“I’ve never been a fan of video games. Do I hate them? Well, no, but my anger management specialist suggested I give up this vice or he’d walk. For years he has been trying to convince me that Guile is no match for Ryu and my stubbornness will lead to homicide. But, if there is a style of metal appropriate for all the video game mumbo jumbo, it’s prog.” Prog with video game themes no less.
“Circumstances have not been kind to prog-metal forefathers Fates Warning. For most of the past decade and a half, the band has been sidelined while far lesser acts have laid claim to the entire genre (oh hi, Dream Theater). The fact that Fates have released some incredibly inaccessible albums has not helped their cause, nor did their 9-year hiatus from making new music altogether.” The forefathers are back!
“So far this year, I’ve been tasked with reviewing—or simply listening to—a handful of shoegazing, post-black promos from a variety of little-known bands. Some of them are worth their weight in gold, while others are worth their weight in horseshit. For many, this genre petered out in the last decade or so when many o’ band jumped on the WitTR bandwagon, over-weighing the vehicle and driving its wheels axle-deep in the mud.” That navel isn’t going to contemplate itself, you know.
“I have an admission to make, and it’s not an easy one. Until the past few weeks, I had never heard of Italy’s Novembre. Yes, as Angry Metal Guy’s resident doom meister who worships at the altar of the Peaceville Three, considers Funeral’s From These Wounds a desert-island album, and champions any band that possesses The Riff of Sorrow, I had neglected to check out one of Italy’s heralded progressive exports.” Please publicly shame this man.
“After all these years, AMG knows me far too well. If there’s something he wants done, he knows exactly what to say in order to manipulate my Heavy Metal Emotions®. And in this case, that would be “hey man, I found this band that sounds like a prog version of John Bush-era Anthrax.” The band in question is Gracepoint, an independent act based out of Minnesota.” Is grace in the hand better than 2 in the Bush?
“Sometimes I’ll pick a band from the promo list just because they have an interesting name. So it was with Pyramids on Mars, who I dearly hoped were a bunch of Richard C. Hoagland inspired conspiracists writing metal for martians.” Here at AMG we’ve brought you the scoop on goblin metal and troll metal. Why not add martian metal to the list.
“What do you think of when I say “progressive metal?” Well, if you’re anything like me, you think of early ’90s wanks from New York, nerdy band photos of cheap sunglasses and bad haircuts, masturbating guitar solos, cheesy keyboard theatrics, and lengthy double-albums longing to be The Wall or The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.” Nobody wanks in New York!
“It’s been three years since North Carolina’s most ambitious prog troupe polished off their Parallax album duo, which means fans will have had time to listen through the past two LPs about twice in total. In the proud tradition of sensu stricto prog rock and metal, Between the Buried and Me have churned out predictably wacky and bombastic rock operas for the past decade and a half and show no sign of slowing down, grounding themselves, or learning how to write songs.” Prog is a mighty sticky wicket.
“If there’s anyone to thank for this review of Kingcrow’s Eidos, it would have to be our esteemed Steward King, Steel Druhm. This little piece of progressive mastery almost slipped through the cracks before the dreaded Scribe Hammer™ came crashing down on my checkerboard mahogany and human-flesh paneled desk. Said Hammer (and the tyrannical HR department) may be painful here at the AMG office, but without the necessary discipline, AMG writers would run amok and reviews would focus almost exclusively on 600-700 words of the exact nonsense you just read.” Spare the rod, spoil the blog.
“I’ll admit that I had to Google what a “wind rose” was whilst writing this review. Coming across as a standard-issue unfortunate but flowery power metal name, and I had awful lines like “kiss from a Wind Rose,” “every Wind Rose has it’s thorn,” and all manner of flatulence puns at the ready.” Bad band names don’t guarantee bad music, but c’mon! Nice font though.
