Riverside is back with their first album in nearly five years. After all the change since their last album was released—a pandemic, a new guitar player, political polarization in their homeland—will ID.Entity continue to be aggressively chill or something different?
El Cuervo and GardensTale have lists. You’ll need to study them carefully to get maximum value. Get started!
“Following my last couple of year-end lists, it should now not come as a shock that I spent more time fleshing out my historical knowledge of music than my contemporary knowledge. In honor of my abject failure in keeping my eye on the present, I have received approval to document my ever-deeper plundering of previous decades in an article detailing my favorite older records which I first heard in 2019.” Old things, young ears.
![The EP, Demo, and Oddity Post [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/cuervoportrait.jpg)
“As a younger man I had no concept of the “EP,” nor the “demo,” nor the “split.” When was the last time Iron Maiden had to curb their excesses by squashing ideas into half an hour? When were Judas Priest not able to afford a professional recording studio and production job? And when’s that Metallica/Megadeth split due again? Such formats are reserved for the underdogs of the metal world, those bubbling beneath the surface of popularity who write music for the sheer creative expression and who will never see monetary reward for their time and effort.” Short is sweet.
The holidays are near, but this is no time for shopping! Instead you should be consuming the Top Ten lists of the esteemed El Cuervo and Diabolus in Muzaka. These are the gifts that keeps on giving.
“Like with video games or books, one’s “Stack o’ Shame” is the stuff one intends to do but has not been able to do for one reason or another. These reviews are all too late to write full 600-800 word reviews for. On the other hand, I am going to be way too busy this winter to be able to handle writing a bunch of TYMHM. So, I am invoking my right to rule through this (hopefully one-off) post that rounds up some stuff that I fully intended to review and didn’t. So by ways of an apology to both you, the readers, and the albums in my Stack o’ Shame, I bring you some angry, metal blurbs. Mea culpa.” Sometimes sorry is enough.
“Prog rock pedigree? Check. Reputable prog rock label? Check. An obligatory thirteen-year gap in albums? Check. The latest album from English progressive rock trio Kino, Radio Voltaire, checks a lot of boxes.” Box radio?
“You know Genesis right? And Yes? And Pink Floyd? And King Crimson? The big names of the English progressive rock scene which is more or less the best ‘scene’ to have ever existed (in music or otherwise). One name which flew relatively close to the ground during this era is Camel. It was only in retrospect that they began to enjoy their utterly deserved praise, thanks, in no small part, to the adoration of one Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth.” Camels!
“If I were tasked to imagine what a typical instrumental progressive rock album led by a guitar virtuoso sounded like, I’d probably envision exactly the music that Steve Rothery and co. prepared for his first real solo album. Created with the help of fans through crowdfunding and riding on a wave of ideas cultivated for the better part of 30 years, The Ghosts of Pripyat once again shows just what kind of a creative mastermind and a driving force behind Marillion Steve Rothery actually was.” Instrumental prog rock? On a metal site? Yes!
The worst thing that ever happened to London’s Haken was that someone once compared them to Dream Theater. In fact, enough reviewers compared the band to Dream Theater that on Metal Archives the only “associated act” is the unfortunate Berklee Music School graduating class of nineteen eighty-boring. “Why,” you ask, “is it a problem to be compared to DT? They have a long and storied career!” Because I am not alone in finding the band’s music to be void of creativity. It is insipid, lacking in feel, and often only an exercise in form. So when someone says to me, “Yeah, man! They’re like Dream Theater!” that’s an instant cue for me (and many others I’ve met) to shut down; to tune out; to back out of the room slowly and look for a shotgun. Still, being the daring man I am, I couldn’t help but listen to Haken’s new album The Mountain when it landed in my box a few weeks back. Honestly, the band has such a fantastic loyalty from its fans, that I felt like I had to at least give them a chance. In general, InsideOut is a trustworthy label and they put out good material [With a few notable exceptions, of course — F.t.A.G]—so what choice did I have?
