We Used to Cut the Grass, a jazz-fusion ensemble lead by Cody McCorry (of Thank You Scientist, Glass Garden, Slaughtersun, and many others), recently released their second full-length record, We Used to Cut the Grass #2. I had a chat with Cody where we discussed the new LP, how he manages to balance his many projects, touring with trash instruments, and his favorite fruit.

You’re wrapping up a tour with Thank You Scientist now aren’t you?

Yeah, Thursday, September 4th in Stroudsburg, PA, is our next show. We’re opening for Symphony X, which is going to be cool. It’s the first time we’re doing that. The drummer from Symphony X [Jason Rullo] was actually Kevin Grossman’s drum teacher growing up.

So between now and then, what are you busy with? Working on the new Thank You Scientist album? Or are you focused on your other bands?

Tom and I both have a ton going on right now. We’re doing a lot of jazz gigs together with our friend, Audra Mariel, who’s a vocalist. We’re both just gigging a lot, working around town, doing all kinds of things to keep the lights on. But yeah, Tom is working on the new Thank You Scientist album and we’re getting together intermittently. I’m working on the next We Used to Cut the Grass album which is already pretty much written—we’ve been performing some of it. But other than that, just kind of writing and recording and a lot of gigs: jazz gigs, cover gigs, whatever pays the bills you know?

You’re a busy guy. You’ve been with Thank You Scientist for a decade now and started touring with them again this summer, you joined and toured with The Number Twelve Looks Like You last year, and your bands Glass Garden and We Used to Cut the Grass both just released their second LPs. How do I stop doomscrolling and become a motivated, productive person like you? Is there a secret?

I mean, there’s always time for doomscrolling. I still get lost doing that stuff, too. But I think one of the things that helped me get organized in terms of composing a lot and managing different projects and balancing everything was this book called The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. It’s a twelve week series of exercises that you do to organize your creative life. During the pandemic, I worked through them with some friends. You write a lot and organize your thoughts and see what really matters to you and how to focus on it, while also balancing the things that pay your bills and all that.

It’s something that a lot of writers do, but it’s good for really any creative medium. I would say that before the pandemic, and before I went through that course, I was really disorganized and things were happening in a very oblong way. I would mostly work on Thank You Scientist and then maybe Karmic Juggernaut would put something out and I would devote all my time to that, and so on.

For example, We Used to Cut the Grass has been around for over a decade. We’ve actually been together for like thirteen or fourteen years. So the fact that we’re just putting out our second album now goes to show how unbalanced my life has been for a long time. Because this is the thing that I really love, and I love to write for it; it’s a house for all my compositions. But it really wasn’t until after 2020 that I got organized and was like “right, we’re doing this. We’re putting out records now.”

Do you ever feel burned out with all these different projects you have going on?

Yeah. It’s a constant struggle and a balancing act. And that’s why I had to do a twelve week course to help organize it all. There are definitely months where I feel like I have to devote a lot of time to other things. It’s really only the past few years that I was like “you know what, I’m going to start putting We Used to Cut the Grass toward the forefront”. Because writing music is the thing that I love the most. I love playing bass, I love playing really complicated music, and being in bands, but that is secondary to just creating new music. Especially hearing that new music for the first time with a large ensemble, or any ensemble really, that’s what excites me.

So I’m trying to put that first and put all the bass playing and being a side man in other people’s bands second. Even in roles where I’m co-composing. I’m trying to rebalance so that creating new music comes first and being a bass player for a whole host of different projects comes second. 

You play, you compose, you gig… you do all sorts of stuff related to music. Have you always been “all in”? Or was it a side gig for a little while where you had a day job that paid the bills?

Yeah, I worked in food service for close to ten years, and then I had an office job for two or three years. But around the time I joined Thank You Scientist in 2015, when I went on my first big tour with them, it became untenable to hold down a job and then also leave for three months at a time. So that’s when I took the leap and thought “alright, I’ve got to figure out how to make this music thing work”. So that’s when I started taking any gig I possibly could, whether it was covers or jazz gigs… I played a lot of jazz gigs. And a lot of gigs I really didn’t like. I had to play in a Top 40 country cover band for a little while, and, like, no shade to them, but I hated that. 

Do you do a lot of session work?

Totally. I actually love doing session work even more than just gigging. Because it’s more relaxed and you can try different things and you get a bigger variety of music. And frequently it’s original music. So I vastly prefer working on other people’s original music versus showing up and playing a cover gig. Because I like to help people make new stuff.

Do you have any advice for new musicians who are trying to decide whether to go all in or keep it as a side gig?

The only piece of advice I have is to stay on the bus and you’ll get where you’re going. It gets bleak sometimes, and the balance can be hard to maintain, and it can feel like you’re gonna be trapped in a certain type of musical life forever. But the longer you stick with it, things do get better, and your network expands, and opportunities you would never expect in a million years will appear. And maybe it’s not something you wanted or expected but you’ve got to roll with it. You just have to be open to the possibilities; and don’t give up.

Balance is another big idea from The Artist’s Way. You do have to pay your bills and the thing you love the most may not do that. So you have to strike a balance somehow.

Coming to your creative process, when you’re in a creative headspace, do you start more generally and then think specifically? Do you come up with a melody or a riff and think “that’s a Thank You Scientist riff” or “that’s more Homeless Apians”? Or do you work in reverse and get into the headspace of a particular project first, and then start composing?

I would say it’s probably the notes that come first. When I compose, I don’t frequently sit down and think “I’m going to write a song today”. I’ll sit down at the piano—as often as I can—and just improvise. And once I find something in that improvisation that’s a bit of an earworm or something that’s resonating with me, I’ll loop it a few times and it will gradually start to take shape out of this, like, improvisational mud.

And once there’s an idea that’s a little more clear, then I figure out what box to put it in. And lately that box is We Used to Cut the Grass, for the most part. But before, like for Terraformer and Stranger Heads and the Karmic Juggernaut stuff, if I was working on something proggy and complicated I’d be like “alright, this is Thank You Scientist”. If it was something more ethereal and moody, or something that I just knew would not work with vocals, I’d think “this is probably We Used to Cut the Grass”.

I’m sure it’s stressful, and busy, to have all those different projects going on at the same time. There are lots of artists who have their main gig and spin off side gigs in order to express themselves in different creative ways. But you already have those ready to go, you can just plug them in.

Yeah it’s a lot of different boxes. And they all take a lot of upkeep. It’s not easy to maintain the Thank You Scientist catalog; it’s a lot of material. And Glass Garden, too, that music isn’t super easy, either. But some months are busier for one band, another month will be busy for the other band, so it kind of balances out.

About Homeless Apians: you put out an EP with that group in 2018, Humour as a Defense Mechanism, and a few singles since then. That project seems to have been on the back burner for a while, but you did recently re-record “Shep’s Encounter” for We Used to Cut the Grass #2. I know the first We Used to Cut the Grass EP came out first, but do you see Homeless Apians as a sort of stepping stone to a more fully-realized We Used to Cut the Grass? Do you think you would work with a smaller, more experimental group again?

Homeless Apians was a super fun project, but it’s definitely on hiatus right now. Not for any specific reason other than that we’re all doing different things. I would say that the leader of Homeless Apians was really Matt Brown, and he has a new project called Heavy Mouth. I also play bass on that project; the rhythm section is kind of rotating. That band is really led by Matt Brown and Mike Rainone. And they’re repurposing some stuff that never got put out for Homeless Apians. So I would say that’s probably the next incarnation of that band.

Homeless Apians started out as a whole ethos that Matt Brown had where we, like, built all our instruments out of trash and recorded using only solar power. And we did all of that; it was really fun. We worked really hard on it for like three years. But that was right around the time that I was joining Thank You Scientist. So things really picked up with Thank You Scientist and it became difficult to put adequate energy into Homeless Apians.

So we did those two records, and it was really fun. But I think we got tired of the limitation of the trash instruments. Also, Matt wanted the band to be busier because he’s an amazing composer and writes a lot of cool music. But me and Kevin having scheduling discrepancies with touring and everything else was difficult.

So, yeah, Homeless Apians has sort of hung up the spurs for now. I don’t know, I mean, I still have the trash washtub in my basement. So maybe one day we’ll pick it back up. But Matt’s doing Heavy Mouth now.

And yeah, I’m glad that you noticed that “Shep’s Encounter” existed before this record.

Yeah, I was going through your back catalog and I was like “oh, this one’s familiar”.

That’s one of the oldest We Used to Cut the Grass songs. That was written when we started the band. It was just me and Seamus Leonhardt on drums, and that was We Used to Cut the Grass. We had some songs where it was just bass and drums, and we had some songs where it was just guitar and drums.

And we loved the band Hella. We were like, obsessed with Hella. So we wanted to do stuff that sounded like that. So I would just grab my guitar and put a bunch of distortion on it and we would try to write cool, complicated, guitar-and-drums music. But yeah, “Shep’s Encounter” was one of our first songs. And We Used to Cut the Grass never recorded it because we just never really got our shit together. So when Homeless Apians was recording, I was like, this is a chance to just get one of my compositions down on tape. So I did it with that band.

Kevin already knew the material because he had joined We Used to Cut the Grass at that point, and Matt and I were composing together a lot, so it made sense to do it then. And that recording was cool, with the trash instruments and everything, but years later, I was like, I really want to give this the full glow-up of, like, real instruments, and, you know, not recording in a field with solar panels. As fun as that was, it didn’t produce the highest fidelity recording, necessarily. So we decided to do it again.

Plus, I feel like Faye’s drumming, her whole ethos, really works well with the track because it’s also inspired by electronic music. It’s very rigid and almost feels programmed in a way.

Yeah, I saw the music video for Shep’s Encounter, her drumming is intense. Almost drum and bass style.

Yeah, she’s out of control. I feel like her drumming really brought it to life in a different way. It was super fun to revisit that.

Did you ever gig with the trash instruments? Were you worried, leaving them outside the stage door, that some garbage men would come and pick them up?

We gigged with that band a lot. We toured with Homeless Apians a few times, actually. They weren’t big tours; it would be us going to play in someone’s basement in North Carolina, or whatever, but yeah, we gigged with the trash instruments all the time and they would break all the time, and it was super annoying. That band was so much work, and we loved it, we really did. We believed in it. But it had a time and a place and we’re all working on different things now.

Coming back to Karmic Juggernaut, with Daimon taking over Sal’s role in Thank You Scientist, do you think that Karmic Juggernaut is also going to take a backseat for a while?

Karmic Juggernaut has always had this kind of on-and-off nature to it. In the list of bands we’ve been talking about – Thank You Scientist, Grass, Karmic, Homeless Apians… I’m pretty sure Karmic is the oldest. Karmic started when Kevin Grossman and James McCaffrey were in high school, and it was just the two of them and Randy Preston and they had a string of bass players until I joined. But that goes back to—I want to say, like—2010 or something.

They were gigging as Karmic Juggernaut and they would work really hard on it, put out an album, play a bunch of gigs, and then take a few years off. They also do other projects and have a lot of life stuff going on and so that project has always had this ebb and flow. But it’s been really constant since, like, 2010. So I’m sure Karmic Juggernaut’s going to do something because we’re all friends and we like hanging out together. And that’s more the vibe of that band. It’s run less like a business, in any kind of organized sense. Thank You Scientist is a well-oiled machine. Karmic Juggernaut is the opposite of whatever that is.

A poorly-oiled machine?

It’s just a bunch of friends getting together in a garage, having a good time, and then very slowly making a prog album. It’s very much like we’ll work on one song for three months and then just pivot and forget about that song. It happens very slowly because we just have fun together and it’s not super organized.

I have a few questions about specific songs on the new We Used to Cut the Grass record. Can we start with “who are Shep and Scully”? Because they’re mentioned in like half of the song titles, but not in any lyrics.

On We Used to Cut the Grass #1, we had a song called “Lay Down, Scully”. That song was originally about Agent Dana Scully on The X-Files, but then I adopted my dog and named her Scully, and so then it was obviously about Scully the dog. But before that, it was really about The X-Files. But now, obviously, all the future Scully songs that we do are going to be ballads about my dog and how much I love her.

Shep goes back to the beginning of the band, where we had these weird drum-and-bass, guitar-and-bass songs, with no idea what to call them because they’re just ethereal, instrumental music. It always feels kind of silly to slap a name on an instrumental song. So we decided to do it as a series of, like, “Shep’s this”, “Shep’s that”, just as a bit, to say “we don’t know what to call these”. So they’re all Shep’s. They’re just, like, Shep’s songs.

Rather than calling it “Composition in B minor” or something like that.

Yeah, or, you know, putting some long title on it. Which we now do, anyway.

But similar to how “Lay Down Scully” was about Agent Dana Scully and then later became about my dog, we had these Shep songs. My girlfriend at the time worked at a coffee shop in Convention Hall in Asbury Park and we found an injured mouse on the ground and got it into a shoebox and took it home for a couple weeks. We named that mouse Shep. It was present at a lot of the rehearsals when we were putting together some of these early Shep tunes, and that’s how those songs got their names.

All the Shep songs are old, too, I guess I should clarify that. Anything that’s a “Shep’s something” was probably written around 2013, 2014.

But they’ve just been recorded now for the first time?

Yeah, we’ve been a band for (getting close to) fifteen years, but we’re only just starting to put out records. So we have this back catalog of stuff that we’ve been playing live for a few years, shelved, worked on, replaced…

I think almost all of the Grass albums, even going forward, are going to have some stuff that was written like ten years ago that’s only just seeing the light of day now.

So you have enough material to release another album? Are you planning on releasing them in a quick cadence or are you going to drip feed it to people?

The idea is to do it quickly. The first album took five years and that was way too long, but we weren’t super organized about it. This latest album took three years, which is better, but we’re definitely going to do the next one faster than that. Especially since it’s all written, too. And there’s going to be a lot of new compositions on it, as well.

But I think I’ve gotten a lot more organized. Like, once we’re in the mixing process of one record, I can get started on writing the next one. For the first album, I was just working on the album and when the album came out, I really had nothing new for the second one. Whereas we continued to perform while we were mixing and mastering this one.

So we got together and it gave me the chance to workshop the new ideas, so that by the time this one actually came out, the new one’s already written. So I’m trying to have them kind of roll over each other like that going forward.

Another question about another track on the new album, “The Play Shep Wrote in ’92”, I heard that was partially recorded over Zoom? Can you tell us more about how that was coordinated?

Yeah it was almost 100% recorded over Zoom. When I was doing The Artist’s Way during Covid, one of the things that I discovered while I was going through these exercises was that I really wanted to write orchestral music. And that was something that I’d never gotten to do. I had mixed it into We Used to Cut the Grass a little bit by having brass and strings and orchestral elements, but I really wanted to take the plunge and just write a full orchestra piece.

So I applied to take a course at Juilliard’s night school and I studied orchestration there, and the culmination of that studying was writing the score for “The Play Shep Wrote in ’92”. I had two professors there who helped me review it and prepare the score. And another composer friend of mine helped me find this organization in Bulgaria that does remote orchestra recordings. Mostly for films and stuff like that. Projects where you gotta get it done really fast, and you have a limited budget.

So he gave me this organization’s info and I hit them up and they were super cool, super professional, and the whole thing was, like, how clean can we make this score so that we can get this recorded in an hour. Because they don’t look at it, they don’t practice. The way that that orchestra’s day works is that they get in the studio and nine to five, every hour they’re looking at someone else’s composition and just reading it and recording it. They haven’t seen the music before. So whether or not your thing is going to sound good after that hour is really dependent on how clean your chart is. You know, how clean the score is and how well the conductor can communicate it to them and… it was a lot, man. It was very stressful.

It was just like a one-hour-long Zoom call with the orchestra, and you’re just communicating with them through the chat box.

I was going to ask how you ended up working specifically with the Sofia Session Orchestra and not an orchestra in New Jersey or something like that.

I definitely had considered maybe trying a local orchestra or something like that. But my friend, Brian Lawlor—he’s a composer who lives out in Vienna now—he was like “I’ve done stuff with this orchestra, they’re super fast, they’re super professional, the recording quality is amazing”. They’re just set up to make tracks really fast and really efficiently. And honestly, the price… it was expensive, but it wasn’t insane, you know?

So you’d recommend them for anyone else looking for an orchestral recording?

Oh definitely, yeah. I think, more than likely, unless I get some kind of commission to do something with another orchestra, I’ll probably work with them again on whatever next orchestra thing I have to work on. I’d probably use them again, because they were great.

My next question is about “Hot Vegan Summer”. This track is co-credited to Trust Fund Ozu. I know that you’ve collaborated with lots of other artists—one that comes to mind is Ben Levin—in an unofficial capacity, but this is the first track of yours which was co-credited to a different artist. So is this a trend? Are you going to move towards more official collaborations with other bands?

Yeah, I think so. Faye and I co-wrote that song and we had a lot of fun. Obviously it’s a total, like, silly goof song, but we just wrote it together and had a lot of fun. But yeah, we’ll definitely do more collaborations in the future.

And actually, there’s a track on the new Glass Garden record that is a collaboration between We Used to Cut the Grass and Glass Garden. And we performed that song at a release show with Idris, the vocalist from Glass Garden, and it was super fun. That one’s called “Mapping the Cage”, and that one was a good time to put together. But yeah, we are trying to do more collaborations going forward.

I know you toured alongside Bent Knee, and I don’t know how much you have your finger on the pulse of r/progmetal, but there’s a jazz fusion contingent there that are huge Bent Knee and Thank You Scientist fans. I feel like they would have a meltdown if there were ever an official collaboration between Thank You Scientist and Bent Knee, even if it was just a one-off track.

Touring with them, to me, was probably the most fun Thank You Scientist ever had on the road. Because Ben Levin and Courtney and Jess and all those guys are just so much fun to be around. When Thank You Scientist was touring with Bent Knee it literally felt like summer camp for adults. We were just having a great time.

And both bands were in their prime at that point. We had just put out Terraformer and Bent Knee was putting out amazing stuff at that time. And they still are. I’m not sure what’s going on with Bent Knee. I know they’re still touring and they put out a record since Ben and Jess left the band, and that record was really cool that they did just as a quartet.

I think because Bent Knee is going through changes and Thank You Scientist is going through changes… I feel like if there was going to be a collab between those bands, it would have happened back then. I feel like the window for that has probably passed. But there will absolutely be more collaborative stuff, you know, with Ben Levin and Justice Cow and other people from Bent Knee, for sure, because we’re still tight with them. We still hang out with them and do gigs together.

Like, Justice Cow was at our release show [for #2], so Jess was there and performing. And Jess is coming down with her friend Kate’s band, Kit Orion, and they’re playing on Tuesday, with Faye [Trust Fund Ozu]. So we’re still doing gigs together all the time. It’s just that Bent Knee is going through some transformations and Ben and Jess aren’t in it anymore, and you know, Thank You Scientist has a new vocalist and is slowly putting together this new record, so I think both of those bands are figuring out what’s happening with themselves individually.

Are there any other artists in the Cody McCorry universe that we haven’t mentioned yet that you think our readers should check out?

[Ed. Note: Cody also sent us a list of recommended bands, which we’ve put at the end of this interview.]

Oh man, there’s a lot. Justice Cow is Jess’s band, Ben Levin’s putting out cool stuff all the time. The Ben Levin expanded universe is insane. I love the arc of how Ben Levin went from a music YouTuber to making these videos about the existential void with like, adorable 3D creatures. It’s really cool. He’s just one of a kind, man.

Yeah, his work with Adam Neely, too. I love those albums they put out together, where they wrote and recorded them in twenty-four hours.

Yeah, and Adam was just on his last record, which was really cool. Courtney Swain‘s doing amazing stuff, too. She did a collaboration with the Bluecoats, the marching band that Thank You Scientist collaborated with a while ago, which was incredible. They did some of her original stuff; they also did “Creep” by Radiohead, in a beautiful arrangement.

Your bands We Used to Cut the Grass and Thank You Scientist share many of the same members. In fact, I think We Used to Cut the Grass is a superset of Thank You Scientist. But are the group dynamics quite different between the two? Thank You Scientist feels like Tom’s band and the Grass like your band?

Yeah, I would say that’s accurate. Tom is in charge of Thank You Scientist, and that’s always gonna be a set, seven-piece band: trumpet, tenor sax, violin, guitar, drums, bass, vocals. Whereas We Used to Cut the Grass is a shape-shifting-type ensemble. It’s basically just, whoever is available to come do the gigs and whoever is available to come record. People have a lot of life stuff going on and people have different projects happening…

We used to record with Sam Greenfield, who was the former tenor player from Thank You Scientist, but he is super busy touring Europe and the world with his own solo project now. So he hasn’t played with We Used to Cut the Grass in quite a while. But he’s an example of how people come in and out of We Used to Cut the Grass very casually. We rarely have the same lineup from one gig to another. Even the shows we’re playing later this month are going to have a different set of people than the release show we just did.

I feel like a lot of people don’t realize how much Thank You Scientist’s lineup has shifted since it started.

Yeah, there’s been a lot of turnover. It’s a bigger deal for Thank You Scientist because that’s more of a “band”. There are seven people who are touring and making the record. Whereas with We Used to Cut the Grass, it’s an informal roster of musicians who come together to make music. And even on the record, Faye plays drums on some tracks, Kevin’s on other tracks, they’re both on a few tracks together. I play guitar on a few songs, Tom plays guitar on a few songs. It’s much more casual.

I actually didn’t realize until the music video was released that you were playing guitar on “Shep’s Encounter”. The guitar there sounds very Jonny Greenwood [of Radiohead].

In terms of inspirations, I’d probably put Jonny Greenwood at the top. Maybe Frank Zappa. But they’re real close, maybe neck and neck. They’re probably my two biggest musical inspirations.

Well you did a great job of channeling his spirit into that song, because that’s the first thing I thought of.

When we started We Used to Cut the Grass, there was a while where I was just ripping off Radiohead as much as I possibly could. I got so much of my tonal vocabulary from that band. I love Jonny’s compositions and everything, he’s just such a cool composer.

“Shep’s Encounter” is probably the most Radiohead-like We Used to Cut the Grass song. It makes sense because it’s from the beginning of the band, which was me getting out of high school and into college when I was listening to nothing but Radiohead.

Coming back to your creative process, do you feel like you have more creative freedom in the Grass than in Thank You Scientist?

We Used to Cut the Grass is a house for my compositions and Thank You Scientist has always been a collaborative compositional band. Which is not to downplay Tom’s role in it, because I would say he’s the primary composer. He brings in most of the ideas. But it’s a case-by-case thing, too. There would be whole songs that Sam Greenfield would bring in or I would bring in… so it’s very much a collaboration.

Another question about Thank You Scientist: I saw footage of you guys at Cruise to the Edge. It looks like you were having a blast. How’s Daimon settling in? Do you feel like he’s fully gelled with the band now?

Yeah, Daimon’s doing a great job. I have a lot of experience working with Daimon from Karmic Juggernaut and also from his previous projects, like Bone and Marrow. That’s his project with his wife, Jen. They toured with Homeless Apians and we used to travel together a lot. So I’ve been working with Daimon in some capacity or another for over a decade. And yeah, he’s doing a great job. He’s a great vocalist.

I mean, there’s no replacing Sal, you know? Like, that’s just not happening. So I think that idea, that we wouldn’t even want to “replace” Sal, means that the band has to go in a new direction now. Daimon’s going to do Daimon, and he’s not going to try to replace Sal.

A new direction vocally? Or a new direction instrumentally, as well?

That’s hard to say. So far, the new material for Thank You Scientist has largely been composed by Tom with Daimon and Tom writing the vocal parts together. And I think that’s probably going to be the pattern for most of the record. I mean, every Thank You Scientist record is different, so I imagine this one will be different, too.

Obviously, without Sal, it’s going to be super different. You can’t really downplay what a huge role Sal played in the band. He has such an iconic presence and voice that I really think is irreplaceable. So the band has no choice but to develop in a different direction.

Yeah, one of the two guys who had been there from the very beginning is gone.

Straight up the only two original members. And now Tom is the last remaining one. It was always his project. If there was no Tom, there would be no Thank You Scientist.

A previous coworker of mine said “teams are immutable”. You can add or lose team members, but then it’s a different team, with different dynamics. Do you feel like that’s the case for Thank You Scientist?

Oh, yeah. I’ve been through a lot of different changes with that band. I performed with one of the original lineups with Odin, Andrew, and Ellis on Stranger Heads. That was a set band with its own dynamics. And then the turnover for the Terraformer lineup, that band had its own dynamics. And then after Faye left, this version has its own. It’s a huge change when someone comes or goes from the band, but as long as Tom wants to keep doing it, it will keep going.

He’s the core thread throughout all the different iterations.

Yeah, similar to the way that We Used to Cut the Grass started. Tom could probably verify this, but I believe Thank You Scientist was originally an instrumental project. And I think Tom sang in a very early incarnation of the band. Similar to my band, it was just a place for him to work on his compositions. I don’t think it was really until they started touring and they put out Maps of Non-Existent Places that it was, like, “we are a seven-piece prog band”.

But yeah, I would say the future of Thank You Scientist is still somewhat nebulous, but we’re working on the album for sure.

Plague Accommodations feels like it was released yesterday, but it somehow came out four years ago already.

Yeah, time flies.

I know that you have one more tour date in September, but then you’re back to working on the new LP, right? Or you’re working on it right now?

We were working on it even before Sal left the band. Since Plague Accommodations, we’ve been working on new material. Some stuff is sticking, some isn’t. We’ve been performing one of the songs live a lot. So for sure that song will be on the record, no doubt.

The rest of it remains to be seen. We’ve been working on it, but Tom has a lot more stuff that he’s been working on with Daimon. And I think Tom has a bunch of compositions that he’s about to roll out, so it’s been less collaborative than it was on Terraformer.

Do you know when we can expect a new single or a new EP?

Oh man, I wish I did. Thank You Scientist is a very slow-moving machine. But I’m trying to focus on my work with We Used to Cut the Grass. Tom has also started a new fusion project with a rhythm section from the west coast: Zach Westfall and Ray Belli, a trio fusion band called Now This. And he’s been flying out there to work on that with them. So Tom’s got a lot of irons in the fire, too, but I think he’s super motivated to be doing the new Thank You Scientist record.

Daimon’s really excited about it, too. I think it’s gonna come together. But yeah, Thank You Scientist has always been a slow-moving machine.

So no Progressive Subway exclusive single announcement date?

I wish, but no. It’s hard to give any kind of estimate. I would say safely that there’s still a lot of work to do on that record. But Tom has written a lot of stuff for it already.

It felt like we were so close to a new LP when Plague Accommodations came out in 2021 and then, of course, Sal left and things went off the rails a bit.

Yeah, I think Plague Accommodations would have been an LP if it wasn’t for Covid and the world going to shit… and also so much life stuff happened, and people joining and leaving the band… I think Plague Accommodations would have been a full record.

This isn’t really a question, but please, please, please tour in Canada again. Have you ever been to Halifax? It’s a nice place.

Haven’t been to Halifax, but we have toured Canada quite a bit. We’ve done Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and some other places.

I saw you guys perform in Montreal, opening for Between the Buried and Me on their Parallax II Tour.

Yeah, that was a fun tour. Dan Briggs is the man. Dan and I still talk every once in a while.

It would be awesome if we could get a Tommy guest vocalist feature on the next record.

Yeah, Tommy’s awesome. And Dan has been doing some really cool stuff. He just did that record, Obverse, with Emily Hopkins, the harp player, and Chris Allison, the drummer for Plini. Dan always has some cool stuff cooking with somebody. He does a lot of collaborative stuff.

Anything that came out recently that you’re jamming to? Anything you think our readers should check out?

I really like the new Cocojoey record. Cocojoey’s an electronic, hyperpop producer and artist. They rip on the keyboard. They’re a classically trained keyboardist. And they make really cool hyperpop / electronic music and their live shows are insane. And Faye has been playing drums for them recently, on their most recent tours. Faye also opened the show as Trust Fund Ozu, and they have some shows this weekend. But yeah the new Cocojoey record is sick.

Obviously, I have to plug my partner Faye’s (Trust Fund Ozu’s) new record, Ozumaki. She always has like three albums ready to go at any given moment. She makes music so fast.

You guys are all so prolific, I don’t know how you do it.

Yeah, Faye especially, though. She’s constantly on her laptop making a new record. I think she has one that’s being mixed right now. Yeah, so Cocojoey, Trust Fund Ozu, for sure.

The new Cocojoey has gone over really well at The Progressive Subway. A lot of us are really digging it. We reviewed it when it came out. It’s probably one of my favorite releases of the past year or so.

It’s intense. It’s wild. Cocojoey, they went to college for composition, and it really shows because the themes of that record are very much intertwined and it’s a very symphonic-type album, even though it’s presented on all electronic instruments. Like, a theme from the first song comes back in the last song and it’s organized in a very classical kind of way. And yeah, I love it.

Anything else we should keep an eye out for?

Be on the lookout for more We Used to Cut the Grass stuff. We have two more live videos we’re going to be putting out. We’re doing shows in various configurations over the next few months. It’s a difficult thing to tour with this band and we’re figuring that out. Because, like, we’re not going to tour as a nine-piece band. That’s not happening. Even at the Thank You Scientist level, it’s hard to tour as a seven-piece band. So we’re going to be doing some tour dates as a trio.

It’s funny, because we’re taking this band that started as a duo, eventually grew to be a nine-piece monstrosity, and now, in order to travel, we have to shrink it back to what we started with, basically, and rearrange the music. Also, we’ll be playing a ton of new music. But we’re gonna be touring as a trio. We will be doing some tour dates as a large band, but only where that logistically makes sense, like in cities we’ve been to a bunch of times, and at clubs that know us, and stuff like that.

Sound guys are typically not very happy when you show up with two drum sets. So we’re going to stop doing that so much. I mean, we’re not going to stop doing that, but we’re going to stop doing it all the time.

Better than showing up with trash instruments, I guess?

Honestly, I think it’s worse. I think a sound guy would rather mic up a wash tub bass than to have to do changeover for two drum kits. Especially if you’re not even the headlining band, you know? But yeah, it’s logistically tough, so We Used to Cut the Grass will be touring as a trio. And just doing weekends and regional stuff.

Are the tour dates on the website now, or will they be posted shortly?

Well, not all of it’s been announced yet. Most of our promotion is through Instagram. But I would encourage people to join the mailing list. That’s the best place to keep up with the band. Because these days, you know, every post gets suppressed no matter what it is. The mailing list is the only way to avoid the algorithm completely.

[Ed. Note: you can sign up to the We Used to Cut the Grass mailing list at codymccorry.com]

Which is what we all want to do, really, isn’t it?

Yeah, ideally.

Very last question: what’s your favorite fruit?

I think it changes from year to year. Right now, I think it’s bananas.

That’s a good one. A classic.

In my house, it’s like a bit that we buy too many bananas. Like, we always have a mountain of bananas in the kitchen. And then it’s kind of a race to eat them before they all go rotten. Which is good, because it puts pressure on you to eat bananas. It’s a healthy cycle.

A similar theme to your musical endeavors, where you have so many things going on that you have to do all of them at all times.

Sort of, yeah. You find ways to put pressure on yourself to stay organized and get shit done.

And eat bananas.

And eat bananas.

—

Cody also sent The Progressive Subway his list of recommendations, repeated verbatim below

• Trust Fund Ozu (Hyperpop by Faye Fadem; I’m on bass)
• Slaughtersun (Progressive death composed by Ben Karas; I’m on bass)
• Civilians (FFO Joe Gullace)
• Flowmingos (FFO Alex Silver)
• Now This (Tom’s new fusion trio, they have an instagram but no recordings out yet)
• Justice Cow (Super raw heartwrenching alt rock by Jess formerly of Bent Knee! Ben Levin on the record as well)
• Fire-Toolz (Angel Marcloid, our mastering engineer, is an all-time musical genius)

New records I’ve been diggin’:

• STARS by Cocojoey
• Ozumaki by Trust Fund Ozu
• my dad died by Justice Cow
• Havdalah to the Blank Without by Ben Levin
• Bottle Grin by Kit Orion (Ben Levin and Jess Kion are on this record)
• The Common Task by Horse Lords
• About Ghosts by Mary Halvorson
• MOHINI DEY by Mohini Dey

Thank you again to Cody McCorry for the interview and make sure to check out the new LP We Used to Cut the Grass #2 on Bandcamp and wherever else good music is streamable!

Links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Album review

The post Interview: Cody McCorry (We Used to Cut the Grass) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Jazz Fusion, Jazz, Orchestral, Comedy (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Thank You Scientist, Clown Core, the Fallout series of games, Frank Zappa, Radiohead
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 18 July 2025

I like a fruit salad as much as the next guy. You’ve got your apples, your limequats, your pawpaws – all the good ones. But inevitably, someone will say “well, a tomato is technically a fruit, you should add that to your fruit salad”. Because we are weak-willed we acquiesce, but that is the primary and unforgivable misstep. Because from that point forward, the floodgates are open, and all varieties of avocado, olives, and peas come tumbling out. You like jalapeños in your fruit salad, huh? Do you, punk?

We Used to Cut the Grass is a band from New Jersey, led by Cody McCorry (of Thank You Scientist and others), who just released their sophomore effort, We Used to Cut the Grass #2, an album which would definitely argue that some pumpkin¹ belongs in that salad.² #2 spans a huge range of genres and moods, opening with a stately orchestral piece, ending on some smooth lounge jazz, with an uptempo post-apocalyptic radio bulletin about (an obviously fictitious) Buffalo Wild Wings’ chicken milk delivery service in between.

#2 continues multiple thematic elements from the Grass‘s debut album, #1, including the characters Shep and Scully,³ the radio station WKRM the Kream, and the traditional jazz group Captain Cream & the Forest Fires. #1 was a fairly straightforward jazz album which—by its conclusion—descended into a kind of silly chaos; #2 continues and expands on that silliness. The most obvious manifestation of this is in the lyrics, which discuss the ethical implications of adding oat crumbs to a vegan croissant, podcast charlatans radicalizing your family, and the aforementioned chicken milk delivery service.

Instrumentally, #2 shares much of its DNA with #1 and with Thank You Scientist, with the Grass being effectively a superset of TYS, sans a dedicated vocalist. If you’re looking for something to scratch that TYS itch while they recoup from the loss of their original vocalist, Salvatore Marrano,⁴ #2 might do the job. #2 features McCorry‘s impressive bass (particularly notable on the irreverent “Hot Vegan Summer”) and guitar playing (he does his best Jonny Greenwood impression on “Shep’s Encounter”), Joe Gullace‘s trumpet and Alex Blade Silver‘s saxophone (most prominently on “Lights, Camera, Ham!”), and Ben Karas‘ excellent string work, among others. As we’ve come to expect from the Greater Science Community,⁵ there is truly nothing negative that can be said about the instrumental performances on #2. These guys are the real deal.

The album opens on “The Play Shep Wrote in ’92”, a moving orchestral piece performed by the Sofia Session Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, which showcases McCorry‘s talent as a composer. The layering of gentle bells,⁶ followed by strings and horns which unfurl into a rolling landscape of brass and percussion builds to a dramatic tension and then settles into a quiet reprise and fades. This track is followed by McCorry‘s bass ushering in “The Comet Is Not Coming”,⁷ a heavy, energetic, sax-and-theremin-heavy jazz-rock fusion track which—like a later track, “The Hatman Cometh”—sounds like it could be an instrumental off of any TYS album. But the musical smorgasbord doesn’t end there…

“Lights, Camera, Ham!” is the meaty next course: a rolling jazztronica track, which alternates between busy horns-and-drums sections and airier electronic sections. The music video for the single is almost entirely footage of landscapes passing by, taken out the windows of trains and cars, the slowly-moving mountains in the background echoing the long notes held by the horns and quickly-moving foreground mirroring the repeated arpeggios of the other wind instruments and electric violin. This is definitely a lofi hip hop radio beat to relax/study to (that is: it’s a chill vibe), but does it belong on the same album as the traditional jazz of the closing tracks?

If “The Comet Is Not Coming” and “The Hatman Cometh” are the cantaloupe and watermelon, “The Play Shep Wrote in ’92” is the grapes, and “Lights, Camera, Ham!” is the tomato, then “Hot Vegan Summer” is the eggplant which really starts to shake up this fruit salad of an album. Trust Fund Ozu is co-credited on this track, delivering a rap verse about veganism. “Uh oh, everybody’s having fun at Buffalo Wild Wings” is sung over absolutely frenetic slap bass. I mean, I dig it, but I wonder if the Sofia Session Orchestra were ever expecting to appear on the same album as something like this.

When I joined The Progressive Subway not too long ago, I was ribbed for being someone who listens to all my tracks on shuffle; I don’t always listen to albums all the way through. With We Used to Cut the Grass #2, I get to have my salad and eat it too—no more bullying at The Subway, but also I get to listen to the most haphazard sequence of genres I think I’ve ever heard on a single album. We Used to Cut the Grass #2 is the jalapeño-pineapple-chickpea fruit salad of music, and I am here for it (in moderation), but I think it is probably an acquired taste. If the trend continues for #3, I’m looking forward to a pop country track next to gamelan next to dissonant death metal. Your move, Cody.

Recommended tracks: Lights, Camera, Ham!, Shep’s Encounter, Hot Vegan Summer
You may also like: Adam Neely & Ben Levin’s How I Loved My Cat, Trust Fund Ozu, mouse on the keys
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

We Used to Cut the Grass is a flexible ensemble which at times has included (alphabetically)

• AJ Merlino: vibraphone
• Alex Silver: tenor saxophone
• Ben Karas: violin, viola
• Cody McCorry: bass, guitar, keyboards, synthesizers, theremin, hand saw, guitar
• Daimon Alexandrius Santa Maria: disc jockey
• Faye Fadem: drums, percussion
• Ian Gray: trombone
• James McCaffrey III: guitar
• Jennifer DeVore: cello
• Joe Gullace: trumpet, “electronic valve instrument”
• Kevin Grossman: drums, percussion
• Matthew Trice: alto saxophone
• Sam Greenfield: tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, clarinet
• Seamus Leonhardt: drums
• Sean Marks: baritone saxophone
• Timothy Adedigba Ogunbiyi: fender rhodes
• Tom Monda: guitar

1. Which is not only a fruit, but also a berry. ︎
2. Either before or after asking you to join Keatonics, the cult of Michael Keaton. ︎
3. Check out my accompanying interview with Cody, where he explains where these characters come from and what they mean (or don’t) in the context of the album. ︎
4. Daimon Alexandrius, of Karmic Juggernaut, has been named as Sal’s replacement. ︎
5. At The Subway, we’ve started referring to a group of bands which feature one or more of Cody McCorry, Ben Karas, Tom Monda, and co. as the Greater Science Community. This group includes Thank You Scientist, Slaughtersun, Glass Garden, We Used to Cut the Grass, Karmic Juggernaut, Civilians, and many more. ︎
6. What sounds like bells here is actually a celeste, as can be seen in the music video for this track. ︎
7. The Comet Is Coming ︎

The post Review: We Used to Cut the Grass – We Used to Cut the Grass #2 appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Jazz pop, alternative hip-hop (clean vocals, rap)
Recommended for fans of: Thank You Scientist, daoud
Country: United States (NJ)
Release date: 13 June 2025

Being trapped here in the vast below-ground network of the Progressive Subway has its perks. Sure, sometimes there are rats, slime, and tyrannic brow-beatings to write our album reviews faster¹, but there’s also the priceless opportunity to exchange and deepen my love of the underground music scene by sharing recommendations with my fellow authors. When my colleague Dylan told me to check out Glass Garden a few months ago, their experimental jazz pop sound quickly sold me on the band’s debut album. With several current and former members of Thank You Scientist² on the band’s core and guest roster, the two bands are unmistakably part of the same family tree. 

However, you’ll notice one key difference about four seconds into the opening track of Desperate Little Messages, the band’s second album: namely, the rapping. Though many instrumental snippets on this album would fit right in on a TYS track, there’s far too much originality and eclecticism on display here to make “Thank You Scientist plus rap” a worthy comparison. Glass Garden’s sound is more restrained, and the absence of guitar in the main lineup³ or any real heaviness means that we’re miles away from any pesky debates about whether this is metal. Into this negative space, a rich instrumental array blooms luxuriantly into the forefront. Piano-leaning keyboard tones occasionally skew electronic, and bass, violin, and brass root a danceable groove. The two vocalists—one singer, one rapper—gambol over, under, and around the instrumentations, never quite overlapping one another.

The resulting energy is sprightly and spunky, but frontman John Kadian’s lyrics and vocal delivery don’t carry the same gravitas that I’d expect from a heavier proggy band like TYS or Coheed and Cambria. Rather, Kadian’s singing is youthful, guileless. “Crown of the Seafaring” and “Lighthouse” are prime examples: even as the lyrics are sometimes oblique and non-literal, it feels like Kadian could be sending us a late-night voice memo, talking through some loss or win or just trying to pin down the shape of a feeling before it slips away. While his vocals could benefit from more power at some points, the overall effect is charming. 

And of course, there’s the rapping. Idris Hoffman’s style is rhythmic and wordy but still casual and conversational, as it strays close to spoken word poetry. Some of the literality of a rapper like Aesop Rock is present, not exactly breaking the fourth wall but lightly knocking against it with a twinkle in the eye. In the midst of a flurry of f-bombs on “Making Space”, Hoffman lampshades the barrage by throwing in the words “expletive expletive expletive”. On tracks like “Kind Hand”, the instrumentals pull back to and allow the rap verses to expand and resonate, while elsewhere, Hoffman fades behind the instrumental cacophony. In the outro of “Wax & Wane”, the feeling of flooding overwhelm is more prominent than any individual lyric. Both vocalists tread a careful line that keeps their capricious whimsy from turning into a cudgel of zaniness. Some moments playfully colour outside the lines, as with the glitching distortion on Hoffman’s voice in “Will-of-Whispers” that evokes clipping.’s Dead Channel Sky, or Kadian’s delivery of his own hazy rap verse in “Wax & Wane”. But crucially, it’s never wacky enough to diminish the emotional sincerity. 

Not to be outdone by the dual vocalists, Glass Garden’s rhythm section round out the band’s core lineup with nuanced, apposite deliveries. Cody McCorry’s bass is deliciously prominent throughout the mix, capturing a sprightly yet effortless energy: those bass lines hustle underneath the action on tracks like “Wax & Wane”. Rather than destabilizing the rhythmic foundation, though, they pair elegantly with Faye Fadem’s drumming, which is comparatively understated where it needs to be while still seizing a few chances to dazzle (“Lighthouse”).

As on Glass Garden’s debut self-titled album, Desperate Little Messages also features a host of guest musicians. This includes a brass section of trumpet, sax, and trombone, whose luscious arrangements help to nudge the jazz dial up a couple notches. But in a key evolution from 2021’s Glass Garden, all the instruments are integrated seamlessly. Occasionally, this coalescence strays towards sameness; the final stretch of the album’s closer “Lighthouse”, in particular, feel more like a gentle fade than a final statement. On the whole the cohesion works, thanks to a lack of interludes or abrupt transitions. Ultimately, the direction is clear, and the ride is smooth. 

In “Sleepy, Hollow”, Idris Hoffman tells us: “I’m currently being wowed by how I got from here to there to here to where I want to be”. For their part, Glass Garden is exactly where I want them to be, as Desperate Little Messages is at once vulnerable and self-assured, with performances that are as musically tight as they are emotionally open. If Glass Garden can continue to iterate on their fresh, surprising sound, I’ll be on the platform waiting to embark on whatever journey they have in store for us next.

Recommended tracks: Making Space, Sleepy, Hollow, Will-of-Whispers
You may also like: The Psycodelics, Hard Maybe
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Spotify | Instagram

Label: independent

Glass Garden is:
– John Kadian (vocals, keyboard)
– Idris Hoffman (vocals)
– Faye Fadem (drums)
– Cody McCorry (bass)
With guests:
– Joey Gullace (trumpet)
– Patrick Higgins (saxophone)
– Ian Gray (trombone)
– Ben Karas (violin)
– Jacob Lawson (violin)
– Jenn Fantaccione (viola, cello)
– Angel Marcloid (guitar)

1. Just kidding! (blinks twice) ︎
2. One of my favourite bands, full stop. ︎
3. Angel Marcloid is credited as a guest on guitar. ︎

The post Review: Glass Garden – Desperate Little Messages appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Ingrid Kao

Style: Video Game Music, Progressive Rock, Jazz Rock (mostly instrumental, clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Koji Kondo, Danimal Cannon, Powerglove, Mitch Murder, Kavinsky, Timecop 1983
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 7 April 2025

In James Cameron’s 1994 blockbuster True Lies, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays mild-mannered computer salesman Harry Tasker who, unbeknownst to his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and teenage daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku), is actually a highly-trained spy for the US government. While the movie plays its deceptions for largely comedic value, I always thought discovering such a secret about a loved one would be anything but funny. Well, in 2025 thought became reality for me.

That’s right. My father, who for the past three decades I believed to be a similarly mild-mannered branch manager, has been lying to my family. Imagine my shock—nay, my horror as I was innocently perusing the tunnels of The Progressive Subway in search of review-worthy material and discovered CRT Dreams by none other than… Chuck Salamone. I confronted him that very evening, demanding to know how he could have lied to us for so long.

The audacity.

All jokes aside, the artist behind CRT Dreams bears no actual familial relations to our particular clan. Besides, I’ve never written my dad’s name in bold, and don’t plan to start. Chuck Salamone (Amigos, Amigos!), the man, hails from New Jersey; a multi-instrumentalist and co-owner of His & Hers Music, where he teaches private music education alongside his wife, Diane Aragona. As Chuck Salamone, the artist, he has produced two LPs. In Plain Sight, released in 2024, was a prog rock-focused platter of original tunes featuring nearly 20 different musicians combining elements of jazz, hip-hop, and flecks of metal. Imagine “royalty-free prog-rock,” and you’re close to understanding the listening experience. Competent musicians, toothless production, saccharine vocals. Honestly, some of it would have fit perfectly on a mid-00s Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Fitting, then, that for this year’s CRT Dreams, Salamone has turned his sights toward video game compositions—specifically, with the goal of creating new interpretations and arrangements. From classics like HyperZone, Sonic 2, Final Fantasy VII, and Yoshi’s Island, to more current entries like Final Fantasy XV and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there’s a healthy reach to the selections. And I can’t lie, making a funk medley out of a bunch of Sonic 2 tracks (“Off the Hilltop”)—with a Hammond organ, too—is kinda sick.

However, there’s a central problem that undoes almost every composition on CRT Dreams, whether that’s the latin jazz intermezzo smashup of “Yo, Fungo Kass,” “Fifteenth Sunset’s” classical introspection, or the Koji Kondo worship of lofi-jazzhop medley “Koji Gets Lost for Awhile.” Part of what makes video game music click is its context; how it connects to and informs the player of the characters, story, world, etc. It’s not to say video game compositions can’t stand on their own (I own several of Michiru Yamane’s Castlevania soundtracks, not to mention Doom 2016’s), but more often than not most video game OSTs feel diminished when separated from their host medium. Couple that with a similarly tepid production job as In Plain Sight (individual instruments come through clear but there’s no real dynamics), and CRT Dreams quickly begins to fade into the background like so much disposable muzak. It’s clearly designed to be a celebration of video game music, but this lack of aural force leaves the album with an impact akin to listening to retail radio.

There’s also a novelty factor to consider, too. While listening, I was reminded of similar video game or soundtrack-focused acts like Danimal Cannon and Powerglove, or even “joke” bands like Austrian Death Machine or Dethklok. They’re fun for a time, but eventually the novelty runs out and I’m veering back towards more “serious”¹ music. And even if video game music is your jam, the languid tempos and soft production make it easy to suggest sticking to the originals.

I hate to pen such a harsh review of Chuck Salamone’s latest work, because he’s my dad well-intentioned and promotes the positivity of music. Wafer-thin production aside, I think the compositions are (mostly) fun across the board: just listen to the electronic bop of “HyperGround.” Or “Off the Hilltop’s” smooth vibes and sultry saxophone. The truest misstep is closer “Pollyambria”—a mashup of “Pollyanna” and Coheed & Cambria that’s so saccharine-sweet as to be artificial, with thin vocals and milquetoast prog riffage.

Video game music absolutely deserves to be celebrated, and I’ll always applaud those spreading the love. But, the worst thing music can do to me is feel disposable, and sadly that’s the overriding sensation I’ve had while listening to CRT Dreams. Maybe if the production was more lively, less tucked into the recesses, then perhaps I’d be keen on some New Game Plus runs. But considering how quickly it all fades from memory even while listening, I just don’t think this is a game I’m going to spend more quarters on.

Recommended tracks: Off the Hilltop, HyperGround
You may also like: Ian Cowell, Ro Panuganti / Game Raga, RRGEMS15, Feras Arrabi, Lost in Lavender Town
Final verdict: 4.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram | RateYourMusic

Label: Independent

Chuck Salamone is:
– Chuck Salamone (all instruments/arrangements, vocals)

1. I like Battle Beast and Sabaton, okay? It’s not that serious. ︎

The post Review: Chuck Salamone – CRT Dreams appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 22 March 2025

Cooking up a band name is tougher than it seems—there are about as many artists on Metal Archives as there are words in the English language, so if you’re going for a snappy one-word moniker, you’re either gonna have to scour the Old Church Slavonic dictionary or fight it out to the death with a bunch of other gangly nerds. On Bandcamp alone, there are 59 artists named Atlas, and on Metal Archives, you can find 32 Legions, 30 Requiems, 27 Nemesises (Nemeses?), and more¹. Take your pick, I guess, cause with numbers like that, at least one of them is bound to suit your tastes. This brings us to Descension, the latest release from today’s band of discussion, Citadel—no, not the symphonic black metal band from France, it’s the—not the melodic power metal band from Russia, either. They’re the—it’s not the album Citadel by Ne Oblivi–will you just let me finish?

This Citadel was built in New Jersey and indulges in the grandiloquent prog-death excess of bands like Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Dessiderium, and the like, making light work of aggressive drumming, technical-yet-melodic riffage, and grand, cinematic song structures. Descension tries its hand at several compositional frameworks: “Veil” and “A Shadow In the Mist” are all about iteration on a central motif whereas “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death” and “Crescent Dissentient” sometimes reprise melodies but are more interested in operating as a free-flowing stream of consciousness. “Under the Primrose” and “Downwards Ever” sit somewhere in the middle of these approaches, cycling through a set of established ideas across their runtimes while occasionally diverting into asides. Quiet interludes and outros are featured throughout to soften the blow of Descension’s expansive prog death assaults, utilizing any number of classical instruments from piano to flute to cello.

A swirling acoustic arpeggio is the artery of opener “Veil”, as the motif is hypnotically iterated upon in both loud and quiet moments. The ideas the track explores are a direct consequence of its establishing melody and act as the inevitable returning point after a detour. When this formula is followed, Descension‘s relatively lengthy compositions are quite easy to follow, and their success rides significantly on Citadel‘s ability to recontextualize ideas in engaging ways. “Veil” succeeds the most in this respect, showcasing some of Descension‘s most clever reimaginings and even ending with a satisfyingly plaintive acoustic outro. The first half of “A Shadow In the Mist” retraces “Veil” to an almost shocking degree, coming across more as “Veil 2” than as its own piece at first blush: a similar arpeggio centralizes the track, a similar blast beat section is used in the first verse, and it follows a similar overall progression. I’m not particularly mad because it retraces one of Descension‘s better tracks and near its midpoint it manages to carve out its own identity, but its presentation is without a doubt jarring.

Descension‘s results are much more mixed on its ‘stream-of-consciousness’ tracks: Citadel sometimes struggle to maintain focus when not homed in on a melodic nexus. “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death” in particular features many commanding high-energy riffs, opening on a blistering assault of tremolo picks and furious blasting, but when the guitars pull back, the track turns into a series of listenable but ultimately uninteresting ideas. This lack of focus even extends to the mastering, particularly in the verses: the extended dissonant chords that overlay the verses’ instrumentation are a production nightmare as they swallow up all the attention and make it difficult to focus on anything happening underneath them. Some tweaks in the production and a bit less going on in these verses would significantly help to give more direction to the great ideas that pepper “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death”. “Downwards Ever” is one of the more chaotic tracks, distinguishing itself with fast-paced melodeath riffs, flamenco guitar work, and even a discordant horn solo in its final half. The horns are brought back again, albeit much more restrained, in its quieter outro. It’s kind of a mess compositionally, as many of the ideas the track throws out don’t quite fit together nicely, but it’s admittedly a fun mess.

Citadel try their hand at a slew of compositional approaches on Descension, coalescing in a decent but flawed package. When tracks are sharply attuned to a single motif, they glide effortlessly across their runtime, but the more chaotic pieces struggle to maintain focus or get buried under mastering woes. A balance between more intense and more languid ideas adds a pleasant variety to Descension, and with a bit more polish and maturity, Citadel’s compositions can fully encompass the cinematic grandeur they strive towards.

Recommended tracks: Veil, Downwards Ever
You may also like: Dessiderium, Disillusion, Ubiquity, Piah Mater, Luna’s Call, Amiensus
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Independent

Citadel is:
– Ameer Aljallad (guitars, vocals, drums)
– Owen Deland (bass)
– Noah Romeo (guitars, synthesizers)

1. Numbers gathered from this very helpful Invisible Oranges article. Long live the singular Necrogay! ︎

The post Review: Citadel – Descension appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Cover art by Trevor Niemann

Style: Progressive rock, progressive metal, shred (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: The Aristocrats, Steve Vai, Buckethead, Sons of Apollo
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 24 January 2025

Though his latest record may be entitled “Returns!”, it’s hard to say that fretless guitar wizard Ron “Bumblefoot¹” Thal has really gone anywhere. Best known for his stint as lead guitarist for Guns n’ Roses during their Chinese Democracy release and subsequent tour, Bumblefoot has had quite the prolific career before and after, releasing numerous solo albums, being one of the better parts of prog supergroups Sons of Apollo and Whom Gods Destroy², and even serving a brief stint as the frontman for Asia of all bands. But, of course, Thal means the title as a reference to his return to releasing instrumental shred music, which he has largely stayed away from since his early Shrapnel Records days in the ’90s. While much of that subgenre is often maligned for being a series of pointless exercises in onanism that spurt out a million notes without a single one sticking in the listener’s brain, Thal has a unique advantage in coming back to it thirty years older and wiser, carrying decades’ worth of experience crafting actual songs around his guitar wizardry in a variety of genres. But can he utilize that growth in musicality to craft something vibrant and interesting, or is this new offering simply a return to old habits?

The answer, much like the music itself, is complicated. True, eight-minute opener “Simon in Space” doesn’t put its best foot forward, with its abrupt in medias res opening salvo of chaotic, directionless odd meter djent riffs backed by synths that can only be described as “flatulent”. After a bit, though, it opens up into something more spacious and restrained, with two separate melodic refrains and a generally sparser backdrop that gives his frankly extraterrestrial flights of sweeping and tapping fancy room to breathe. And, for the most part, this is a pattern that holds throughout the rest of the album. Though there’s certainly enough impossibly intricate technique on offer here to send your average guitar nerd into reflexive stank-face mode, tracks like “Planetary Lockdown”, “The Thread”, and especially the soaringly tuneful “Cintaku” balance their virtuosity with a clear focus on melodic songwriting and a refreshingly tasteful approach to phrasing that makes even their most fleet-fretted passages go down smooth. Of course, not every creative decision lands—”Monstruoso” features the unwelcome return of the farty djent with an additional dubstep twist—but on the whole, this is some top-shelf shred that even the uninitiated can enjoy.

Still, Bumblefoot is clearly aware of how samey a set of solely speedy shredding can become, no matter how tastefully done, so there’s an obvious effort to spice things up by giving each song its own unique identity. One of the ways Thal keeps things interesting is by inviting a series of guest musicians, including some serious heavyweights like Steve Vai, Guthrie Govan, and even renowned astrophysicist Brian May. While all three are welcome features, Govan definitely has the most substantial presence on his track, and listening to him trading mind-bending solos back and forth with Thal on “Anveshana” is a treat—just two incredibly skilled musicians throwing ideas at each other and clearly having a blast doing so. 

Beyond guest features, though, there’s also the inclusion of wildly diverse sound palettes from a variety of genres, with Thal seemingly tossing in anything that he thought would sound cool in various little bits of musical gimmickry. There’s a square-dance country tune (“Moonshine Hootenanny”), a bit of classical (“Chopin Waltz Op64 No2”), and an obligatory Spanish guitar interlude (“Andalusia”), among others. His commitment to each musical bit, however, is oddly inconsistent. Sometimes, as in “Moonshine Hootenanny”, he seems to lose interest in the chosen genre midway through, wandering off into a series of decidedly un-country prog metal solo passages before abruptly realizing “Oh, whoops, I’m supposed to be doing that yeehaw shit right now” and jumping right back into it as if nothing happened. Meanwhile, in “Funeral March” (featuring Ben Karas of Thank You Scientist³ on violin), Bumblefoot runs into the opposite problem—the mournful atmosphere cries out for a weeping, Gilmour-esque electric guitar climax, but Thal chooses this moment of all moments to hold back on the fireworks. 

And yet there are times more often than not when his genre exploration strikes a strong balance between fitting into his chosen sound while still adding the distinct Bumblefoot style. His take on Chopin works in a great deal of variety in its arrangement, adapting the melody from a calm, well-mannered classical guitar waltz to Malmsteen-esque neoclassical virtuosity to even some Latin-esque rhythms. The loose, freewheeling “Griggstown Crossing”, meanwhile, offers a killer fretless talkbox solo that takes on the sound of Southern rock in a way that only Ron Thal truly can. In fact, his expert use of the fretless half of his signature double-neck guitar offers Thal a distinct niche among the shred landscape, providing an idiosyncratically liquid and free-flowing sound that stands out from a sea of milquetoast contemporaries.

On the whole, while …Returns! might not land every wild creative swing it throws, it remains an eminently enjoyable and undeniably impressive trip through the quirky mind of one of the most underappreciated guitar slingers out there right now. For the shred faithful, it’s an absolute slam dunk of a recommend, with enough arcane techniques and brain-breakingly complex ascensions up the fretboard to inspire months of fine-toothed analysis. Even for those who don’t know their sweeps from their taps, though, it’s just a fun, dizzying ride of soaring melodies, delightful genre dabbling, and some damn good guitar. It may have taken a while, but the artist known as Bumblefoot has indeed returned, and I hope he sticks around a bit longer this time.

Recommended tracks: Chopin Waltz Op64 No2, Cintaku, Anveshana, Griggstown Crossing
You may also like: Whom Gods Destroy, Consider the Source, Marbin
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Bumblefoot is:
– Ron Thal (double neck guitar, bass, synths)

With:
Kyle Hughes (drums, percussion)
Steve Vai (guitar solo on “Monstruoso”)
Brian May (guitar solo on “Once in Forever”)
Jerry Gaskill (drums on “Once in Forever”)
Derek Sherinian (keyboards on “Once in Forever”)
Guthrie Govan (guitar solos on “Anveshana”)
Ben Karas (violin on “Funeral March”)

1. Named after a foot infection common in chickens. Yes, really. ︎
2. The thing with this, of course, is that every member of those groups was “one of the better parts”. It was the whole that left something to be desired. ︎
3. Fun fact: TYS founder Tom Monda received guitar lessons from Bumblefoot as a teenager, which would heavily influence his own fretless technique. ︎

The post Review: Bumblefoot – …Returns! appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal, post-black metal, avant-garde black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dødheimsgard, David Maxim Micic, Violet Cold, Deafheaven, Thy Catafalque
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 3 January 2025

Inspired by the blossoming avant-garde black metal scene of the mid aughts, Steve Wiener’s solo project Am I in Trouble? is an ambitious undertaking. Debut album Spectrum is wonderfully explorative, and while technically a solo project, Am I in Trouble? deeply emphasizes collaboration. Armed with a so-stupid-it’s-camp band name, a troupe of collaborators, a love of strange black metal, and whatever talents he has himself—producing, writing, and playing—is Spectrum a worthy love-letter and successor to his avant influences? 

Everything about Spectrum positively bursts with vibrant color, from the popping prismatically linear cover art to the hued titling convention of the tracks to the dynamic, bright songwriting closer in tone to David Maxim Micic than to traditional black metal. All throughout Spectrum, Wiener and co. spill paint across a canvas through a variety of genres. Bookends “Yellow” and “Green” are cheery chamber music, orchestrated and pretty with Ember Belladonna’s flute adding whimsical flair. The inside of the album takes on a more sage blackgaze timbre, redolent of Alcest or Deafheaven but perhaps a touch brighter. Vocally, Spectrum is flexible; I love the laid-back blackgaze cleans but the harshes provide needed counterpoint to the melodic riffage, especially Alex Loach’s guest highs on “Black.”

Just as the vocal attack is varied, the record is eclectic but never zany, and the tracks all sound distinct—largely because of the color titling paradigm. Several tracks fit their hue to a tee. “Green” is verdant, an elegant chamber orchestration that’s clean and fresh; “Red” is the heaviest track, bloody and blasty with a second half full of standout riffs; and the instrumental “Blue” is cool with sleek bass licks and tasteful instrudjental-esque solos. Even though the other tracks don’t fit their colors as much in my mind, they’re still mighty enjoyable. For instance, “Pink” has a hail of drums underneath its main blackgaze-y riff, and while the track isn’t sinister per se, it’s far more violent than I’d expect for the color; “Black,” on the other hand, isn’t heavy enough for darkness incarnate. The color concept is undoubtedly a fun take on the genre, regardless. 

Wiener composes with admirable skill on Am I in Trouble’s debut, balancing his own contributions with guest performers and several different complex moods to fit each color. Except for a weirdly long pause during “Red,” all the transitions go smoothly even with hard-to-pull-off-convincingly changes like the acoustic guitar and flute straight into the blackgaze in “White”—the composition never feels janky. At a short thirty-one minutes, I would love to hear Wiener flex his compositional skills with a final ten minute epic, but nothing is wrong with Spectrum as is, even if the release fails to reach the dizzying heights it could.

Self declaring Spectrum to be a nostalgic love-letter to mid 2000s avant-black, Wiener is selling himself short; Spectrum progresses black metal without seeming derivative, and while Am I in Trouble? nominally is deeply influenced by a specific scene, the music here is distinct and fresh even twenty years removed from his favorite albums’ release dates. Wiener keeps his influences close to the vest in his own writing to his benefit, and I can safely say Wiener isn’t in trouble.

Recommended tracks: White, Pink, Blue, Green
You may also like: Arcturus, Grey Aura, Sigh, Cicada the Burrower, Constellatia
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: independent

Am I in Trouble? is:
– Steve Wiener (everything)

The post Review: Am I in Trouble? – Spectrum appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Technical Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Progressive Death Metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: At The Gates, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Ne Obliviscaris, Thank You Scientist
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 10 January 2025

Horns sound in the distance.

The first rays of the early morning sun stream through the crenels of the battlements as your feet slide through the verdant grass, wet with dew. The winter air is crisp and cool as you approach, your breath forming wispy clouds that float to the heavens.

One horn calls out, much closer now.

You read “Dei gratia”—”by the grace of God”—emblazoned on the crest affixed to the imposing wall, above the portico of crimson and gold, and you thank God that you have arrived safely at this place. Suddenly, you feel as though you’re being watched. The outline of a dark, stout creature enters your peripheral vision. It slowly glides toward you.

“Ey! Get tha fuck out tha road!”

A middle-aged man with male-pattern baldness, wearing a mustard-stained tank top, gestures at you out the driver’s side window of his Honda CR-V. You awkwardly shuffle up onto the sidewalk.

“Fuckin jabron.” He spits and his tires squeal as he drives out of the Medieval Times parking lot.

Lyndhurst, New Jersey is where you find yourself on this winter morning, and it’s where Slaughtersun found themselves not too long ago, recording their debut EP Black Marrow.

Just as a replica 11th century castle in urban New Jersey may seem out of place, less than ten miles as the crow flies from the Empire State Building, an electric violin may not be the first instrument you associate with technical death metal. But in just 24 brutal minutes, Black Marrow shows that, dei gratia, Slaughtersun can use whatever instruments they want to shred your face off.

A side project of two of the members of progressive rock / jazz fusion group Thank You Scientist, as well as the vocalist of Cranial Damage and the drummer from Tombstoner, Slaughtersun play a progressive-leaning form of technical death metal, captured in this first collection of work, Black Marrow. This EP is composed of six tracks: a mood-setting introduction, a live recording at the end, and four full-length songs in the middle. These four core tracks are arranged chronologically, in the order in which they were released as singles. As Black Marrow progresses, and we move forward in time, nearly every element of the band’s sound matures and improves.

The vocals, for example, have some awkward moments on “Fall of the Firmament”, trying to shove too many syllables into certain phrases and at times poorly enunciating: “we must return to the dark” ends up sounding more like “we must return to the dork” (a scream, rather than a growl, might have helped make that wide vowel sound). As Black Marrow progresses, there are fewer (if any) of these slips, and the vocals also gain much more presence on the low end of the register, which is missing in earlier tracks.

The bass and violin really develop over these twenty minutes, as well: on “Fall of the Firmament”, the strings are mostly in lockstep with each other rhythmically as well as with the drums, save for an ascending bass riff, a fifteen-second violin solo, and the more freeform outro. But by the second track, more fills and longer phrases are already making their way onto the album. On the last track, “Black Marrow”, we can hear long, complex, walking basslines and prominent violin riffs that should be enough to entice any Thank You Scientist fan to check out this band.

The complexity of the arrangements is the aspect of this album which has most obviously improved from beginning to end. The first two tracks have a nearly identical verse-chorus arrangement, mainly in 4/4, with a downtempo bridge. By the second half of the album, odd time signatures (5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 10/8, and 12/8) and more complex song structures move this band from solidly “technical death metal” territory into “progressive death metal”. As that transition has happened chronologically, presumably we can expect more progressive work from this band in the future.

Finally, the drums are rock-solid throughout, impeccably scaffolding every song. The drummer never misses an opportunity for a fill, providing just the right amount of texture, perfectly balancing the skins and the cymbals. The double (triple?) bass pedalling on “Black Marrow” is surgical in its precision, but pummelling, like an avalanche triggered by a howitzer. Seriously impressive work.

Musicians often—but not always—show growth from one album to the next, exploring new lyrical ideas, new song structures, and new instrumentation. Much less often do you hear such growth within the runtime of a single EP. Slaughtersun have poured a foundation of solid thrash / death metal and begun to layer progressive rock sensibilities on top. If these four tracks are any indication of their trajectory, their first LP should be a seriously impressive work of progressive death metal. I’m eagerly anticipating it.

Recommended tracks: Black Marrow, Ready Cell Awaits
You may also like: Cranial Damage, Demilich, Gorguts
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Frost Gauntlet Music Publishing – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Slaughtersun is:
– Justin Hillman (vocals)
– Ben Karas (violin)
– Cody McCorry (bass)
– Jason Quinones (drums)

The post Review: Slaughtersun – Black Marrow appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive rock, progressive metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Thank You Scientist, Bent Knee, The Mars Volta, King Crimson
Country: United States (New Jersey)
Release date: 01 August 2024

In Junji Ito’s classic manga The Enigma of Amigara Fault, the titular fault spontaneously appears, dotted with thousands of holes in the exact size and shape of human beings. For reasons unknown, certain onlookers became inexorably compelled to crawl into these holes, crying out, “This is my hole! It was made for me!” I bring this up because, upon seeing the promo copy for The War Yaks‘ debut album, a similar sensation came over me. Offering a “huge focus on melodies and hooks, following the principle that complexity can still be catchy”, a “genre-blending tour of love and loss”, and, of course, “a generous dollop of saxophone”—it’s as if they reached into my brain and wrote an album specifically for my music taste. What I’m trying to say is that Bifurcate is my hole, and all that’s left to do is to see how I look when I come out the other side.

Fittingly, as it turns out, said hole is a far deeper and twistier tunnel than its enticing entrance may indicate. I often kick these reviews off by examining the intro track in depth, or some other tune that acts as a thesis statement for the record’s overall sound. However, Bifurcate is such a willfully esoteric, sonically diverse work that picking just one representative track would be a fool’s errand. There are still musical throughlines here, though, such as an overall approach to songwriting that favors carefully composed, interweaving melodic threads of vocals, guitars, woodwinds and piano over virtuosic bursts of notes and scales (with a couple exceptions). Despite this, there’s still an overall impression of shock and awe, largely stemming from the barrage of twists and turns in the composition. The band revels in sudden seismic shifts in rhythm and orchestration, melodies that zigzag slightly off course at the last moment, and while of course there are choruses and repeated motifs, they seldom play anything the exact same way twice.

The performances are generally strong across the board, with the clearest standout being frontwoman and bandleader Nat Rusciani, who is an absolute gem of a vocalist. Blessed with a frankly killer range, she pulls off everything from foreboding contralto intonations (“Quiet Omens”) to brassy, lounge-singer belts (“The Lengths”) to glass-shattering operatic highs (“Bifurcate”) with verve and panache, plus a heavy dose of vibrato. The other primary member, saxophonist Anthony Warga, often wields his instrument like a second guitar, pulling out intricately assembled riffs and leads aplenty alongside guitarist Esteban Mercado and flutist Kristina Bacich. After adding in Rusciani’s keyboard work, the Yaks have an abundance of instruments ready to provide melodies, countermelodies, and counter-countermelodies; thus Jesse Shaw’s bass wisely stays in the background, underpinning the music without ever shoving its way into the already-crowded spotlight.

Of the eight tracks on offer here, some feel musically and thematically closer than others, forming natural pairs of sorts. First up are the softer songs, opener “Codriver” and “Regression to the Mean”. Both are driven primarily by Rusciani’s piano and vocals, and though they eventually bring in enough guitar to rock out in spots, the overall vibe is smooth and melodic. Lyrically, they’re also the record’s two love songs, and match their music to their themes excellently; “Codriver” rests on a calming, odd-meter ostinato to reflect the relaxing, centering presence of a devoted partner amidst strife, while “Regression” is a bit more jumpy and unsettled as the narrator tries to settle into a new relationship while struggling with past traumas. Then there’s “Shroom Song” and “Train”, which represent the absolute opposite end of the spectrum: bonkers, white-knuckle journeys that hurl the listener through a dozen funhouse-mirror chambers filled with refracted shards of sound. These tracks were composed by Warga instead of Rusciani, and it’s clear that he has a looser, more boundary-breaking style, particularly evident in the crazed free-jazz sax freakout in “Train” that feels straight out of early King Crimson. Even the lyrics are different, forsaking the personal subject matter of the rest of the album in favor of sentient fungal networks and psychedelic train rides through spacetime. 

The other four tracks are a bit harder to categorize, though they generally have a darker, more serious tone and focus on topics of abuse and mental health. It is here where the most powerful, emotional climaxes of the record are found, and when they hit, they hit. Take, say, the ending of “Footprints”, in which Rusciani’s righteous outrage is matched by the band breathlessly accelerating and accelerating until the riffs feel like they’re about to shake themselves apart. Or the simply drop-dead gorgeous buildup in “The Lengths” from soft piano to crashing guitars to a vocal performance specifically engineered to rip my heart straight out of my chest every goddamn time.

Of course, despite its many dizzying peaks, the album isn’t perfect all the way through. For a band that professes their dedication to hooks this loudly, some of the melodies here are a bit obtuse, sometimes adding a few extra words or landing on an odd note. This is particularly true of Warga’s songs; his more adventurous style tends to produce long, run-on verses that jump awkwardly all over the scale. Honestly it’s times like these I almost wish Rusciani were a weaker vocalist so she could veto lines like this on the grounds of being impossible to sing. Then there’s the production, which comes across as a bit amateurish in spots. The softer portions of the album sound lovely, but once the distorted guitars and synths muscle their way in, they start feeling somewhat peaky and overbearing, particularly in the closing title track. There’s also the issue of the programmed drums, which are noticeably undermixed and plasticky-sounding. Having a human drummer, or at least a bit more volume in the mix, would have helped greatly in making the heavier moments stick. Also, while Rusciani has incredible cleans, her brief growl passages at the end of “Shroom Song” and “Bifurcate” feel tacked-on, as though she included them more to say that she did than to actually serve the song. I get that she likes Opeth and all, but Åkerfeldt she ain’t.

Minor gripes notwithstanding, Bifurcate is a fascinating, deeply distinctive debut, a messy yet brilliant shotgun blast of raw talent that, with a tad more spit and polish, would have easily locked itself into top-ten status for the year. It is a twisted, kaleidoscopic journey-and-a-half through breathtaking beauty, anguish, and everything in between that has, indeed, left me a different person at the other side of it, and I thoroughly recommend it to any fan of music that is emotionally intense and tunefully weird. DRR DRR, y’all.

Recommended tracks: Codriver, The Lengths, Train, Footprints
You may also like: We broke the Weather, Eunuchs, Cabinets of Curiosity
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

The War Yaks are:
– Nat Rusciani (vocals, keyboards, production)
– Anthony Warga (saxophone)
– Esteban Mercado (guitar)
– Jesse Shaw (bass)
– Kristina Bacich (flute)

The post Review: The War Yaks – Bifurcate appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: prog metal, shred guitar, power metal (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Symphony X, Cacophony, Jason Becker, Yngwie Malmsteen, Galneryus, Kiko Loureiro
Country: United States-NJ
Release date: April 1994

Although prog metal was born with Fates Warning and Watchtower in the mid-80s, the genre reached its classic golden age in the 90s, especially for ye olde power/prog à la Dream Theater, Shadow Gallery, and perhaps most exemplary of all, Symphony X (SX). Marrying European power metal’s orchestration with the hefty riffs of USPM and a heavy sprinkle of proggy magic, the New Jersey band excelled as one of the premier progressive metal acts. Despite the new generation of prog metal fans not knowing their ancestors well—unfortunately yet understandably, it’s been nearly a decade since SX has last released—the 90s were a special time for a burgeoning scene, and SX will always be among the GOATs. 

However, in the decade since an SX release, founding member and guitarist Michael Romeo remained busy, releasing a pair of H.G. Wells-inspired concept albums, The War of the WorldsPts. 1+2. Stylistically similar to SX but with a sci-fi edge, they were awesome releases, yet like me, if you found out Pt. 1 wasn’t Romeo’s solo debut, you’d likely be surprised. Pre-SX, the legend himself released The Dark Chapter in 1994 with other founding SX member Michael Pinella on keys, sneaking by many of even the most devoted prog metal fans.

Returning to the 80s when Michael Romeo was but a teen, the shredders were all the rage with the Yngwie’s and Becker’s of the world ruling the roost. These guys clearly influenced Romeo’s playing as anybody who has heard SX can attest to: sweeping arpeggios, light-speed scales, and baroque swagger. The Dark Chapter is everything you’d expect from a shredder’s debut, particularly with now knowing what the guy would go on to do. But if we transport ourselves back to 1994, the mix of Romeo’s inhuman guitar skills with his flourishes of baroque prog and chunky power metal riffs must have been simultaneously slightly outdated—shred ruled the bygone 80s—and an awesome premonition of what was to come only months later with the release of Symphony X. 

If one thing is for sure, Michael Romeo can play. I’m surprised his guitar didn’t burst into flame at several points during The Dark Chapter. He leans into excess far more than on any SX release, several of the riffs sounding as chaotically masturbatory as early Dragonforce. “Cask of Amontillado” is both catchy but absurdly fast with more notes than a Galneryus song, and there’s even noticeable bass which is unusual for an album such as this, plodding away with nice tonal counterpoint to the fiery guitar. The break to melodicism at just past 2:00 is classic SX, delicate yet triumphant. Throughout The Dark Chapter, Romeo uses techniques that will become familiar staples of SX songs, and it’s fun to look back and see what The Dark Chapter will lead to. On tracks like “Psychotic Episode” and “The Premature Burial,” there are looped arpeggios and screaming harmonics while tracks like “Cask of Amontillado” and “Paganini – Concerto in B Minor” utilize all the classical orchestrations and heart-stopping pace switches of Romeo’s future band. 

The Dark Chapter certainly isn’t perfect—it is a souped up demo after all—but it’s a pleasure to listen to with more amazing solos than I can count (I only have so many fingers and toes). It’s a tad repetitive with the sheer quantity of quality shred without vocals to spice it up, but the twists and turns of progressive songwriting are present to keep me locked in. Overall, I’d put The Dark Chapter right in between Jason Becker and Symphony X stylistically, but it’s certainly the earliest step toward power/prog perfection: we’re only one Russell Allen shy of an all-time classic.

Recommended tracks: Cask of Amontillado, Masque of the Red Death, Noit al Ever
You may also like: Shadow Gallery, First Fragment, Mind’s Mirrors

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

Michael Romeo is:
– Michael Romeo (everything)
– Michael Pinnella (keyboards track 8)

The post Lost in Time: Michael Romeo – The Dark Chapter appeared first on The Progressive Subway.