Hello reader! Sam here. This time we enter the month of February. I didn’t have any inspiration for a post introduction, so I asked someone else on the team to do it. Just let me dump the Spotify playlist with all the recommended tracks real quick and I’ll be off. From here on out it’s Matt talking:
Ahem. Time now, prog! Underground. This month, many musics. Some musics of soft, musics of fight. But am music of good? Find out.
Advocacy – Remnants (Denmark) [EP]
Style: Traditional/Hard Rock (clean vocals)
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Review by: Sam
Today we continue in Sam’s 2020 Subway Journey for Dream Theater-Style Prog Wank™️, part 2. Last month the journey commenced with Thoughts Factory. This time we have Denmark outfit Advocacy. To be honest, I didn’t plan on reviewing this originally as I already had two albums, but sampling through the albums on the list we weren’t gonna cover, this seemed too good to pass up.
And indeed, the album is pretty good! Clearly these guys are talented. The songwriting, while rough around the edges, is generally good. Be it a vocal hook or a great riff, they know how to make it stick. They also really know how to set a mood and the guitar playing is very tasty. They do both the atmospherics and the headbanger riffs really well, and the leads are lovely. There’s some notable post-rock influence in their playing too. It doesn’t always pay off and can feel a bit aimless sometimes, but on the whole I’d say the influence is positive. I should also note that their singer sounds A LOT like the guy from Soen in tone, though it’s probably not intentional. He also attempts harsh vocals in a couple of spots, and they’re not at all bad! They’re pretty well-placed too. Lastly I want to mention that the rhythm section is very good. The drummer tends to overplay a bit, but his grooves generally work well and the bass is plenty audible and sounds good (sorry I know fuck all about bass playing so this is all you’re gonna get from me haha).
I must say though that Remnants is far from a perfect record. For starters the production is decidedly bedroom quality. All it does basically is making sure every instrument is recorded and audible in the mix. It could seriously use some better volume mastering and a bit more oomph in general (if that makes sense). Secondly, a couple of passages don’t really lead anywhere (even though the overall songwriting is solid) and they can get kinda lost in overplaying the prog at times (i.e. the balance of when to be technical and when to play it simple is off). The second real song “Spoils of War” is especially guilty of these things. I’m also not really fond of the live track at the end of it.
Overall though, Remnants is a worthwhile EP. It’s not quite the Dream Theater-worship I was hoping for, it’s more like a band wanting to rock out while also incorporating prog metal into it, but that’s just me going in with the wrong expectations. Advocacy is a talented band, and I will be eagerly looking forward to their first full-length. Should they shore up their act, we might just have an amazing band on our hands.
Recommended tracks: Corrupted, My Socially Transmitted Disease
Recommended for fans of: Soen, Fates Warning, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 6/10
Ainsoph – Ω – V (The Netherlands)
Style: Blackgaze (clean vocals)
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Review by: Dylan
First of all, I just gotta get this out of the way: Why do bands feel the need to name their albums with symbols? Why don’t you just name it, you know, with words, so I don’t have to go through a mental fart whenever I have to find the letter Ω in my keyboard?! Was it that hard to call your album Omega V? Really? Come on.
Now that my little rant is over, I’m happy to report that it’s stupid title is all I have issues with on this album. Ainsoph is, to the genre’s standard, surprisingly unique. It’s female fronted, clean only vocals, provide a very distinguishable style and atmosphere. The production is airy, yet extremely potent. The band is not afraid to experiment with some doom-y sections to build an atmosphere, and then just kill you with a barrage of tremolos, blast beats, and fierce vocals.
And I must insist, the vocals really drive this album home. They match the vibe of the album so well that it feels like a match made in heaven. They’re fragile, yet beautiful. Heavenly, with a hint of desperation. While everything else is extremely well written, it’s this very unique voice that made the album jump from good to great.
At just over half an hour this album is pretty much all killer no filler. If you’re worried you’ll dislike it you would only be spending half an hour of your life trying it. And believe me, Ainsoph is worth investing that time in.
Recommended tracks: Spiral, The Long and Self-Destructive Road
Recommended for fans of: Eneferens, Sylvaine
Final verdict: 8/10
Ottobrenero – Venerea (Italy) [EP]
Style: Blackened Punk (mixed vocals)
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Review by: Andrew
The first time I heard about this album, it was described as blackened punk. Blackened… punk? Now that’s a genre combination I don’t think I’ve heard before. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about jumping into Venerea. Upon further investigation, I found out there are more than a couple genre influences at play here. Ottobrenero borrows from several styles to create something supposedly greater than the sum of its parts.
Venerea kicks off with a brief instrumental intro track that quickly segues into the first real track, beginning with a fleeting but dense riff. Then the vocals begin. Switching between passable cleans and slightly more passable harsh vocals, the vocal melody is relatively unmemorable. The fact that the lyrics are all in Italian does not help (if you speak Italian, this isn’t relevant to you). The verse continues for some time until a slow but nice guitar solo makes its way into the song. By this point, I began to lose focus on the music because of its repetition.
The next track, “Occhi Stanchi,” actually kicks off with a punky riff and punk drumming but it didn’t last for long. A couple of mid-tempo verses and boring vocal passages later, the punk reappears with another solo but it’s not enough for me to truly like the song. Unfortunately this trend continues throughout the remainder of Venerea. You get brief punky passages and slow, unmemorable verses with black metal shrieks interspersed throughout. There is a clear gothic rock influence on display throughout Venerea but it does not serve the music well. At a certain point, the music all began to blend together and I completely lost track of where I was in the EP. The ideas behind Venerea have some legs but Ottobrenero just could not seem to make them stand on their own.
Recommended tracks: Occhi stanchi, Alpha Centauri
Recommended for fans of: I actually have no idea – never heard anything like this before
Final verdict: 4/10
Mount Hush – Mount Hush (Germany)
Style: Psychedelic (clean vocals)
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Review by: Stephen
Since I got the amazing surprise of Red Scalp’s The Great Chase in the Sky last year, I have tried to claim a lot of stoner/psych that make it to our list. So when I saw Mount Hush’s self-titled EP made it to our list, I put my claim in. Was I blown away with this release, like I was with the last stoner/psych album I reviewed? In short, no, but this self-titled EP is still pretty good.
When I dove into track one on the EP, “The Ascent”, I was enjoying what I was hearing. Some nice riffs, solid production, and good vocals. Speaking of the vocals, there were moments where the vocalist reminded me of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. The issue that I had with this EP is the same issue that I feel like a lot of other bands within the stoner/psych genre have; they have the same tones and general song structure across the entire album. I’m not against fuzzy guitar tones and/or crunchy bass tones by any means, but I love it when bands within this genre experiment with the soundscape a little bit. As Mount Hush went on, I felt myself getting more and more ear fatigue, until the track “Summer Song” began. That was the breath of fresh air that I needed with this album. “Summer Song” is definitely my favorite song off of the EP, and I wish there were more songs like it. There is an extremely groovy riff that glues the majority of the song together made better by the fact that there is a (what sounds to be, anyways) fretless bass getting a healthy spot in the mix. I also liked the style that the vocalist used on this track, it was a nice touch. The song ends with some nice solos and some keys that reminded me a bit of a tone you might hear The Doors use.
When “Summer Song” ended, I felt my ear fatigue wear off a bit, and I had hope for the rest of the album to finish strong. The track that follows, “Fuenf,” is probably my second favorite track off of the album. This track featured a sax, which is one of my favorite instruments and brought my enjoyment of the song to the next level. With the EP gaining steam, unfortunately the remaining song, “Winter Song,” felt a bit flat for me.
All in all, I think if you are a big fan of the stoner/psych genre, you will enjoy this. There really isn’t a major negative to point out with it, except the snare tone. It sounded like a snare the size of a bottle cap. As someone who is hit or miss on the genre, the EP left more to be desired for me personally. After multiple listens, I kept finding myself tuning out through the first four tracks on the EP. However, “Summer Song” and “Fuenf” were by far my two favorite tracks, and will be two tracks I will be coming back to in the future.
Recommended tracks: Summer Song, Fuenf
Recommended for fans of: Sungrazer, ASG, Cobot
Final verdict: 6.5/10
All Shall Be Well (and All Shall Be Well and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well) – Zwartgroen (The Netherlands)
Style: Post Rock (instrumental)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page
Review by: Josh
Do you like Explosions in the Sky?
With an answer to just that one question, I can tell you whether or not you’ll like this band. That’s it. There’s nothing beyond that. The sound of this album is, overall, straight-up Explosions in the Sky, but not made by Explosions in the Sky. They’ve got a bassist, but the sound is just-
Okay, I won’t say it again. Really though, this album sounds like the band heard The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place once and went “Hey, let’s do that!” There is, however, one track that steps out of EITS territory for a while: “Beyond Us, Only Darkness”, which contains some interesting, darker moments that provide a great contrast for the relentless positivity throughout the rest of the album. However, for even that track, most of the song structure feels ripped straight from “Your Hand in Mine”. There is no escaping the crescendocore.
I’d normally try to say more, but there’s nothing left to say. If you’re an EITS fan in need of more of that sound, sure, check out this album. It’s definitely not bad music. It’s quite good at times, actually. However, it’s nothing original, and if you haven’t listened to EITS, your time is better spent listening through their discography.
Recommended tracks: Beyond Us, Only Darkness
Recommended for fans of: WHAT DID I JUST SAY
Final verdict: 6/10
Clayshaper – Celestian (Sweden)
Style: Extreme (harsh vocals)
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Review by: Andrew
Do you like Opeth? If the answer is yes, then you will like Clayshaper. A similar brand of progressive death metal, Celestian by Swedish band Clayshaper includes some extra influences from around the extreme metal sphere, most notably the inclusion of black metal-style screams and the occasional tremolo riff. At four songs and about 16 minutes, Celestian is a very brief venture but its four songs each pack enough of a punch to be memorable and feel complete.
I think the highlight of Celestian to me is the very strong presence of melodic lead guitar. Something common among progressive death metal bands is just having rhythmic guitar riffs during verses and choruses; Clayshaper, however, includes very melodic lead guitar throughout not just their instrumental passages, but also during verses and choruses. It introduces another layer of melody that progressive death outfits typically do not have, and it benefits massively from it.
There is a strong bass presence throughout Celestian as well, in a way that enhances the underlying music rather than simply rehashing the lead or rhythm guitar. However, there is something about the bass tone that sounds slightly off, but not enough to detract from my enjoyment of the music.
Going back to my Opeth comparison above, I want to mention something about the songwriting here. Like a lot of prog death, they rely on repetition of a riff for a significant portion of the music. Like, a lot. When you have a riff repeated for 8 or more measures, it begins to drag. I kept waiting for something to shake up a verse or a chorus or an intro where there’s just a riff being repeated but those shake-ups were few and far between. Having the melodic leads over these riffs absolutely helped make the music more interesting and immersive, but there’s just the ever-present rhythm. On a positive note, their riffs are interesting enough, but it’s just that repetition that gets to me. I understand that to a lot of people, this repetition is important to build atmosphere or mood or tension or whatever, but to me, it just doesn’t work.
Overall, Celestian is a solid group of prog death songs with more redeeming qualities than detracting qualities. Despite the shortcomings in songwriting, I still really enjoyed the musicality. There is great talent on display here and Clayshaper has successfully created their own identity without ripping too much off any other one band.
Recommended tracks: It’s only 16 minutes, might as well listen to the entire thing
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Perihelion Ship
Final verdict: 7/10
The Motion Mosaic – Avant-Garbage (US-MN)
Style: Mathcore (mixed vocals, but mostly heavy)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page
Review by: Tyler
This is a good album. I had always heard of The Motion Mosaic through the grapevine. They were always sort of friends of friends with everyone in my greater local scene. This should have been a dead give away that I should listen to these guys, because my local scene was pretty great in hindsight. But that was 2016, and I was too invested in the much more important project of trying to convince my girlfriend that Closure in Moscow was, in fact, not trash. Jokes on her though, we got married and now I have time to listen to this band. This is all to say that I missed the boat on these guys after knowing about them for way too long.
This album is immediately like the tornado level from Sonic Adventure, where the game (band) just takes hold of you and there is no option other than just try to land on your feet and hope you have enough lives to make it through another listen. The rhythms are complex, the vocals are visceral, the songwriting is sublime. It is an absolute joy to listen to over and over again. Every song seems to rise and fall in tone and timbre, but never once letting go of the urgency that the band conveys. A perfect example is the end of ‘Nirvana’, where the whole band quiets down, but the vocals being belted in the background tell the listener that this isn’t a time to let their guard down. This leads to the album’s interludes, where towards the end of each one, you don’t get a second to think before it tells you to buckle the heck back up cause we’re going back into the deep end.
The performances on this are all incredible. Every single facet of the band is firing on all cylinders. Whether it’s the explosive The Dillinger Escape Plan-esque rhythms that are featured prominently throughout, or the blast beat filled prog passages that you would find on a BTBAM album from 8 years ago, The Mosaic Boys are masters of their domain and you are just an idiot who walked in and has no idea what you’re in for. The vocals here for me were the real stand out. No matter how whacky things got in the music, the vocals remained a constant. The timbre and passion was a consistent reminder that this is the same band you’ve been listening to for the last 45 minutes. They are just that good.
In between all of those things, there are elements of hardcore, deathcore, and even some drone in the more quiet parts. The Motion Mosaic proved to me that there’s gold in the mountains that are the local bands in your town. For every five or ten bands that think they are the real deal, there’s one of these that walk the walk and talk the talk. This thing is sick and go find cool locals. Boys support boys, after all.
Recommended tracks: They are all bangers you dummy, but the best ones are Nirvana and DMT Daydream
Recommended for fans of: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, Pangaea
Final verdict: 10/10
Embrace the Maddness – The Hellwish Chronicles Chp 2 – Undawning (US-MO)
Style: Death/Avantgarde (harsh vocals)
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Review by: Matt
I’m trying to avoid being a certain person here – you know, that absolute moron at work who calls a non-noisy song “noise” because they only understand major key or something – but man, the intro of this album makes me feel like that person. I swear, no matter how open-minded I am, the first two minutes are just a cacophony of nonsense. This, combined with the name and title, made me really want to shit on this album. Fortunately/sadly, it shaped up alright and I have to take the review seriously. Let’s talk about Tha Maddness, yo!
Embrace the Maddness is a one-man project created by Brendan Thomas. It’ll sound familiar if you follow the vein of wacky death metal pioneered by Gorguts. It’s wholetone and flat 5s all the way down, with tons of reverb and the nastiest chords he could muster. This album lacks the groove and distinctive riffs that normally help make the dissonance palatable, but there is an interesting layer of high guitars over a lot of it. The drumming is sloppy, but this is sort of admirable – he’s still clearly competent, and you know it’s authentic. Normally these projects just have a guitarist who cheats at everything else, so that’s nice.
Once the album settled in, I enjoyed it well enough, though I can’t say I remember any of it right now. It definitely gets by more on atmosphere than riffs, and I tend to prefer something more structured. During the course of research, I found a Facebook post from the band page that went something like: “The album’s finished, and I think it’s a masterpiece!” I don’t know about that, but… it is something.
(Who actually likes their own music…?)
Recommended tracks: Absorbing Oxidation, Occulus Wellspring
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Sunless
Final verdict: 5/10
Drown – Subaqueous (US-OR)
Style: Funeral Doom (harsh vocals)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Review by: Jonah
Before really diving into this review I’d like to make one thing clear: Drown isn’t really a prog band. Amidst the oceans of avant-garde, progressive, and experimental music if one dives deep, deep into the genre depths you will find the murky, and mysterious second cousin to death/doom metal. That is, of course, funeral doom, a genre characterized by lurching, mammoth riffs, cavernous vocals, and songs the length of the average EP at minimum (or the average double-album if you’re Bell Witch). What makes this genre intriguing, and the reason I was able to justify reviewing this decidedly non-progressive genre on our blog, is that I feel the nature of this genre goes against just about every standard musical convention. Everything about this breaks conventional songwriting rules. Hooks? None. Choruses? None. Repeated motifs? Rarely. These songs catch you up in their riffy waves and wash you down river very, very slowly. This is not a genre that will likely appeal to many prog fans, or music fans in general, but it is a genre I implore you to try out.
And that leads me to this album by Drown, because I think it is one of the best introductions to funeral doom I have ever heard. Comprised of just two tracks, each clocking in at about 20 minutes, this has every feature of the genre I described above, yet the songwriting feels so much more immediate than most other bands in the style. I’m not sure if it’s the inclusion of ambient and watery synths, or the occasional softer section, but something about this album just feels right to me.
Given the entire album is performed by one man, Markov Soroka of Tchornobog, the performances here are just incredible. Everything instrument feels perfectly written, the vocals are massive and wonderful, and every piece of this musical puzzle just falls into place. The production feels appropriately abyssal, and while the mix could be a smidge clearer in places I don’t mind it at all.
For many of you this might be your first time hearing, and maybe even hearing of, funeral doom. So please, give it a try. You might be bored, you might hate it, or you might just be like me and fall in love with this beautiful, but patience-testing, musical genre.
Recommended tracks: Both of them
Recommended for fans of: Tchornobog, Bell Witch, Ahab
Final verdict: 9/10
Kilter – Axiom (US-NY)
Style: Dark-Jazz, Jazz Metal (Instrumental with guest harsh vocals on 2 songs)
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page
Review by: Chris
“This is my brain on drugs” is a decently accurate lyric to give a sense of what you’re going to get with this album by New York based band Kilter. A trio made of some brutal metal members (notably the drummer from Imperial Triumphant) and jazz players, this is another band taking a dive into the creation of dark jazz metal. Off the bat I would say this feels more like slightly metal-tinged jazz than full fledged jazz metal. There isn’t quite enough aggression and guitar stylings to call it a full-fledged hybrid, though the sensibilities of the metal genre are definitely prevalent in this album.
It’s definitely a strange album, with a combination of songs that feel like freeform jazz jams, to somewhat strange small interludes. It starts out with “Ax & Spear”, a song which opens with an incredibly spaced out beat (complete with snare echo! We love to hear it!) and an extremely fuzzed bass which melds well with the natural growl of the saxophone. This song kind of implies a much darker feel and fuzzed out sound than the rest of the album gave. On the next song, “Out of Kilter”, the band takes a quick left turn as they introduce a guest harsh vocalist Andromeda Anarchia from Darkmatters. While the attempt is appreciated, the timbre of this specific vocalist didn’t super mesh in this context (though I can’t knock them too much for a guest vocalist in a mostly instrumental band).
The smoother (still dark) jazzy parts of this record were much more enjoyable than most of the “dives” into the metal side of their sound. Songs like “Vandermeer”, “Kafkanated”, and “Pluto is Not Just Rock” are much more interesting as a dark, but still smooth take on jazz with some light dips into the more fuzzed out sound. The most metal moment probably comes in the final track “Spherical Bastards” where Scar Symmetry and live Meshuggah guitarist Per Nilsson gives a great guest solo over the sax and bass riffing before it drops back into a soft moody jazz motif.
Overall, this album felt more like a Miles Davis endeavor if he had fuzzed bass and some metal influences than a true jazz metal offering. I’d like to see their next release get a bit more cohesive and give me more of what I hoped from a band championing themselves as Avant-garde jazz/metal rather than giving what felt like a fuzzier and slightly weirder than normal dark jazz (with some harsh vocals thrown in a few times). That said, it is definitely wacky and abundant in the weird factor and worth a shot.
Recommended tracks: From the Caves of Quram, Kafkanated, Spherical Bastards
Recommended for fans of: Miles Davis, Trioscapes
Final verdict: 7/10
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