Style: post-metal, sludge metal, shoegaze, noise rock, stoner rock, post-hardcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of:  Parannoul, Asian Glow, Neurosis, Boris
Country: South Korea
Release date: 15 May 2025

Modern medicine is amazing. People have lived well over a year with an artificial heart, and doctors can perform entire heart transplants. Alas, the human being still needs a heart, be it a machine or originally somebody else’s, and a person would wither and die almost instantly without the blood-pumping organ. South Korea’s Baan have a mission: rip out the still-beating heart from four genres and try to keep the result alive for sixty minutes. According to their Bandcamp, Baan aim to be “Doom but not boring / Screamo but not crying / Hardcore but not macho / Shoegaze but not sucks.” Dodging all four of those pitfalls while playing those genres is gonna require a musical miracle to occur on Neumann. Do Baan achieve what doctors cannot?

Let’s proceed one by one. Neumann certainly avoids the crying part of screamo by not being screamo beyond some halfheartedly shouted harsh vocals; the record also contains some amateur cleanly sung, crowd-chant adjacent cleans. Both vocal styles are completely obliterated by the mix to the point of being nearly inaudible—they may have recorded them from across the street—rendering them a strident nuisance. Similar to the self-described “screamo” aspect of Baan’s sound, the macho part of hardcore, by virtue of mostly avoiding true punkiness, is eschewed by Baan. Those two soul-of-the-genre omissions are cheating, though, and Neumann is really post-y, noisy, atmospheric sludge metal, with the atmospheric part coming from shoegaze and stoner rock influence.

Thankfully, the doom metal (read: sludge and post- metal) parts are not boring, and the shoegaze aspect don’t sucks [sic]! Fuzzed out guitars and Baan’s love of noisy amplifiers drive Neumann, and the South Korean band have a keen ear for melody and rhythm, with wistful yet hard-hitting guitar parts and dynamic, Mastodon-esque drumming. “Birdperson 새사람” has the first shoegaze part around 3:40 with airy guitars above pummeling double bass, but it’s not until the second track “Early Bird Dies Fast” where Baan hit their stride, the spacey trem picking of the simultaneously woolly yet shimmery guitars playing a beautiful tune—almost nostalgic in tone, as if Astronoid wrote stoner doom. The strongest asset in the band’s arsenal, however, is their weaponization of noise, with exemplary moments like the middle breakdown of “Sing a Brave Song 2 씩씩한 노래를 불러라 2” and the sludgy violence of “Reversal of a Man.” The bass playing is also killer, but unfortunately it almost never makes an appearance with the exception of “Sing a Brave Song 1 씩씩한 노래를 불러라 1” where it gets significant time leading. 

Despite the strength of the riffs and drumming, the album wears itself thin within forty minutes, the schtick played out. By the end of the three-part “Sing a Brave Song 씩씩한 노래를 불러라,” I’m snoozing at the prospect of more Baan, and the boring track “Not Yet” contributes nothing that previous songs like “Histrionic” hadn’t done better. Moreover, the closer, “Oldman 헌사람,” plays into a tedious atmospheric intro that lasts for several minutes before recapping with uninspired shoegaze vocals from Asian Glow; so, I’m forced to admit that while the shoegaze instrumental sections don’t sucks, the shoegaze vocals sucks. Baan clearly had fun tinkering with their amplifiers and jamming out—at the expense of a more concise, better album. 

South Korea is truly a hotbed for noisy, homemade shoegaze recently (Parannoul, Asian Glow, Huremic), and Baan have certainly made a name for themselves with the release of Neumann. Their mix of energetic, growly, and fuzzy guitar tones with passionate and delicate melodies contributes something new to their scene. The band just needs an editor and a better singer. But fans of everything from post-metal to punk will find something to enjoy in Neumann—I certainly did.

Recommended tracks: Early Bird Dies Fast, Histrionic, Sing a Brave Song 1-3 씩씩한 노래를 불러라 1-3
You may also like: Meth., The Angelic Process, Glassing, Huremic, Sadness
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: independent

Baan is:
반재현 [Baan Jae-hyun]
김진규 [Kim Jin-gyu aka April 28th]
이성재 [Lee Seong-jae]
장진웅 [Jang Jin-ung]

The post Review: Baan – Neumann appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Math rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock (instrumental, rap on track 7)
Recommended for fans of: Chon, late Elder, Motorpsycho
Country: Canada
Release date: 7 February 2025

One of the coolest things about classic Westerns of old was the quick draw duels. After a heated dispute, Serious Badass no. 1 and Serious Badass no. 2 would stand back to back, and walk ten paces before shooting each other, usually captured with some epic closeup face cams right before they put their manhood into action. A classic element which made these duels so iconic was the small gust of wind that rolled a piece of tumbleweed by, expertly building the tension. Now, Sweden’s climate does not lend itself to this plant, but if you are a Serious Badass in Sweden facing another who insulted your honor, you are in luck because Tumbleweed Dealer are here for all your quickdraw decorum needs.

On latest album Dark Green, Tumbleweed Dealer’s sound is centered around light math rock riffs and drummer Angelo Fata’s diverse array of grooves, spiced up by interjecting that musical base with post-rock strumming, progressive rhythms, psychedelic sound effects, and a wide variety of keyboard and brass instruments mostly done by guest musicians. These elements are molded into a free-flowing jam band type of sound, and Tumbleweed Dealer compose their songs around a central groove which they use as a baseline to fall back on for their experimental tangents, making them very easy to listen to. Every song will throw in a couple of cute and/or quirky ideas that you can latch onto: Tumbleweed Dealer treat us to mellotron, Hammond organ, church organ, trumpet, flugelhorn, 90s video game synths, and a few more unconventional rock instruments and sounds atop their math rock foundation, yielding an at least outwardly diverse album.

Angelo Fata steals the show with his performance behind the kit on Dark Green, displaying both versatility and depth in his rhythms. He constantly intersperses his grooves with creative accents and small fills without ever detracting from the underlying groove, and he transitions cleverly between rhythms through more extensive fills. Seb Painchaud’s guitar work on the other hand is far less interesting: he spends much of his time in quirky strumming patterns that are fun for a while but lack the edge to carry an entire album. It’s not until “Dragged Across the Wetlands” that we get something of higher intensity from him and it makes a huge difference for the track’s memorability. Similarly, “Ghost Dressed in Weeds” with its energetic surf rock and “Body of the Bog” with its heavy machine gun riff immediately stand out from the pack for the guitar’s extra edge. Finally, Jean-Baptiste Joubaud provides similarly quirky sounds on synths when playing lead, often drawing from 90s video game music, and lays down a cosy, psychedelic atmospheric backdrop for the rest of the album. Nothing too crazy but his playing works well enough and provides some nice color to Tumbleweed Dealer’s overall sound.

The aforementioned jam band sensibility that defines Dark Green plays a large part in what makes Tumbleweed Dealer’s sound so accessible, but it’s also their biggest weakness. Rarely do the songs on Dark Green develop into anything more compelling than the base ideas they started with. More often than not they will introduce a cute motif, maybe even a couple of them, bounce around between a few other quirky passages, return to the main riff and end the song in an anticlimactic way. What makes other jam-esque prog bands like Elder and Motorpsycho so compelling is how they build from a simple motif into these larger than life climaxes; Tumbleweed Dealer’s compositions are just tepid in comparison. When they do build up the tension, they fail to provide proper release, yet simultaneously, the often meek guitar work makes the tracks impotent in terms of hooks, so the overall result is something that sits awkwardly between a straightforward and an epic composing style. In that sense, the large cast of guest musicians tends to feel like window dressing, even if performed well. Remarkably enough, the best guest feature is Ceschi Ramos whose rapping on “Ghost Dressed in Weeds” gives some much-needed edge to the music. The small saxophone solo by Zach Strouse on the title track is also phenomenal, as is the Latin part it transitions into afterwards—but then the song just ends without any sense of ceremony, squandering the greater moments that came before.

If you’re all about chill vibes and want something easy to listen to, Dark Green has plenty to offer with all the different keyboard textures and psychedelic sounds thrown at you atop a comfortable math rock base. Otherwise though, Tumbleweed Dealer are neither incisive enough to make the short compositions catchy nor ambitious enough to develop their songs into epic proportions, leaving an album that is varied on the surface, but meek and homogeneous on the inside. As it stands, Serious Badasses in Sweden would do better to forego the Tumbleweed Dealer and stick with regular Swedish dueling decorum.

Recommended tracks: A Plant That Thinks It’s Human, Dragged Across the Wetlands, Ghost Dressed in Weeds
You may also like: delving, Bend the Future, Ferras Arrabi
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook

Label: Independent

Tumbleweed Dealer is:
– Seb Painchaud (bass, guitars)
– Angelo Fata (drums, percussion)
– Jean-Baptiste Joubaud (synths, programming)

The post Review: Tumbleweed Dealer – Dark Green appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive rock, stoner rock, psychedelic rock, krautrock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Elder, Weedpecker, Elephant Tree
Country: Germany
Release date: 23 August, 2024

Such is the burden of the underground reviewer: realistically, I’m never going to get to write a full review of many of my favorite bands, such as Elder, for this blog. Luckily, in this case we have the next best thing. Founded and almost exclusively performed by Elder frontman Nick DiSalvo, delving operates as seemingly a spiritual continuation of his previous side project Gold & Silver, the style being also reminiscent of Elder’s unique 2019 EP The Gold & Silver Sessions. DiSalvo’s first album under the delving moniker, Hirschbrunnen in 2021, offered a glimpse of the ongoing shift in Elder’s sound and style, blending the soft psychedelic rock of The Gold & Silver Sessions with their earlier heavy stoner- and doom-infused metal to arrive at a subtly but noticeably different aesthetic. Reversing that trend towards lighter and more rock-oriented music, All Paths Diverge immediately sounds heavier than its predecessor, with new infusions of metal aesthetics mirroring the heavy psychedelic sounds of Omens or Innate Passage.

The reverberating guitar, keyboard, and percussion mash also characteristic of Elder permeates the bulk of All Paths Diverge, building both soundscape and melody and seamlessly interconnecting the two. Within both outfits, DiSalvo constructs some of the richest musical textures in all of prog—full, but not busy, moving forward with purpose but lingering just enough on each motif to fully develop the idea behind it. The line between melody and rhythm parts blurs until each part serves equally as both, showing delving’s krautrock (or post-rock) influences in how the music is made up of a compilation of intertwining layers rather than a single melody and its supporting parts. And yet, All Paths Diverge never really feels ambient, with only the introductory opening parts of certain tracks like “New Meridian” and “The Ascetic” being sparse enough to qualify. The music stays active, maintaining forward motion while still allowing the atmospheric elements and complex overlapping parts the space they need in order to unfurl to their fullest potential.

All Paths Diverge more heavily features spacey, psychedelic keyboard work than its parent project does—for example the atmospheric backgrounds in “Sentinel”—but as focus shifts more to the fuzzy guitars and echoing cymbal crashes (beginning with “Omnipresence”), the similarity to Elder grows more and more apparent. The chime-like keyboard arpeggios in the background particularly make the latter half of “Chain of Mind” sound exactly like an Elder track that could have fallen off the back of the truck while Innate Passage was being assembled (if not for the fact that it’s not quite ten minutes long, which seems to be their absolute minimum allowed song length at this point). It’s comforting to hear DiSalvo working more in a musical space that seems to interest him this much, and I’ll never turn down more of a good thing, though I was taken aback as I noticed how much—for good or for ill—All Paths Diverge acts as a continuation of Elder itself, especially when Hirschbrunnen (at least at the time) felt like a significant step in a different direction.

Although All Paths Diverge never gets boring, it also doesn’t quite attain the consistent mastery that we’ve seen from Elder over the years. Every track proves its own excellence, but only certain moments put forth the complete brilliance that DiSalvo has already demonstrated in this style while working with Elder. “New Meridian” and “The Ascetic” follow broadly the same structure as each other, providing excellent examples of the contrast between the different moods at work. With a first half featuring atmospheric synth effects to set the mood, both tracks transition abruptly but cleverly at the halfway mark into a much more in-your-face breakdown that carries the rest of the way to its conclusion. It takes two very different talents to bring such contrasting sections to life. The opening half, while pleasant, doesn’t quite live up to the outright excitement that follows. While both parts individually serve their own purposes, the latter section overshadows the former with how much more bold and memorable it is, and without more direct connections to link them, the first part fades quickly from the listener’s memory in spite of its significant contribution to the buildup and payoff of the track as a whole.

Even more so than Hirschbrunnen, All Paths Diverge feels like a slimmed-down Elder project, equally creative and well-constructed but smaller in scope and ambition. Which version you prefer is naturally a question of personal taste above anything else, but delving certainly measures up alongside the other vaunted works of the project’s creator. Nick DiSalvo demonstrates the same creativity and talent here that he has already become known for, with some small personal touches to make this project more his own. While the result lacks some of the consistent greatness that has driven the success of one of my favorite bands, its high moments hit just as hard, making for an album worthy of praise no matter how lofty the standards set by its musical cousin.

Recommended tracks: Omnipresence, Chain of Mind, New Meridian, The Ascetic
You may also like: Gold & Silver, Papir, Son Cesano, Himmellegeme
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Stickman Records (Europe) – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook,
Blues Funeral (US) – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

delving is:
– Nicholas DiSalvo (written and performed by)
With guests:
– Fabien de Menou (keyboards)
– Michael Risberg (guitar ambiance, “Zodiak”)

The post Review: delving – All Paths Diverge appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Sludgy, Stoner Prog (Instrumental)
Review by: Will
Country: France
Release date: 28 April 2022

Navel-gazey voyage of self-discovery and potential soundtrack to a spirit quest at the Mad Hatter’s afterparty, Inward is the first of a planned duo of albums by stoner rock trio Moozoonsii. This album uses indigenous instruments and clearly draws on music traditions from the Americas and Oceania (both indigenous and contemporary) to create the atmosphere of a fevered shamanistic ritual – a psychedelic journey through mind and soul.

The second of the planned album duo is due to be named Outward so together they would be Inward and Outward. The idea seeming to be an exploration of the human psyche both inward and outward looking. Inwards as one might expect, has a very introspective feel to it: With ever-shifting time signatures, a diverse orchestra of instruments and sample sounds (from didgeridoos to the sampled calls of exotic birds), the sheer business of the tracks gives a lot for the listener to focus on. This is an album that demands repeated listens. Focusing on a different instrument, a different rhythm line in each listen, gives a different journey and different experience to the album. The effect is almost meditative and, by the end, one almost feels like that crocodile-headed character in a bewilderingly nonsensical landscape on the cover art (created in its surreal majesty by Blue Chep).

There’s a lot of influence drawn from Latin music throughout the album which is wonderful to hear. From “Mangrove”’s whistle and diverse percussion which hint at Olodum style music to “Wudum” and  “Tinotaba”’s use of phrygian dominant licks as well as marked tonal (or instrumental) changes to invoke an exotic, latin feel to the track. This, coupled with samples of exotic bird calls and overlaid with dark, sludgy guitar riffs gives the impression of a rocky soundtrack to an Ayahuasca ceremony. 

The mix by Christophe Hogommat is wonderfully balanced, allowing room for a diverse range of instruments (particularly on the percussion end) on some of the busier tracks like “Venom” to breathe. Though it may have been by design, it would have been nice to hear more of the bass throughout the album. The bass has some excellent prominent lines in tracks like “Mangrove” and “Venom”, but gets lost on some of the sludgier tracks.

Though clearly aiming for something new and experimental, Inward clearly still has feet in the stoner/sludge/doom metal of the western tradition. “Beelzebufo” is almost reminiscent of some of Mastodon’s sludgier tracks. While “Titanoba”, the most traditionally ‘stoner rock’ track on the album, owes a lot to Sleep and Electric Wizard. Sadly, in the days of electronic wizardry, simply adding unusual sounding instruments and tones to your track and relying heavily on a wah pedal doesn’t break the mould for modern listeners. It would have been amazing to hear Moozoonsii run with the idea of using idiosyncratic instruments and employing them for more than a few seconds at a time (it’s possible – just ask Ayreon!). Otherwise they’re more accents and window dressing than a real, incorporated part of the band’s sound.

It would be remiss not to mention the adroit instrumentation from all the band members; something that is so vital in a purely instrumental album in order to keep the listener engaged throughout. There’s dominating guitar work from Basile Chiariello and some truly inspired bass work from Fabien Hervé – beautifully displayed on the opening and closing tracks. The percussion section, headed by Matthieu Bellemere and contributed to by Christophe Hogommat is really something to behold (in a manner of speaking). This is the section of the band that managed to assimilate non-western forms of instrumentation most fully and most effectively. The sheer range of percussion on this album brings this album to life and keeps the listener hypnotised for the duration.

In Outward, it would be interesting to see if Moozoonsii could possibly take the next step and release themselves further from their grounding in the Western tradition and fly out into the great wide psychedelic yonder. 

Recommended tracks: Mangrove, Titanoba, Wudum
Recommended for fans of: Sleep, Elder, Electric Wizard, Lucid Planet
You may also like: Diagonal, Heavy Pendulum,
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Self-Released

Moozoonsii is:
– Basile Chiariello – Guitar
– Fabien Hervé – Bass
– Matthieu Bellemere – Drums, percussions

with:
– Christophe Hogommat – additional percussion, mix

The post Review: Moozoonsii – Inward appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: heavy metal/hard rock/stoner rock/power metal(clean vocals)
Review by: Sabrina
Country: US-FL
Release date: February 23, 2021

Aurora is the debut album of the difficult-to-label band: Cave of Swimmers. Venezuelan immigrants Guillermo Gonzalez and Arturo Garcia residing in Florida have brought together an album filled with sounds of old-school power metal revival with the instrumental precision of a prog band. Spanning a brief 32 minutes, this is the shortest full-length album I have reviewed thus far, and for what it’s worth, it makes a damn good use of its half-hour.

This album almost could not have come at a better time since the primary qualities that it both thrives in, and lacks in, are essentially the opposite of a couple of other albums I have reviewed as of late. While Cave of Swimmers is delivering music that is not the most inventive thing in the world, what they bring to the table is music that is genuinely enjoyable for just about any audience. Even though Aurora may be reusing classic heavy metal tropes, they illustrate it in an undoubtedly skilled and technical way. The album is very intuitive and easy to follow and does not take incredible leaps of faith when it comes to its songwriting arrangement. Essentially, what this album brings to the table are a very short and straightforward set of songs that are ridiculously catchy and melodic, delivered with instrumental prowess that could put some of the metal oldies to shame.

The element that drew me into this album initially was its dreamy, surreal album cover. I think it is not difficult to sell an album with a cover that fantastic. And surprisingly, the music also holds up! Though it is incredibly brief, just about every song on this album is catchy as hell, delivered along with instrumentals that are rhythmic, technical, and energetic. There is not even one song in particular that deserves to be mentioned over others, just because there are so many bangers on this album. However, the one that tends to be mentioned the most is “Double Rainbow”, which I have to admit is the one that will be stuck in my head the longest time as its main vocal melody combined with its backing chorus are simply beautiful.

Even though this is, first and foremost, a vocal-driven album, other instruments such as the drums and guitar work deserve major props. This album is riffy almost as much as it is vocal. The guitar lines spread throughout the album have a somewhat stoner influence which both, hit hard, and lead the majority of Aurora‘s non-vocal hooks. Additionally, there are guitar solos on this album. Indeed, they are well placed at the rhythmic peak of each of the songs, and arrangement-wise are actually quite creative. The drums also stick out a good bit, hitting their captivating rhythms and color the background with an appropriate wooden heartbeat. They do especially well during the album’s more progressive tempo shifts where the drumming is the backbone of the music’s shifting energy.

How well these instruments sound on this album can be partially credited to its intelligent audio mixing; it feels like everything is just as loud as it should be and the drums, vocals, and guitars all leave very noticeable impacts on the listening experience. Though a smaller nitpick I have about this album is that the bass only really mimics what the lead guitar is doing and does not offer any more than to give it more low-frequency power. Hence the bass is not really a visible personality in the instruments department.

And like I said before when it comes to progressive metal I want to especially reward innovation and creativity, which is where this album can fall flat as it is not something that is super original or unique. The band plays their cards very safely when it comes to odd song structures (maybe besides the final track “C.S”). Because of this, the album can become very predictable. With this in mind, and combined with the 32-minute brevity of the album, I can’t imagine this is something that has a ton of replay value. What partially makes very complicated and grandiose albums appealing is that it takes time to be able to strip away its deep layers of accessibility giving it a longer life cycle. On the contrary, when someone listens to this album around two to three times, they may already have a good idea of everything it has to offer.

But Aurora really does not try to be something that can be seen as pretentious, which is one of its candid upsides. This is something that most prog metal fans can enjoy but can actually play it on the aux chord to their friends and family without being looked at with concerned and disappointed faces. What it offers, strong melodies all around, great mixing, beautiful choruses, and impactful instrumental energy make this album a keeper for sure.

Recommended tracks: Double Rainbow, My Human, The Sun 2021, Looking Glass, Dirt
Recommended for fans of: Dio, Trouble, Yngwie Malmsteen, Hammers of Misfortune
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Independent

Cave of Swimmers is:
– Guillermo Gonzalez (vocals, guitars, keyboard)
– Arturo Garcia (backing vocals, drums, percussion)

The post Review: Cave of Swimmers – Aurora appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Stoner Doom, Progressive Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Jonah
Country: UK
Release date: 19 June, 2020

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the June 2020 (part 2) Issue of The Progressive Subway]

The doom output this year has finally started to look pretty dang good, and it has left me a real happy camper. There have been a few doom albums in recent months that have absolutely knocked my socks off in the best, slowest way. Now I find myself listening to the self-titled album by Eyes Fly and wondering if they’ll successfully do the same.

For the most part, yes they do. This album is chock full of delicious riffs, very traditionally stoner styled clean vocals and some really nice snarled harshes. Add to this very audible and chunky bass grooves, and some drumming that feels like it came from a slightly less technical Brann Dailor and you’ve got a real spicy doom album on your hands. Each song has a lot of movements and it feels like a journey as you listen through the album.

The overall sound is really pleasant, not oppressively heavy but also not too light, there is a sonic middle-ground that is hit quite well here. The production is good enough, although the vocals sometime feel pushed very far back in the mix and I want the bass tone to be just a bit thicker. This is nitpicking though, and honestly I heartily enjoyed this release. I think by the end of its 51 minute runtime the sound gets a tad homogenous, but honestly I will absolutely continue listening to this one.

So is this the most original release of the year? Absolutely not, Eyes Fly wear their influences on their sleeves and do so proudly. But they do the bands that originated, and have been improving upon, this style quite proud with this album. If you’re looking for an abundance of riffs, some fun lead work, killer drumming, and really enjoyable bass and vocal performances this is the album for you, and I heartily recommend it.

Recommended tracks: Supernova Building, The Long Return, Coerce Control
Recommended for fans of: Khemmis, Mastodon, Spirit Adrift
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Independent

Eyes Fly is:
– Dean Gaylard (vocals)
– Pete Dunn (guitar)
– Gareth “Gaz” Jones (drums)
– Tom Prangley (bass)

The post Review: Eyes Fly – Eyes Fly appeared first on The Progressive Subway.