Style: Progressive rock, symphonic prog (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gong, Steve Hillage, Rush, Motorpsycho
Country: Tennessee, United States
Release date: 4 July 2025

Very few works are as satisfying to come across as an overly ambitious yet brilliant opus. Azure’s Fym, Dissona’s Paleopneumatic, and Native Construct’s Quiet World are journeys across fantastical landscapes and across genres, dedicating themselves to a persistent theatrical grandeur; their lofty goals are overwhelmingly successful, and a slight lack of polish lends these records a timeless charm and a much-needed sense of humanity. Enter Pishogue, a genre-transcending duo featuring Georgia’s Finnian Boyson as Bælor’Throndoth and Tennessee’s Spife as, uh, Spife. Pishogue’s self-titled LP explored menacing and hypnotic Berlin school synths as a framework for an expansive story involving the collapsed continent of The Eldslunds, a setting rife with advanced technology, magical corruption, and prophecy. The duo’s latest release, The Tree at the End of Time, wholly recontextualizes the synths of Pishogue into a symphonic prog framework, detailing a pivotal moment in The Eldslunds’ history involving the transfer of knowledge and subsequent ascension of a Pishogue introduced in the debut. Like the titular character, do Pishogue transcend their expectations or do they collapse under the weight of their ambition?

Comprised of two expansive twenty-minute pieces, The Tree at the End of Time explores myriad textures as the movements weave in and out of free-form keyboard soundscapes and psychedelic, high-energy progressive rock jams. Dissonance is used as an accentuating feature, both in the synths (14:10 on “The Ascension of Metatron”) and in the guitars (4:30 on “The Tree”). In The Eldslunds, improvisation is the name of the game: each track moves about within a loose structure, focused more on the natural evolution of a song than on careful placement of motifs as Spife and Bælor’Throndoth play ideas off of each other. The record exudes 70s sensibilities, particularly in the fuzzy and warm production, the instrumental timbre, and in Spife’s vocal performance. Atop all this is an intricate story involving a Pishogue discovering a tree that imbues them with aeons of knowledge, cementing them as an avatar for the old gods.

Throughout both synthesized soundscapes and distorted progressive rock, the free and relaxed nature of improvisation is fully embodied across The Tree at the End of Time. Ideas introduced by Spife are allowed to stew for a few bars before Bælor’Throndoth introduces additional layers, and vice versa. Most notable is the accelerando drum buildup near the end of “The Tree”. Bælor’Throndoth smartly waits for Spife’s drum solo to culminate before releasing the tension with bright synth pads and swirling organ melodies, only to then build those into an utterly explosive finale alongside a cacophony of percussion. Additionally, the ferocious and kinetic jam at 4:20 on “The Tree” features keyboards that slowly creep in, allowing the listener to settle into the groove before being twisted into a frenetic and whining synth/guitar dance. Pishogue’s synergy is palpable across the record, as their performances show a prudence necessary to keep the loose song structures stable and cohesive. However, that doesn’t mean they restrain themselves entirely, as plenty of chaos is allowed to bleed in across both pieces in tandem with the more intense story beats. A frightening and volcanic section erupts around 12:40 of “The Ascension of Metatron”, where wailing guitars and stuttering drums are buried under harsh organ stabs, reflecting the inability of the Pishogue’s mind to comprehend the weight of The Tree’s gifted knowledge.

Whereas most prog prides itself on crystal-clear, almost clinical precision and cleanliness, Pishogue revel in an organic and raw feel that lends itself magnificently to The Tree at the End of Time’s improvisational nature. For example, the organ melody that introduces a Rush-flavored drum pattern on “The Ascension of Metatron” begins just a bit earlier than the drums, and the two fall out of lockstep for a couple of bars near the end of the first verse when briefly switching to an off-beat, but the section as a whole is so energetic and fun that the brief blemishes do little to mar the enjoyment. Where it becomes a bit more challenging to appreciate The Tree at the End of Time’s looseness is when these moments go on for too long: the organ solo at 4:50 on “Ascension” falls out of line with the drums a bit too persistently and ends up pulling me out of the experience for a moment. The track quickly pulls itself back together, though, with biting drum-bass interplay leading into a delicate and ethereal folk section. Additionally, many of the vocal performances are a little too raw and wild, particularly across “Ascension” during the blown-out and overwhelming vocals around 14:25 and the pitchy delivery in the track’s first verse. These are likely meant to represent the more fractured moments of the Pishogue’s sanity, but they are just a bit too grating in delivery; if anywhere could use some polish, it would be these sections.

Despite the occasionally eldritch soundscapes, free-form song structure, and use of dissonance, much of The Tree at the End of Time is ineffably cozy thanks to its unapologetic 70s sensibilities. The aforementioned folk section of “Ascension”, for example, features soft harmonized vocals, gently picked guitars, and wistfully delicate synth melodies not unlike the contemporary folk of the time; a playful flute dances around the section as well. Around 9:10 on “The Tree”, a fuzzy guitar melody evokes the feeling of entering an enchanted forest before leading into a triumphant solo. The more intense sections of the record often sit right alongside these more serene and bright sections, showcasing an effective compositional balance and evoking a dynamic narrative arc with logical flow.

The Tree at the End of Time shows a skillful collaboration between two artists, embracing the organic and sometimes messy nature of improvisation among monolithic symphonic prog pieces. Though a few sections could benefit from a bit of extra polish, particularly in the vocal delivery and in the rhythmic execution, much of the record effectively glides along its stream of consciousness and tells a dynamic high fantasy story.

Recommended tracks: The Tree
You may also like: Moving Gelatine Plates, We Broke The Weather, Karmic Juggernaut, David Bedford, Egg
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram

Label: Independent

Pishogue is:
– Spife (drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, violin, vocals)
– Bælor’Throndoth (bass, keyboards)

The post Review: Pishogue – The Tree at the End of Time appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: experimental rock, noise rock, post-rock, post-punk, avant-folk (mixed vocals, spoken word)
Recommended for fans of: Sprain, Swans, A Silver Mount Zion, Slint, Maruja, Talk Talk
Country: California, United States
Release date: 1 May 2025

Stitched together out of thousands of hours of studio recordings, Talk Talk’s 1988 painstakingly crafted masterpiece, Spirit of Eden, was a landmark album for post-rock. The band sat in a blacked out room equipped with an oil projector and strobe light twelve hours a day for several months, listening to the same six tracks on repeat; session musicians would jam for hours on end only for Talk Talk to use mere seconds of the result; and the group recorded with a twenty-five person choir only to decide “nah, this ain’t it.” Spirit of Eden is a mosaic, and the tiles are treasures plundered from endless hours of tapes. That the project came together as seamlessly as it did is remarkable—one could not listen to Spirit of Eden for the first time and discern that it was sutured together note by note.

To create their debut record Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”…, Shearling—born out of the recently defunct noisy post-rock band Sprain—have similarly sewn together segments from hundreds of hours of largely improvisational recordings. The result is a single, monolithic (Motherfucker is a single sixty-two minute track) slab of noisy post-rock, avant-folk, and obnoxious British post-punk.

Motherfucker is cinematic in scope, driven by the lyrics which cover a bifurcated narrative—one side about Idaho; the other, Eden. Prosaic yet poetry, the wordsmithing is intriguing with the two stories weaving in and out of each other in a stream-of-consciousness rambling. Occasionally, the poetry touches on brilliant. Highlights include: “And the spots on our Appaloosa¹ hide / Might be mistaken for constellations at night / By obligated stars and half-imagined lines / Splattered intentionally there against the night sky” and the vulgar honesty of “I know I’m naked / Eve’s cunt obscured now / By the branch of a huckleberry bush / Adam’s cock now / So tightly sheathed by a palm frond / Before the mirror I too place a hand over / My little Appaloosa / Tucked silently away in his little stable.” The storyline reads as an allegory for queer shame from growing up in Idaho—the Appaloosa taking on an apotheosized and subverted role². The intricate symbolism is maddeningly dense, however, and some of the literary devices are implemented on the amateurish side, albeit fitting the crazed descent into madness of the storytelling.

The bard of this chaotic story, Alexander Kent, provides an impassioned vocal performance that will make or break the album for many. His first vocal entry after the first 4:00 of instrumental noodling, dissonance, and feedback is an incredibly unpleasant moan. From there, he ranges from dramatic spoken word to the rambled shouting of a madman, from operatic croons to gruff, almost-growled barks and wailing moans. His voice drips with pain—maybe some malice—from years of shame and stigma, and the screams can be cathartic (the intermittent large climaxes are the prime examples), but for an unfortunate portion of the time, Kent’s atonal shouts and vocal deliveries are grating, horrific for listening; he needs to save the aggressive shouts for the crescendos lest they ruin their gravitas… which they certainly do. The godawful singing fits the vulgarity and verisimilitude of the lyrics, but Kent should focus on a more subtle delivery when the music calls for it. 

The music on Motherfucker traverses a diverse range of influences. The record is spliced together from a mix of phone-recorded demos, jams, live recordings, and traditional studio sessions, Shearling carefully attempted to put together the recordings into a cohesive sonic epic à la Talk Talk… emphasis on attempted, though. The songwriting of Motherfucker transcends stream-of-consciousness into the nonsensical. Climaxes materialize out of nowhere; Pharoah Sanders-esque saxophone parts or home-made Gamelan bells are equally as likely to be played by Shearling; ethereal industrial styles reminiscent of Lingua Ignota make their appearances in between the abrasive noise rock; and non-Western drumming styles may transition into glitchy electronic beats. Nary a consideration is made for transitions, either. Even the final five minutes after the final epic climax—the clear high point of the album is from 38-46 minutes as the bass pulsations lead into increasingly potent doses of screaming and crushing instrumentals—feel like they have little thought put into how they fit into the flow, with flatulent, deflated horns and some final random screams closing out the track. Shearling ensure the listener never knows what’s coming next.

Producing an album sewn from several different recording methods proves difficult for Shearling, too. Unlike Spirit of Eden which feels impossible to know was blended together as it was, Motherfucker’s collage never coalesces completely. Whatever instrumental section currently backs the vocals is unduly emphasized in the mix, and the clash of dynamics and styles renders Motherfucker a disappointingly and disjointedly assembled album. Shearling achieved an opus as haywired as it is intense, yet they get lost in the sauce doing so, the songwriting too scatterbrained for its own good. 

Many post-rock albums have suffered from over-ambition in the past forty years, and Motherfucker suffers for it, too; yet, Shearling have certainly achieved something admirable here—granted, over-long, insane, and extremely challenging (and frankly painful). To improve on the deep compositional flaws, Shearling ought to look back to Spirit of Eden. Finally, that Motherfucker is part one of a massive two-part epic must be mentioned. Clearly, Shearling are overflowing with ideas—hundreds of hours of them—so I hope they manage to restrain themselves without losing the ambitious charm so central to their identity.

Recommended tracks: it’s a one track album…
You may also like: Cime, Natural Snow Buildings, Ken Mode, Sumac & Moor Mother
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Shearling is:
Alexander Kent: Vocals, Engineering, Production, Cover Art Design, Guitar, Synthesizer, Trombone, Samples, Hammered Dulcimer, Banjo, Harmonium, Accordion, Singing Saw, Percussion, Taishogoto, Organ, Glockenspiel, Mellotron, Mandolin, Autoharp, Piano, Bells
Sylvie Simmons: Guitar, Synthesizer, Organ, Hi-C Programming, Samples
With guests:
Wes Nelson: Bass, Upright Bass
Andrew “Hayes” Chanover: Drums
Rachel Kennedy: Vocals
Mate Tulipan: Tenor Saxophone, Trombone
Ian Thompson: Alto Saxophone

1. The state horse of Idaho with a splotchy hindquarters resembling a Dalmatian. ︎
2. I mean, check out that album cover. In the context of this being a queer narrative, it is certainly striking. ︎

The post Review: Shearling – Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”… appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Art Rock, Alternative Rock, Experimental Rock (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gogol Bordello, The Darkness, Scissor Sisters
Country: Ohio, United States
Release date: 20 March 2025

Fans of heavy, off-kilter, piano-driven rock in the mid aughts needed to look no further than Foxy Shazam to satisfy their cravings. The band exploded onto the scene with a pair of infectious progressive post-hardcore-inspired albums before polishing their sound and breaking into the mainstream with 2010’s arena rock anthem “Unstoppable”: heard in movies and on TV and licensed in some capacity by nearly every major professional sports league in the United States. But the band’s fifth album, Gonzo, marked a drastic change of sound, trading the energy and glam of their earlier work for a mellower flavour of alternative rock. Reception seemed less than stellar – Foxy Shazam released Gonzo for free, cut their promotional tour short, and went on hiatus shortly thereafter.

Since returning in 2020, the band have put out a handful of forgettable albums; their heavy, progressive roots seemed all but shriveled and dead. But in late January of this year, Foxy released the first single from their new album, Animality Opera, “Rhumbatorium”. And let me tell you, dear reader, that irreverent, energetic, experimental single provided a glimmer of hope.  Was it a return to form? Had the erratic, in-your-face Foxy Shazam of days gone by finally returned?

Nope.

The title, Animality Opera, must be purposefully ironic because this latest work is neither operatic nor animalistic. “Pink Sky”, the second single from the album, is reminiscent of their Gonzo era: milquetoast alternative rock that sounds like it was written specifically to be played in grocery stores, save for a spoken word outro featuring sophomoric, nonsensical lines like “nobody wants to be the rock inside of the clown’s sock”. Foxy have done the spoken word shtick before, but it is noticeably more prominent (and irritating) on this latest release. “Karaoke Pain” is a perfect example of the stylistic rut Foxy have found themselves in for the past decade; the pre-chorus begins with the lyrics “this is the part where we can lose control, the place where we can just let that shit go” and leads into… nothing. No soaring vocals, no wild guitar solo, not even a piano slide or a drum fill. Instead, just a sparse, phoned-in vocal performance. Twice we are teased with the possibility of actually losing control and twice we are let down. Fool me once…

Moments of inspired songwriting exist in Animality Opera, but they are few and far between. The piano-driven ballad “Uncreated” is a highlight in this sense: it builds slowly, adding tastefully muted guitar, strings, and horns, building repeatedly to a moderate vocal climax. The lyrics are equal parts truly beautiful (“Take it all away, you can see on forever. Silhouettes of the days we shared hold me together.”) and goofy (“Even in the Starbucks bathroom, this will never change.”). “Uncreated” is a microcosm of the softer side of Foxy Shazam; and is thankfully free of the ill-conceived spoken word sections which mar many of the tracks on this album.

But “Rhumbatorium” is the standout track on Animality. It’s dynamic, energetic, and catchy; but mainly it’s just plain fun. Foxy have been taking themselves too seriously and it’s nice to see them let loose again. Lyrically, “Rhumbatorium” gets straight to the point: “All music is shit and the world is a toilet bowl. Sit down on the throne and push out some rock and roll.” It’s hard to tell if Foxy are having a go at the rest of the music industry or are just being defensive here. The next line is “I don’t know, I just don’t get it. Well then it’s not for you.” More than one track on Animality seems to take aim at the naysayers: earlier on the album “You Don’t Judge The Birds” asks “Why are they so mean? What did I do wrong? … You don’t judge the birds for singing in the morning.” That’s true, but the birds aren’t charging thirty bucks per performance.

Animality is otherwise mostly devoid of the raw energy that characterized Foxy‘s early career and the operatic bombast that came after. “Joseph” and “Dragonfly Chase” would be impressive if they were written by your roommate’s band, but they’re just not up to the (admittedly high) bar Foxy set for themselves with their earlier releases. They push no boundaries. They take no risks. “Jack Tar” is reminiscent of—but less polished than—Arctic Monkeys‘ Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino… and just when you thought you’d gotten away from them, those damned spoken word sections return. They add nothing. They detract from whatever energy these songs are trying to build.

By and large, Animality Opera feels phoned in. Following four other unremarkable albums over the past decade, Foxy seem to be doing everything they can to avoid repeating the success they had in 2010. Is it artistic bankruptcy? Is it laziness? Is it an extended performance art piece where the band are trying to see how many aggressively mediocre albums they can put out in a row while still maintaining some semblance of a fan base? Who’s to say. All I know is that heavy metal sucks and Foxy Shazam’s dead.

R.I.P.

Recommended tracks: Rhumbatorium, Uncreated
You may also like: Jellyfish, The Venetia Fair
Final verdict: 3.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: EEEOOOAH – Facebook

Foxy Shazam is:
– Eric Nally (vocals)
– Schuyler “Sky” White (keyboards)
– Alex Nauth (horns, backing vocals)
– Teddy Aitkins (drums)
– Existential Youth (formerly known as Trigger Warning and The Persistent Savage) (bass guitar)
– Devin Williams (guitar)

The post Review: Foxy Shazam – Animality Opera appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Experimental Rock, Art Rock, Noise Rock (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dead Kennedys, Modest Mouse
Country: Colorado, United States
Release date: 10 January 2025

One of my favourite pastimes when I was younger was drawing. I enjoyed the act of creation, of forcefully extracting something from the infinite comfort of non-existence. But I was also a perfectionist; I hated the thought of painting the “wrong” colour or penning a line of ink in the “wrong” place. So, I developed a sketchy, fuzzy kind of art style, usually using pencil, which meant that I never had to commit to an idea; I could always change my mind later, or blame the messiness on the art style itself. There is a vulnerability in being public, in being clear and precise and unapologetic. Hiding in the safety of the messy, uncommitted corner, I could always anaemically defend against any criticism of my work with a “well it’s just a sketch, anyway”.

TULPA‘s latest release, Plum Pinball, feels like it comes from a very similar place: one of defensiveness, of wanting to create but in a non-committal way—of fear. The title track, “Plum Pinball”, even hints at this masturbatory false bravado: “shut up and listen, I’m plum pinballing” says ‘I am important, shut up and listen to this art I created to pleasure myself and myself only (unless you like it and want to join in, as well)’. Two hands are better than one.

This is the case for many experimental albums: the would-be artist wants to create music but (a) does not know how to play an instrument, (b) does not know how to sing, (c) cannot construct songs, (d) cannot write lyrics… take your pick. TULPA can do some of these things, some better than others, but none of them extremely well. They struggle to create music in the same way a snake struggles to shed its skin—they instinctively know that they can do it, but it is a time-consuming, labour-intensive, uncomfortable process.

On first listen, Plum Pinball is about as enjoyable as a root canal. On “True Crimes”, the shrieking distorted guitar, the nasally scream-singing, and the perfectly milquetoast rhythm section make you regret the sin of having ears. The lyrics on “Part-Time Mortician” read as though someone trained an AI chatbot on edgy YouTube comments written by preteens underneath Jordan Peterson videos: “And my friends could all choke, and my family could choke / On their smoke, and I’d laugh ’cause I know that it’s what they deserve. / (D.A.R.E.) / (Soft eugenics).” I’d suggest taking a chill pill, but this band already seem overmedicated.

On the other hand, if you’ve got a masochistic side and listen to this album a few times, it grows on you, like a particularly aggressive melanoma. There are some redeemable aspects: the vocalist has a distinctive timbre and significant power considering just how high of a register they sing in—for example, on “The New Black Something Something”. “Mission Tripperz” is about as close as this album gets to indie rock and would be well-received by fans of Modest Mouse. Despite its edgelord lyrics, “Part-Time Mortician” has catchy vocal melodies, an infectious momentum, and is one of the few tracks on the album that feels truly “fleshed out”, filling in empty spaces with synths and double-tracked guitars.

Is Plum Pinball groundbreaking? Not particularly. Is it catchy? Only when it isn’t actively repellent. Is it something I would listen to again? Almost certainly not. But would I listen to the next TULPA album? Absolutely. Art is meant to make you feel something, not necessarily something good, but something: it may intrigue or repulse you, but it should never bore you. Plum Pinball needs further distillation to its essential elements, more sincerity, and less intentionally sarcastic edginess in its lyrical themes in order to be a great album. TULPA need to allow themselves to be vulnerable.

Recommended tracks: Part-Time Mortician, Mission Tripperz
You may also like: DE()T, Bomb, Nunchukka Superfly
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: independent

TULPA is:
– Jacob Gustafson (everything)

The post Review: TULPA – Plum Pinball appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Experimental Rock, Post-rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Battles, Tool, Bull of Heaven
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 25 October 2024

Aesthetics is one of the most fundamental and easy to understand features of art: even with no training, I can tell whether I think something is pretty or ugly, and despite a surface-level simplicity, aesthetics can be a powerful tool to articulate complex emotions. Take Sumac’s The Healer, which spends most of its runtime indulging in fairly ugly ideas in the name of hope and optimism, turning aesthetics on its head in a way that is compelling and enjoyable. However, ugly aesthetics in the wrong hands can easily lead to disaster, as evidenced by today’s subject of review, Body Meπa’s Prayer in Dub, a release that eagerly foregoes consonance and other “traditionally pleasant” ideas in the name of chromaticism and experimentation with little payoff. Let’s discuss.

Body Meπa’s musical style is oxymoronic in nature, simultaneously indulging in jazzy improvisation and extensive repetition within a post-rock framework: a core background idea will lay the foundation of a track and repeat it indefinitely while other instruments explore around it, a role usually taken up by electronic soundscapes in the form of dire synthesizers, electronic pulsation, or metallic industrial grinding (“Etel,” “Adnan,” “Stones”). In theory, this songwriting approach is intriguing, especially as someone who thrives on repetitive soundscapes, but its execution here proves to be challenging at best and profoundly frustrating at worst, as despite the lack of radical changes within a track, it is nearly impossible to glean narrative structure within Prayer in Dub’s weaponized aesthetics.

Even from Prayer in Dub’s introductory moments, the listener is assaulted with ideas that do not agree with each other at all: the only mental imagery that I can muster from its pieces is the interaction of instrumentals that all hate each other. Sounds clash together in horrifically ugly ways, whether it be the chromatic guitar notes that standoffishly bounce off the underlying soundscape (“Etel”), drums aggressively building up into nothing as their climax is totally ignored by the rest of the instrumentation (“Scout”), or the grating interplay of harsh industrial noises and what can only be described as an overblown jazz flute sound (“Stones”).

The worst offender of all, though, is second track “Adnan,” which pushes Prayer in Dub’s negative facets to their limits: “Adnan” is introduced with a pulsating electronic noise which is at first somewhat pleasant and relaxing, but as the track progresses, the pulsating gets more and more intense, creating a sonic strobe light effect in the process. What began as something relaxing very quickly turned into absolute sensory overload, pummeling any instrumentation that may be underneath and overwhelming any remaining musical ideas to the point of unlistenability. For most of its runtime, it’s nearly impossible to hear anything outside of its oppressive electronic warbling, and when the pulsating finally capitulates in its latter moments, it’s replaced with equally annoying industrial sounds before once again punishing the listener with its original soundscape. Worst of all, the ideas underneath aren’t necessarily bad and would make a good showcase for some of the more listenable improvisation, but its execution leaves it all washed away under a sea of relentless electronic waves.

However, it would be unfair to say that it’s all unenjoyable and frustrating: the opening moments of “Scout” nicely balance repetition and improvisation by using a fully formed musical idea as its backdrop and building on it with some fun drum work. In its later moments, it begins to lose a bit of focus and fall back into amorphous rambling à la “Etel,” and I wish that it ended less suddenly, but at the very least there is a glimmer of interest present. I would struggle to call “Scout” compelling, but it is well and beyond the most convincing of Prayer in Dub’s pieces and comes the closest to a fully constructed song. Moreover, “Welcome” is a relatively chilled out piece with some pretty chords, and there are moments of “Deborah” that are enjoyable as the laid-back bluesy improvisation creates an air of relaxation, both of which are so desperately needed after the cortisol shot that is “Adnan.” However, these moments are not enough to save Prayer in Dub’s glaring songwriting flaws.

And that, I think, pins down Prayer in Dub’s underlying problem: no amount of repetition can save improvisation that has no backbone, and no amount of experimentation can stop a song without a core idea from falling into formless amalgamation. No matter how closely I listen, there’s almost nothing to hold on to, a feeling augmented by Prayer in Dub’s positively challenging chromaticism, grating textural choices, and inscrutable, amorphous song structures. I will admit that it’s not wholly irredeemable and there’s a good chance that I simply just don’t get Body Meπa’s point of view, but as it is, Prayer in Dub takes the “two extremes” approach to its limit: it’s simultaneously repetitive yet improvisational, simple yet unfocused, and frustrating yet utterly forgettable.

Recommended Tracks: Deborah, Scout
You may also like: Simulacra, Samlrc, NORD, The Mercury Tree
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify

Label: Hausu Mountain Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Body Meπa is:
– Greg Fox (drums)
– Sasha Frere-Jones (guitar)
– Melvin Gibbs (bass)
– Grey McMurray (guitar)

The post Review: Body Meπa – Prayer in Dub appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-garde Metal, Experimental Rock, Progressive Metal, Post-metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, black midi, King Crimson
Review by: Dave
Country: Connecticut, United States
Release date: 30 August 2013

As alluded to in my Alora Crucible review, I have a complicated relationship with Kayo Dot’s music. I have great respect for Toby Driver and his visionary avant-garde compositions, but Kayo Dot makes many musical choices that are fundamentally opposed to my taste, utilizing tools that conjure an inexplicable discomfort, with releases like Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike’s eldritch chord choices and surreal dissonance making me dissociate from abject unease on first listen. Today, however, I would like to extend an olive branch to Toby Driver and Kayo Dot’s fans by exploring the appeal of one of his longest, most acclaimed, and most inscrutable pieces: Hubardo. This is the album I am most familiar with, being recommended “And He Built Him a Boat” in 2014 and subsequently slamming my head into a wall trying to understand Hubardo as a whole, failing spectacularly with each listen. But the days of slamming my head against a wall are over: today, we’re going to dissect this ninety-eight-minute piece and garner an understanding of what makes it so beloved by its fans. Let’s grow together, and discover once and for all how Hubardo became a landmark in avant-garde metal.

So what does such a supposedly weird and inscrutable album sound like? Across its mammoth runtime, one can expect to hear avant-garde metal of all kinds: soundscapes carved out of drums and bass, blisteringly intense walls of sound at the hands of shrieking guitars, saxophones, and drums, and smooth, gentle orchestration that delicately interplays synthesizers and strings, among other styles. What brings all of these disparate elements together, however, is the underlying story, a testament to the mutual love between the outcast and the bizarre. Hubardo begins on a stormy evening in a secluded forest village where a mysterious stone called the Eye of Leviathan falls from the sky. Upon the Eye’s discovery, the townspeople are repulsed and disgusted by it, save for a young, lonely poet, who is enchanted by the Eye and is compelled to steal it away, becoming manically obsessed with its properties. Fixated on the idea that there is a seed inside the stone, he plants and cultivates it, waking up the next day to an enormous roaring river in its stead. He then builds a boat to follow the river to its end, leading him into the sky and up to a gate which he cannot pass. The poet wastes away in front of the gate, and another Eye falls to Earth once more to repeat the cycle.

From its beginning moments, Hubardo establishes its themes of unease and the severe psychological effects of incomprehensible events. Opener “The Black Stone” betrays discomfort as guttural harsh vocals are dotted by sparse rushing drum beats, frantic trembling bass, and myriad eerie squeals; beautiful strings emerge briefly through these uncomfortable elements. The deconstructed atmospherics wax and wane for six minutes before coalescing into something with more standard musical structure, upon which a dour and tense atmosphere mounts as the track morphs into a climactic mix of post-rock and black metal. Things seldom get more optimistic from there, as the story writhes and contorts like the storm that bore the Eye of Leviathan around ideas of terrifying spectacle and enchantment. The beginning half of “Crown-In-the-Muck” is serene and tranquil but the latter half holds a mirror to the townspeoples’ hatred of this terrifying stone; following track “Thief” lives exclusively in psychedelic paranoia as reality warps around pedal guitars and chaotic saxophones, accented by maddened screams and clean vocals expressing visions of unknowable beauty; and “Vision Adjustment to Another Wavelength” burns your senses with its sudden and abstract terror as the protagonist becomes more and more drawn to his stolen jewel before collapsing into what can only be described as the smooth jazz played in the waiting room of Hell.

However, not all of Hubardo is a pummeling assault of the senses at the hands of mind-warping objects. Halfway through the album, two glorious palate cleansers are introduced: “The First Matter (Saturn in the Guise of Sadness)” is a chilled-out contemplation in the style of Pink Floyd, gentle drums leading warbly synthesizers across a still pond reflecting gentle moonlight before picking up a touch of speed in the final stretches; follow-up “The Second Operation (Lunar Water)” is likely the most gorgeous track of the album, our attention redirected to blooming flowers and silvery nighttime tranquility as delicate piano and strings dance around each other gingerly. Don’t be misled, though, there is still an eerie undertone to these pieces, primarily in Driver’s vocal delivery and the use of strange chord choices in backing vocals, but the two tracks deliver in tandem a necessary and overall pleasant respite from the intensity bubbling underneath before having our skulls smashed in by “Floodgate,” one of Hubardo’s most panicked and severe moments.

Other tracks escape Driver’s characteristic eldritch soundscapes and deliver grand and cinematic moments, such as the towering post-metal piece “And He Built Him a Boat,” which showcases some of Driver’s most triumphant vocal lines overtop of hypnotic drum patterns and spacious guitarwork bookended by walls of sound. Heavenly closer “The Wait of the World” is a satisfying end to this reality-shattering journey, beginning with smooth saxophone exploration that gets bent and twisted by buzzing guitars and frantic percussion before settling into soft reverberating vocals pitted against tense drumwork, building and flagging in intensity until Hubardo’s sudden crumbling end. These grander moments juxtaposed with raw intensity and placid contemplations betray the narrative depth on display and emulate what are very real reactions to such a bizarre and otherworldly turn of events, starting with the dour storm from which the Eye of Leviathan came to the manic desire and abject panic caused by the Eye to the catharsis and peace brought upon by the poet’s contented resolution, therein lying the genius of Hubardo: its story manages to balance the real and the surreal in a way that is logical and understandable.

I don’t know if I’ll ever truly and unconditionally love Hubardo, but it is an album that I have marveled at for a decade now, equally disgusted by and curious about its reality-warping sheen, desperate to understand it at its core. That alone should signal Hubardo’s merit as an artistic piece, as it makes me eager to see the artist’s point of view and forces me to examine my values as a music listener. Regardless of my personal relationship with Kayo Dot’s music, Hubardo is a masterwork in suspenseful quasi-horror storytelling, with narratively consonant musical movements delivered in a spectacularly paced package. Despite its goal to unsettle and intrigue, it never wholly overwhelms the listener, and even features many moments that are undeniably glorious and triumphant, along with others that are a soothing balm among the madness. If you’ve got a spare two hours to just get weird with an album, then pick up Hubardo and enjoy one of Toby Driver’s most bizarre, intense, and ultimately human pieces.

Recommended Tracks: And He Built Him a Boat, Zlida Caosgi, The Second Operation (Lunar Water)
You may also like: maudlin of the Well, Ved Buens Ende….., Virus

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RateYourMusic page | Metal-Archives page

Label: Ice Level Music – Bandcamp | Facebook

Kayo Dot is:
– Toby Driver (vocals, bass, keyboards)
– Keith Abrams (drums)
– Ron Varod (guitars)
– Daniel Means (saxophone, clarinet)
– Terran Olson (woodwinds, keyboards)
– Tim Byrnes (brass)
– Mia Matsumiya (violin)

The post Lost In Time: Kayo Dot – Hubardo appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Experimental Rock, Nu Metal (vocodered vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Limp Bizkit and Korn if you ran the vocals through synthesisers
Country: Nevada, USA
Release Date: 31 May 2024

It’s well documented that we grow more conservative with age. Not necessarily politically so much as that as the world changes around us, we end up clinging to the things we know. Older people bemoan the ubiquity of smartphones and seem like fusty old dinosaurs, but we’ll likely be just as grumpy about the latest youth craze when we hit our sixties. More and more, we begin to fall back on the music, art, and literature that defined our youth, that makes sense to us. All of us will eventually come to find comfort in the solipsistic idyll that is “things were better in my day”. 

But this is a prog blog, we seek out the innovative, the experimental, the New and Improved. Enter Four Stroke Baron (please hold your engine lubrication and premature ejaculation jokes until the end). This duo out of Nevada—I don’t know what it says about these guys that I was expecting them to be Dutch; I’m not sure what it says about the Dutch either—create an eccentric brew of heavy, punchy nu-metal riffs, synth-pop textures, vocodered vocals, and hyperactively irreverent compositions. Originally conceived as two EPs, one metal-focused, the other a foray into electronica, Data Diamond explores the two ideas in a spectral manner¹. “On Mute” sets the tone for the album, opening with eerie, manipulated vocals and bursts of synth noise segueing into warbly guitar and drums, before “Monday” blows things into the stratosphere with manic drum performances, pulverising riffs, and a sense of generalised chaos that ebbs away at your sanity. 

And that vibe would be rather enjoyable if it weren’t for the vocals. I think there’s one instance of unmanipulated vocals on Data Diamond (the first couple of lines sung by the female guest vocalist on “Open the World” who is, as all things must be, heavily manipulated thereafter); everything is thrown through a vocoder and it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Sounding like the robot body to which the Russians are going to upload Fred Durst’s brain in exchange for his becoming a propagandist for Putin, the high-toned, watery vocals often abandon all pretence of coherence giving way to a series of shrieks and whoops. On my first listen, I started to feel physically ill after about four tracks. All of the ludicrous vocal ideas—the incredibly deep vocals ending “Monday” or The Offspring-esque refrain of “this is who I am, baby” on “The Witch”—are insufferable. Without them, Data Diamond would be great fun, but any possible aural pleasure the band might be able to produce is effectively counteracted by the choice to cyborganise the whole endeavour. Any time I come back to this album, a single track in isolation is just about palatable, but an entire album of those undifferentiated robot noises quickly becomes a terrible ordeal. 

Vocoder is a texture and in the right hands it can be an asset. Cynic’s Paul Masvidal (who we’ll hear more from later) pretty much pioneered the use of it in metal, but he was judicious enough to use it as a complement to unmanipulated clean and harsh vocals. The Contortionist, VOLA, and Alkaloid are just some of the other prog metal groups that have employed vocoder since then, and all do so sparingly and to great success; it’s like seasoning, you don’t use a whole pot of nutmeg in a dish because it would taste disgusting and you’d start tripping your tits off.² But that’s what Four Stroke Baron have done, overseasoned their entire body of work with an incredibly thick filter of vocoder, their music lumpen with it and with nothing to counterbalance it.

Nevertheless, it seems like Four Stroke Baron are having fun and the songs are undeniably energetic and punchy. The promo material helpfully informs me that “a Radio Shack CEO, an internationally acclaimed cyborg, an accidental trafficker of human body parts, and the leader of a death cult located in a convenience store” form just some of our subject matters here (the relentless vocal effects burdening every single word would make it difficult to parse what the hell any of these songs are about without that information). Four Stroke Baron simply aren’t meant to be taken seriously; certainly they’re not taking this seriously, they’re just some dudes playing some tunes, and I’m sure they’re cool guys who probably put on a pretty crazy live show, but I’m not having any fun. The one moment that stood out was them briefly pinching the lyrics to “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire and making them sound so much worse; the rest is just a slew of robotic sounding vocals traumatically lodged in my memory forevermore. No one else is making music that sounds like this, and for good reason. 

Still, I should try and focus on some positives, and the fact of the matter is that Data Diamond is a very well made example of whatever the hell it is; the production and mix are fantastic—the synths shine and the riffs rollick—allowing me to fully absorb all of the musical choices that I find aesthetically repellent. Four Stroke Baron are undeniably a talented duo, I just find the final product baffles and repels me in equal measure. Matt Vallarino’s drumwork may well be the highlight of the album, an energetic and idiosyncratic performance that defines the band’s strange energy and speaks to their fundamental acumen. Adam Janzi of VOLA and Cynic’s Paul Masvidal guest on the final track, contributing drums and vocals respectively. I couldn’t really discern their contributions amid the roiling sea of sounds I can barely parse, but I assume that means they fit the Four Stroke Baron mould well. 

Beefy riffs, punchy production, and killer drumming make Four Stroke Baron an instrumental force rendered completely unlistenable by the choice to run every single vocal noise through a bloody vocoder. You might say I just don’t get the new noise, but I can’t imagine kids are listening to this. Indeed, I think Four Stroke Baron’s audience must be composed exclusively of thirty-five year old Redditors on ketamine. The Nevadan duo are very good at what they do, it’s just that I don’t understand why they’re doing it or who it’s supposed to appeal to. But then again, maybe I am just getting too old for this shit.

1. It’s kind of dumb that “spectral” is the adjectival form of “spectrum” and a description of ghostly things, but that’s the English language for you. ︎
2. Please don’t take nutmeg, it’s an incredibly poor psychedelic that’s more likely to make you delirious and ill than make you see cool colours. The Progressive Subway takes no responsibility if you’re dumb enough to read this review and then think it’s a good idea to start shovelling nutmeg into your craw. ︎

Recommended tracks: Monday, Data Diamond
You may also like: Doodseskader, Osaka Punch
Final verdict: unrateable/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Four Stroke Baron is:
– Kirk Witt (vocals and guitars)
– Matt Vallarino (drums)

The post Review: Four Stroke Baron – Data Diamond appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde doom metal, experimental rock, drone, dark ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Bohren & der Club of Gore, Lingua Ignota, Spencer Zahn, Talk Talk, Bell Witch
Review by: Andy
Country: Denmark
Release date: 24 November 2023

I would name my child after Italy’s I, Voidhanger records if I could: their motto—“obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground”—says it all. Their roster of eclectic, artistic bands has no parallel, and essentially every album is worth listening to because you don’t know if you’ll get freaky jazz fusion tech death (Sarmat), drone/jazz/world music triple albums (Neptunian Maximalism), or any other style of freaky, unusual (typically metallic) music. I knew I needed to claim Sol as soon as I saw the list of instruments used on the album, including (and certainly not limited to) marxolin, church organ, tuba, bass clarinet, hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre… indeed, they really looted an entire university music department. 

Promethean Sessions invokes a particularly unusual compositional style, closer to Talk Talk’s Spiritof Eden than any metal project. Recorded over many years’ worth of sessions, Emil Brahe (the mastermind of Sol) painfully stitched together a diverse tapestry of sounds into an intricately-detailed, thought-out composition still oozing with an improvisational vitality. Getting lost in the textured ambience of Promethean Sessions is ineluctable, especially with such spacious, dynamic production. Sol has a rich sound, befitting of the contemplative ambience found on tracks like “A Choir of Teeth,” which feels deeply spiritual in a manner similar to Lingua Ignota—minus her death industrial harshness. Going along with the ambience, Promethean Sessions’s flow is distinctly divorced from typical metal composition, even I, Voidhanger’s weirdest offerings. Indeed, Sol sound beautifully ecological here, letting the spirit meander like the branching of a river delta or of a root system, fractal intricacies breaking off from the main composition beautifully.

Despite the evocative, harrowing atmosphere Sol’s music seeps, the album feels pitifully one-dimensional. For example, the magnificent cast of instruments really doesn’t add much except for occasional texture: my disappointment that the bowed lyre and tuba weren’t prominent features of a metal track is immeasurable. Speaking of, the tracks that verge on metal at all (“I bred a Sun from the Golden Mouth,” “Paranoia Sunrise”) are surprisingly non-exploratory, borrowing the fuzzy distortion of stoner-doom rather than a more dynamic style. At first, these straightforward metal sections are a fitting contrast to the slow atmospheres, but on closer examination, I found that the ambient sections showed off Sol at their strongest, providing a richly textured soundscape suited both for close listening or a peaceful background for reading. 

Moreover, the vocals across the album are unspectacular, even when regarded as just another instrumental texture. Except for the slightly ecstatic vocals on “A Choir of Teeth,” the droning monotony of most of the vocal lines is, to be quite frank, bland as hell. None of the vocalists have a spectacular enough timbre to work well as a drone above the concord of sounds and instruments. I can feel a hint of the energy that the vocalists attempt to contribute, but instead they make a disappointingly flat, slow album even more one-note until parts like the climactic choir at the end of “Where the Trees Meet the Storm.” Had Promethean Sessions had more overwhelming moments like the final minute of that track, this review would’ve gone a lot differently.

While I criticized Promethean Sessions a lot, it still perfectly fits every aspect of the “obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground” except for possibly the metal part. I can’t fault the uncompromising vision or immaculate attention to detail of Sol, and I still think this is a worthwhile album to let wash over you; however, the execution was lagging a little bit behind the vision here.

Recommended tracks: A Choir of Teeth, Paranoia Sunrise
You may also like: Neptunian Maximalism, Forlesen, Intaglio, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Galya Bisengalieva, Aerial Ruin
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: I, Voidhanger Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Band in question is:
Emil Brahe: Synthesizer, organ, accordion, electric mandolin, gong, vocal
Andrew Dorman: Vocal, synthesizer, guitar, marxolin
Rikke Alminde: Vocal, church organ, vibraphone
Tor Brandt: Vocal, guitar, piano
Stine Kloster: Vocal, bowed banjo, guitar
Christian Qvortrup: Drums, vocal
Andreas Hansn: Guitar
Peter Borre: Bass
Lotte Maxild: Bass clarinet, clarinet, organ
Olga Goija: Viola
Jens Balder: Trombone, tuba
Christian Sinding Sondergaard: Dulcimer, violin, guitar
Mikkel Reher-Langberg: Clarinet
Jens Peter Moller: Double bass
Aske Krammer: Double bass, percussion
Anna Emilie Wittus Johnsen: Hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre
Mikko Mansikkala Jensen: Feedback guitar

The post Review: Sol – Promethean Sessions appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Math Rock, Noise Rock, Experimental Rock (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Good Tiger, Closure in Moscow’s first and third albums, The Mars Volta, Eidola
Review by: Christopher
Country: France
Release date: 3 November, 2023

You shouldn’t judge an album by its cover, but that ghost is very appropriate for NORD’s latest ethereal release. With two albums under their belt, this French experimental math rock trio have taken time to craft something rather different on new EP, The Implosion of Everything That Matters. Their sophomore album, The Only Way to Reach the Surface, was an intense work of creative math rock which almost veered into blackgaze territory at times. At twenty-six minutes, follow-up release The Implosion of Everything That Matters forefronts the electronica influences that dominated the shorter, interlude-y tracks on their last album into their noisy rock style. 

On The Only Way to Reach the Surface that experimental math rock accounted for about 75% of their sound, while weird synth experimentation made up the remaining quarter; on The Implosion of Everything That Matters the ratio is flipped; hell, it’s more like 90%. The strange cyclical synth that opens “I. Candles” sets the tone for the record and NORD play with a lot of haunted sounding synth throughout,. “II. Truth Philters” is suffused by bittersweet organ swells, eventually drifting into a bridge that sounds like echoes of some haunted carnival over an infectious drum stomp, something that puts me in mind of Noctourniquet-era The Mars Volta. Meanwhile “III. Incantation” may be the most electronica-driven track on the album, replete with backing ambiences, buzzing synth bass, and some drum and bass inspired percussion.

Throughout The Implosion of Everything That Matters, Florent Gerbault’s anguished falsetto is wracked with emotion—coupled with the organ which often lurks in the background it makes for a rather disconcerting vibe. A guest performance from Yuki on “III. Incantation” provides haunted vocals and the recitation of something in Japanese which I can only imagine will be nihilistic. Though genre-wise this is a much less heavy release, emotionally The Implosions of Everything That Matters is an intense experience, running the gamut from funereal to disturbed.  

Moments of NORD’s former abrasive sound remain here and there. Dissonant synths and harsh vocals open “II. Truth Philters” in 7/4, just to remind you that this is ostensibly gritty math rock. The moments of harsh vocals and more noisy rock are few and far between, reserved for intros and climaxes. As a self-contained experiment it works but I do find myself missing NORD’s maniac older sound. I’ll never fault an artist for daring to evolve, but NORD are almost unrecognisable here and it’s not always for the better. 

While the harsher edges have been sanded down, NORD remain unabashedly experimental. Take “IV. Sexorcism” for example: the track is imbued with a Vangelis-like synthwave sensibility evocative of some dystopian city, bolstered by a synthetic percussion and a thick bass groove. The synths begin to go off-kilter, melting into a more irreverent section, perforated by a wraithlike sax solo overhead. Meanwhile, the elegiac title track has a funeral march-like beat with accompanying trumpet as though NORD are mourning for their own former sound, until segueing into a driving drum and bass groove with arpeggiated synth which builds to the final crescendo.

The Implosion of Everything That Matters is an intriguing evolution towards the uncanny for NORD, an experiment in alienated synths and a somewhat unhinged sense of sadness. It’s a record for a very particular mood which may limit its reach but it nevertheless taps into something deeply felt. I can’t quite get my head around it, but I mean that in a good way, I think. As much as I do wish a little more of their older sound remained in the DNA of this release, NORD remain an incredibly fresh voice in experimental rock who are absolutely worth listening to. 

Recommended tracks: II. Truth Philters, V. The Implosion of Everything That Matters
You may also like: The Mercury Tree, Black Peaks, Telomēre, Maraton
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Label: Klonosphere – Facebook | Official Website

NORD is:
– Florent Gerbault (guitar, vocals)
– Romain Duquesne (bass, samples)
– Thibault Faucher (drums)
– Manuel Dufour (guitar, synth)

The post Review: NORD – The Implosion of Everything That Matters [EP] appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde jazz, jazz fusion, avant-garde metal (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: King Crimson, Cynic, Alan Holdsworth, Frank Zappa, Krallice, Mahavishnu Orchestra
Review by: Andy
Country: United States-NY
Release date: 13 September 2023

Colin Marston is a musical genius in the metalsphere, a wizard on bass, guitar, and keyboards, and a production savant. And somehow, the two most normal projects he’s attached to are Gorguts and Krallice, so his personal projects certainly aren’t the most accessible content out there. Aside from a very productive string of Krallice albums, Marston has largely shied away from metal of late, favoring his various electronica projects (highlights of which include Lepton Drip, Kheth Astron, and Tholos Gateway). That is, until he announced the new Behold the Arctopus album, Interstellar Overtrove.

Or so I assumed. Starting to move away from metal into a more complete avant-garde jazz style with their most recent album, Behold the Arctopus have been a stupidly–unlistenably even–technical instrumental metal band for the better part of two decades. Colin and his crew are never afraid to go for the weird and absurd, and Interstellar Overtrove is decidedly another non-metal experiment for Marston and the gang.

The most interesting way to describe the sound emanating from this album is by comparison because those genre tags at the top of the review could sound like anything. Imagine you fed an AI the jazz sections of Cynic’s Focus and told it to compose something with slightly corrupted versions of the files and play it back at 150% speed. Imagine Blotted Science played with a jazz fusion guitar tone while Ron Jarzombeck attempted to freely improvise the weirdest thing his insane, creative brain could think of. Imagine if Anthony Braxton dropped the saxophone and instead picked up a synthesized guitar. Interstellar Overtrove is weird.

Now I am no stranger to the esoteric, but Behold the Arctopus have always felt a level too over-the-top, and this is no different. Interstellar Overtrove sounds incredibly convoluted, as if the whole band is in on some strange joke; and I say that as the Subway’s number one free jazz apologist (dare I say huge fan?). Unfortunately, I’m forced to speak in generalities regarding Interstellar Overtrove because as soon as Behold the Arctopus play something that resembles a nice chord progression or recognizably cool jazz fusion or spacey electronica, they alter the entire space-time continuum underneath themselves: Track breaks function as a sort of organization of the madness, but everything else feels arbitrary as the band spaffs all over their instruments and calls it a day. They’re incredibly skilled musicians who are having fun by not attempting songwriting. 

The abandoning of electric and distorted instruments further feels incredibly uncanny. With Simmons electronic drums, acoustic percussion (Jason Bauers), Warr guitar (similar to a Chapman stick), guitar, and guitar synth (Colin Marston and Mike Lerner), the sonic palette Behold the Arctopus can pull from is limited to a weird retro-digitism. I don’t hate it outright, and it feels weirdly perfect for the absurdism underlying the music, but I can hardly take it seriously. The drum sound in particular is frustrating because the analog synth percussion is extremely timbrally unique but not exactly rewarding–at least to my taste. 
I don’t mind rampant experimentation, but I wish Behold the Arctopus would consider approaching it in a more genuine way. The whole project feels sardonic, especially with track titles like “Echoes of Deletion (Instrumental)” on a completely instrumental album. The band has my respect from the members’ respective pedigrees, but I cannot be counted among their fans.

Recommended tracks: Hot for Emotions, Echoes of Deletion (Instrumental)
You may also like: Lepton Drip, Planet X, Psyopus, Dysrhythmia, Blotted Science, Ron Jarzombeck, Anthony Braxton
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Youtube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: independent

Behold the Arctopus is:
– Jason Bauers: Simmons Electronic Drums, acoustic percussion
– Colin Marston: Warr Guitar, guitar synth
– Mike Lerner: guitar, guitar synth

The post Review: Behold the Arctopus – Interstellar Overtrove appeared first on The Progressive Subway.