“Upon seeing that the new album by Grayceon was available, a band made up from former members of Giant Squid, Amber Asylum and Squalus, I decided to dip my toes back into neglected waters. Time to discover if good things come to those who wait.” Several more shades of Gray.
“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?
“It’s prog time, baby. Having only dipped my metal-shod toes in my favorite genre a handful of times this year, I made a concerted effort to get ahead of my coworkers in October and indulge me of some progressive metal.” The early bird gets the noodle.
“Chicago has a busy music scene, and I can hardly be bothered to go to shows even when bands I already like are playing, so there are plenty of cool second city bands that I’ve always heard of but never checked out. One such familiar name is Without Waves, an experimental/prog metal/rock outfit set to release their third album, Lunar, into a crowded field of new music this March 17th.” In a crowded field, is this brutal enough?
“It’s hard to go wrong when you pluck fruit off the King Crimson tree. The band’s branches extend far and wide throughout not only progressive rock, but metal as well (they go way further than that, but for the purposes of this site we’ll truncate things there). Those branches have influenced generations of musicians, some of whom have been lucky enough to collaborate with the band itself, or at least with various members. How does that relate to the oddly named O.R.k.?” The Lord of all Prog has been invoked and you must read. [This band has a connection to King Crimson. What else do you need to know, you philistines?]
“Okay, let’s get this out-of-the-way right off the top. This album cover gives me the creeps. It also makes me think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So I alternate between grimaces and laughter whenever I’m looking at this bizarre choice for sludgy avante garde collective Obake’s third album, Draugr.” Happy Halloween!
“If you’ve never heard of Monsterworks before, welcome to the club. Originally expecting Black Swan Annihilation to be the debut album from a group of spritely young upstarts, I was pretty amazed to find this London-based quartet is actually one of the most productive bands since Suidakra.” Expectations are for posers!
“The evolution of a band can be a compelling tale, or it can be a train wreck. In the former category, we have Opeth (death metal kings to natty 70s prog worshippers) and Anathema (middling doom metal to dreamy, proggy house band at the Hallmark card factory). In the latter, Queensryche (well, Geoff Tate in particular, who went from legendary prog metal frontman to weirdo). Dark Suns has been evolving too, and they hope to fit in with the former acts.” Evolution is often overrated.
“You might consider a band to be losing momentum when they go four years without releasing any original music, yet Katatonia’s profile has risen since 2012’s Dead End Kings. With two live albums as well as Dethrowned and Uncrowned – a mellow reworking of Dead End Kings – under their collective belt since then, they’ve managed to keep their name in the press despite a lack of new material. If any band deserves this continued level of recognition and praise it’s Katatonia.” Praise to the sad boys!
“Steven Wilson is one of music’s best producers and, as I ranted and raved last year, quickly becoming one of progressive music’s best songwriters, as well. Hand. Cannot. Erase. was, as I’ve just recently written again, a triumph. However, like all triumphs—yes, all of them—part of honing in on the “triumphant” is knowing when to edit. That doesn’t always mean that what was cut was bad, of course, and 4½ is Steven Wilson and his trusty (and ridiculously talented) backing band knocking out 37 minutes of excellent leftovers.” Yeah, I guess you should probably just expect a lovefest.
