And so the forward momentum of time has driven yet another year under its inexorable tread, from future into present, present into past. The world has changed so much over its latest trip around the sun, and yet my own tiny corner of it feels much the same. Perhaps it’s partly due to how seismic the previous year’s changes were by comparison, but the fact that I ended 2024 in the same city, with the same job, and surrounded by largely the same people as I began it with feels… noteworthy somehow. I even managed to stay on with the Subway team for the full year, giving and taking some good-hearted roasts on musical taste while singlehandedly shifting the site’s Overton window on what a “long review” really even is. But most of all, being here gave me an absolute deluge of music recommendations, some of which have already become near and dear to my heart.
In this year of relative calm, my tastes gravitated more and more to music that felt big– whether that bigness took the form of ambitiously lengthy song structures, brazen, larger-than-life hooks, or simply an inexorable sense of scale in orchestration. Perhaps it was the volume of stuff I had to wade through (listening to every single thing this blog rates 8+ is a lot, y’all), perhaps it was an instinctive search for similarly extravagant, “more is more” approaches to my own, but during 2024 I have become increasingly convinced that subtlety is for cowards. I don’t care how cheesy, overwrought, or self-indulgent it is; if the melodies, performances, and compositions are up to snuff, I’d rather be hit straight in the face than bored to sleep. And trust me, the albums below all struck me with pure quality harder than a diamond-encrusted uppercut to the jaw. Let’s check the damage, shall we?
Non-Subway Honorable Mentions:
Seven Spires – A Fortress Called Home: After the meteoric growth in scale and compositional sophistication on their previous effort, the Bostonian symphonic/power/melodeath maestros focused in on dark, gothic melodrama to create an album that, with each subsequent spin, reveals itself more and more to be their gorgeous, bleeding-heart-on-sleeve masterpiece. This album has slowly but surely imprinted itself on my very soul, and I couldn’t be happier.
The Home Team – The Crucible of Life: Describing their genre as “heavy pop”, The Home Team take their rock-solid base of absurdly hooky pop-punk songwriting and add a whole casserole of ingredients ranging from slinky, R&B-inflected grooves to thick layers of eight-string prog-djent guitar riffs. Add in the sheer charismatic aura of fun and danceability throughout, and you’ve got the recipe to keep me coming back time and time again.
Marianas Trench – Haven: Theatre (with an “re”) kids, rejoice, for Canada’s most ambitious pop-rock troubadours have finally returned with what might just be their most over-the-top album yet. Taking inspiration from the Hero’s Journey monomyth, its tracklist expertly oscillates between sweet, synth-led bops and massively cinematic symphonic-rock haymakers, led by Josh Ramsay’s soaring vocals that are somehow wider-ranging than ever.
10. Professor Caffeine and the Insecurities – Professor Caffeine and the Insecurities
Style: Progressive rock, post-hardcore, power pop (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Thank You Scientist, Coheed and Cambria, Closure in Moscow
In a year where my music intake could sometimes feel as if I were at the receiving end of a neverending conveyor belt of new thing after new thing pushed by both my Subway colleagues and Spotify’s relentless algorithm, having an album become something I organically take the time to come back to again and again is something truly special. And, as it turns out, Professor Caffeine‘s self-titled debut came out of nowhere and got me more addicted than a bleary-eyed office worker lining up for his morning triple espresso shot. Their sheer skill in blending memorable, poppy yet straight-to-the-feels emo songwriting with intricate layers of tight prog musicianship scratches the dopamine centers in my brain to a degree I haven’t witnessed since early Thank You Scientist. To listen to this album is to be continually surprised with new delights, whether on the first listen or the twentieth, and while a couple of rough patches kept it from reaching any higher on its list, there’s enough potential demonstrated here to have me staying up late waiting for the follow-up.
Recommended tracks: Wolf Fang Fist!, Astronaut, Make Like a Tree (and Leave)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
9. Sgàile – Traverse the Bealach
Style: Post-metal, progressive metal, power metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alcest, Cloudkicker, Sylvaine, Lantlôs
I’m usually somewhat cautious of anything bearing the “Post-rock” or “Post-metal” label. As someone who prefers music with some level of direction and structure, too many “post-” acts feel like they wallow around in layers of guitar effects for minutes on end without arriving at any actual point; decent background noise, sure, but nothing I’d pay attention to. But Scottish one-man project Sgàile (aka Tony Dunn) breaks free of that stereotype with ease, keeping my focus through each one of its six sprawling odysseys by ensuring that the journey is every bit as enrapturing as the destination. Roaring, pounding riffs and blasts give way to delicate, gorgeous pianos which in turn give way to heart-stirringly melodic lead guitar tremolos in an incredibly natural way, keeping a sense of momentum and flow throughout. That’s to say nothing of the impeccable choruses featuring Dunn’s soaring clean vocals. As someone who has spent some time hiking in the Scottish highlands, there is a certain awe-inspiring desolation to be found there, yes, but also an ineffably electric sense of invigoration that flows through the gusting winds and shines from the night sky, and Traverse the Bealach takes that energy and crystallizes it into music the way few can.
Recommended tracks: Psalms to Shout at the Void, Lamentations by the Lochan, Entangled in the Light
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
8. The Circle of Wonders – IV: Timber
Style: Progressive rock, progressive metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Plebeian Grandstand, Frontierer
If there were little sub-awards we gave out alongside our placements on the Top 10 list, I would undoubtedly bestow the “Most Improved” award to Cody McKenna’s The Circle of Wonders. Not only did he make incredible strides towards making good on the unrealized potential that hung off of prior concept work III: The Sparrow and the Architect like several oversized trenchcoats, but he did so in the head-spinningly fast timeframe of only ten months. The storytelling is tighter and more emotionally resonant, the performances are far more consistent, and the melodies, dear God, these melodies might be some of the most pitch-perfect things the little theater kid in me has beheld in a while. It’s not all cheese and theatrics, either, as the balance in instrumentation between propulsively tuneful prog riffs and lush, woodsy acoustics demonstrates considerable compositional acumen, keeping the energy flowing and feeling fresh throughout the album’s 86-minute runtime. Yes, that’s right, I said 86 minutes. Yes, that runtime is still somehow (mostly) justified. Sure, it may not be a hundred percent perfect all the way through, but the sheer heart and passion emblazoned into every second is contagious enough to genuinely elicit a few tears from me, and that’s something few albums (not even some higher on this list) can boast. The tree has fallen, and I’m here to let everyone who wasn’t there know that it made one hell of a sound.
Recommended tracks: Inciting Incident I: Song of Sorrow, Visions of the Dead, My Dear (Fall of the Redwood)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
7. Kyros – Mannequin
Style: Progressive rock, synth pop, neo-progressive rock, new wave (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Frost*, Haken, poppy Devin Townsend, 80s Yes and Rush, a whole host of eighties synth pop groups
Progressive rock has had a strange relationship with the ’80s, a decade in which genre stalwarts like Rush, Yes, and especially Genesis traded their Mellotrons and gongs for synths and electronic drums, bridging their considerable musical talents with the ascendant synth-pop sounds of the time. While the resulting sound was dismissed as sellout schlock by purists for decades, popular consensus has finally accepted the fact that, in fact, ’80s pop-prog had some absolute bangers, and UK quartet Kyros are here to continue that proud legacy into the modern era. These songs have some of the most danceable, booty-shaking odd meter grooves I’ve ever heard, alchemizing the band’s virtuosic musicianship into some seriously fun, memorable hooks anchored by frontwoman Shelby Logan-Warne’s campy charisma—as evidenced by the chorus to “Esoterica” currently being on replay in my head for the hundredth time. Beyond the synthy bops, though, there’s plenty of variety and experimentation going on in the album’s deeper corners, from its soft acoustic intro song, to flourishes of chiptune, saxophone, and New Jack Swing, to expansive, twist-filled prog metal interludes that rival peak-era Haken. And, as mixed as I was on his solo outing later in the year, Joey Frevola‘s talents as guitarist and co-writer are absolutely instrumental here, complete with killer solos aplenty. Simultaneously boundary-pushing and incredibly accessible, this is the kind of prog you can put on at parties. Just, y’know, if the party is cool enough.
Recommended tracks: Esoterica, The End in Mind, Ghosts of You
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
6. Iotunn – Kinship
Style: Progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Amorphis, In Mourning, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium
My colleague Andy and I have tastes that often disagree with one another. While I like such plebeian things as ‘music’ that ‘sounds good’, he’s off giving glowing reviews to bizarre, avant-garde disso-metal that sounds like it’s from an alternate dimension where the guitars have all been replaced with fire alarms. Yet, occasionally, one of his recommendations hits right at the center of the Venn diagram at which our tastes intersect, and in the case of prog-death group Iotunn‘s latest release, we can wholeheartedly agree on one thing: Jón Aldará is an absolute vocal beast. The Faroese wonder is back for his second outing with the band, and he’s in peak form here, stunning with bombastic, rocket-fueled belts, feather-light croons, and massive, cavernous growls in equal measure. And the band, somehow, matches him in intensity, with sibling guitar duo Jesper and Jens Nicolai Gräs delivering deliciously widdly solo work and incredibly tight instrumental interplay in spades and keeping the music spellbinding throughout its generous runtime. A truly titanic album befitting of its band’s name, Kinship is a tour de force of frisson-inducing beauty and sheer, undeniable power.
Recommended tracks: Kinship Elegiac, Mistland, Earth to Sky
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
5. Lamentari – Ex Umbra In Lucem
Style: technical death metal, brutal death metal, progressive death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Emperor, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ihsahn, Septicflesh, Limbonic Art
My reaction to most black metal is dependent on whether it has the “melodic” or “symphonic” tag in front of it, much in the same way a dog’s reaction to a heartworm pill depends on whether it comes with peanut butter. Like a shot of cheap liquor, the paint-peeling harshness inherent to the genre often needs a healthy dose of musical sweetener before my frail constitution can stomach it. And yet, that doesn’t seem to be quite the case with Lamentari here. Sure, Max Uldahl’s lush, sweeping orchestrations are intricately realized enough to stand toe to toe with the band’s cinematic inspirations, but they never feel like they’re counteracting the roiling extremity beneath them. Rather, the two work in concert, with labyrinthine riffs, punishing blast beats, and caged-animal snarls being spurred on by Holst-esque assaults of brass and choral exultations in a two-headed serpent of deliciously tuneful violence. My first listen to Ex Umbra in Lucem yielded at least two audible exclamations of “hell yeah!”, particularly due to the frankly absurd lead guitar talents of one Emil Partsch, whose audacious, nonstop flurries of notes range from Malmsteen-style neoclassical virtuosity to sweeping, breathtakingly intense black metal chaos. In fact, the overall craftsmanship on display here is absolutely stellar front to back, resulting in an elegant yet devastating bruiser of an album that can appeal to one’s inner caveman and inner snob in equal measure.
Recommended tracks: Tragoedia In Domo Dei, Intra Muros Mentis, Appugno
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
4. Bent Knee – Twenty Pills Without Water
Style: art rock, progressive rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Radiohead, Steven Wilson, The Dear Hunter, Björk
You just can’t keep Bent Knee down. After a decidedly rough couple of years in which two longtime members quit the group, never to be replaced, no one would have blamed the remaining four for throwing in the towel. And yet, like a phoenix from the ashes, they returned with their strongest, most heartwrenching work in a decade, taking in the pain and feelings of permanent loss from the state of the band, and the world at large, to craft a fascinatingly layered opus revolving around the trauma of irreversible change. Such a concept could have easily soured the album’s soundscape into a series of limp, sad-sack laments, but the band smartly pivot in the opposite direction, wrapping up all those uncomfortable feelings in some of the most straightforwardly accessible and fun songs they’ve ever written. Bent Knee‘s idiosyncratic take on Radiohead-esque electronic art-pop melds with funk grooves to create smooth, danceable jams like “Never Coming Home”, deploying enough of their signature sardonic wit that you almost forget the gnawing emptiness at the heart of their lyrics. And though the ballads envelop listeners more directly in the album’s deep well of melancholy, there’s always a sense of distance and abstraction, a painfully adult “can’t be helped” finality that almost feels more tragic than the pain of living through it firsthand. Against all odds, they’re still here, and all that’s left is to live life a day at a time until the pain, too, passes.
Recommended tracks: Big Bagel Manifesto, Never Coming Home, Drowning
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
3. Meer – Wheels Within Wheels
Style: Progressive rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Dear Hunter, Steven Wilson, Renaissance, Bent Knee
Despite their previous effort, Playing House, drawing significant hype from prog critics, Norwegian indie-prog darlings Meer took a while to fully gel for me. Sure, they were talented musicians with tight, sophisticated orchestrations, but they didn’t quite hit my lizard brain enough for me to truly love their work. But after having listened to their latest effort, I can now attest that… yeah, these guys just might be geniuses. A towering, intricate, yet absurdly tuneful effort from start to finish, Wheels Within Wheels takes its base of lush, symphonic progressive pop and twists it into a thousand shapes, each more impressive than the last. With all the instruments they have access to, the sheer emotional and dynamic variety that this ensemble’s arrangements can conjure is nothing short of jaw-dropping, ranging from the breathless, fluttery strings of “Chains of Changes” to the restless dance party of “Golden Circle” to the tender piano ballad-to-guitar-solo evolution of “Today Tonight Tomorrow.” The dual vocals between the Nesdal siblings further contributes to the expansive range Meer offers, with Knut’s warm, soothing tenor contrasting and harmonizing with Johanne’s immense, speaker-crackingly forceful belts. Every song feels like its own distinct entity, yet the sheer compositional talent remains an absolute constant, expressed through ultra-catchy, anthemic hooks, deceptively intricate arrangements, and subtle recurring motifs. Not a note is out of place, and though its concept of “the complex interplay between individuals and the wider world” is far too vast to be encapsulated in a single album, with the sheer amount of ground Wheels Within Wheels covers it somehow comes pretty damn close.
Recommended tracks: Chains of Changes, Golden Circle, This Is the End
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
2. Azure – Fym
Style: Progressive rock, power metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Ayreon, (Luca Turilli’s) Rhapsody (of Fire), Haken, Yes
Some artists let their listeners take a while to tease apart their intricacies, to fully grasp their genius. Others, like Azure, blast their listeners in the face with a firehose of pure, unadulterated talent and dare them to take a drink. A sprawling, whimsical, unapologetically self-indulgent prog-power journey of fantasy and wonder, Fym is not for the faint of heart or low of lactose tolerance. Yet, for those like me who grew up devouring fantasy books, JRPGs, and music with far too many notes for its own good, this album comes as an absolute revelation, a giddy, high-speed flight through a sun-dappled realm of magick that swoops, twirls, and exults in the raw joy of being alive. Pound for pound, this is easily the most virtuosic album I’ve heard this year. Not just in the speed of the instrumentals, though those are absolutely bonkers (seriously, what is Galen Stapley on to play guitar that fast?) nor even in vocalist Chris Sampson’s numerous death-defyingly stratospheric high notes, but just in the incredible amount of attention to detail that suffuses every one of its (many) seconds as its various complex parts interface with one another and drive the narrative ever forward like a network of tightly wound gears. Speaking of which, the story here is genuinely interesting, and following along with the tale of the titular sorceress and her fox companion with lyrics in hand has made this my favorite album-based narrative this side of The Dear Hunter. Simply put, Fym makes my brain incredibly happy, and were it not for a couple somewhat ill-considered vocal passages (particularly in “The Lavender Fox”), it would be a serious contender for number one. That it’s still as high as it is should speak volumes about just how much I adore this silly, brilliant, cheesy, masterful prog opera.
Recommended tracks: The Azdinist // Den of Dawns, Weight of the Blade, Trench of Nalu
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
1. In Vain – Solemn
Style: Progressive metal, death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Insomnium, In Mourning
While we at the Subway have many distinct tastes, every so often there comes along an album that most all of us can agree on, something so objectively excellent that it transcends Andy’s pretension, Cooper’s fixation on brutality, and my pathological need for melodic hooks and brings us all together under one unified banner. Wilderun filled this role in years past, but a not-so-new contender in the realm of top-tier prog death has entered the ring. Welcome, all, to In Vain, two-decade stalwarts of the Norwegian scene who have patiently worked away at their latest opus for the previous six years. To say that work paid off is a massive understatement, as the resulting album is an absolute tour de force in pretty much every single facet you could ask for, from gorgeous, soulful cleans and excoriating harshes to shredding solos to, most importantly… a horn section, baby! (Oh, right, and the absolute masterclasses in songwriting and composition. Those too.) I’ve already gushed a fair bit about them in our mid-year post from six months ago, so instead of repeating my earlier points, let me go into a bit more detail (as is my wont) and give y’all the Top 5 Moments That In Vain‘s Solemn Made My Soul Ascend to Another Goddamn Plane of Existence:
5: The absolutely scorching, shout-along harsh chorus in “Blood Makes the Grass Grow” from Andreas Frigstad (who has since, unfortunately, left the band).
4: The atmospheric synth and sick-ass bass solo in “Eternal Waves” that leads into a titanic wall of brass playing its main refrain.
3: The final chorus of “Where the Winds Meet”, where Sindre Nedland’s already heavenly chorus meets with a heart-rendingly gorgeous lead guitar soaring above it like an angel and who the fuck is cutting onions in here
2: That one super cool horn section in “Shadows Flap Their Black Wings”. You know, that one.
1: The entire interlude of “Season of Unrest” where the guitars get quiet and there’s just the most gorgeous sax solo I’ve ever heard in my life because of fucking course it’s a saxophone, and then WHAM the heavy riffs slam into your goddamn skull and the sax gets fuckin skronky-
…Ahem. Sorry about that, my writing faculties seem to have abandoned me for a second there. Suffice it to say that, regardless of how “basic” it is to choose what will no doubt be the overall Subway AOTY as my personal number one pick, it is also, in my heart of hearts, a choice I truly believe in. Farewell, and may 2025 bring similarly stunning music to us all.
Recommended tracks: Shadows Flap Their Black Wings, Season of Unrest, Where the Winds Meet
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
