Reports from the (progressive metal) underground: May 2019

Hello there good reader! Sam here. Welcome to another edition of The Progressive Subway! And hence, another one of my rambles, though I must say that I don’t have anything to ramble about really. So to introduction or not to introduction, that is the question. I vote for the latter.

…OK just kidding. I actually do have some things to talk about.

The music this time is again, really good! It seems like the year 2019 truly kicked off in April, as the first three months of the year were rather dull. A couple of bands on here you’ll likely recognize as they’ve gained quite some notoriety on the internet, yet not enough last.fm listeners to be out of our range (5000 to be exact). Most notably these bands are Warforged, Ihlo and Edge of Reality. I was especially surprised that we could cover Warforged as they (even now) still only have 3.7k listeners on last.fm and 4.3k on Spotify. I figured they would have exploded waaayyy beyond this blog’s reach, but lucky for us they haven’t!

But those three acts aside we’ve got some really great other, even more obscure stuff as well. The depths of Metal-Archives (and other sources!) have delivered yet again, which leads me onto another point. While not as thorough as MA, we finally have a consistent method of finding good obscure prog outside of their website! There’s still room for improvement probably, but looking through the new weekly new releases listening party albums on the r/progmetal Discord has done a ton for us to find these other gems. So much even, that we (again) couldn’t even cover everything we wanted for this month. Hence some bands have been moved to the missed albums edition. These bands are Panzerpappa, Clément Belio and Canvas. And also hence we have a guest review from an r/progmetal Discord user, whom you’ll recognize by having an asterisk (*) at their reviewer name.

So that concludes my ramble. Now time for the usual rites. As always, we have a Spotify playlist with all the recommended songs, and I randomly write kebab sometime for no good reason.

What is this place? We use Metal-Archives’ advanced search engine to find all progressive/post/avantgarde metal (and some weird stoner as well if there’s any) 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 an email to theprogressivesubway@gmail.com, send a PM to me (/u/genderlessperson) on Reddit or hit me up on Discord (sam1oq/genderlessperson).

…now let’s start this thing!!

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Estoner – Tahm (Estonia)
Style: stoner/sludge (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Tyler Dworak

Holy cow this album is boring.

I like stoner metal quite a bit. There is something oddly beautiful that some bands are able to build on one fuzzy, sludgey riff or idea for minutes and expand on it. But when a band takes that premise of rocking one riff but not doing anything to it for over nine hecking minutes, that’s when things like this go up in smoke. 

Honestly, no less than three songs here are culprits in this. It’s like the band listened to the first five minutes of Dopesmoker and said “Got it. Easy Peas.” and wrote half of the album in an afternoon. The second track Sammund is especially glaring. It’s one heavy riff, not a bad one by any stretch, but it just goes on, and on, and on. There is variation for sure, every song has at least something different, but as soon as can breathe fresh air for a second, they bring back the same riff and somehow it’s even woofier than last time. Rinse and repeat about three times and by golly, you’re done!

While bland overall, the performances were actually alright. The band seems competent in their musicianship. I also liked how gutterall the vocals were even if can’t tell what is going on at any point. And there is actually one brief shining moment where Estoner do the genre justice, and that is on the cut Virvendaja. This is the only song that I noticed an interesting progression and well thought out changes. The cool noises and textures doused in reverb and delay in addition to the sudden shift towards the end made for a really aetherial five or so minutes if a bit bipolar. But this shows that there are some neat ideas floating around in this land of Zzzz’s.

On the production, nothing is terrible, but there are a lot of weird choices. Every song has this really fast fade out at the end before transitioning to the next one. And sometimes the next one fades IN, which makes for a really jarring experience. I thought that maybe it was just the version on Bandcamp that was like that, but no, it’s there on every single one. There is nothing about the mix that conveys any real depth in dynamics or frequency. Almost like they compressed everything while  recording and then compressed everything about two more times after the fact.

So, yeah this one wasn’t that good. Nothing besides Virvendaja stood out as memorable or really interesting. Sure the whole idea of stoner metal is that it’s supposed to be a little light on the technical side and more about the ‘mood man’, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to hold the listener as best you can. I dunno, now I’m just bummed.

Ohhhhh…they’re a stoner metal band from Estonia. Estoner.

Recommended tracks: Virvendaja
Recommended for fans of: Going to Bed
Final verdict: 2/10

Adrift – Pure (Spain)
Style: sludge/black (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Nostrebor68

Okay so this album is really good. There’s been a recent boom in blackened sludge and it’s making me incredibly happy, as there’s some absolute gold to be found in the genre. Between Mizmor (listen to it it’s great) and now this Adrift album, I’m just rolling in charred, sludgy goodness.

Anyway, Adrift plays something that I would consider the bastard child of Isis’s particular brand of post/sludge and some kind of wonderfully harsh black metal. The resulting child is equal parts massively distorted riffs, grinding and pounding bass guitar, and ear-rending vocal shrieks that are interspersed with just enough lovely atmosphere to keep you from suffocating on the heaviest bits.

The rhythm section really shines on this album. The bass is incredibly audible, and constantly present providing fast, driving riffs that either complement or alternate with the guitar riffs to make this wonderfully thick background to some truly exceptional drumming. In the occasions where the bass becomes the real core focus of the songs it really shines though, like in the latter half of Pure. In these moments the massive tone and intricate riffing make an instrument that is usually more of a backdrop for guitar really shine as a lead piece in the music. The guitar is often used as more of an accent piece than a focus on many of these songs, but the emotional weight of the lead parts is incredibly well used. The vocals are relatively unchanging throughout the album, but they work very well for the style and I think are quite successful in the mid-to-high shrieked register they use. The production is also incredibly crisp. 

All in all I really have minimal complaints if any about this album. It’s very, very good, and absolutely worth a listen for any fans of post or sludge that don’t mind a little bit of extra blackness in their tunes.

Recommended tracks: Pure, Mist, The Call
Recommended for fans of: The Atlas Moth, Mizmor, Isis
Final verdict: 9/10

Step in Fluid – Back in Business (France)
Style: jazz/fusion (instrumental)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Dylan

Why do we listen to music?… Wow, what an original introduction for a review….

Seriously though, why do we listen to music? Well, it’s a form of art that pretty much every person consumes. This ranges from a high schooler listening to the Top 50 with his bros to pick up ladies, all the way to our little blog where we find obscure bands related to an already inherently obscure genre of music. No matter how far away these types of consumption are from each other, we all search in music to have fun/enjoy the artist/album/track. The difference is that, the top 50 lad will be always enjoying himself massively listening to all of his trap tunes mumbling with their friends, while we must sometime listen to a not so fun album, but learn to appreciate it thanks to its musical achievements. Even though this is the case, we still crave for music that’s simply fun to play, and gives us a spark of joy.

Well, Step in Fluid manages to be just that for me. When I listen to this album, I can’t help but smile like an idiot, and feel the absolute need to dance or do stupid shit on the street. It’s just that infectious. What you get here is jazz/fusion/metal that’s FUNKY as all hell. Unlike most fusion/instrumental releases, there’s no long song with 5 minute solos. Instead of that, each track is built upon a principal groove, and the band just plays around with it for max 4 minutes until we’re onto the next track. It’s paced exquisitely, with a couple slower jams being placed in between all of the funkiness and jazziness. Each instrument is played perfectly, and mixed perfectly. Ranging from awesome synth work all the way to a bass guitar which has massive presence, every performance is a stand out. 

All of these ingredients build a fantastic 30 minute album. Do I wish that it was longer? Hell no! There’s not a minute wasted in this beast, and if the band decided to keep it short, it’s for a reason. To make it a very solid half hour, instead of maybe getting a bit lost trying to write more material. 

There’s nothing wrong about this album and you should check it out immediately. 

Recommended tracks: all
Recommended for fans of: Snarky Puppy, (late) Plini
Final verdict: 9.5/10

Misth – Fallen from Grace (Sweden)
Style: traditional/hard rock (clean vocals)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Matt Hodsdon

Misth apparently worked on this album for six years, and it shows – both in craftsmanship and sheer length. I’m not sure any album needs to be an hour and a half, but there’s enough intrigue to prevent it from being a slog.

There’s a lot of different things going on here. Fallen from Grace is heavy enough to be certifiably metal, but has a hard rock and/or AOR feel for most of it. This comes from lighter, unpretentious compositions (eh?), a sense of fun and optimism (huh?), and a 70s-style singer who can scream her ass off. At the same time, there’s the virtuosity you expect from prog metal. I struggled to come up with a comparison, but Circus Maximus might be the closest, with discernible influences from Rush, Dio-era Sabbath, Alice in Chains, and many others. The guitar playing is more freeform than what we’re used to, but they can still shred – it’s Sweden.

Vocalist Maria Rådsten is something to behold, comparable to greats like Ann Wilson. Her range and power are basically infinite. The vocals seem loose and minimally-edited, which is both good and bad at times, but shows guts. She can sing the same chorus three times and nail a different note in each one. In her best moments, she’s as awe-inspiring as Daniel Heiman was the first time everyone heard him.

While all the songs are at least decent, they do skew awfully long, and not every melody or riff is memorable. That said, it just takes one masterpiece for me to declare an album good, and Masquerade is one of the best songs I’ve heard this year. The ambitious structure pays off with a convincing doom riff, an instantly-classic chorus, and a two-minute solo that becomes more awesome the longer it goes on. I spent an afternoon listening to just this song, easily the best one. There’s other quality tracks, but often saddled with parts that are just “ok.”

It’s a shame that this huge album doesn’t land as a magnum opus, but it’s definitely good, and sometimes great. It really comes down to tightening and editing. Whatever they do next threatens to be amazing.

Recommended tracks: Masquerade, Future Calling
Recommended for fans of: ??? – Circus Maximus, Rush maybe?
Final verdict: 7/10

Karmatic – Unlimited Energy (Canada)
Style: melodeath (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Matt Hodsdon

Based on the “melodeath” tag I was given for Karmatic, I expected something like Skyfire or pre-suckage In Flames (cue the joke everybody makes). What I got is quite a bit different, and I’m reminded of genre arguments we used to have all the time about that term. Whatever it may be, Unlimited Energy is a success.

This album is quite a bit groovier than I expected, and melodic in less obvious and pandering ways. It’s not the most ambitious in terms of experimentation, but damn, the riffs are satisfying, and that’s what metal is about. There’s some hints of sophistication beneath the mid tempo stomping, like brief fusion-esque clean parts, tapping lead embellishments, and an active bass player, but it mostly lives on the catchiness of the riffs. I don’t think it’s the band’s intention, but I get a tribal vibe here. Besides the swampy low end and the singer’s neolithic bellow, there’s a certain call-and-response logic to the phrasing, a natural simplicity that makes you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.

The secret star of the show might be the awesomely heavy mix, which jumps out from the very first second. It’s like the audio texture equivalent of Captain Crunch, except your gums are still intact afterwards. This album wouldn’t work with a lesser mix.

I don’t know if Unlimited Energy will be a part of my permanent rotation, but it’s got a refreshing modesty about it. At 36 minutes, it does its thing quickly and gets out, no filler or downtime, and just has extremely solid fundamentals. Plus, if you look closely, you can spot a tit on the album cover, 10/10.

Recommended tracks: Tsunami Sanguinaire, Vautours Sans Scrupules, As Cells of the Universe
Recommended for fans of: I dunno. Gojira, Amon Amarth? These things are throwing me off.
Final verdict: 8/10

Spheres – Iono (France)
Style: sludge/alt-metal (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Nostrebor68

As I have made extraordinarily clear many, many times before in these reviews, vocals really make or break an album for me. Weak instrumentals with strong vocals will almost always receive more praise than the inverse, purely based on my individual level of enjoyment in relation to the music. This makes this review of Sphere’s album Iono especially tough for me, because there’s a lot to like here, but man, my main complaint is a big one.

We’ll start with the good first: the bass guitar and drumming are absolutely outstanding. The drumming hits a wonderful stride between the rhythmic pounding of Tool and the tribal beats of Neurosis to create something that I find constantly and consistently exciting every time I listen. The bass shifts effortlessly from lead to rhythm throughout each track, and provides an incredible body upon which the rest of the music build upon. The guitar work varies between serviceable and pretty good, but definitely never detracts from my enjoyment.

And then we get to the vocals. God damn do I have a problem with the vocals. The clean vocals are incredibly nice, they have this great, rich almost folky tone that I think suits the style incredibly well. In fact, I was really excited the first time I heard them, thinking that maybe this was really something particularly special. Then the harsh vocals started. I don’t like making blanket statements about whether something is “good” or “bad” necessarily with music because of the subjective nature of it all, but holy shit I don’t like the harsh vocals on this album. They shift between weird almost burped mid-range roars to relatively abrasive shrieks that are just slightly more palatable. I can definitely see what the vocalist was going for in this particular style, and I’m sure plenty of people will enjoy it, but I just can’t bring myself to do so.

Does this mean you shouldn’t listen to Iono? Absolutely not. Any prog sludge fans should definitely give this one a spin, especially people that care more about instrumental performances than vocal ones. This definitely won’t be spinning often in my personal catalogue, but I’m sure plenty of you will find many things to enjoy here.

Recommended tracks: Mars, Television Nation, Sound City
Recommended for fans of: Tool, Thou, Neurosis
Final verdict: 6/10

Edge of Reality – In Static (US-TN)
Style: jazz/Native Construct (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Dylan

In the year 2015, prog metal changed. This is because of Native Construct‘s only album, Quiet World. This album presented a very frantic style of metal, filled to the brim with polyrhythms, changes of pace, multiple styles of vocals and moods, all done around the idea that it all should feel like a metal musical. Not an opera, but a musical. What they’ve achieved is nothing short of amazing and got a shit ton of praise, but they sadly parted ways as a band so all we have left of them is this singular album. 

Why do I spend so much time talking about Native Construct? Because this band is trying to pick up the torch and carry it, but not at a 100% worshipping style. Yes, every element I mentioned about NC is here, but that doesn’t mean this band is creatively bankrupt like the many blatant DT worship bands Sam has reviewed over the years. In fact, In Static‘s problem is that it is actually, maybe, TOO creative. 

Look, I love Quiet World as much as the next guy, but that thing is hard to listen to. There’s so many things going on and so many abrupt changes that by the time the album reaches its conclusion I feel a little lost. Now imagine, if I felt a little lost at a 47 minute album, how do I feel about a 73 minute album that follows the same structure? 

Absolutely confused. If you’re gonna write a concept album that’s 73 minutes long, it can’t be constantly bringing new things to the table without a reprise, a chorus I can hang on too, a pretty melody that’s repeated more than once. It’s like they’re missing the moments that you remember in a Thank You Scientist album (“HOW I’VE ANTICIPATED YOUR RETUUUUUUURN, TO PLANET EAAAAARTH”). Some choruses are there, and when they are they’re wonderful such as in the track puzzle man, but they’re very few and far between. It just hurts so much because there really is a lot of potential. So let’s dive into it.

First of all, the vocals are fantastic. It’s like if you mixed Salvatore Marrano’s mid range with Ross Jenning’s high range. He knocks his performance out of the park. There is also very interesting usages of synths, the narrative is light hearted but relatively well done, some comedy is thrown in there and it actually works, the production value is exquisite… If there was a stronger sense of cohesion, we’d be talking about an AOTY contender. But sadly, this release just misses the mark. 

I recommend you check it out if you don’t struggle with loosely tied albums, and wanna be challenged. Maybe you’ll find something in this album I didn’t and it may click just fine with you! It just didn’t strike that chord with me, unfortunately.

Recommended tracks: Puzzle Man, Lovestruck
Recommended for fans of: Native Construct, Thank You Scientist, Haken
Final verdict: 6/10

Warforged – I: Voice (US-IL)
Style: death (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Tyler Dworak

I love when a band is a) really talented and b) can write a good song. You’d be surprised at how hard it is to come up with any combination of those two things. Hell, my band (editor’s note: The World Is Quiet Here) is still trying to nail down either one of these things. I: Voice is a showcase of what can happen when the right people smoosh a bunch of sounds together the right way, because this thing is a bee’s knees.

First off, buckle up. You’re gonna be here for a while, I: Voice is 75 minutes. And yes, that is a lot of minutes, but give it a chance. The whole album runs together as one piece of music pretty coherently, and it hardly ever feels like it is taking your time away from you. There is always something new just around the corner. The number of different textures and timbres that Warforged uses in order to push each song to their limit is pretty remarkable. Sections really take their time to flesh ideas out. For example, there is a two minute section in Cellar that builds on a galloping acoustic guitar them with flutes, vibraphone (I think), and electric guitar before kicking back into a solo that makes an impact in a way it wouldn’t without all of the build up. 

Every song is crafted in that same way, everything neatly in its place. You think with all of these ideas that things would seem busy or muddy. But the production is actually stellar. There is a great sense of depth and clarity that allows for every instrument to be heard. And speaking of, everyone on this album absolutely crushed their performances. I was floored at how technical was and how each part was played so well by the band, and the crazy number of other musicians. The list of guest artists on this album is about as long as the album itself, and each one killed is as much as the band did. Compliments to the chef on this one for sure. 

There isn’t a lot to nitpick on this one, just a lot of preferencial things that I found. Some of the solos and ideas did seem a little aimless at times, almost as if the band was trying to get a little too weird or jazzy for their own good (see minute 7 of Old Friend to get an idea of what I mean). The album as a whole could stand to be shorter, some of the interludes in the songs, really took their time to get going. That is not a bad thing, they do it very well, but 75 minutes is a lot to ask out of a debut full length. But go big or get outta town as they say.

This one rocked my world. I’d actually recommend listening to the album on the band’s YouTube page because they made a music video for it and that’s pretty incredible. Yeah, the whole thing. Shout out to the guy who put that thing together…turns out it was their vocalist. Leave some talent for the rest of us, guys! 

Recommended tracks: Cellar, Old Friend
Recommended for fans of: Portal, old Opeth, Slice the Cake
Final verdict: 9/10

Silent Winter – The Circles of Hell (Greece)
Style: traditional/power metal (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Matt Hodsdon

The Greeks are known for many contributions to civilization, including democracy, western philosophy, and the Greek tragedy. This album falls under the third one.

Instrumentally, The Circles of Hell is just dull, a rudimentary dads-playing-Iron-Maiden affair that sounds like the local band you have to sit through at every show. There’s not a keychange or blue note on the whole thing, the drums are noticeably programmed, and the token cheesy ballad uses none of the voicings or advantages inherent to a piano. But what really puts it over the top is the singing. This guy reminds me of the first Kamelot singer, of “BLACK TOWAHHH” fame. He has range but not an ounce of finesse, hilariously exaggerating every line whether high or low. With someone else on the mic, you could maybe find enjoyment in this if you were in the mood for some of Helloween’s dumber songs… But as it stands, I can’t recommend this to anyone but the morbidly curious.

Recommended tracks: Ehhh…
Recommended for fans of: too much power metal
Final verdict: 3/10 (has fast parts and sounds like a legitimate album.)

Summoner’s Circle – Become None (US-TN)
Style: black/death/doom (mixed vocals)
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Nostrebor68

My optimal album length is around 45 minutes. This is quite uncommon among Prog fans, or so I’ve been told. But in my opinion once you step beyond that mark albums tend to overstay their welcome for me. I love a multitude of albums that break this rule, so it is in no way set in stone, but I find it’s the case more often than not. Where this creates a problem for me is that my two favorite metal genres, Prog and Doom, are both inclined towards enormously bloated album lengths full of great but overly present songs. This brings me to Become None, by blackened death/doom band Summoner’s Circle, an album that’s 77 fucking minutes long.

Now I want you to glance at the recommended artists really quick. Let that list sink in. You confused yet? Because I sure as hell was when I listened to this album for the first time. But those 3 bands listed are the first 3 bands I thought of when I heard this band’s sound. There’s an enormous amount of stuff going on in this album, almost, ALMOST enough to warrant the length. So let’s break it down a little bit.

First of all, this is a primarily blackened album that doesn’t have garbage production, so that’s an immediate plus. The bass is incredibly audible, and incredibly prominent, bringing the Tool influences to the immediate forefront to the point that I thought one song was actually a Tool cover before the vocals began (Minotaur). The guitars cover the gamut of doom riffs, blackened tremolo picking and…Iron Maiden solos? Yes, those are there too, and they work quite well. The vocals stick primarily in that blackened death midrange screech range, and occasionally drop into a lower growl. It fits the style very well, although I would have liked a tiny bit of clean vocal variety personally. Nothing about the drumming was particularly striking to me, but it serves the album well enough and is never bad by any means. The lyrics are incredibly goofy and try to be a bit “kvlt” but that definitely doesn’t damage my enjoyment.

My biggest complaint about the album besides the length is that I think they almost try too many different things throughout all the songs. I’m not docking any points because of this, as I’m not entirely certain that it’s detrimental to my enjoyment of the album, but I definitely found myself slightly confused by a few songwriting choices as the album went on.

So is this album too long? Yes, absolutely, 100%. Mildly confused? Yes, at times. Is it still really good? Also yes, absolutely. Any fan of any of the genres I mentioned should definitely give this a spin, as this came out of nowhere and really surprised me.

Recommended tracks: Worm Tunnel, Legion, Become None
Recommended for fans of: Children of Bodom, Tool, Dimmu Borgir
Final verdict: 8/10

Ihlo – Union (United Kingdom)
Style: djent/traditional (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Nostrebor68

There is this problem that will occur in any genre of music where once a certain band becomes monstrously popular a plethora of other bands will begin to ape that band’s style. In many genres this spawns plenty of less-original but still wonderfully enjoyable bands, but in a genre like Prog I feel as though that level of derivative songcraft leaves a little extra something to be desired when it’s the forefront of your sound. Bands like Karnivool and Native Construct have shown that they can take another band’s ideas and make them unique again, but often this is not the case. Ihlo wears it’s TesseracT influences on it sleeve from the very first note, so the question becomes whether they can evolve beyond that basic mimicry.

They can’t.

I’ve listened to this album quite a few times, and by god all I hear is Tesseract and maybe a dash of Haken-y modern prog. The guitars sound like TesseracT, the drumming sounds like TesseracT, the production sounds like TesseracT, and by god the vocalist sounds like Dan Thompkins Walmart brand equivalent. I’m not the world’s greatest Tesseract fan so perhaps that is coloring this review, but my god I just can’t get past the unnecessary aping of a popular band. I’ve made this argument in the past with another band that wanted to be Protest The Hero: 2 and I’ll make it again. Why would I listen to a purely derivative sound when I could listen to the band that created it in the first place instead?

Now all of this being said, there is an absolute level of technical musical excellence being displayed on this album. The performances are tight, and the hooks in each song are strong enough. The problem is that I’ve heard them all before. Is this a bad album? Absolutely not, it’s perfectly listenable in every way. Unfortunately until the band develops a stronger hand for unique songcraft I don’t think I’ll find myself listening to them particularly often.

Recommended tracks: Starseeker, Parhelion
Recommended for fans of: TesseracT, Haken
Final verdict: 5/10

Bright Curse – Time of the Healer (UK)
Style: psychedelic/stoner (clean vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Dylan

Coming off of Edge of Reality, I stumble upon this album. After sampling I notice bits of Elder and Samsara Blues Experiment, my two favorite stoner bands. I thought heck, I had to review this! So how was it you ask?

….it just missed, like Edge of Reality 🙁

Man this was a bummer, there’s so much potential here. The structure and ideas are, once again, well thought out and interesting. The band’s got quite a bit of a modern stoner boner. They wanna take YOB‘s climax heavy music, Elder‘s progressive elements, and Samsara Blues psychedelia, and make one big salad out of it. After all they’re three excellent artists and an attempt to grab the best out of each only seems like a great idea does it?

Well it is and it isn’t. Time of the healer has 4 main tracks, and a 2 minute interlude. As expected with stoner tracks, they’re riffy, slow, take their time, and eclipse towards the end. The subtle, more quiet parts are great. They are a lot of beautiful melodies flying around, and with them there’s these serene, deep vocals that fit the tone of said segments perfectly. But then the album elevates to a heavier segment and holy shit, the production is ROUGH. Even for stoner standards, the drums are super flat and tasteless, and the distorted guitars just overwhelm everything. What you’re listening to isn’t bad per se, but the production quality of it sure is. And then, you realize that the flow of this album is kind of all over the place. 

They use this “tuning into each radio station to see what they’re playing” gimmick as their “flow” between tracks, but it does not work at all. They feel very much separated from each other, like, if I pressed shuffle accidentally I wouldn’t even notice. And even on the tracks themselves, there’s a lot of questionable transitions. Moments that could have used easily 8 more bars of heaviness are nullified by yet more calm guitar doodling, and vice versa. All of the previously stated flaws just make the album not enjoyable and past the average point. 

Bright Curse created an album that shows their potential as a group, but not their ability to make a record you wanna come back to.

Recommended tracks: Smoke of the Past
Recommended for fans of: Samsara Blues Experiment, YOB, Elder
Final verdict: 5.5/10

Kaleidobolt – Bitter (stoner/sludge, Finland)
Style: stoner/sludge (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Tyler Dworak

This is my fourth draft of this review. I don’t know how to feel about Bitter at all. Kaleidobolt does a great job doing what they do, but there is just something about it that doesn’t mesh with me. So I’ll try to be as objective and neutral as I can as far as my tastes go, because there is definitely something here, I just don’t know what it is.

As a whole, the album pays a pretty massive homage to the 70’s psychedelic, fuzzy rock in a not-at-all-subtle way. Half of these songs feel like they could be Deep Purple B-sides, and they had Lemmy sing them. The vocals are definitely the heaviest and most metal thing about the album, and the band does a great job getting the gruff vocals to mesh with this not so gruff music. It makes for an interesting blend that I wasn’t expecting. All of the instrumentals are performed really well, the guitar and drums specifically caught my attention. There are quite a few cuts on here where they maintain pretty fast and technical rhythms. The song writing itself was solid enough, even if some of the songs did sound the same as some of the others. But this album does fall into the same pitfalls that a lot of other psychedelic outings do.

I’m a pretty hairy dude, and I definitely like my fuzz where it belongs, but oh my god guys you have to tone it down with the fuzz on this. This album is in desperate need of a trim. Every single song is just drenched in a massive amount of an actually alright fuzz tone, but it’s to the point where it actually is muddying up an otherwise decent mix. The solos on this album might sound alright if I knew what was going on, but the tone is so wooly that it often came off as grating. This might sound like I’m putting the album on blast for just one decision, but it’s such a huge part of the album that it can’t be overlooked.

I’m so confused by this one. It’s not my style much at all, but the songs are really are written and performed really pretty well. If you like King Gizzard with a bit of grit, then take a chance on this one. Bring a razor, though.

Recommended tracks: Another Toothpick, I Am The Seer
Recommended for fans of: Deep Purple, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Final verdict: 6/10

Dawn of Nil – Culminating Ruins (France)
Style: tech death (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: jklingftm*

Dawn of Nil is a one-man, self-produced French death metal band comprised of one Vincent Laugier, and their debut effort Culminating Ruins has him providing us with an album that is both solidly technical and delightfully dissonant in equal measure. Everything you would expect to be in a tech death album is here: blistering riffs, guttural low growls, and sufficiently blasty drumming are all here in heaping amounts, but Laugier definitely throws in enough prog touches and off-kilter chord progressions (see opener Nauseous Existence) to keep things sounding mostly fresh. There’s also flirtations with some non-standard instrumentation too, such as the beautiful string section that closes out the title track, some Opeth-y acoustic bits in album closer Divine Singularity, and  possibly some flirtations with wind instruments in Our Crusade. The album also has a distinctly ’90s death metal aesthetic to it too, as evidenced by the album art, although this also comes back to bite it a bit as well. 

Culminating Ruins certainly sounds like a one-man project from a production standpoint: the lyrics are nigh unintelligible and are further drowned out by how busy and loud the other instruments sound, and the drums definitely have that thin, robotic sound to them that tells you right up front that they’re programmed. All those things, combined with the purposely dated-sounding aesthetic, and the fact that the songwriting could use a bit of work so as not to drag in a few places, keeps me from showering a bit more praise on this. However, I certainly enjoyed my time with this as my first semi-formal review for the site. I’ve definitely seen more than a couple people singing this album’s praises as well, and if you’re in the mood for a nice little portion of dissodeath, you’ll likely find a lot of enjoyment to be had with this as well.

Recommended tracks: Nauseous Existence, Astral Vertigo, Culminating Ruins
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Atheist, Death
Final verdict: 8/10