“German collective Alkaloid bucks the trend often associated with bands fitted with the ‘supergroup’ tag. With a line-up boasting members of such lauded acts as Spawn of Possession, Obscura, Necrophagist, Eternity’s End, Dark Fortress, and many others, on 2015’s striking debut The Malkuth Grimoire, and 2018’s phenomenal sophomore opus Liquid Anatomy, Alkaloid ascended to elite status in the modern progressive and technical death metal scenes.” Dream team on paper (but see the N.Y. Jets).
“You gotta love a good genre-bending record. Morphing between two, three, or even more distinct metallic styles is not easy, but it’s even more difficult to attempt while still putting out a great record. Boston, Massachusetts progressive symphonic metal act Ice Giant aim to join these ranks of successful shape-shifters with their sophomore LP, Ghost of Humanity.” Kitchensinkcore.
“After nearly a decade’s hiatus, Pomegranate Tiger resurface to bring their brand of heady instrumental prog to the cerebellums of the masses. Hailing from Ontario in the Great White North, Martin Andres’ passion project made a splash in 2013 with debut album Entities, and after 2015 follow-up Boundaries he chose to join forces as a touring musician with province-mates Oni. Emerging from an extended hibernation, All Input Is Error sees Andres returning to Pomegranate Tiger as a certified one-man band tackling humanity’s inevitable slide towards The Singularity.” Crouching tiger, hidden restraint.
The boys of Summer were stuck ungunking the Filter for months. Salute them with pumpkin spice things as they emerge into a chilly Fall.
Alright, you sodden louts, ready thine ears because this here album will need to enter forthwith. We usually save that sort of statement for the second paragraph, using the first to build tension with a nice gentle lead-up, but if you want one of those, tough shit. This is your lead-up. Gapen your hearing holes and get ready to absorb one of the flat-out coolest albums of the year, coming from the Stockholm underground to deliver a baseball bat, wrapped in barbed wire and dipped in ayahuasca, straight to the trachea. VAK has arrived.” VAK Daddy.
“Ah, Noveria. When I first encountered this talented bunch on sophomore album Forsaken, the clash between the overt melodrama and the serious subject matter forced me to leave a middling score. But 2019’s Aequilibrium was a huge improvement. It was almost like the band had used my review as a template for what to fix, making strides in songwriting, execution, and production alike.” Peak and Death Valley.
“The NYC instrumental quartet Fall of the Albatross hides much behind their progressive metal label. Prog has always been a melting pot of any genre that wanders too close, but the genre mosaic of Fall of the Albatross is especially vivid. Their newest LP Rite evokes a diverse swath of influences ranging from the crushing mathcore of Car Bomb to the jazz fusion of Masayoshi Takanaka, with some dreamy Sithu Aye post-rock to round things out.” Prog bombing.
“The last record from the curiously-named Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, 2019’s Grandmother, did not grace these pages but for some reason, I was aware of it and it made enough of an impression on me that I was interested to review its successor, Aion. Buzzing around since 2014, Bees released their debut, Medicine, in 2017. A whimsy, faintly progressive doom record with a few hints of stoner around the fringes, it was solid. Grandmother was an altogether more interesting affair. A tightly-written slab of doom that upped the progressive quota by dialing in some psychedelia, as well as a rumbling darker edge, it showed a lot of promise.” Tapping out the vein.
“Before picking this promo up, I had never heard of Sanguine Glacialis before, but I quickly fell head over heels for their wild extreme metal after checking out the kaleidoscopic blunderbuss that is Hadopelagic, their 2018 sophomore record.” Tastis the Glacialis.
“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.” Death in July.
