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Review: Cthuluminati – Tentacula

Sam — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 18:00:00 +0000

Style: Progressive metal, avant-garde metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, Ved Buens Ende, Enslaved (Monumension in particular), Arcturus
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: 13 March 2025

While in my daily life I tend to be a pretty goofy individual who tends to joke around in situations where one really shouldn’t (I once drew an apple and a pear on my real analysis in higher dimensions exam, said “pronounce: apple, pear respectively,” and proclaimed that they were manifolds—yes, I got full points), when it comes to music I am largely serious: I eyeroll over most of Haken’s and Between the Buried and Me’s whimsical breaks (the one in “Crystallized” might be the single most offensive section of music ever), and even in a genre like power metal which I adore, I tend towards bands who take themselves seriously like Virgin Steele or Angra over gimmick bands like Manowar or Sabaton. I do enjoy the goof sometimes, but it needs to be timed tastefully and the band has to deliver enough musical substance to back it up (Ethmebb my beloved). So, you tell me Cthuluminati, will this Tentacula entangle me in its wonders or will these silly tentacles touch me in places where they really shouldn’t?

Cthuluminati play a strange psychedelic brand of progressive black metal. While this combination of genres is by no means new—groups like Enslaved, Oranssi Pazuzu, and A Forest of Stars are infamous for this—Cthuluminati set out to make their sound as uncomfortable and bewildering as possible, borrowing their aesthetic from horror movie soundtracks while contorting their base prog black sound in a similar way to Ved Buens Ende with odd chord choices and unsettling rhythmic interplay. Their songs whirl and twirl in unexpected directions, relying on rhythmic modulations and ever evolving sound design to put you on the wrong foot. The latter is particularly impressive for how seamlessly black metal, psych rock, stoner, and post-metal guitarwork weave in and out to create a cohesive sound. And to finish things off, the vocal melodies tend not to be melodies as much as they creatively monologue in various shades of distortion, ranging from maybe-musical talking and Tibetan throat singing to raspy warbling and guttural screaming. The resulting sound is one of controlled chaos with dark psychedelia, somewhat as if Enslaved had figured out how to maintain cohesion in their excesses on Monumension. In short, Tentacula is an LSD trip not quite gone wrong but it’s definitely on the edge.

This sense of groundedness plays a large part of what makes Tentacula such a special record. For the most part, Cthuluminati deftly balance normality with their avant-garde tendencies. Opening track “Cthrl” exemplifies this approach, starting with spoken word and spooky synths before erupting in black metal riffage over a driving, almost danceable beat that slowly but surely contorts into disorienting psychedelia until you realize you’ve fully left familiar ground. But as you’re floating on the waves of Cthuluminati’s wicked imagination, they pull you back to the ground with impressive shredding and tom-heavy drumming, only to get weird again near the end with a full on psych rock escapade. “Abysmal Quatrain” similarly balances itself as it gradually builds from the uncanny into an almost normal post-black metal crescendo, and “The Illusion of Control” explores doom metal elements, giving rise to some very heavy, dramatic moments. However, “Squid Pro Quo” (song name of the year btw) does lose its footing at times by meandering for too long in slow, uncomfortable rhythms and creepy synths and vocal work while failing to provide sufficient comfort to the listener to balance it out, thus harming the album’s pacing.

Another way Cthuluminati toe the line between the normal and the avant-garde is in their song structures. The writing feels stream of consciousness at first, but Cthuluminati successfully instill a sense of order in their compositions by borrowing cues from post-metal in how they incorporate tension and release. In that sense, opener “Cthrl” is a bit misleading with how many things it throws at the wall. The following tracks all have a far stronger sense of identity: the slow and unsettling “Squid Pro Quo” borrows from 90s stoner rock redolent of Kyuss, “Abysmal Quatrain” is solidly embedded in post-metal, “The Illusion of Control” leans into cinematic death-doom, and closer “Mantra” is a ritualistic post-metal track recalling The Ocean with bonus throat singing. Not to say any of these tracks are easy—they all still have plenty of rhythmic mind benders and creepy sound design—but at least you know which song you’re listening to. However, like the quirky excesses of “Squid Pro Quo”, Cthuluminati do get lost in the sauce sometimes: the quiet middle section of “Mantra” meanders with too few interesting sonic developments, “The Illusion of Control” overstays its welcome a smidge with an unnecessarily long acoustic outro, and “Squid Pro Quo” isn’t ominous enough to justify its slow tempos. Fortunately, most of these are only minor mishaps in the overall experience.

All things considered, it’s safe to say that Cthuluminati do not rely on any gimmick to distinguish themselves. Tentacula is a bewildering album in all the right ways: clever genre mashups, challenging yet accessible arrangements, creative sound design, and tying it all together with compositions that strike a fantastic balance in being adventurous while remaining more-or-less grounded. Sometimes Cthuluminati do overindulge in their whims, but most of the time they remain on course to throughout whatever nightmare labyrinth they entrap themselves in. Tentacula is another shining example of why progressive black metal is one of the current most exciting genres around, and I recommend fans of curves and angles not native to this plane of existence to pick it up.

Recommended tracks: Cthrl, The Illusion of Control, Mantra
You may also like: Hail Spirit Noir, Schammasch, Murmuüre, A Forest of Stars
Final verdict: 8/10

Label: Independent

Cthuluminati is:
– Devi Hisgen (vocals)
– Rami Wohl (guitars)
– Stefan Strausz (bass)
– Seth van de Loo (drums)

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Missed Album Review: De Mannen Broeders – Sober Maal

Dave — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 15:00:00 +0000

Style: Dark folk, Drone, Choral (Clean vocals, spoken word)
Recommended for fans of: Les Mystères des Voix Bulgares, Nytt Land
Country: The Netherlands, Belgium
Release date: 11 October 2024

Though religion has always been a guiding force in music, many artists in the modern day use ecclesiastical themes as a means to transcend religion, whether it be exploring sentiments unrelated to the church or as an act of religious subversion. Lingua Ignota’s Sinner Get Ready, for example, soaks itself in bloodstained religious fervor with the goal of processing a bevy of painful and complicated emotions both related and unrelated to Kristin Hayter’s relationship to Catholicism. While not nearly as extreme and macabre as Sinner Get Ready, De Mannen Broeders’ Sober Maal approaches music from a similar perspective—Amenra frontman Colin van Eeckhout and Flemish folk musician Tonnie Dieleman use religious themes as a framework for coming to terms with death and grief. ‘Sober maal’ is a Dutch phrase that in a Christian context describes a small meal one has in the name of practicing gratitude; let’s count our blessings and fully digest the contents of this sober maal.

Recorded in a church in Zeeland, Sober Maal favors simplicity in its folk compositions: opener “Alle Roem is Uitgesloten” (All Fame Is Out of the Question) utilizes very little outside of a droning hurdy gurdy and sparse piano to build to its choral conclusion. The rest of Sober Maal follows suit, as tracks begin with a simple idea that is surreptitiously expanded upon, like the slowly accelerating percussion of “Verteere Heel” (Digest Whole) or the teetering motif that conjures funereal reflection on the title track. Sober Maal also features several spoken word segments that act as palate cleansers between some of the more monolithic hymns.

While simplicity often betrays a dearth of compositional ideas, for De Mannen Broeders, it is a vessel for accessibility and deep meditative atmospheres. Everything from the production to the songwriting feels salt-of-the-earth, even down to the poetry: despite my limited experience studying Dutch, I was able to follow along with several pieces without needing to translate due to its relative simplicity. “Verteere Heel” begins with just a simple one-two percussive pattern, but the weight of each hit is felt deep as its sonic footprint is carved into the church’s negative space; moreso as both the percussion and the accompanying vocals increase in intensity and speed near the song’s conclusion. Similarly, “Sober Maal” utilizes a repeating melody that is accentuated by piano stabs, imposing a weighty heartbreak through its mournful rumination on a single idea.

With a keen sense of space, De Mannen Broeders take full advantage of the ecclesiastical setting: buzzing folk instruments and somber musings reverberate endlessly along the walls of the church, creating an all-encompassing sound that flirts with mysticism all within a minimal palette. “Grafschrift” (Epitaph) is mostly comprised of mandolin and vocals, but the power and fullness in their delivery is augmented by a persistent reverb, vocal lines punctuated by the relative silence in their separation. “Alle Roem is Uitgesloten” most directly utilizes drone ideas, guiding the listener into a trance before concluding with a moving choral passage. “Onze Lieve Vrouwe” (Our Dear Lady) takes the opposite approach to “Alle Roem”: a hurdy gurdy briefly establishes the mood as the space is filled with transcendent choral passages, only being brought back to the forefront as a complement to the choir in its closing moments. “Omer III”¹ opts for a more subdued approach, as its central focus is a spoken word passage over contemplative droning.

Sober Maal’s poetry sits in stark opposition to its musical pieces, putting into perspective the fullness evoked by the instrumentation and choir. De Mannen Broeders’ ability to create such powerful tension and release through simplistic compositions and clever use of negative space by juxtaposing full reverberating soundscapes with sparse silence is laudable. “Ons Nu Voorbij” (Past Us Now) does the best job at organically incorporating these poems through a seamless transition from former track “Onze Lieve Vrouwe,” evoking the feeling of a speaker closing a funeral service after a hymn. Additionally, “Omer III” does well with its spoken word, though it is accompanied by musical backdrop, distinguishing it from other poetic passages.

The spoken word approach does not pay off entirely, however: “Asemruumte” (Breathing Space) is a bit too repetitive and is clunky in execution, setting a negative precedent for the otherwise decent spoken sections later on Sober Maal. Moreover, the transition from “Alle Roem” to “Asemruumte” is relatively sudden, the lack of an audio cue making the poetry feel unprecedented and jarring. “Van Licht Ontdaan” (Bereft of Light) sits somewhere in the middle, posturing as a decent if somewhat forgettable palate cleanser. Moreover, while the choir performance forms one of Sober Maal’s central points of interest, some of the lines are rhythmically awkward: “Alle Roem Is Uitgesloten” and “Grafschrift” are particularly guilty of shoving too many syllables into lines, though “Grafschrift” handles this better as it only features two singers as opposed to an entire chorus, which stops the track from becoming too muddied with voices.

In its last moments, De Mannen Broeders encourage us to move forward even while holding on to grief: closing poem “Ons Nu Voorbij” asserts that bringing together people who care has real meaning, and that it’s important to look after ourselves in the name of those who have left us. There is space inside us for the people we have lost, but still space to continue growing and experience life in full, as our deceased loved ones surely would have wanted. Sober Maal is a beautiful and cathartic folk release, effectively using a religious context and a simple songwriting approach to articulate the complications of loss and grief, and ultimately serving as a reminder to give space for the things we are grateful for.

Recommended tracks: Onze Lieve Vrouwe, Grafschrift, Omer III, Verteere Heel
You may also like: Natural Snow Buildings, Hellvete, The Visit, Sangre de Muérdago + Judasz & Nahimana
Final verdict: 8/10

Review: Hesken – Architect of Chaos

Sam — Wed, 08 May 2024 15:00:00 +0000

Style: Progressive metal, melodic metalcore, death-ish metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Trivium, Opeth, Bullet for My Valentine (?), Tool (??)
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: 5 April 2024

See, when it comes to music from my own country, and more specifically, progressive metal from my own country, I am 100% a hater. Ever since seemingly every band we’ve ever given a negative score banded together under Tom de Wit’s post about my critical Dreamwalkers Inc review, I vowed to myself to cut the pretense and become the pettiest, most villainous hater out there. IT WAS ME BARRY, I WENT BACK IN TIME TO MAKE YOU MISS THAT BASEBALL CATCH, I KILLED YOUR MOTHER, I JACKED YOU OFF AT SUPERSPEED SO YOU CAME INSTANTLY WHEN YOUR CRUSH TOUCHED YOUR LEG IN HIGH SCHOOL. Is it deserved? Not really. Is it funny? Hell yeah. My latest victim? A poor band called Hesken who had nothing to do with any of it.

Unfortunately, I can recognize the potential this group has. Their riff game is very strong (something especially notable on “Fearful Leaders”), the guitar solos are well crafted, and they show some genuinely awesome songwriting ideas—see for example the build up two minutes into “The Seeker,” the phrygian scale riffs and bouncy rhythms of “Conspiracy,” or the furious thrash riffs of “Desolation.” But the problem is, Hesken don’t come any further than good ideas. The compositions as a whole fall flat. Hesken for the life of them cannot seem to settle on a style to embrace. One moment they’re playing rhythmic tech prog, then they’re playing thrashy 00s melodic metalcore, then we’ve fallen into Tool worship with a mediocre Maynard impersonation (see: “Conspiracy”), and every damn song seems obligated to include at least one section of Opeth worship whether it makes sense or not (looking at you, “Fearful Leaders”). A good band will use their influences to accentuate their sound, but Hesken merely throws shit at the wall and hope it sticks. If you’re an acclaimed porn author disguised under the pretense of high brow literature like Jan Wolkers, you can get away with that (he once made a painting with cow feces as a joke that is still displayed in a museum), but Hesken, you aren’t there yet.

Take “Fearful Leaders” for example, which at first seems like a cool—albeit loosely connected—riff salad, but then halfway through it loses the plot with a weird broken up breakdown riff and then…nothing? Oh, we’re doing Opeth, I guess. The way they transition out of it is cool but it might as well have been a different song because it doesn’t build on earlier motifs at all. “Desolation” is also a mess of a song, going on a Dream Theater-esque instrumental tangent three minutes in with a multitude of great ideas, but again, unconnected to earlier song motifs, so the result is essentially a jam session. It’s a good jam session—the post-rock build up being especially well done—but good songwriting it is not. Opener “The Seeker” and poorly capitalized “Dawn of the new age” are the most cohesive songs on Architect of Chaos, but overall, the songwriting resembles the album title a little too closely for my liking, and not in a good way.

And I’m not done hating yet, NO. Whenever you think Hesken are onto something and string cool riffs together in a way that makes sense, their vocalist will be sure to ruin it. His singing is too coarse to pass as melodic and too weak to pass as visceral, so he ends up sounding like a “worst of both worlds” dollar store (of voor de Nederlanders onder ons, Dirk huismerk) version of Chester Bennington with a touch of bad 00s emo/post-hardcore. The lines he sings are good, and the melodies well constructed, he just needs more vocal practice to make it work. His harsher, hardcore shouts on the other hand are pretty decent BUT YOU DIDN’T HEAR THAT FROM ME WE’RE ONLY HATING HERE OKAY?! And the vocals aren’t the only thing that’s coarse because the production is thoroughly mediocre, doing little more than the bare minimum of making each instrument audible.

Beneath the rubble, I fear that there is actually a great band lying dormant here. If Hesken can convert their influences into a cohesive sound of their own, great things could very well be on the horizon. However, if they don’t, I will be there on the sidelines saying “told you so.” WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN. Don’t let The Netherlands be great again.

Recommended tracks: The Seeker, Conspiracy
You may also like: Obsidian Tide, Pressure Points
Final verdict: 4/10

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

Label: Independent

Hesken is:
– Harmen Verheij (vocals, guitars)
– Sven Evertse (guitars)
– Marijn Van Vilsteren (bass)
– Richard Pol (drums)

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Review: Dreamwalkers Inc – The First Tragedy of Klahera

Sam — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 16:00:00 +0000

Style: traditional progressive metal, symphonic metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ayreon, Nightwish, Dream Theater, Redemption
Review by: Sam
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: 24 November 2023

I’ve always had a mixed relation to music from my own country. For some reason, nearly every melodic rock/metal group from The Netherlands has a symphonic sound with the same blunt, “wooden” (as we would call it in Dutch) singing style (although that might just be my native accent shame). Tom de Wit historically has been both of these, but he’s always made up for it by sheer creativity. His solo work under the TDW moniker is an inconsistent bag of high highs and low lows, but with Dreamwalkers Inc,he has a full band and has so far provided a more concise experience; I still revisit their debut First Re-Draft at least semi-regularly, so you can imagine my shock to see him back with an album that’s eighty-six minutes long (literally twice the length of First Re-Draft). Did De Wit make it work this time or has he once again eschewed all self-editing?

The first thing that struck me about The First Tragedy of Klahera is that the production has taken a big hit. The individual elements are all there, but they don’t come together in a nice way. The vocals are too far back in the mix besides when they’re singing in choir, the guitars have a thick tone but somehow manage to sound both too loud and too thin; the bass is hard to pick out; and the drums sound canned. Klahera is not unlistenable by any means, but the resulting mix is strangely hollow which doesn’t bode well for an album this long, and uneven mastering doesn’t help things either.

What does help things is the variety of the record. Whereas the debut First Re-Draft stayed clearly within the confines of symphonic prog metal, Klahera shows all the eclecticism De Wit so far has reserved for his solo project. He takes more risks in his compositions, often putting disparate ideas together in the same song: fast thrash riffs, choirs, midtempo melodic hard rock, industrial touches, Floydian atmosphere, and more all permeate his symphonic prog metal based sound in opener “Justice, My Tragedy,” and we see a similar playing with moods in other cuts. Vocally it’s no longer just De Wit and his choir, but now Radina Dimcheva has ascended to lead vocal duties as well. Unfortunately, she suffers the most from poor mixing, being buried so deep in the sound that making out what she’s singing is difficult, which is a shame because she has a wonderfully smooth voice.

Delving further into the vocals… god, the vocals. It’s beating a dead horse at this point, but De Wit is just so out there that I have to talk about it. He’s a technically proficient singer – don’t get me wrong – but his accent is Louis van Gaal levels of thick, and he has this very Dutch way of singing where he over-articulates each and every letter while using a flat tone for nearly every syllable, and it drives me NUTS – for the mathematicians here, his singing is like looking at a histogram instead of the graph of a smooth function – yet at the same time, I find his voice weirdly endearing. He has a real talent for writing memorable vocal melodies and he compensates for his “wooden” delivery with sincerity and passion that somehow comes through regardless. It reminds me of how Fabio Lione managed to sound convincing on early Rhapsody despite his many faults as a singer. Speaking of Rhapsody, Dreamwalkers Inc uses cheesy spoken word sections at the end of each song to transition into the next one, a strategy which is, well… a choice.

The riffing style of this band is very 80s; the type that your Metallica-loving dad would raise the horns to and say “yeah! These are so metal! \m/” but they sound largely outdated in the current prog metal scene, and similar goes to the classic heavy metal harmonies the band employs. The guitarwork is enjoyable, sure, but I have a hard time envisioning any of these riffs or harmonies making the cut on the best works of the bands they were inspired by.

The biggest elephant in the room is, of course, the length. Unlike many of my colleagues, I’m not against long albums in principle since a double album is a different artform that is more about the journey than the destination, rather akin to a podcast than to a condensed video essay. With Klahera I was mostly having a good time. I found myself charmed by many of the softer, folkier bits such as the shanty vibe on “Celebrations,” as well as the explosiveness found in many of the guitar solos and in the power metal-inspired tracks like “Despicable” or “Discovery.” Choral harmonies, which are generally done tastefully, are also a key feature of De Wit’s music. Special mention should go to the epic “Mother Dearest” for its many twists and spectacular build-up to its climax on a waltz rhythm. My only real issue in regards to length is that on the closing epic, “Chain of Consequence,” the story takes over the music, meandering around until it fizzles out on a meek “to be continued” instead of a clear cut ending following a sweeping finale.

I often cringe at the bluntness of De Wit’s artistry, but his sincerity, melody-writing, and creativity are very charming. The First Tragedy of Klahera is a very ambitious record with many polarizing elements. I have a hard time envisioning it appealing to most younger prog metal fans because of the old school elements and cheese factor, but if you enjoy some cheese and don’t mind long albums, it’s a record worth sinking your teeth into.

Recommended tracks: Broken Puzzle Pieces, Mother Dearest, Discovery
You may also like: TDW, Flaming Row, Beyond the Bridge
Final verdict: 5/10

Label: Layered Reality Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Dreamwalkers Inc is:
– Tom de Wit (vocals, keyboards)
– Radina Dimcheva (vocals)
– Lennert Kemper (guitars, vocals)
– Norbert Veenbrink (guitars)
– Björn van der Ploeg (bass)
– Sander van Elferen (drums)

With guests:
– Otto Kokke (saxophone on track 9)

And choir:
– Iris de Boer
– Holly Frances Royle
– Rich Gray
– Rania Bailey
– Richard De Geest
– Jeroen Nels

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Review: Project: Xanadu – Refrained Transgressions

Ian — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Style: Prog Rock, Prog Metal, Trad Prog (clean vocals)

Recommended for Fans Of: Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Queensryche, Rush

Review by: Ian

Country: The Netherlands

Release date: September 9, 2023

Replete as the modern prog landscape is with bands that offer new and exciting sonic palettes, sometimes I get a nostalgic hankering for that distinctive sound of the ’90s and early 2000s, when bands like Dream Theater were king. Kids these days with their djent chugs and their synthpop choruses don’t know the pleasure of journeying through a fourteen-minute song consisting of seven minutes of some nasally-voiced tenor singing about the inner workings of the human mind and seven minutes of glorious, weedly-weedly solos in increasingly impractical time signatures. People called this music self-indulgent and pretentious, and to be honest they were generally right, but we liked it that way, dammit! Nowadays, though, the pioneers of the genre are aging out, suffering from stagnating creative output and decreased relevance, and there are few newcomers on the scene to take up the banner of that particular sound. If only some band were frozen in cryogenic sleep 25 years ago and thawed out in our present day to pick up right where they left off…

Well, as it turns out, the Dutch duo known as Project: Xanadu come quite close to fitting that bill. Originally founded in the early ’90s as an obscure also-ran in the first wave of progressive metal, they only managed a couple demos’ worth of recorded material before splitting a few years in. But eventually vocalist Arthur van der Meulen and multi-instrumentalist Mirko Pelgrom decided to join back together, resurrect their old tunes, and compile them onto their 2020 debut full-length Reflections of Past Transgressions. Now, three years later, the band has set out to improve upon the rather immature compositions of their youth with an album of all-new material. Have they, against all odds, come up with a record worthy of standing up to the classics?

The answer ends up being… not quite. The band certainly have the right ingredients to make a strong prog record; Pelgrom is clearly a very talented musician, and his solos on both guitar and keyboard deliver satisfactory helpings of that noodly prog goodness of yesteryear. The riffs, for the most part, play with time signatures in a nice, familiar, brain-tickling way, and the bass has a refreshingly strong presence and tone throughout. Van der Meulen, meanwhile, is a genuinely wide-ranging and versatile singer, to the point where I assumed the band had two vocalists on my first listen. His low range in particular is much stronger-sounding than that of your average prog frontman, and as a low-voiced fellow myself I appreciate a singer that isn’t afraid to go deep.

But ingredients mean nothing if the execution is half-baked, and a multitude of misfires both large and small keep Refrained Transgressions from truly taking off. Most immediately glaring is Van der Meulen’s vocal tone, and while having a somewhat polarizing vocalist is par for the course in this line of work, this takes it to the next level. Simply put, though he does indeed have a wide range, not all of it sounds good. His lower notes generally sound alright, though he does often take a rather “yawn-y” approach that ends up sounding like Geoff Tate on Ambien. They’re only truly rough when he tries to force his way to the very bottom of his range and winds up sounding stiff and awkward, such as the first verse of “Doing It Wrong!”. The high notes, though, are a truly mixed bag. Van der Meulen sings them directly out of his nose, an approach that can range from endearing in a sort of retro way to actively cartoonish and off-putting. One particularly egregious yelp around the six-minute mark of “Looking Back” reminded me a bit of later-era Vince Neil butchering “Kickstart My Heart” in a live performance, and if anything you do as a frontman even slightly resembles that travesty, it’s a problem.

The music, too, has its share of flaws- most chiefly, that a lot of it feels like something I’ve heard a dozen times before. To be fair, I didn’t exactly come into this album expecting some paragon of originality, but when Pelgrom seems dead set on populating his keyboard solely with synth patches scavenged from Jordan Rudess’s dumpster, it gets a little distracting. The most obvious cribbing comes in “Spiraling Purity” – whose central riff is so blatantly Tool-inspired that I’m half surprised they didn’t call it “Split” or “Horizontalus” – but even in places like the hard charging guitar and organ riffs of opener “Trust Is Like an Egg” and the appropriately-titled “Nothing New”, I get a nagging sense of deja vu, which is a shame because they’re some of the best musical moments on the album. The choruses and hooks, meanwhile, are often clumsily constructed, with lyrics awkwardly crammed in to fit the time signature or vice versa and chorus melodies that lack in flow or memorability. Combined with the aforementioned originality issues, this leads to a sense that the enjoyable parts of the album are primarily those taken from elsewhere- an album that is good and original but seldom both at once.

I mentioned lyrics earlier, and here we must open up another of Refrained Transgressions‘ many mixed bags. For the most part, the words here aren’t anything worse than the industry standard, though the constant thesaurus abuse throughout the album does give off the impression of a lyricist that thinks he’s much cleverer than he is. The obligatory song about the Meaning of the Universe, “We Are Here to…” is so pretentious it wraps right back around to being kind of fun, complete with deep, dramatic proclamations of “And the decision is… TO BE!”. This all pales in comparison, though, to “Nine, 9, Nein!”, the album’s biggest lyrical stinker by a long shot. For reasons unknown, van der Meulen decides to cram this song full of strained rhymes and increasingly obnoxious dad-joke puns about numbers that make my normally cringe-resistant soul shrivel up in agony. I usually don’t devote this much time to lyrics, but lines like “Two is bi, she likes it hot” and “Did I co-sine on the wavy line” are enough to drop this entire album’s score, and it doesn’t help that the band’s awkward integration of words and music is present in full force. At least the instrumental section is one of the best on the album, though that may just be because it’s a reprieve from all the nonsense surrounding it.

Still, despite all of my many criticisms, Refrained Transgressions isn’t a terrible album. Originality issues aside, most of the songs here are actually well-constructed from a musical point of view, and with some refinement there’s clearly the makings of a very good traditional prog album in here. This potential is most readily seen on epic closer “Like Sand”, which offers some suitably grandiose-sounding violin melodies and guitar riffs, as well as some of Van der Meulen’s most palatable vocal and lyrical work and, of course, more wonderfully retro solo sections. If these two can learn their lessons and sand away some of their rough edges, maybe they can create a worthy successor to their influences. But for now, I think I’ll just stick to my copy of Images and Words.

Recommended tracks: Trust Is Like an Egg, Spiraling Purity, Like Sand

You may also like: Vanden Plas, Hac San, Knight Area, The Pulse Theory

Final verdict: 5.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook

Project: Xanadu is:
– Arthur van der Meulen (vocals)
– Mirko Pelgrom (instruments)

The post Review: Project: Xanadu – Refrained Transgressions appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Review: TDW – Fountains

Sam — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 16:00:00 +0000

Style: traditional progressive metal, symphonic metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ayreon, Epica, Dream Theater
Review by: Sam
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: 26 November 2021

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the Missed Albums 2021 issue of The Progressive Subway.]

Once upon a time, we covered a Dutch symphonic prog metal band on this blog called Dreamwalkers Inc. They caught my attention for the fact that they had five fucking vocalists listed as full-time band members (and I guess also the music was pretty good). It was only later that I learned that the project was actually the brainchild of just one fellow Dutchman by the name of Tom de Wit, and that the record in question – First Re-Draft – was not just the first, but the second reimagining of his debut solo album First Draft (should have called it Second Re-Draft SMH my head). By the time I learned of the existence of his solo project TDW, it was already too late to cover his latest outing The Day the Clock Stopped (research is not my strong suit, as you can tell). But luckily for me, there was an upcoming album I could cover in Fountains. I asked the man for a promo, and two months later… here we are. Yeah. I should apologize for how late this review came out. I got a major writing burn-out, and this was an unfortunate casualty of that.

On the bright side though, the lateness of this review gave me the time to listen to his entire discography before I heard this. It was a fun, albeit inconsistent experience. He has a very peculiar style of symphonic arrangements, that for unknown reasons, feel very Dutch to me (maybe it’s the cheese?). I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about the details, but they were always vibrant and had plenty of variety. The songwriting fluctuated pretty heavily between mind-blowing brilliance and clunky filler parts. And for the life of him, the man could not trim his albums, which were often a solid twenty minutes longer than they needed to be, if not more (looking at you, Scrapbook). The early albums also suffered heavily from basement production and a god-awful drum machine. Overall though, his sense of melody and composition made it mostly a pleasure to sit through. And lucky for me, Fountains has a very manageable length of 56 minutes, so it looks like we have another win on our hands!

For a large part, I indeed see Fountains as a win. There are a couple of excellent cuts on the disc. The first two songs in particular are great, rather straightforward tracks that show you what the record is all about. Nifty synth lines, large symphonic backing, hard riffs, lots of tempo changes, and a full fucking choir backing Tom’s largely soaring vocals. There’s even a couple of harsh vocal parts. It has a general chaotic element that is just strong enough to keep you on your toes, but weak enough not to make it feel like he’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Another strong cut in this regard is the hilariously whacky upbeat rocker “Graveyard Boogey” in the back half of the album, which shifts between over the top dramatism and circus sounds over a hyperactive drumbeat at the drop of hat. On the more introverted side, there’s mostly laid back passages here and there, but “Anthracite” stands out as a very moving power ballad. It slowly climbs out of ominous electronics with whispered call and response vocals into blast beats and growls to an eventual full choir reprise of the main melody, giving a satisfying payoff to all the build-up. “Hope Song I” is also a great, moving breather track, albeit it functions more like an interlude. Its sequel is the epic closing of the album. It’s easily the most symphonic song on the record and gives it a good finale. I also definitely recommend listening to both “Hope Songs” in a row as a bonus because it’s a treat.

There’s a couple of aspects about Fountains that I found hard to connect to – things which also appeared in Tom’s previous work. Maybe it’s solely my cringing at a fellow native’s accent, but in a lot of the aggressive, powerful moments Tom’s delivery sounds rather stiff (or “wooden” as we Dutchies like to say), and I find myself more appreciating the emotion he’s trying to convey rather than his singing actually makes me feel said emotion. In short, the cheese is too strong. His softer parts were very moving, but it seemed like the more power he put in, the less I connected to it. I was also iffy on some of the slower riffs, which sounded clunky, and some of the lyrics were blunt to a fault and took me out of it (“If I shout louder than you, does that make me right?”). (Damn I really am just roasting my own country here aren’t I? FFS)

On the whole, I liked Fountains. There are certain aspects I didn’t like as much, and some songs were stronger than others, but the overall experience was thoroughly enjoyable. If anything, TDW has an unmistakable character in terms of writing and production, and that’s worth a lot. If you enjoy what you hear in this album, definitely explore the rest of his discography (and Dreamwalkers Inc!) as well. It’s a lot of fun.

Recommended tracks: Inner Energy, Anthracite, Graveyard Boogey
You may also like: Course of Fate, Beyond the Bridge
Final verdict: 6/10

Label: Layered Reality Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

TDW is:
– Tom de Wit (vocals, keyboards, guitars, percussion, drum programming)
– Rich Gray (bass)
– Fabio Alessandrini (drums)

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Review: Armed Cloud – Torque

Sabrina — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Style: Traditional/Symphonic (Clean)
Review by: Sabrina
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: November 28, 2020

Whether or not you care for Dream Theater, it is clear that they have made one of the largest contributions toward the progressive metal scene. As a result, what you will find is that the underground prog metal scene reflects this by having an abundant amount of artists that stylistically replicate DT; they are a dime a dozen. This has its ups and downs for those bands of course. For one, they have an easy source of inspiration for a style they know is liked in the community. But because that sound is so common and so overdone it makes it ever so difficult for one of those bands to stand out in the larger scheme of things.

This is where Armed Cloud finds themselves in. They want to make music of this common style of progressive metal but are also trying to leave a lasting contribution toward that scene that gave their predecessors a musical home. What this album brings to the table if you are a fan of that older style of traditional progressive metal is great instrumentation both in technical solos and in the band member’s synergy with one another. In Torque, they also attempt to make this sound that is kind of symphonic and kind of electronic in order to convey a futuristic tone.

Let’s talk about what Armed Cloud did right in this album: their instrumental proficiency and deliverance of great performances are all there. The drums and bass do a good job at leading the rhythm of each of the songs of the album, the guitarist is great at delivering impressive solos on almost every track of the album. The synths play a key role in delivering Armed Cloud‘s best hooks on the album, as some of the high points are the way the keys are able to close songs with surprisingly heartfelt melodies that stuck with me more than any other instrument on the album. It really feels like the instrumentalists go back and forth, taking turns to impress us with their high energy and admirable harmony.

Though this is Armed Cloud‘s most instrumentally technical album to date, their past two albums both had a more creative and defined atmosphere to them. In essence, their past two had a little bit more personality and aesthetic than Torque does. What I got from this album is kind of a replication of a highly technical, futuristic aesthetic that has been done in the prog scene over and over again, even when Armed Cloud makes their own interpretation of that sound.

When it comes to the bands mixing and production, all of their albums have been fairly mid-toned: where the keys, mid-ranged guitars, and the vocals have the most auditory priority while the bass gets lost in the background at times. It’s all about where the band’s ideals are, and I think they were in the right place by highlighting the synths and lead guitar in the album as those make up the most interesting sections of the album’s composition. Aside from that, the album is fairly well produced for being as unknown as it is.

Unfortunately, though, that sums up the positives of the album. The main downfall of the album has to be in their vocals. Don’t make the mistake I made when giving my first few listens to the album: listen to it for its instrumental synergy, do not expect a high level of vocal creativity or any memorable choruses. Aside from the occasional scream, the vocals are the most disappointing thing about the album as they are fairly monotone.

Generally, a strong point at having an equally skillful vocalist is to convey an album’s best hooks and melodic material as we resonate with the sound of voices generally more than other instruments, and also because we remember melodies more if they are delivered through words. This is why for a lot of people, the vocalist is most often a make-it-or-break-it element of a band, maybe because the most is expected from them.

Furthermore, what is probably the case for very underground bands like this is that they have two main demographic audiences: people in their community, and people who are very invested in the niche section of their genre. We would probably represent the latter. And the problem with being in the latter demographic is that we already might be aware of 10-20+ bands that already make the kind of music that they do, and all are in competition with one another for our ear’s attention. This band is genuinely good, but I worry about where they fall in the line of this (traditional progressive metal) scene’s competition. For instance, if someone wants to listen to this style, they would first listen to Dream Theater, after that they might go to Circus Maximus if they want something a bit closer to Armed Cloud they might go to Savatage next, or a ton of other bands one could name. The point is that they need to make something truly outstanding to leave a lasting impression on the scene or else they will not be very prosperous. They are a long way away from reaching that point of colossal success, but this is certainly not a bad place to start.

Recommended tracks: Heat of Darkness, Big Bang Theory
Recommended for fans of: Savatage, Dream Theater, Darkwater
Final verdict: 6.5/10

Label: Independent

Armed Cloud is:
– Daan Dekker (vocals)
– Kay Bouten (guitars)
– Rico Noijen (drums)
– Boris Suvee (bass)
– Remco van der Veen (keyboards)

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