“A talented singer can become, in the hands of a skilled songsmith, a powerful tool for artistic expression. In such a craftsman’s nimble fingers, powerful vocals can be woven and molded to create a truly sublime listening experience. Likewise, in the hands of a rank amateur, those same vocal gifts can become nothing but a hammer, and every song the nail.” When you learn who is responsible for crafting songs for these metal legends, you may fear a hammering in your immediate future.
“These days, prog metal seems to be coming down to how many strings your guitar has, if you’re a virtuoso or not, and what presets you have on your Axe-FX. Seriously, it seems like all the prog metal bands in the scene today have been obsessing over effect processors and compression during production, that it just drains the enjoyment out of it. Even then, they’re too busy wanking on their guitars, trying to constantly outperform everyone else who crosses their path. Essentially, to quote Devin Townsend, it’s a “dick swinging competition.”” When the dicks are a swinging, don’t come a dinging. Anywho, here’s some prog metal.
“Unexpect’s Fables of the Sleepless Empire is hands down one of my favorite albums ever, and an excellent listen for anyone interested in avant-garde metal. It sets my personal standard for weird shit, which I guess is a bit unfortunate for any avant-garde metal bands I come across. By that admission, my recommendation for Italy’s Embrace of Dishamony means a lot.” Kronos is a harsh judge of weird music, so we always give him the weird shit.
“Prospekt is a British tech-prog metal band, whose debut full length, The Colourless Sunrise features a blend of traditional progressive metal, melodic metal, and djent. While it’s always a fun game to pick out a band’s influences, Prospekt spoiled that job for me, as their Facebook page proudly lists the likes of Symphony X, Dream Theater, Opeth, and Meshuggah, among others. Sadly for Prospekt, they don’t quite measure up to the lofty standards of the aforementioned influences. Still, for our more astute readers, that mention of Meshuggah has got to stand out a bit, so let’s spend some time examining that.” Another day and another probationary writer joins the AMG fray as Dagg sheds some light on the prog-metal scene and up and comers, Prospekt. Do they have the chops to impress in such a cerebral, artsy-fartsy genre? They certainly packed the right influences!
“There are few sure things in the world, but there’s one name that screams quality and excellence and that name is Dan Fucking Swanö. From his work on top-notch death metal albums like Edge of Sanity’s Crimson, his collarboration with Bloodbath, Threshold and Demiurg and his proggy solo albums like Moontower, the man has the midas touch and one of the best death roars of all time. He’s also a producer extraordinaire and perhaps the best at making death metal sound the way it should. Witherscape takes his hefty talents and pairs them with unknown instrumentalist Ragnar Widerberg and the result is a concept album about a gothic insane asylum and evil goings on. Musically, it’s a stunning mash-up of Crimson, Damnation-era Opeth, Omnium Gatherum, Mercyful Fate and even King Crimson.” Steel Druhm has a mancrush on Dan Swanö and you should too, unless you’re a woman. Join him as he explains why Witherscape justifies his love.
“Hot on the heels of Jorn’s Traveller, Free Fall is living, breathing, tangible proof that Frontiers Records know their 70’s flavored hard rock! Picking up Free Fall is a little like solving a riddle… getting thrown head first into a melting pot and it’s quite literally a who’s who of hard rock or heavy metal. At the forefront of Free Fall you have the man of the hour, Swedish, heavy metal multi-instrumentalist, classically trained wizard and songwriter Magnus Karlsson axeman to the likes of Primal Fear, Allen/Lande, Last Tribe and a host of others. Do you like the slick hard rock style of metal that Jorn and Allen/Lande traffic in? Does the idea of an album with 9 vocalists work for you? This thing is directly in Madam X’s wheelhouse, so she will help you answer the above questions.
Persefone is in a bit of a strange position; a darling of the underground progressive metal scene, while still not being particularly well known. Formed in 2003, these Andorran prog metallers have a sound deeply influenced by the ’90s melodeath, progressive black and prog scenes including Opeth, Borknagar, Arcturus and Symphony X. In 2004 they released their debut record Truth inside the Shades and followed up quickly in 2006 with the epic Core. But it wasn’t until 2009 when Persefone blew the world of progressive metal up with Shin-Ken. The record was long, in-depth and gripping — with a unique sound palette that still hit home with metal fans. Technical, sprawling and unique Shin-Ken set the bar for Persefone tremendously high.
Who doesn’t like Blind Guardian and Rage? Orden Ogan sure as hell does, as their new opus ably demonstrates. Its rich, creamy German power metal all day long on To the End and there are enough layered vocal harmonies here to choke a white whale! That means there are lots!
When I was an Angry Metal Lad I discovered what was then the burgeoning europower scene in the late 90s early aughts. Deeply influenced by the likes of Rage, Helloween, and Stratovarius I began to be taken in by any band that had a lot of double bass, virtuoso keyboard and guitar solos and a dude who sang moderately operatically but wasn’t too annoying. This held me over for a long time, discovering bands that still stick with me to today as some of my favorites including [Luca Turilli’s] Rhapsody [of Fire], Blind Guardian, Sonata Arctica and myriads of others (as well as their aforementioned influences). But like any scene, this one had its boundaries and excesses and after a while I started to get bored. In that process, I missed Vision Divine – an Italian power metal band that includes Rhapsody’s vocalist Fabio Lione who released their first record in 1999.
Threshold is the 800 lb. gorilla of prog-power and after a five year hiatus, they’re back to kick Steel Druhm’s ass, smash cars and eat tons of ape cake.
