progmetal and the Discord server probably too), I want to make clear what you can still expect of me. First of all, like I said before, this will be my second last edition. Next edition I’ll help Dylan take over the reigns and show him how all the practical things work like my bookmarking system and my post-format on WordPress. Second of all I still want to post a few guides to r/progmetal in the coming month. I’m planning on releasing a more condensed version of my prog metal guide for beginners, in which I want to focus more on a few well known bands than the subgenres (like last time). I hope that this time it’ll actually be small, haha (that was a working title I forgot to change when posting it). And aside from that there are a couple of other things I still want to post which I don’t have as concrete yet.

…wew. That was a lot. I really can’t keep things short now, don’t I? Well, enough about me, let’s talk about February.

This month is… unique. If you enjoy things that are weird and do not care about genre boundaries, then this month will surely have something of interest for you. The sub-tectonic depths of Metal Archives outdid themselves yet again. Grindcore and post metal? Clown core? You name it, this month has both, and a lot of other weird stuff.
Also I’m gonna have to put up a bit of a disclaimer about some albums we put in, namely Herod, A Novelist and Kaleikr. They’re less underground than what we usually do, so we had a bit of a discussion in our little Discord server on what makes a band underground enough. Figuring out a hard cap is nearly impossible. Some bands have lots of ratings on sites like RYM or sputnik, but only little last.fm/Spotify listeners and don’t have much hype on Reddit, while others can be the other way around. Ultimately however, we decided on setting a last.fm cap of 5k listeners and amounts of Reddit hype. It’s not a set-in-stone metric and there will be exceptions, but it will be our go-to check from now on.

So now it’s time for my usual rites. What is this place? We use Metal-Archives’ advanced search engine to find all progressive/post/avantgarde metal releases in a month, then we select the best/most grabbing ones and write a (small) review on them. We go chronological with the months. We take releases from outside of metal-archives too, but that is generally limited to requests and recommendations from other prog fans as the other sites’ search engines aren’t as precise nor is their database as thorough as metal-archives. You can read more about us on our About page, which also includes some history. Do you want your band reviewed? Or do you want to send us a recommendation? Send a private message to /u/Yung2112 (Dylan’s username on Reddit), or hit him up on the r/progmetal Discord (@Womb to Waste). Talking to me (@sam1oq/genderlessperson, /u/genderlessperson), Daniel (@dagramonte23, /u/dagramonte23) or Volarus (@Archopin) also works.

Lastly, here’s a link to the Spotify playlist with all the recommended tracks from the albums we reviewed and if you don’t want/have time to read the entire thing, here’s a spreadsheet with all the albums in it. Now let’s get to it!!

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02-01 Neuronaut – State of Not Enough (Sweden)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: experimental doom (mixed vocals)
Review by: Dylan

I’m usually very mixed on music that’s heavily experimental. It can sometimes be cutting edge, bold and amazing. Or it can be literally completely unlistenable (as we’ll see later in this post). Luckily, Neuronaut fits into the first area with a degree of comfort.

The word experimental here doesn’t mean that the songwriting is sacrificed in order to sound weird, instead, it’s present thanks to the atmosphere Neuronaut builds. The whole album sounds quirky, strange and a bit awkward, which is overall very unique. Closest I can compare it to is “what if late contortionist fused with sci-fi Spacey themes?” And it works superbly. I can’t say you’ll enjoy all of it at first listen, but with repeated listens the music becomes easier to grasp with, and even has a couple hook-y moments.

The guitar work is responsible for bringing a lot of melody into the table, avoiding chugs and djent all together and just focusing on building weird melodies to embrace this album’s atmosphere. The vocalist isn’t really anything special when it comes to his range, but his voice fits perfectly with the musicianship of this record; it sounds like a man who’s been in space for years going insane and it’s simply well thought out.

All around, this is a very enjoyable and short experimental release, if you enjoy something unique, this is for you

Recommended tracks: Amnesia, Chromesthesia
Recommended for fans of: late The Contortionist, Opeth, weird stuff
Final verdict: 8/10

02-01 Onydia – Reflections (Italy)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: power (clean vocals)
Review by: Volarus

While the modern metal scene can potentially foster immense talent, listening to copious amounts of underground shit has made it abundantly clear how easily that skill can go to waste in the midst of a sea of competition.

There’s plenty of virtuosity to behold here, with all the frequent time signature shifts, arpeggio-laden riffery, and showy soloing one would expect from your standard-issue prog metal record. The guitars and keys meld together well, often playing into a familiar yet satisfying game of call and response. While there are a number of the syncopated chugs you’d expect from a djent-era metal band, there is no lack of melodicism present. The bassist gets some time to shine with a few impressive arpeggiated solo sections too, which thankfully never feels tasteless.

Sadly, while there is potential here, there are more than a few elements holding the band down. The patterns employed during songwriting feel particularly lazy. Dreamy sections of pentatonic riffs and synths transition to reused, chug based riffs for most of the instrumental driven passages, rarely coalescing to anything approaching memorable. The rest of the record is carried by the vocalist, whose tone is well developed enough, but doesn’t have quite enough power to lead the band effectively.
At it’s best, Onydia is predictable, enjoyable, and unmemorable. In such a competitive scene, where mediocrity is a death sentence, that just isn’t enough.

Recommended tracks: The Memory of My Time, The Colour of Nothingness
Recommended for fans of: Symphony X, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 5/10

02-01 Pensées Nocturnes – Grand Guignol Orchestra (France)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: clown core avantgarde black (mixed vocals)
Review by: Sam

What the actual fuck. Metal-Archives never fails to surprise me with the levels of absurdity it can harbor. But even among all the weird stuff I’ve discovered for this blog, this is by far the weirdest. Pensées Nocturnes is a French avantgarde black metal band, and this is their 6th album. It appears they started as DSBM, and after two albums they got more avantgarde. And well, this is certainly avantgarde, and extremely, extremely weird.

Essentially this is black metal mixed with circus music. There are also some other styles like tango, but most of it can be traced back to the circus. This is not a circus you go to for having a good laugh as proper entertainment, this is the fucked up mash pot of mentally unstable folks dressed up as clowns who don’t quite yet chase you with a chainsaw, but will certainly succeed at not making you feel at ease (to say the least). Most of the times you’re scared out of your wits, but after visiting the place a couple of times you realize that in fact they don’t (physically) harm you at all, and just put up a really great act. Then you start noticing that despite all the fucked up shit you see, there’s actually quite some structure to be found and the absurdism suddenly becomes comedic instead of utterly horrifying.

And that’s the theme for this album. It takes a good while to get into, but on repeated listens it’s surprisingly rewarding. At first listen it’s just an utterly chaotic assault of horror-themed circus music (and a whole bunch of other styles), freakish DSBM vocals and spastic black metal sections; with no sense of structure or themes to be found. However after a while you start picking up on the motifs and themes and the circus act suddenly becomes quite tangible. All the accordions, horror synths and trumpets actually start to make sense. And then suddenly this album becomes actually listenable, and, dare I saw, enjoyable.

My only qualm with this album is that among all the circus music, Pensées Nocturnes tend to forget about writing actually good black metal parts. I know it isn’t (and shouldn’t be) the main focus of this album, but having some neat riffage or great atmosphere in there from time to time can’t hurt. This also ties into that the album tends to lack in climactic value a bit, but imo that can be forgiven as it’s made up for by the sheer absurdity of it all.

So to come to a conclusion, Grand Guignol Orchestra is a challenging, but ultimately rewarding listen. Don’t immediately turn this off because of the absurdity. This is an album well worth sinking your teeth into and letting it grow on you. I had absolutely zero expectations for this album when I stumbled upon it, but I’m glad I decided review it, because surprisingly this is actually my favorite album of what I’ve reviewed so far this year. Proceed at your own risk.

Recommended tracks: Poil de Lune, Gauloises ou Gitanes, Triste Sade
Recommended for fans of: Mr. Bungle, Igorrr, BTBAM, Sigh, really fucking weird shit
Final verdict: 7.5/10

02-02 Destroyers of All – The Vile Manifesto (Portugal)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: thrash/death (harsh vocals)
Review by: Volarus

Portugal’s Destroyers of All stands as exemplary proof of why “progressive” can be such a tricky adjective to define. While primarily adhering to a clean, well honed blend of modern death and thrash metal, The Vile Manifesto toys with a diverse array of subgenres, and for the most part, successfully. Thanks in part to this, the album displays a vibrancy that many more focused modern acts arguably lack; there’s a sort of playfulness at work here, each song endowing a meat-n’-potatoes thrash foundation with its own little twist. From the technical, oriental leanings of opener Tohu Wa-Bohu, to the progressive genre bending of highlight Destination: Unknown, to the core-tinged melodeath of Sheol, there are few dull moments to be had.

While the simplicity of the album’s core sound lends itself well to cheeky experimentation, it makes for a somewhat unmemorable listening experience. The riffs themselves fall prey to many modern trappings, and are written and performed capably enough, but rarely act as anything more than transport between more playful moments.

The Vile Manifesto may not be a traditionally “progressive” release, but given the creativity at play, I have no issues describing Destroyers of All as such.

Recommended tracks: Destination: Unknown, The Elephant’s Foot
Recommended for fans of: Allegaeon, Kartikeya, Revocation
Final verdict: 6.5/10

02-08 A Novelist – Folie (US-LA)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: extreme/melodeath/metalcore (mixed vocals)
Review by: Dylan

If you check out all the albums I had to review this month, there’s a pattern that indicates that most of them are experimental. Luckily, A Novelist is an exception to this pattern. This is a band that grabbed a guitar, a bass, a drum kit, and just went to town with them. And with that, they fabricated songs that are not only extremely tight, but also really fun to listen to.

A Novelist walks between the fine line of melodeath and metalcore, but I’d call them more melodeath. The guitar work is the main highlight of this album; it’s always doing something interesting, so much so that even a person not crazy about guitars like me could appreciate it. All the songs are energetic, punchy, catchy, and all around great.

The only downside here is that the album is 57 minutes long, and by the end you get the feeling that they could’ve cut a part of it. Other than that, it’s a nearly flawless record.

Recommended tracks: Acacia Crown, Stockholm Blues
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Future Corpse, The World Is Quiet Here
Final verdict: 8.5/10

02-08 Toby Knapp – Blizzard Archer (US-WY)
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: instrumental, shred
Review by: Sam

Did you ever hear of Wyoming? Well I hadn’t, not before this review at least. Wyoming is famous for two things apparently, first is Yellowstone National Park and the subsequent Yellowstone volcano, and second is, as you could have guessed, the legend called Toby Knapp.

Did you see that album art? Yes you did, because I uploaded it in the full 1200×1200 display instead of the usual 500×500 size. This is a work of art. Do you feel the sheer badassery that radiates from the guitar? It pierces straight into your soul. Not to mention the brilliant lightening and saturation choices. And do you feel that Toby Knapp stare? That handsomeness? Do not show this to your partner, Toby might just steal yo girl. This is most certainly one of the most memorable album covers ever made. But how is the music?

Wait there is actually music? Oh right of course I’m reviewing a music album, not discussing the legend of Toby Knapp and the brilliance of this album art. Essentially this is heavy metal, but then minus the vocals and up the tech. I genuinely enjoyed this album. Throughout its short duration of 33 minutes Knapp keeps things interesting the entire time. His lead work is great and the programmed drums are powerful. It’s not really riffy though if that’s what you’re looking for. That’s not to say there aren’t good riffs (there are), but the focus is mostly on harmonies and soloing (like Iron Maiden, for example). I don’t have much else to say about this record. Blizzard Archer is not anything particularly new, but there’s enough substance to warrant a few listens. Beware though, do not look at the album art for too long because Toby Knapp pierces straight into the essence of your being.

Recommended tracks: Midnight in Guyana, 13 Astral Gateways, Blizzard Archer
Recommended for fans of: Iron Maiden, 80s metal (with modern production)
Final verdict: 10/0 (yeah you read that right, INFINITY!!!!!!! (though you can decide for yourself whether that’s negative or positive infinity :P))

02-14 Cara Neir – Part III / Part IV (US-TE)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: post-black/grindcore/trip hop (mixed vocals)
Review by: Dylan

Okay so, we’re back to reviewing weird shit. This time we have Cara Neir, a band that makes a fusion of post black metal and grindcore, and also throws in a couple trip hop interludes between their songs.

Uhh…
Yeah, this one is tough to review.

This album is a bit of everything, and not enough of something. I appreciate the ambition present, but the constant mood swings between 3 vastly different genres just makes the album feel very unbalanced and unpleasant to listen to.

Do not get me wrong, the musicianship and songwriting is pretty damn competent, but the flow is so butchered that you can’t even appreciate the good moments properly. Had they decided for one genre, this review would’ve been a completely different story.

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

02-15 Aftermath – There Is Something Wrong (US-IL)
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: thrash (clean-ish vocals/spoken word)
Review by: Sam

If you read our about page, you’d know that this habit of mine of searching the Metal Archives for good things started with a desire for modern tech/prog thrash. So when I saw that Aftermath released a highly rated album back in 1994, and that this was their comeback album which seemed to have good reviews, I was excited. Not overly excited (as I don’t listen to much anymore nowadays), but excited nonetheless.

So how good was Aftermath? Well, on the first few listens I generally enjoyed this album. Their thrashing is unspectacular but generally solid. However I quickly noticed There Is Something Wrong with this album (pun intended). Like the good thrashers of old, Aftermath’s lyrics are about how the government is evil and controls and hypnotizes everyone with their propaganda, etc. Opener False Flag Flying (I don’t count <1 min songs) sets the tone for the album. It starts with a nice aggressive thrash assault, but then quickly shifts into an eerie, unsettling riff with whispered vocals (There’s so much you don’t know…). Then after a while there’s a disappointing guitar solo and the song goes on two minutes longer than it should have. Doesn’t that sound exciting?

Woohoo it isn’t. You know, this band just wastes so much freaking time on their interlude and spoken word sections that try to be unsettling. I’m just gonna channel my inner MA critic from here: it feels as if this band wastes so much time on spoken word because they know their thrash isn’t memorable enough by itself to make a worthwhile record. First listen it’s ok, but from there on this thing becomes a chore to get through. They have some decent riffs, but the singer relies completely on a gimmick, the tech leaves no impression whatsoever and their solos are utterly forgettable. I’m not even sure whether this is meant to be a music album or a political message. No, this is not another Victims of Deception (Heathen, 1991, US-CA). This is a terrible album that relies solely on a gimmick for value. Avoid if you want anything of substance.

Recommended tracks: False Flag Flying
Recommended for fans of: Heathen, Artillery,
Final verdict: 4/10

02-15 Herod – Sombre Dessein (Switzerland)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | RYM page
Style: sludge (mixed vocals)
Review by: Volarus

There have been heavier releases this year than Herod’s Sombre Dessein. Between the lumbering, depressive power of Ataraxie, the brutal, nihilist hatred exuded by Body Void, and the sun-extinguishing evil of Vous Autres, 2019 is far from lacking in options for crushing the spirit. But while these releases exhibit something close to otherworldly, Herod feels altogether human.

Jagged, hammering leads, accented by the unrelentingly assertive harsh shouts of Mike Pilat, repeatedly pummel the listener, exhibiting a very tangible, immediate sort of power. The album seesaws continually between two extremes, as displayed from the very start, building from quiet tension before being released all at once in an unfettered, rage-fueled assault. Full toned Meshuggah inspired grooves from guitarist Pierre Carroz bulldoze across the soundscape, often settling to a pounding chug before fading to the background to build once again.

This dynamic cycle is immensely effective, but grows somewhat predictable after a time; builds often linger for slightly longer than is necessary, especially given that the band leaves little doubt to what lies at their climax. There are scant few ideas at play here, and given the inherent structural repetition and reliance on predictable builds, the album feels a touch long, even with its brisk, 42 minute runtime. But the raw power achieved by Herod’s delivery, originating from the near perfect execution of Pilat and Carroz’ twin strike, is certainly no small feat.

Recommended tracks: Reckoning, Fork Tongue, Don’t Speak Last
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, Meshuggah, Gojira
Final verdict: 7.5/10

02-15 Kaleikr – Heart of Lead (Iceland)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: black/death (harsh vocals)
Review by: Sam

First of all I should put in some disclaimer on why this album featured here with all the press coverage it already had. We were debating on what decided whether an album was underground enough, and our conclusion was that either a band should have under 5k last.fm listeners or that it has little ratings on sites like RYM, sputnik, etc. And lastly we decided that amount of hype on Reddit was also a deciding factor since that’s our main platform of exposure. Coverage and rating-wise this is definitely over the limit, but the fact that Kaleikr fit our last.fm criteria and that it’s barely been mentioned at all on Reddit made me feature it anyway. So now let’s get to it.

For a long time I wasn’t sure what to think of this. At first I was put off a bit by the distant production (more on that later), but after a while that grew on me a lot. What’s clear is that this record sounds fresh and huge. Kaleikr play a quite hypnotic style of progressive black/death metal. There’s a bit of the riffs from death metal, the dissonance (and repetition) of black metal, the proggy transitions from the likes of Opeth or Enslaved and an almost post-metal-like accent on atmosphere and buildup. One could think of this band as a mixture between early Opeth and Mardraum-era Enslaved, but then more brutal than both and stripped of the clean vocal passages. It’s by no means worship (if you’re worried about that), but the similarities are definitely there. Despite an odd first listen, this band’s sound really enveloped me. It’s very immersive.

In fact this band sounds so powerful it was hard for me at first to find much fault in this. There are some amazing moments in it like the lead melody/riff in Of Unbearable Longing or that one really hard riff in Internal Contradiction. Big reason for the immersive nature of this album is also ironically the airy, distant production. It feels as if you’re in a big underground throne room (a la dwarf mines in LotR), and from a far you hear the demonic, but entrancing sounds from Kaleikr’s music. Yet while it’s distant, it completely surrounds and entrances you. For example the harsh vocals sound like (early) Akerfeldt, but then more ghastly and ominous. There’s also that the atmospheric, post-metal-ish part of Kaleikr’s sound massively benefits from this production choice. The emotive blackened dissonance just works magnificently with the distant, but full and enveloping production, really sucking you in the music.

Yet, despite all this greatness, I couldn’t help but shake that feeling that there was something wrong with Heart of Lead. It took me quite some time to figure it out, but now I have an idea. Basically the songwriting is just incredibly flawed. It feels as if the songs build towards a grand climax every time, but Kaleikr never really deliver. There’s one or two great ideas per song, but it doesn’t expand or peak. And in between those great ideas the guitars just strum along without much substance behind them. Also what bothers me about the songwriting (and the production) is the lack of dynamic range. The drummer does an amazing job at keeping his patterns interesting, but other than that the album just keeps about the same intensity the whole time. I’m not saying they should start doing clean vocal passages, but they could certainly work on incorporating some more quiet parts. Now it just tends to blur together.

So there you have it. On one hand the sound this band presents is simply breathtaking and makes me wanna scream “album of the year”, but on the other hand there’s just too much wrong with the songwriting to justify a rating anywhere near that high. Excellent template, but the execution just has too little substance going for it. Style over substance I suppose.

Recommended tracks: Of Unbearable Longing, Internal Contradiction
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Enslaved, Draugsól
Final verdict: 6.5/10

02-16 Scarlet My Lady – Path to Awakening (Italy)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: traditional (clean vocals)
Review by: Daniel

Scarlet My Lady’s new album, Path to Awakening, is not groundbreaking by any means, but it’s pretty enjoyable and is easy to listen to for the most part. If you like good female singers in a prog band, I would definitely recommend listening to them.

So this band feels like a lot of their music is meant to showcase their lead singer, Lisa Masi. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad thing by any means. She is a fantastic singer. She has great melodies, and just sings with so much emotion. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll go out on a limb and say that she has one of the best female voices in progressive metal. I know many prog heads don’t really care for vocals that much, but, in this case, the album is worth checking out just for that.
Unfortunately, it often feels like Lisa is carrying the rest of the band with her voice. I would say that the member she is…helping the most is the guitar player. He’s not a poor player, but he lacks feel and is woefully inadequate for the demands that are clearly placed on him. He often repeats basic arpeggios (No Place Like Home, 2:12), and his solos generally feel uninspired (Circle, 3:00). The rest of the band gets the job done for the most part, but I just get the feeling that sometimes I’m listening to Lisa Masi’s audition tape.

Recommended tracks: Wasted Mind, No Place Like Home
Recommended for fans of: Epica, Dream Theater, Evanescence
Final verdict: 6/10

02-21 Dreamwalkers Inc – First Re-Draft (The Netherlands)
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: symphonic/traditional (clean vocals)
Review by: Daniel

I would imagine that very few of y’all have heard of Dreamwalkers Inc. I would imagine that’s true for much of the music we review, but these guys really came out of nowhere. They’re a massive 8 person band, with 4 – yeah you read that right – guitarists and 5 vocalists. They have a massive sound and basically a small choir on stage with them at all times. They’re bold and ambitious, and I love it.

Speaking of bold and ambitious, First Re-Draft. If you like traditional prog or symphonic metal at all, you have to check out this album. The riffs are nasty, they have amazing players, all their singers are awesome, and the mix is perfect. I don’t what else you would want from a band honestly. Oh yeah and they have such great songwriting as well; their transitions are so tasteful and perfect. They just have it.

Some people may say that they worship 70’s, 80’s and 90’s prog/symphonic too much. I can definitely see the merits of that argument, and I would agree with that, but I don’t think that it has stopped them from being innovative or progressive. They’re simply progressing an older sound and taking it in a different direction, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Yeah so we need to talk about the singing. I’ve had some experience recording string and wind players (I play trombone myself), and from this experience I’ve learned that there’s a reason why people still hire full orchestras. When one person records many parts, it just doesn’t sound as good as when you get different people to do it. Why? I don’t know, but this effect translates over to vocals as well, and this is where the size of Dreamwalkers Inc really benefits them. Their singing parts just sound so damn good. It’s open and has a very rich texture. They also incorporate some acapella aspects into their music, and it adds a totally unexpected twist to their music when they use it.

I honestly can’t recommend these guys enough. You can clearly see the time and effort they’ve put into making a extremely well polished final product.

Recommended tracks: Innerburn, Dreamwalk, New Strength
Recommended for fans of: Ayreon, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 9/10

02-22 Dronte – Quelque part entre la guerre et la lâcheté (France)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Style: post-hardcore (mixed vocals)
Review by: Dylan

For the final time we review weird shit, and this time it’s French.

Now, the French are INSANE when it comes to cutting edge ideas. They can be extremely inventive, and because of that we’ve gotten some amazing new genres thanks to them (blackgaze most notably). However, this type of craziness can go too far. You know those black and white modern french movies that are absolute garbage, but your cinema fan friend claims to love them just to sound cool? This is the musical equivalent of that.

Dronte, fucking, sucks. Imagine an acoustic guitar with a sax, minimal drumming, and Hardcore vocals with french shouting. Yeah, it’s THAT bad. I can’t even bother writing another paragraph for them, they’re absolutely unlistenable, and you should absolutely avoid them.

Recommended tracks: no
Recommended for fans of: no
Final verdict: 1.5/10

02-22 Lysithea – Star-Crossed (New Zealand)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: melodeath/doom (harsh vocals)
Review by: Daniel

A departure from much of the music that we’ve been going over for this month, Lysithea, the New Zealander duo, came out with a much more “standard” record. Star-Crossed fits squarely into the melodic doom metal subgenre without being trite or too long winded. Although this album is short of something special, Mike Lamb and Mike Wilson manage to put something together that is certainly worth your time.

Lamb’s riffs and guitar work is very good. Although his parts aren’t all that technically complicated, they’re huge, catchy and – most importantly – melodic. Wilson’s vocals are also great. I don’t have much experience with harsher vocals, but after sitting through Star-Crossed many times, I’ve come to really enjoy and appreciate what he does.

But what I think really puts Lysithea on the next level is their songwriting ability. All their work is extremely well structured and is fairly easy to digest without it being too repetitive. They also keep presenting the theme found in the beginning of An Empty Throne throughout the entire album. It ties together the whole album in a pretty unique way and makes a more cohesive end product.
But for this band to go to the next level, I think they need to have some more experimental aspects. Some of our viewers with more eclectic tastes may find themselves bored with Lysithea because of this. So basically, just a touch more prog and I think they could be fantastic.

Recommended tracks: An Empty Throne
Recommended for fans of: Swallow the Sun, Katatonia, Be’lakor, Barren Earth
Final verdict: 7.5/10

02-22 Time Symmetry – Ghosts (Spain)
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: traditional (clean vocals)
Review by: Daniel

Time Symmetry is a local band from Spain that hasn’t gained significant international attention. That being said, I wanted to include them in this month’s review because I believe they deserve some recognition for their work.

Overall I think this band would be significantly better off as an instrumental band. I appreciate the skill the singers Elena Aznar and David Rubio have and bring to the table, but I just don’t particularly like them. Both their voices have an old school thrash sound, which, again, isn’t a bad thing, but I just don’t think it goes too well with the modern proggy sound that the rest of the band is going for. Elena and David also like to do a sort of “call and response” thing, but it doesn’t work too well in my opinion. Honestly they’re voices sound pretty similar, so you have to be listening somewhat closely to even tell they’re switching off.

And now for some specifics. Take The Winding Road, for example. You can tell that they really like this song; it’s the only one that has a proper video for it on YouTube, and it has by far the most views. The beginning of the song has a great atmosphere and starts off with this nasty guitar riff, but when it transitions into the vocals, it just sounds very awkward and not clean at all. That being said, the chorus is actually pretty good, but the vocals just don’t fit.

Part of the issue is that there’s some song writing issues Time Symmetry has to work out. I like a lot of their ideas – they are original and have a lot of badass riffs (take Race to Nowhere at the 4:45 mark) – but their transitions definitely need some work.

Overall I would say that the three recommended songs are at least worth listening to, if not the whole album. Their sound may be a little too old school to garner more success nowadays, but I’m sure many of y’all will appreciate what they’ve done.

Recommended tracks: Winding Road, Reboot System Now
Recommended for fans of: Fates Warning, Threshold, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 6.3/10

02-28 Anvil Therapy – Duality (Italy)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Style: traditional (clean vocals)
Review by: Sam

I can be quite short about this one. This is clearly in the Dream Theater-school of things. I wouldn’t exactly call it worship, but I can’t really say that this band has enough personality to distinguish themselves either. This is exactly the type of music I like to call “second tier Dream Theater worship” in my head. First tier consists of bands like Bad Salad and Transcend who just rip off DT ideas and the third tier consists of bands like Vanden Plas or Circus Maximus who sound a lot like DT, but still have their own distinguishable sound. Second tier is where everything in between ends up, including Anvil Therapy.

There’s a clear divide in quality in this record. One side of this is when there are vocals, and the other side is when the music is instrumental. As you might have guessed when the first band I mention is Dream Theater, the latter is miles better than the former. These guys can really solo their asses off and make truly engaging, thrilling instrumental parts (seriously go listen to the epics on this, the instrumental sections are incredible). However the vocals are just so… standard. The range is mediocre, the vocal lines are forgettable and his delivery is so standard and unimaginative it hurts.

This band sounds exactly like one of those late 2000s progressive metal bands who take on the Dream Theater template, but just fail to add enough personality to make them stand out from the pack, AKA second tier worship. This record is very enjoyable and definitely recommended if you like Dream Theater-type of stuff, but overall Anvil Therapy came 10 to 15 years too late to make an impact. Let’s hope they’ll have a bit more personality next time.

Recommended tracks: Dear Father, Duality, What Remains
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Circus Maximus, Deep Purple
Final verdict: 6.5/10