Reports from the Underground: June 2020 prog reviewed (part 2)

ZILF – The Album (UK)
Style: Mathcore/Avantgarde (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page
Review by: Tyler

This is a really goofy, nisch genre of music, eh? Lots of talented folks, putting their heart and souls into fantastical stories about being hooked up to machines connected to outer space or whatever. All while biting our thumbs to all else because they just don’t get how much more hecking smarter our music is. They just don’t get it! Obviously, all of that is sarcasm. People who think like that need to listen to something else. If prog metal is anything, it’s hilarious and stupid, most of us just don’t want to admit it because it’s super hard to play and sounds cool. But, what if there were a band that broke from the status quo? One that knows exactly how dumb prog (and metal in general for that matter) is. One that says “Out with the pretentious! And in with the absurdist!”. And one that might have made the most insane, diverse, nuts out guns out, proggressive metal albums of the year as a goddamn JOKE.

Enter Zilf with The Album. The cover is the same slime green you might find on the walls of your favorite Hot Topic in 2009, but it sounds like everything right with progressive music. From the first drum hit of “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor!” until the last beat of “House of Sighs”, I was in one of those spaceships along for the ride. Yes, the guitars are chuggy, but you love that shit, don’t lie to me. Yes, the vocals are all over the place, but so were The Dillinger Escape Plan’s, and you ate that up for 20 years. And yes, that song in the middle does sound like circus pirate shanty, and the one later on had that pseudo growl rapping that we usually hate, what about it? Look, all I’m saying, when it comes to having and sort of mastering a wide variety of sounds and styles, I haven’t found anything that comes close in a long time, especially anything that blends them so well to make them as cohesive as they sound.

On that thought, holy heck in a handbag, hats off to the guy(s?) that thought this thing up. The songs are written expertly, even for how silly they are. It’s testament to their craft and talent to be able to write and perform in as many genres as we have here, especially vocally. I don’t know how many folks contributed vocals to this, or if it’s just one guy with immeasurable range, but every song had the perfect character and performance when it came to the delivery. On top of a killer production, it only adds to the experience. 

It’s really hard to chalk up exactly what this band’s sound is. There really isn’t a solid idea of what it might be. Zilf are brave enough to not paint themselves into a corner, and by never establishing a distinct sound from the very beginning of the first song, they are able to find a way to make really anything work. It’s metal, it’s math, it’s grind, it’s indie. It’s whatever you want it to be. There is a borderline Panic! At the Disco song that ends with a breakdown for crying out loud, and it’s one of the best songs on an album filled to its teeth with smashers. I could talk about this for pages and pages, and I want to. I didn’t get to touch on really any specifics, every song could have its write up. But it’s late, and my wife is getting annoyed with how much I’ve been talking about this thing. This is a really special album, regardless of all of the spitting in progressive music’s face that it did. It did it with more finesse and talent than most of the ‘serious bands’ out there, and it paid off with one of the most memorable albums so far this year, and one that I had a blast listening to every single time. Just have fun making music, guys. It rules.

Recommended tracks: yes
Recommended for fans of: Whatever you want, it’s probably in there. Also The Dillinger Escape Plan
Final verdict: 10/10

Zyglrox – Beyond (US-UT)
Style: Prog Metal (instrumental)
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Sam

I somehow always have a soft spot for people who contact me on Reddit for a review. We get plenty of promos through the mail these days, but someone taking the time to write me a message on Reddit, as small as it is, is just a really nice gesture of appreciation. Hence I put in extra effort to make sure such an album gets reviewed, and often will even do so myself (unless it’s really too far out of my wheelhouse like doom metal or BTBAM-type stuff). And so here I am, reviewing Beyond by the solo project Zyglrox. Isn’t that name cool as hell?

I usually put in something more concrete for the style, but this is really just instrumental progressive metal, nothing more, nothing less. The riffs are modern heavy metal I’d say (so not the 80s revival thing, but actually modern sounding stuff), but other than that it’s hard to pinpoint it to any subgenre except for prog metal. Guess that’s fine too sometimes? I wouldn’t the riffs are particularly stand-out, but they’re serviceable. I wish the guitar had some more oomph in the mix though, which brings me to one of the more immediate things about the album. The instruments are audible in the mix, but it all sounds a bit duff and could use some better volume mastering because the record is really damn soft for a metal album. It’s basement stuff. 

So how are the songs? I think there were many cool ideas in the album. Some of the lead work had a real post-metal feel that reminded me of Nautilus’ great album The Oceanwalker (who I reviewed in the blog’s early days). It worked really well whenever it appeared. There were also lots of fun breaks with what I think is Nintendo music (could be wrong) which gave the songs some character. I have to say though that I’d have preferred it if they were integrated into the metal parts more. Right now it was either metal or a fun break, with not much in between. There’s also the issue of overt repetition of ideas with too little progression that tends to plague the songs. Especially “IV: Paradox” had two riffs it repeated for way too long without much progression in melody or themes. Such issues made parts of the record way more boring than they could have been.

So in conclusion Beyond is an album with lots of neat ideas, but a lot of work is still needed to make them work properly. If you’re Zyglrox reading this, I apologize for the low score, but I have to be honest in my critiques. This album sets out a decent direction for this project, and with some more experience it could become great. 

Recommended tracks: III: Avalon
Recommended for fans of: Nautilus, instrumental prog metal
Final verdict: 4/10

Tyler Crews – Oh God I’m Cumming (US-OH) [EP]
Style: Djentlecore (instrumental)
Related links: Bandcamp
Review by: Josh

You’re thinking about the album cover, aren’t you? Of course you are. Just look at it. It’s phenomenal, a piece of avant-garde art that shatters to smithereens all preconceptions of what prog should look like. It’s a primal statement that resonates deep within the core of the human psyche, demonstrating deep knowledge of Freudian theory in its attractive statements towards the id. It pays homage to Duchamp’s Fountain in its boldness, standing out among droves of generic geometric art, driving some to question if it can even be considered album art. And just like Fountain, it has the potential to completely redefine the way that album covers are made. Mark my words, Tool’s sixth album, Cock and Ball Torture, will be the greatest album of the 2040’s.

Unfortunately, the sonic content of the album does not live up to its magnificent cover. Oh God I’m Cumming is… well, it’s djent. You’ve got heavy, syncopated riffs coming from a downtuned extended range guitar backed by inaudible bass and kicks synced to the main riff. The album never really diverges from the standard djent formula, and while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s decidedly not a good one. At its best, it has some good riffs. At its worst, it drones on mind-numbingly for minutes at a time. The track “Pieces” is the worst offender here, going on and on and on for almost seven minutes over a simple melodic idea while doing almost nothing to change it up. It feels unfinished more than anything, really. It isn’t the only track that repeats itself too much, either. The first two minutes of “Rapid” are essentially just the same riff over and over again with harmonics thrown in every thirty seconds or so. The other two tracks are interesting enough, but two out of four isn’t the best grade.

I don’t mean to be too harsh on this release as, given what I know, it’s probably more of a demo reel than a proper album, but given that cover art, I couldn’t not review it. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone without an all-consuming djent addiction, and even then I’d try to hold an interdjention before putting them on this. That album art, though? I need twenty framed copies of it delivered to my house as soon as possible. True beauty.

Recommended tracks: Subjective, Menace
Recommended for fans of: Periphery, Polyphia, Monuments
Final verdict: 4/10

Echidna – Escape from Civilization (Greece)
Style: Melodic/Technical Death (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Chris

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe I listened to the first Echidna record 8/9 years ago, thought it was cool, and then forgot about them after nothing else came out. Escape From Civilization is their first offering since then, and it is most definitely a pretty dense album, but not in the unbearable way. It’s full of thrashy guitars, standard-fare melodic death and tech-death elements, and like 15 jazz interludes. It’s got about 11 different vocal delivery decisions and the attention span of a puppy inside of a pet store. That said, it is definitely enjoyable, though at times can out stay its welcome.

The first track “It Came From the Blue Sky” starts with a nice clean build into riffs that really would feel at home on Traced in Air by Cynic, before dropping down into something a bit more spastic and old-style than that. This brought my attention to the production. The production is decently refreshing with its more natural approach to most instruments. The drums especially feel very real, though I think they could have used a bit more love in editing to help the tightening of things. I had a hard time telling if they were not lined well at some parts or the actual writing wasn’t as tight as I would have hoped. The vocals really do change a lot and go a lot of places during the run of the album, but I personally found the “go-to” sound a bit grating and annoying. Admittedly the style of those vocals is something I have never really been a fan of, especially when they are mixed as far forward as these were.

“Organix” as a track I think is a great abstract on everything going on in this album. It starts with this movie-esque string and bells part, builds itself on some moodier clean arpeggios, and then descends more into the darkness with distorted sparse riffing with those vaguely jazz-flavored drums reminiscent of any band in the Cynic tree of influences. Later the riffs take on a more spastic techy style and the vocals become background vocoder pieces. It really is a bit of whiplash at times, but I found “Organix” went about these stylistic shifts the most organically of any track on the album. Unfortunately I didn’t feel all the tracks were able to do so. 

I found this album the best whenever it really leaned into wearing the Atheist/Cynic/Death influences on its sleeves and tuned out the most whenever it had had the main vocals for an extremely long time or had gotten a bit too self indulgent. If you like that tree of bands  mentioned or albums that are not afraid to randomly do things (like the sampled(?) speech from someone in some language I don’t understand on one of the songs, the same song which has a huge jazz jam in the middle??) then go for it. 

Recommended tracks: Age of Plastic, Yet No One Notices, Organix, Escape
Recommended for fans of: Cynic, Atheist, Voivod (for the avant stylings)
Final verdict: 7/10

Eye of Nix – Ligeia (US-WA)
Style: Avantgarde/Doom (mixed vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page
Review by: Stephen

Well, I’m back after taking some off from album reviews for the month of May and the first part of June. I wasn’t sure if I was going to wait until the next month to come back, but then I saw Eye of Nix’s avant-doom album, Ligeia, up for grabs and I didn’t want to miss this album. I haven’t heard anything from Eye of Nix before, but I really didn’t want to let an avant album pass me by, because that is 100% my cup of tea. So was Ligeia the avant-doom album I thought it would be? The answer is no, because you never know what to expect with anything under the avant umbrella, and that’s a good thing.

I dove into this album without knowing what to expect and once “Concealing Waters” began, I could tell that the production was good right away and the vocalist was extremely talented. The vocals start airy and almost hypnotizing and as the song progresses we find out just how versatile the vocalist is when the harsh vocals kick in. There are both growling and shrieking or wailing techniques that the vocalist displays throughout the album. Once the track “Pursued” begins you’re hit right in the face with the growls for the first time, and very heavy instrumentation as well. As the track progresses you hear yet another new operatic side to the vocalists arsenal of vocal techniques. Let me say, the second half of “Pursued” is probably my favorite moment of the album. It really encapsulates the avant-doom blend perfectly. I don’t like focusing on a single aspect of an album in my reviews, but it’s difficult not to highlight this talented vocalist.

Moving on from the first couple of tracks and the extremely-talented vocalist there are a lot of other aspects of this album I really liked. I think my favorite track (start to finish) off the album is “Stranded”. This track has very interesting instrumentation and maintains a very creepy yet soothing feel throughout. The song starts off with a very tasty acoustic lead and is complemented by a creepy piano that helps carry the song along effortlessly. Then once the listener is drawn into this “calm-but-creepy” atmosphere, they are smacked in the face with huge riffs and huge harshes and left with a banging outro that leaves you wanting more. Also, the drumming throughout the album is very good. I didn’t really pick up on just how good the drumming was until my second listen. If you haven’t picked up on it by now, there is a lot to like about this album. 

As much as I did enjoy the album I do have a few small gripes. My first and biggest gripe about Ligeia is that there are moments in the album where the band lingers too long. The two moments on the album that stick out the most are the entire track of “Keres” which leads into the beginning of the title track “Ligeia.” The second moment is the first two plus minutes of “Adrift”. Both of these points I highlighted just repeat the same measures over and over and over again with little or no variation. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Eye of Nix did this. It was intended to really draw you in and immerse you in the atmosphere of the new point in the album. That said, Ligeia’s runtime is right around 45 minutes and it feels like the atmosphere could have been hurried along in those highlighted segments without losing anything. 

All in all, this is a damn solid album and one I would definitely recommend for fans of both avant-garde bands as well as doom bands; or honestly just metal fans in general. There were moments where I was reminded of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum but with much more of a doom feel. Ligeia was a great way to kick off my return to album reviews.

Recommended tracks: Concealing Waters, Pursued, Stranded
Recommended for fans of: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Khemmis, Theologian
Final verdict: 8.5/10