“My fine friend El Cuervo is an old soul. Not an olde soul, mind you, but getting there. We both enjoy deeply of the 70s prog scene, and one release we both dig is the late Bo Hansson’s debut from fifty years ago, Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, or Sagan om Ringen in Swedish. Who cares? Well, we do, and so do the four Swedish individuals who comprise the psychedelic prog-doom act Kingnomad.” One prog to rule them all.
“I’m enjoying that I’m now able to look back at the 2010s with retrospect. In all my personal affairs, life developments, and the end of my formal education. But in particular, musically. I can now definitively make sweeping statements like ‘Sleep at the Edge of the Earth is the best record of the decade,’ and ‘there was a better decade of music from 1971-1975 than across 2010-2019.’ But, and pertinently to this review, I can also state that ‘Hail Spirit Noir (HSN) is one of the most creative metal bands which became active during the teenies.’” Hail teen spirit.
“Italy’s Void of Sleep caught me by surprise with their excellent 2013 debut Tales Between Reality and Madness. Boasting a suave mix of sludge, stoner, doom and prog influences, Tales was a mighty first statement and addictive, refreshing album that firmly landed Void of Sleep in my sights as an exciting band on the rise. Sophomore album New World Order dropped in 2015 and found the band beefing up the prog and refining their sound. Though a solid album in its own right, it lacked some of the raw energy and penetrating hooks of the debut. Some five years later, Void of Sleep awaken from their slumber with third album, Metaphora, a highly anticipated release from my viewpoint.” Cuddling the void.
“The blues might be simple in theory – I mean, one of the first things we all learn is the 12-bar blues progression – but in practice it is a genre drenched in nuance, feel, and emotion. The technical part of the music is easy, but making it writhe with passion is anything but. It takes a different kind of skill to move people. Memphis’s The Heavy Eyes claim to infuse their version of delta blues with psychedelic fuzz and late 60s heavy rock in an attempt to bring us blissfully back to a disease-free era.” Love machines for all.
“I don’t think of desert rock as an especially active genre when it comes to innovation. Brant Bjork God knows it can be self referential to a fault, conjuring with each release the same core components of fuzzy, jammy riffs, psychedelic woo woo vibes, earth tones and a gritty dryness worthy of the California landscape that hatched it. The creative peak that launched its best known bands is easily a few decades in the rearview mirror, yet this old conversion van keeps driving the same dusty highways, pot smoke and 70’s rock worship rolling out it’s open windows.” Big empty.
“Founding Crowbar member, grizzled veteran of the NOLA metal scene, and all around sludge legend Kirk Windstein makes his first foray into solo territory on debut album, Dream in Motion. Although known for slinging tar coated slabs of sludge and doom with his main band, Windstein embraces a decidedly less metallic mindset here.” Iron dreams.
![We Are Impala – Visions [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/weareimpalavisions-768x768.jpg)
“It’s a surprisingly fresh combination of psychedelic atmosphere and proper riffs, nestled between the post rock and stoner rock genres. These composite genres are often anything but fresh, comprising musicians who are unable to write riffs and musicians who smoke too much weed respectively, but Visions nails its singular fusion.” Weed out, cotton-candy flavored edibles in.
“This time around, PH are aiming for something “beyond the limits of modern psychedelia,” something that pulls influence from Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails. And one of my psychedelic favorites from the past, Julian Cope, fully endorses these guys. This all makes me at least willing to dig in.” Needs more alkaline.
“Asheville, North Carolina. A bizarre cultural potpourri famous for its beer, food, music scene and road construction, Asheville is one of those strange places that is both cripplingly flawed and difficult to resist. It’s a fascinating place, and it has my heart. So it should come as no surprise that I Bask in the glow of III, an Americana-spiked hard rock album that comes direct from my current hometown. We write infrequently about stuff from or within spitting distance of this city, but it seems like every time we do we like what we get—I direct you to Aether Realm and Undrask, for starters—and Bask’s latest continues the trend.” Sweet home Carolina.
“Although there’s been the odd exception over the years, generally speaking, instrumental metal is not really my bag. Not that I’m incapable of appreciating the often experimental aspects, self-indulgent jams, and technically proficient textures and moods conveyed from purely instrumental forms of metal. But even when vocals can be an afterthought or weak link on certain albums and genres of metal, I still generally prefer the vocal counterpoint. Yet I possess an open mind and variety is the spice of life, so when Telepath’s Mental Mutations remained unclaimed in the promo portal, I jumped into the unknown with optimism of what may lie ahead.” Tasting the mind of music theory.
