Style: post-rock, modern classical, electronica (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Caspian, We Lost the Sea
Review by: Andy
Country: France
Release date: 25 April 2025

Before the end of my first listen of Bruit ≤’s debut album The Machine Is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again, I knew it was to be my favorite post-rock album of all time. With remarkable orchestration helping to build rollicking, earth-shattering crescendos in each of its four tracks, The Machine Is Burning essentially solved post-rock’s “boring until the peak of the crescendo” problem. Bruit ≤ perfected the art of the crescendo as their greatest forebears had—Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor the obvious influences—but the plaintive moments before and after the buildups had the delicate strings, breakbeat influences, and even tasteful spoken word. The Machine Is Burning isn’t a flawless record, and neither is the followup The Age of Ephemerality—I dislike the spoken word snippets in “Data” and find the Orwell quote closing out the album to be a bit cliche… but that’s it. The Age of Ephemerality is two tiny spoken blemishes from being a perfect record.

For Bruit ≤, everything revolves around the crescendo. Tracks start slow—the string quartet of “Technoslavery / Vandalism,” the tape noises and strings of “Ephemeral,” the resplendent horns of “The Intoxication of Power”—and over the course of each track’s runtime, the songs build and build ever upwards like the Babylonians. Unlike the Tower of Babel, Bruit ≤ have succeeded at reaching God. Often the buildups start slow with the band adding layers to a motif they’ve begun. “Data” glides forward underneath Julien Aoufi’s breakbeat drumming performance—soon bubbling synths and strings become the focal point. Then spoken word and rolling guitars join the fray. Soon the simple breakbeat motif is an unstoppable sonic tidal wave.

In any Bruit ≤ track, the quartet reaches the climax with about three to five minutes left, a cathartic explosion of sound: pounding drumming, post-metal-y guitar riffs, wailing trem-picked lead guitar, strings and synths, and, new for The Age of Ephemerality, a full electric guitar ensemble that was recorded in the resonant space of Gesu’s Church. The peak is overwhelming, causing my chest to feel like it’s going to explode out of my body—I often forget to breathe during a Bruit ≤ track. Achieving a more extreme release is surely impossible, I think to myself each time Bruit ≤ reaches the apex of a crescendo, but while the wall of sound can hardly grow, they somehow maintain the roaring intensity for minutes at a time, an impossible display of sonic power and songwriting prowess. The Age of Ephemerality is rapturous, orgasmic, euphoric, and sublime.

The throughline of The Age of Ephemerality is an underlying tension between electronic and acoustic. Theophile Antolinos begins the album with his “tape soundscapes” which quickly give way to lush cello, viola, and violin. The soundscape the quartet creates is often abrasive and industrial, pummeling walls of sound accomplished through digital and electric means. Yet The Age of Ephemerality is an incredibly human record, the heavy parts marred by stellar orchestration and the softer parts heart-wrenching and honeyed (see the intro of “Technoslavery / Vandalism”). Bruit ≤ write music that captures intrinsically sublime human experiences: looking at a great work of art, experiencing isolation in grand natural vistas, the frisson of first listening to a Mahler symphony. My heart, body, soul, and mind are all nourished by The Age of Ephemerality as its unrestrained climaxes strike right between my ribs. 

Bookending the moments of extreme maximalism on The Age of Ephemerality, the moments of simple placidity could be easily overlooked, but that would be a grave error as they hold gravitas that even the Godly climaxes miss: they act as a reminder there is beauty in everyday simplicity, not just the sublime experiences that Bruit ≤ peddle. These moments are a spiritual understanding unveiled throughout the course of the album. At the end of “Technoslavery / Vandalism,” a men’s choir hums a pulchritudinous Gregorian melody; the horns which triumphantly open “The Intoxication of Power” are bold, yes, but the role they play is simple and elegant, a stately start to the album’s emotional and literal finale. Don’t forget the smooth melody that begins the track in favor of the reprised version underneath the pummeling drums and ensemble of guitars—they are equally valuable for Bruit ≤’s songwriting and message. 

The Age of Ephemerality is crystal clear, produced and performed beautifully, yet its an extremely raw album at its heart, an outpouring of emotion and rage. Every note is filled with intentionality, and the work’s unimaginably dramatic peaks and valleys not only match (or supplant) the best of post-rock but of music in general.

Recommended tracks: Progress / Regress, Technoslavery / Vandalism, The Intoxication of Power
You may also like: Galya Bisengalieva, Sunyata, Osvaldo Golijov
Final verdict: 9.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Theophile Antolinos: Guitars, banjo, tape soundscape.
Julien Aoufi: Drums.
Luc Blanchot: Cello, programming, synth
Clément Libes: Bass, Baritone guitars, Bass VI, violin, viola, organ, piano, modular synth, programming
With:
Trumpet by Guillaume Horgue
French Horn by Benoît Hui
Trombonne by Igor Ławrynowicz
Bass trombone by Erwan Maureau

The post Review: Bruit ≤ – The Age of Ephemerality appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: dissonant death metal, black metal, electronica (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ulcerate, Gorguts, Morbid Angel, Gojira
Country: Arizona, United States
Release date: 28 February 2025

In my mind, the main feature (other than quality) that separates one dissonant death metal release from another is headiness. Some bands like Replicant are content to stay low to the earth, punishing any who come near with raw brutality, while others leave their earthly constraints and instead push dissodeath towards the cerebral; see Pyrrhon and Scarcity. In the middle, you get bands like Ulcerate and Convulsing that infuse elements from across the spectrum into their sound to create music equally confounding as it is crushing, and this alluring middle ground is where Light Dweller’s The Subjugate falls.

Stylistically, Light Dweller employs a shade of dissonant death metal on The Subjugate most similar to that of Convulsing’s masterful Perdurance from last year. Uniquely contrapuntal riffs weave in and upon themselves as the interminable drumming blasts away atop a bed of cacophonous atmospherics, but—like all the dissodeath I love—the album maintains a devotion to the mighty riff. From the harmonious guitar work of the opening track that sounds as though entirely different songs are playing from the left and right channels, to the tasteful ebb and flow of the breakdowns on songs like “Cessation of Time” and the Tool-like percussive riffage on tracks like “Fracturing Light” and “Passing Through the Veil,” there’s no shortage of unique and creative riffs on The Subjugate. In general, the riffs here feel more groove oriented, as if Morbid Angel’s sound never stopped evolving, and when Alex Haddad (Dessiderium, Arkaik) lends the album his tasteful lead work, the songs take on an even more technical edge. Even as the tracks venture into the realms of electronica with synthesized drum beats, haunting flute, and brainy synths, there’s always a killer riff waiting in the wings to bring it all back home to a familiar death metal base.

The balance between The Subjugate’s degenerate and cerebral qualities is what allows the album to truly shine. In fact, The Subjugate achieves an emulsification of metal subgenres here more successfully than any death metal act in recent memory, and I find my attention only broken by the unfortunately common additions of electronic drumming. There are certainly gaps in my electronic knowledge that keep me from fully contextualizing the ideas the album puts forth, but the manner in which the electronic drums never seemed to settle into a steady beat made each moment they appeared feel somewhat meandering, as if lacking a goal to push towards. There are a few moments like the spliced buildup of the intro of “Fracturing Light” that push the album towards a more cogent fusion of death metal and electronica, but these moments don’t outshine my distaste for the electronic drums as a whole.

Blessedly, the somewhat poor integration of the electronic elements into The Subjugate’s sound allows me to look past them and simply enjoy the dissodeath that the album has on offer, and it is really stellar stuff. I constantly find myself headbanging to every track, and by the time this rather lean album finishes up, I instantly feel the urge to spin it again, chasing those giddy glimpses into the album’s unfathomable riffage. As a fellow acolyte of the mighty riff, it truly warms my heart to see a band taking the riff heritage of bands like MorbidAngel—or Gojira for a more modern reference—and pushing it into the future. One inverted power chord and pick scrape at a time, Light Dweller, along with bands like Convulsing, Replicant, and Wormhole, are pushing metal riffing into the future, and there’s no telling where they may end up. Thankfully, we have The Subjugate as a stepping stone to help us along the way.

Recommended tracks: Adrift the Expanding Nothingness, Fracturing Light, Cessation of Time
You may also like: Convulsing, Warforged, Replicant, Sacrificial Vein, Luminous Vault, Artificial Brain
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Unorthodox Emanations of Avantgarde Music – Bandcamp | Facebook

Light Dweller is:
– Cameron Boesch (everything)

The post Review: Light Dweller – The Subjugate appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Electronic, Drum & Bass, Psytrance (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Shpongle, Ozric Tentacles, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Autechre, Jacob Collier
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 31 January 2025

Sevish is your favourite music nerd’s favourite music nerd. For about fifteen years, Sevish—given name Sean Archibald—has been creating electronic music of various genres (drum & bass, glitch, atmospheric, jungle, psytrance, hip hop…) but with a twist: xenharmonics.

Connoisseurs of progressive or experimental music are generally familiar with the concept of microtonality, the practice of breaking down the familiar 12-tone scale¹ into smaller intervals. Instead of 12 (logarithmically) equally spaced notes from 440Hz to 880Hz, you might have 19, or 31, or 96. Splitting the familiar 12 tones into more tones is “microtonality”, but this is just one aspect of xenharmonics: you might have fewer than 12 tones, or they might be spaced equally, or your scale might not be based on the octave (the 2:1 frequency ratio), or any number of other arrangements. Combine these unusual scales with unusual time signatures and you can get some truly alien music—this is exactly what Archibald has been doing for nearly two decades now.

Sevish‘s latest album, One With The Fractal,² uses fully electronic instrumentation to explore equal-temperament microtonal scales with 5, 22, 26, and 31 pitches, as well as rational-tuning scales and one based on the golden ratio. The songwriting process for Archibald is one of discovery, rather than one of invention; the liner notes for One With The Fractal read like a scientist’s laboratory journal and the resulting album sounds like a collection of experimental results.³ At times, Archibald himself seems surprised by these results, stating “[t]he whole thing just sounds very alien to me. The world doesn’t have much music that sounds like this.”

One With The Fractal opens on the lively “This Track”, which has an uptempo bass-heavy section that starts the album off on an energetic footing. If you’re a fan of the bouncier numbers, “Soundways” is a jazzy, drum-focused track with a similar intensity and walking riffs that show how disorienting a 26-tone scale can be. “False Awakening” is another heavy track, and the closest this album gets to progressive metal—featuring distorted, simulated guitars, and a minimal 4-note scale. Finally, a warning: do not listen to “Triple Trouble” under the influence—you will have a bad time. Its eerie horn-like effects, throbbing bass, and dissonant chiming will send you to the bad place.

Sevish is best known for their 2017 track “Gleam”, which is catchy and busy and can be appreciated passively, without serious focus. In contrast, One With The Fractal demands your attention. Like a postmodern painting, you must let it marinate in your brain for a while. Archibald doesn’t discuss the “meaning” behind the tracks on this album in the liner notes (preferring to leave their interpretation to the listener), but mentions under “The Dreamer” that “[t]hings were feeling very dreamy that day when I was making it. I guess a lot of my tracks are about dreaming.” One With The Fractal is an album which would fit just as easily onto a bedtime Spotify playlist as it would into a rave; there’s a lot to unpack.

Despite One With The Fractal‘s dizzying breadth of scales and styles, it can be, at times, repetitive. There is a short phrase in “This Track” which sounds like a metal ball bouncing on a metal surface that repeats twice in the first four minutes (fine) and then seventeen more times in the last forty-five seconds (absolutely grating). The next track, “The Dreamer”, starts with about a minute of an intense, churning bassline before moving into a Daft Punk-esque section, with glitchy splashes that sound like a digitized slap bass track; it then moves back into that churning bassline, and stays there for a solid two minutes. This is fine if you’re a fan of trance music, but if you are looking for something more dynamic, this ain’t it.

One With The Fractal is an unusual album; despite its consistent instrumentation, it is far from monolithic in style. It is an ambitious collection of sonic experiments, each of which must be observed, analyzed, and reviewed before any conclusions can be reached. Sevish has done the experimental electronic community a great service in uncovering these results, and we at The Progressive Subway will watch their career with great interest.

Recommended tracks: False Awakening, Soundways, Durationplex
You may also like: Brendan Byrnes, Easley Blackwood, phonon, The Mercury Tree
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website

Label: independent

Sevish is:
– Sean Archibald (everything)

1. aka. 12-tone equal temperament or 12-TET (aka. 12-ET), aka. 12 equal divisions of the octave (2:1 frequency) or 12-EDO, 12-ED2 ︎
2. Not to be confused with the Friends episode “The One With The Fractal”, where Joey gets lost in a timeless void of infinite dimensionality. ︎
3.  In fact, the word “experiment” appears multiple times in the liner notes. ︎

The post Review: Sevish – One With The Fractal appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive metal, alternative metal, djent, electropop (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: HAKEN LEPROUS CALIGULA’S HORSE (also VOLA, Sleep Token, and Voyager)
Country: Norway
Release date: 21 June 2024

[Editor’s note: while this band has exceeded our 20k monthly listener cap on Spotify, they were only at 9k when we picked them up so blame Sam’s lazy ass for not writing faster.]

The /r/progmetal subreddit is a funny (by that I mean frustrating) place. Recommendation thread after recommendation thread will fly by and what do you see? HAKEN, LEPROUS, CALIGULA’S HORSE. Really, the context doesn’t matter. Want something heavy but dynamic like Opeth? Caligula’s Horse is heavy and dynamic! Want something with epic power metal vibes like Symphony X or Pagan’s Mind? Caligula’s Horse is pretty epic! Want something avant-garde and/or boundary pushing? Well have you considered the innovators in CALIGULA’S FUCKING HORSE?! After a while the community started joking that Jim Grey secretly paid Redditors to shill his band. Of course, each of these threads also has a Haken and a Leprous suggestion in there somewhere even if completely irrelevant to what was requested. What’s the point of this intro you ask? Well, the subject of today’s review, Rendezvous Point, fit right in with this crowd. YES, THEIR MUSIC IS ACTUALLY LIKE CALIGULA’S. FUCKING. HORSE.

To Rendezvous Point’s credit, my intro was a tad misplaced, because a) they actually share Baard Kolstad with Leprous on drums instead of any C-Horse-powered musician, and b) I just wanted to vent. Musically though, Dream Chaser is smooth and djenty, grooving as slickly as someone who subjects their scalp to half a liter of hair product each day abetted by a production as clean as the house of someone suffering from mysophobia. Add a lick of Euro/electro-pop paint for which I am too much of a musical hermit to know the specifics of, and you more or less have the recipe for Dream Chaser.

The biggest standout on Dream Chaser is Geirmund Hansen, whose vocal performance is striking even among pop singers. His sultry tone is admittedly not quite my vibe, but it fits the aesthetic well, and he shows impressive stylistic variety, ranging from emotional vulnerability shown on the opener “Don’t Look Up” and its Piano Break of Sadness, to the floating ethereal melodies that supplement the gentle tapping of “Fireflies,” to the explosiveness of “Oslo Syndrome” or the chorus of “The Tormented”—a song which also plays around with some nifty vocoder effects—to even just casual well-constructed vocal melodies. The only vocal quality he doesn’t really display that I would have liked to see is some grit and/or rawness, but that is more of a preference gripe than anything wrong with Gerimund’s singing, and likely wouldn’t have fit the album’s sanitized aesthetic anyway (note to self: stop expecting everything to be power metal ya dumbass).

Instrumentally, Rendezvous Point keep things generally interesting from a prog perspective despite the poppy song structures. Having Baard Kolstad on drums is of course as close to a guarantee for success you’ll get in that department, but on Dream Chaser it is rather Petter Hallaråker on guitars and Nicolay Svennæs on keys whom I find most impressive, layering on an impeccable sense of rhythmicality and sound design. Baard on the other hand plays mostly supportive and keeps his fills almost solely in service of the riffs and synth melodies. I do miss him showing off a little, but his laid back approach allows sonic space for the other instruments to dance around his grooves with independent rhythmic lines, turning Dream Chaser into a real polyrhythmic extravaganza.

But as tight as Rendezvous Point are, poppy song structures like this can only get you so far on a prog blog. Dream Chaser is only thirty-seven minutes spread out over eight songs, showing little in way of ambitious songwriting. None of these songs are bad, but I rarely find myself amazed at any point either. Only “Still Water” goes for an epic approach to its writing with its increasingly grandiose cinematic synths that culminate in triumphant strings and thunderous, slowed down drumming that almost feels like doom metal. Moreover, the slick djenty grooves feel jarringly uniform in tempo until the final two songs where they slow down a little. I could have used a higher tempo track or two and the slower, doomy vibes of “Still Water” spread out more evenly across the album. 

Although poppy djent-prog has been relatively played out over the years, Rendezvous Point’s playing and songwriting skills put them at the forefront of the movement. Most of my qualms with Dream Chaser are inherent to the style they play in, which I imagine those who are already a fan of this style won’t have any issues with. Nevertheless, I would be very curious to see what Rendezvous Point would come up with should they ever decide to try something more ambitious like Caligula’s Horse did with Charcoal Grace earlier in the year so they can truly win over the fans of HAKEN LEPROUS CALIGULA’S HORSE.

Recommended tracks: Don’t Look Up, Presence, Still Water
You may also like: Ihlo, Ions, Temic, Effuse
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Long Branch Records – Bandcamp | Facebook

Rendezvous Point is:
– Geirmund Hansen (vocals)
– Petter Hallaråker (guitars)
– Nicolay Tangen Svennæs (keyboards)
– Gunn-Hilde Erstad (bass)
– Baard Kolstad (drums)

The post Review: Rendezvous Point – Dream Chaser appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Leprous, Opeth, Devin Townsend
Review by: Zach
Country: Illinois, United States
Release date: 10 November, 2023

Dissona are, without a doubt, one of the most underrated bands in the prog-sphere. a perfect storm of genre-blending, prog technicality, and eclectic theatricality. Each release of theirs has seen a steady increase of growth, with 2016’s Paleopneumatic being a favorite of mine. Then, as with all my favorite things (looking at you, GRRM, Rothfuss, and Togashi), complete silence. An opus seemed to be right around the corner with how good the last effort was. What happened?

One can only imagine my sheer joy in hearing not only was there a new Dissona right around the corner, but it was a concept album based off my favorite movie of all time, Blade Runner. Then, my subsequent, crushing disappointment when it was only a three track EP. Better than nothing, I suppose?

The good news is, all three tracks on here are good! ‘The Prodigal Son’ is a strong opener, giving us the electronic-infused sections Dissona are well known for before giving way to a Persefone-esque riff. Dissona have clearly been practicing, because everyone sounds better than ever here. The lyrics deserve a special shout out here. Upon hearing the iconic quote  “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe” sung in the typical Dissona way, I was practically in heaven. The lyrics here deserve a special shout out, seamlessly incorporating quotes from both the original movie and its sequel, 2049, without feeling like a forced reference.

Each track is from the point of view of a different character in the Blade Runner universe, and I could tell who it was from the title alone. ‘The Prodigal Son’ captures Roy Batty’s existential and contemplative nature, mixed with a hint of mania from the riffs. ‘Renaissance’ portrays the frantic nature of Deckard’s choice to run away with his Replicant lover, Rachael, with the climactic shout of “Take this fever!/You great deceiver!”  and “I curse this dream!” being one of the top musical moments of the year for me. ‘Renaissance’ really highlights everything I love about Dissona, and it’s so clear that they love Blade Runner as much as me. The rapid assault of riffs atop soaring vocals, all building to that incredible ending. Their brand of electronic infused metal fits so perfectly with the world of cyberpunk Los Angeles. Alas, the EP was over before I knew it. 

‘Skinjob’ is quite possibly the perfect interlude track, except it’s the end of the album. With the introduction of Officer K, I was nearly ready for the album to jump into an epic, telling the tragic story of the Replicant who just wants to be special. But, the EP’s over. ‘Skinjob’ feels like it’s building up to a much larger song that never comes, and if Dissona are planning a whole album centered around Blade Runner, I’ll rescind my score, but I can’t score nearly as high as I’d like to, if only for the fact it doesn’t feel like a complete EP, and rather a collection of three really great songs. 

Dissona is back, but I feel like they’ve given me half of something that should be really good. If they release these three songs with a full album, I’ll make amends to this review and re-post it, but for now, I can only be left with two really great songs, a cool interlude, and a bit of disappointment.

Recommended tracks: It’s just three songs
You may also like: Omnerod, Aperion Bound
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Independent

Dissona is:
– Craig Hamburger (Bass)
– Drew Goddard (Drums)
– Matt Motto (Lead guitars)
– David Dubenic (Vocals)

The post Review: Dissona – Dreadfully Distinct [EP] appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Pop (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Evergrey, Einar Solberg, late Anathema, Lunatic Soul, sad pop singers
Review by: Sam
Country: Sweden
Release date: 1 September, 2023

Over the years, Tom Englund has become progressive metal’s foremost frontman when it comes to The Big Sad. Ever since putting themselves on the mainstage with In Search of Truth, Evergrey have been the frontrunners of sadness and melancholy in the genre, not in part due to Tom’s heart wrenching vocal performances. A few years ago, he decided that even Evergrey wasn’t sad enough for his vocal talents, so he joined up with keyboardist Vikram Shankar and started Silent Skies in which they stripped away any remaining metal aspects so that only sadness remains. As a huge Evergrey fanboy, I can never have enough of Tom’s misery (please dude, don’t be happy, that’d break my heart), so I had to review this.

Dormant is a very ethereal album. Vikram’s electronic synths provide a large, dream-like ambience throughout, of course, with different shades of depression. Each song draws from a slightly different palette of influences however, giving color and different shading to the tracks. Some songs make heavy use of piano, others go for an 80s vibe a la Haken’s Affinity, and sometimes they use cello (mostly in bridges) to pull on your heartstrings as if Tom’s vocals weren’t enough. Vikram’s performance is stellar and his synths alone are enough to move me. Also from a production standpoint it sounds full of life with a mix that really bathes you in its music.

Tom’s vocals are, as expected, unfathomably gloomy, but that’s not all. Each track comes with great emotional nuance, and on several songs he actually manages to sound hopeful, sometimes even coming close to sounding upbeat (Abort! Abort!). Take “Reset”, a song resigned to somberness for its first half, which takes a turn for the optimistic in its chorus and puts its lyrics in an upbeat rhythmic delivery for the verses after. “The Real Me” similarly has a dangerous feel-good vibe with its bright 80s synths and anthemic chorus, and likewise the opener “Construct” almost sounds triumphant near the end. “New Life” however, is a more classic sad track that shows braveness in its lyrics, but ultimately resigns itself to despair (fuck yeah!). Its combination of piano, cello, electronic percussion, and poignant vocals makes for a deeply moving track. On “Dormant” strong trance elements present themselves, giving even more depth to the record’s sonic palette.

There’s just a certain elegance to how these tracks are constructed. Vikram’s nuanced layering of sounds and Tom’s vocal talents really bring out the best in each other. This is not really a prog record in the sense of odd-time signatures and technical wizardry, but the way these songs increase in layers and handle dynamics definitely fits the vibe of prog. I must go back to “New Life” once again because it’s just that perfect. At first it’s a simple piano ballad, but before you know it the cello swells, percussion is everywhere, and it delivers on a huge crescendo as if you’re listening to a late Anathema song. “Tides” and “The Last on Earth” also stand out majorly in this regard.

I find it hard to evaluate a record like this properly. Though deftly nuanced between the tracks, the overwhelming vibe is specific. This is not something you put on lightly. It’s a record to tear your heart out. Tom’s vocal talents are a given at this point in time. The dude still leaves me speechless by just how much emotion he can put into each and every line, and the ambience from Vikram is just as moving. Heck, I would probably cry if Tom recorded a song about the peanut butter sandwich he devoured this morning. As an album artform, I cannot just put a number on it. Each song has the ability to make me cry, but at the same time its introversion can make it fly straight past me if I’m not in the mood.

Recommended tracks: New Life, Reset, The Last on Earth, The Trooper
You may also like: Oak, Haven of Echoes, Playgrounded
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page

Label: Napalm Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Silent Skies is:
– Tom Englund (vocals)
– Vikram Shankar (piano, keyboards)

The post Review: Silent Skies – Dormant appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Rock, Progressive Pop, Art Rock, Electronica, Post-Rock (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Voyager, Lunatic Soul, Ulver’s last two albums, Steven Wilson’s Insurgentes
Review by: Christopher
Country: Norway
Release date: 11 November, 2022

In 2015, a memoir called Reasons to Stay Alive came out, written by a relatively obscure author called Matt Haig about his experience of chronic depression and suicidal ideation. In Britain, this book was an overnight sensation and kicked off a whole movement; talking openly and compassionately about mental health became a necessity, indeed, almost a fashion. In the last few years, prog, which has tackled such topics here and there, has wholeheartedly taken up this discussion: Leprous’ last two albums are about depression, Devin Townsend has moved into a space of life-affirming pop metal, and Pain of Salvation even took on autism on Panther.  

Oak are the latest group to move into this sphere of music for your mental health taking on suicidal ideation on their newest album The Quiet Rebellion of Compromise. Born out of a folk rock duo, this Norwegian four-piece experiments with a poppy prog rock sound that weaves in a substantial electronica influence. First impressions are solid: vocalist Simen Valldal Johannesen has a deep, vibrato-laden baritone that recalls Danielk Estrin of Voyager or even Mark Hollis of eighties art rock group Talk Talk. There’s a strong post-rock streak in the piano and ambiences that gently underpin each track, but Oak are possessed of a dynamism that, on the prog rock side, evokes the more stripped back tracks of newer Leprous or Steven Wilson’s first solo album Insurgentes, while the electronica side of their sound recalls Lunatic Soul, recent Ulver releases, and Voyager.

The electronica aspect is interwoven into their Oak‘s sound with tasteful versatility: Sigbjørn Reiakvam’s drumming is a mix of real and programmed, and that mix of percussion is a driving force throughout the album. Atmospheric synth permeates all tracks, but sometimes the synth is tasked with a more prominent role, as in the lead licks on “Quiet Rebellion”, the dissonant backing noise such as that underlying the frankly gorgeous sax solo on “Sunday 8AM”, and the meatier vibrating bass tones as on “Dreamless Sleep”, a danceable number that would sit comfortably on Ulver’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar. The electronica contribution is vital to the success of every composition. 

This isn’t to say the proggy vibes or traditional instrumentation are in any way lacking, far from it. Jangly guitar riffs open “Demagogue Communion” which is closed by a delightfully messy solo, and the prog credentials come in the form of the epic “Paperwings” which, at nearly fourteen minutes long, traverses: a trip-hop opening section redolent of Massive Attack, more typical prog rock sections suffused by Mellotron, a contemplative spoken word over post-rock section, and into a Leprous-esque finale of astonishing grandeur. 

The Quiet Rebellion of Compromise is crafted around a theme of mental health and suicidal ideation; Oak consulted scholars on mental health and suicide to ensure the lyrics were representative of the issues at hand. Unfortunately, I can’t attest to how well their research pays off in the music—lyrics weren’t available for the album—but I can easily see their music becoming important to people in a difficult emotional bind. The face adorning the album cover is the death mask of a drowning victim and the title font is derived from two separate suicide notes. The latter is a somewhat macabre detail, though it’s well meant. It could seem a little in poor taste, but Oak are motivated by a more forward-thinking sense that we can’t shy away from these issues no matter how unpleasant they may be; that if we talk about these cold, dark places within us, we may be able to diminish their hold upon us.

Blending a secondary genre into your main sound can be a difficult balance, but The Quiet Rebellion of Compromise Oak shows us how it’s done. They drift across the melancholic prog rock/electronica spectrum, and their fusion of those genres is a delight to behold. While I’d love to hear these guys hit giddier peaks in future, there’s still a hell of a lot here to enjoy. But I do hope that Oak will make their lyrics freely available for the listeners who may find comfort in their message.

Recommended tracks: Dreamless Sleep; Highest Tower, Deepest Well; Paperwings
You may also like: Playgrounded, Haven of Echoes, thenighttimeproject, C.O.D.E
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Karisma Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Oak is:
– Simen Valldal Johannessen (vocals, piano, keyboard)
– Øystein Sootholtet (guitars and bass)
– Stephan Hvinden (lead, rhythm and slide guitars)
– Sigbjørn Reiakvam (drums, percussion, programming, keys and guitars)

The post Review: Oak – The Quiet Rebellion of Compromise appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Prog Rock, Prog Electronic, Prog Metal, Space Ambient (clean vocals)
Review by: Sabrina
Country: Greece
Release date: 10 June, 2022

Monad is the second full-length album by Greek prog band Dol Theeta, released after a 14-year long hiatus. Consequently, quite a lot has changed since their debut The Universe Expands. Kortessa Tsifodimou’s vocal skill has aged like fine wine as her strength, endurance, and range have greatly improved from an already impressive debut; her lyrical and vocal deliveries are powerful, probably ranking amongst the strongest of the year so far throughout the prog metal scene. Multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Thanasis Lightbridge has also shifted the stylistic focus of Monad closer to eclectic prog rock rather than metal, as the riffs have mostly stepped from the foreground and into the rhythm section in favor of their vibrant, spacey synths (enough to warrant a couple of “electronic” genre labels) and Kortessa’s lead vocal harmonies. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of technical, standout guitar work in this album, albeit more spaced apart. Generally, the music is a bit more subtle which takes a bit longer for songs to hit, but you’ll gain an adequate payoff for the time invested.

While their debut album was more about humanity’s interaction with a vast, mysterious cosmos, Monad‘s theme illustrates the triumphs and obstacles of our conscious isolation. Even though we are (seemingly) surrounded by other thinking people, a mental barrier still isolates us. As of today, nobody can truly know what the thoughts and feelings of others are, and even though we can appeal to the best explanation, every social interaction is taken through a small leap of faith. We enter this world alone, through life we create egocentric monoliths, and like an astronaut walking into deep space, we exit this world alone.¹

Moving onto the music itself, if I didn’t emphasize it enough, Kortessa Tsifodimou almost steals the show in this. Her vocal style is classical and operatic, almost similar to Einar Solberg’s (Leprous), but the way her vocal passages are harmonized makes them feel super epic and climactic. Some of the best songs are “We Die Alone”, “Modus Operandi”, and the extravagant “Enchanted”, where her vocals capture the strongest melodies and are still complemented with enough quality in the instrumental bridges to give us a bit of variety. Furthermore, all three are bustling with energetic acoustic guitars, groovy riffs, and a combination of tribal and progressive electronic sections.

In contrast, “Umbilical” succeeds in building a subtle, spacey atmosphere with wandering synths and developing vocal croons; these bridge into sentimental verses complemented by staccato backing vocals, capitalized by back-to-back synth and guitar solos. The most metal song on the album is “Quicksand Portal_,” which features ominous synths sounding a bit like the newest Hail Spirit Noir album, and a piano section reminiscent of late 90s Dream Theater. To push the conspicuousness of their prog metal references, their spoken word interlude ordering and drinking an amazing cup of coffee harkens back to the tale of the omniscient alien himself.

In “Monolith”, even though the vocals are loud and going for an epic sound, their lack of melody and one-note approach make them fairly forgettable. Along with the chuggy riffs and extended atmospheric sections, the synths could not save the song from feeling draggy. The same criticism could be also extended to most of the title track; even though it’s over seven minutes long, not much could be taken away from it other than the ending vocal climax.

Overall, Monad does not have any enveloping weaknesses in its core sounds aside from being a prog metal album with minimal guitar work. Also, some of the weaker tracks can easily weaken the album flow. But despite these shortcomings, Dol Theeta pulls off something grand, captivating, and introspective. And as far as the uniqueness of this album goes, aside from Thanasis’ other work in Dol Ammand, I couldn’t find any other music with this combination of vocals, spacey progressive electronic, and prog metal influences since Marge Litch‘s final album in 1998. Sure, not every song sticks the landing, but when they do, they do so with enviable grace.

Recommended tracks: Enchanted, We Die Alone, Modus Operandi, Quicksand Portal
Recommended for fans of: The Gathering, Mike Oldfield, Therion, Stream of Passion
You may also like: Dol Ammad, Marge Litch, Hail Spirit Noir, Eureka, Galahad
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Thanasis Lightbridge – Facebook | YouTube

Dol Theeta is:
– Thanasis Lightbridge (synthesizer, drums)
– Kortessa Tsifodimou (vocals)
– Dimitris Makrantonakis (guitar)

¹ I’ve always liked the aesthetics of astronauts and early 1900s scuba diver gear to complement themes of isolation and death. Both outfits are used to travel on our planet’s edges of tangibility. Being tethered by nothing but artificial umbilical cords they are just one snip away from falling into endless space and the murky depths of the ocean. Insulated in their suits they are confined to their own minds, surrounded by blackness they are separated from human connection. Our minds tend to wander when we are alone; this is illustrated nicely by the album art.

The post Review: Dol Theeta – Monad appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-garde, Black Metal, Electronica (Mixed vocals)
Review by: Christopher
Country: Indonesia/Canada
Release date: 15 July, 2022

The expectation when sifting through the underground of any scene is that you’ll mostly be dealing with relatively new bands as well as some artists who have flown under the radar for maybe a decade. But then Kekal comes blipping up on your radar with a squadron of thirteen albums that they’ve been hiding since 1995, like a hostile nation covertly developing a nuclear arsenal. By all rights, a band with such a long and fruitful career (and a surprisingly comprehensive Wikipedia page) should be far better known within the scene, and yet they languish with a little over 1,400 followers on Spotify. Why? It might be due to the fact that they adhere to an anarchist philosophy that has caused them to resist ever signing with a record label. It could be because they identify as an entity with no official members. But more likely it’s because their music is just really fucking weird.

Before getting into their latest album, Envisaged, it’s worth delving quickly into the band’s history. Formed in Indonesia 27 years ago by multi-instrumentalist and producer Jeff Arwadi, Kekal’s first album, Beyond the Glimpse of Dreams, was a fairly straightforwardly black metal effort with a creative edge and unusually crisp production. However, with subsequent releases they began to try out a range of other influences until, by fifth album The Habit of Fire, they had incorporated jazz, ambient, psychedelic, prog rock and electronic elements into their sound. Since then, those experimental embellishments have become more and more prominent over an ever-quieting black metal foundation.

Envisaged kicks off with a couple of strong, off-kilter tracks that are pretty typical of Kekal’s later work; “Born Anew” in particular is one of the stand-outs, contrasting lighter psych/jazz of a The Mars Volta flavour with more conventional black metal sections, before swerving into an outro where a meaty electronic beat plays under a synth symphony. Yet as the album progresses, the black metal components recede into the background and the album veers more into Shpongle style psych-electronica territory. The black metal elements—though they remain present in the drumming which shifts between archetypal blast beats and jazzier complexity—are used relatively sparingly for the rest of the album, resurfacing for just a couple of tracks, notably on the return-to-heaviness closer “Destiny Recalibration”.

In his review of the band’s previous album Quantum Resolution for our site, Matt said that one of the drawbacks was the disjointed feel of the songs. This seems to have been addressed here; Envisaged has a somewhat contradictory sense of flow — there’s a languid, psychedelic feel throughout. Even when a pulsating slew of blast beats and harsh vocals rips through the middle of “Born Anew” it doesn’t disturb the mood or feel out of place. The dissonant strings that open “Anarchy in the New Earth”, the wonky polyrhythms on “Anthropos Rising”, and the ghostly whispers that close “Zero Point” all add to the anticipated strangeness but they never make it unpleasant to listen to, which can be a problem with the dissonance and outright weirdness of avant-garde music. Perhaps that’s a defining trait of truly great avant-garde music: to be able to make every bizarre new feature you cram into your music fit seamlessly into your overall sound.

The clean vocals have a somewhat reedy quality and as much as Arwadi won’t be winning any singing competitions any time soon, his cleans do fit the music well. The baritone vocals and harshes are stronger, and the Tommy Giles style frog-croak whispers are good fun. I’m not convinced that the ambient instrumental track “The Alchemy of Creation” needs to be over seven minutes long, and some of the songs blur together a bit in the record’s middle third, but these aren’t major concerns. As with all avant-garde music, the degree to which the listener can rise to the general challenge of appreciating such abstruse work is the main factor at play.

Alongside their anarchist philosophy, Kekal are also a deeply spiritual band, and Envisaged continues in that vein. According to the band, “the music and lyrics represent a creative spiritual journey following continuous revelations regarding the current events on Earth” that “signify the process of global collective awakening” which will lead humanity “to transcend the matrix and rise beyond the construct of duality” —a somewhat lofty ideal for any album to live up to. The lyrics are written after a prose poetry fashion and eschew any rhyme scheme or structure. The extent to which they’ll interest the prospective listener will depend on the degree to which you subscribe to similar philosophies/how high you are when you listen. Personally, the album’s concept is a little too esoteric for my tastes, but I respect that it’s a rather original and intriguing narrative for a record, and the music is perfectly suited to accompany such an idiosyncratic, spiritual concept.

Kekal are clearly masters of their very specific craft but your mileage will likely vary depending on whether you can stomach their heady brew of genre experimentation, as well as the album’s rather arcane philosophy. As avant-garde goes, however, this is surprisingly accessible and Kekal’s doubling down on their psychedelic side makes this far more palatable and flowing than some of their previous releases. While I certainly admire this band and this album, I know it’s not made for me. Someone out there will adore Envisaged for what it is: a bold experiment by an artist with integrity, passion and talent. It’s unlikely to make the regular rotation of most listeners, but that’s avant-garde for you. Kekal could continue to release music for another 27 years and still be underground, and that would be nothing to be ashamed of.

Recommended tracks: Born Anew, The Ascending Collective, Anarchy in the New Earth
Recommended for fans of: Ulver’s avant-garde years, Shpongle, The Mars Volta, Kayo Dot, Thy Catafalque
You may also like: Vitam Aeternam, Human By Nature, Hail Spirit Noir
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Independent

Kekal have no official lineup, but:
– Jeff Arwadi (guitars, vocals, and probably most other things)
– Leo Setiawan (guitars, vocals)
– Azhar Levi Sianturi (bass, vocals)

The post Review: Kekal – Envisaged appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Prog Metal/Electronic (clean vocals)
Review by: Sabrina
Country: UK & US-PA
Release date: 14 June, 2021

Rust Belt Gothic (RBG) is the project successor of the progressive power metal band Abodean Skye, where multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer Bogdan Vera, and vocalist Will Shaw combine efforts to bring us Collapsar. This album presents an unusual combination of djenty rhythm patterns, classical prog metal guitars, power metal flavored vocals, and other electronic influences. It is definitely not something you hear every day, but merely having these traits isn’t enough to give the album the quality and longevity it needs to stand tall amongst the bunch.

In general, the impression I got from my listening experience of Collapsar was generally pleasant and inoffensive for the album’s first few plays. I kept listening with the gut feeling that there may be some hidden potential in the album that I had not picked up on yet. At that point, it was clear that the minds behind this project have a lot of interesting musical ideas that do an adequate job, at least by themselves. However, after getting past the introductory phase of the listening experience it seemed more clear to me that the band is still noticeably inexperienced in combining these ideas into a compact, thoroughly enjoyable album. A lot of the composition really started to feel incomplete, both in its melody and complexity. And that this hidden potential I once saw in Collapsar, now seemed to be a gaping hole in what it could have been.

What I found from doing some research about RBG on Reddit is the following: “The title Collapsar is another term for a collapsed star, suggesting the feeling of imploding both on a personal, global and metaphysical level – a fitting name for an album released in 2021.” Not that I’m really one who can talk smack, but this description is similar to how I feel about the album. A hole collapsed by the weight of its potential.

Throughout Collapsar, there are glimpses of intriguing but half-baked ideas. Like I mentioned previously, there is a lot of dead space. The compositions are light and airy and the instrumentation is generally very thin. If this was a conscious decision on the songwriter’s part then he should know this can work but only if either the riffs and melodies are good enough to be able to stand alone. I have reviewed one band recently, Wine Guardian that exemplifies this description. However, sad to say that RBG does not. Another problem that probably overlaps a bit with what was previously mentioned is that Collapsar feels too long and overstays its welcome. There does not seem to be enough interesting material to drag it on for 40 minutes, had the album taken more time to develop its melodies and compositional complexity this might be a different story.

There are a variety of small hints of influences from other prog metal bands, but naming them would become a bit pedantic. But just to mention a couple, I’m sure someone could spot a bit of Dream Theater in the guitars of the opening track, and some BTBAM influence during the beginning of “Black Star Collapsing”.

It’s a difficult task for someone to write and perform every instrument on a metal album (especially in progressive metal), which makes it that much harder for Bogdan Vera to do everything aside from the vocals. Usually, when I see this, it is a good guitarist that under-utilizes the bass and doesn’t know how to play the drums. And this trend is not too far from the case here. Aside from the climax of “Cycles in Time” and “Unfamiliar” the drums on this album are very dull. And the bass usually does not stray from replicating the main guitar. This is why RBG would benefit greatly from the combined skill of an entire band instead of one guy trying to do almost every instrument.

Now I’m going to touch on what the band did well. Will Shaw’s vocal performance is pretty good. He has experience from his performances on Ayreon‘s Transitus and The Source, and he seems to be a natural at epic power metal vocals. This is why a highlight is the song “To The Barricades” as it gives Will Shaw’s vocal range the spotlight with an epic chorus. Another song highlight is the instrumental track “Cycles in Time”, it seems to be an example of what Bogdan Vera can do when his ideas are successfully fleshed out. It is additionally relieving to say that the mixing of the instruments and overall production of Collapsar are both pretty well done.

Djent, electronic, prog metal, power metal, what RBG presents show that they are a jack of all trades, master of none. I had originally given this album a fairly higher score but because of its simplicity and under-composed compositions, it seems to have a short listening lifespan. Usually what happens is albums that are built for longevity only get better with repeated listens, but this takes experience in music creation, and I don’t think RBG is quite there yet.

Recommended tracks: Cycles in Time, To The Barricades
Recommended for fans of: Ayreon, Teramaze, Green Carnation, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: Independent

Rust Belt Gothic is:
– Bogdan Vera (guitars, bass, drums, keyboards)
– Will Shaw (vocals)

The post Review: Rust Belt Gothic – Collapsar appeared first on The Progressive Subway.