Style: progressive metal, progressive rock, avant-garde (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Green Carnation, maudlin of the Well, Orphaned Land, Opeth
Country: Israel
Release date: 21 June 2005

We’re now twenty years from the release of Subterranean Masquerade’s debut LP, Suspended Animation Dreams. Small in its reach but huge in its scope and ambition, this charmingly weird record has mightily stood the test of time, though unjustifiably forgotten—all dusty from the crime of aging, to steal a lyric. An eight-year hiatus would follow the album, as would the band’s triumphant return, offering a solid string of releases that notably includes Subway favorite Mountain Fever in 2021. But even with SubMasq firmly back in the world of progressive music, Suspended Animation Dreams remains mired deep in the underground. So join me on a subterranean ride through a bizarre, sonically marvelous cult classic.

Subterranean Masquerade’s approach to Suspended Animation Dreams is no different from that of so many other young, progressive bands: throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Grabbing handfuls of ideas, sounds, influences, and compositional techniques, and then hurling them exuberantly into an album is practically a rite of passage. But miraculously, just about everything SubMasq throw sticks: metal, Floydian prog, lounge jazz, Middle Eastern folk, an array of instruments and vocal styles (including the most articulate growls you’ll ever hear), a massive roster of session musicians, intertwined lyrical vignettes tackling different aspects of the human psyche, and much more. These elements combine seamlessly into a listening experience that matches the album cover’s glowing shade of orange and surreal, half-sketched figures—a warm and mystical soundscape expands and contracts into different exotic forms but never quite actualizes into something real. The whole thing’s a trip. Let’s descend further. 

Though Suspended Animation Dreams was released in 2005, its production sounds similar to a ‘90s Dan Swanö project.¹ The fuzzy guitars have body but don’t attack the ears; the drums, vocals, and bass are given enough punch to drive the music but no more; and the myriad other instruments cut through the mix but retain authenticity rather than shimmer artificially. The sound is warm, not bright—a candle softly lighting a cave, not a floodlight bleaching its walls. Suspended Animation Dreams’ mix is key to its success, as the album’s enchanting compositions maintain a dreamlike flow not disrupted by jagged sonic edges.

And flow the tracks do, each wandering freely among various textures and styles. There are a few recognizable verse- and chorus-type patterns, but they’re typically repeated or built upon with new elements—a violin accenting the second verse of “Wolf Among Sheep (Or Maybe The Other Way Around),” for example, or added percussion giving a tribal feel to what’s conceivably part of the verse in “No Place Like Home.” More representative of the album are lengthy excursions into territories less familiar to metal albums. “The Rock N Roll Preacher” may begin with relatively straightforward metal, but it soon gives way to a smooth piano-led bridge and ends with horns driving a jazzy melody. Meanwhile, after some distorted riffing and leads, “No Place Like Home” closes with an extended foray into Middle Eastern folk, complete with wordless, chant-like vocalizations. Each track has at least one passage—and more often several—that extends Suspended Animation Dreams’ aural landscape in a new, interesting direction. The fourteen-minute epic and penultimate track “Awake” then flows gracefully through nearly all of them, covering an immense amount of ground while remaining comprehensible. This stylistic cornucopia makes Suspended Animation Dreams truly unique, even twenty years after its release.

In addition to blending diverse styles intelligibly, Subterranean Masquerade perform each with incredible detail. The loungey, jazz passages dispersed across the album are lush and full. Ambient touches, such as those in the title track opening the album, are well placed and draw the ears in. And the ‘70s rock closing the album in “X” is impassioned, featuring a brilliant, Gilmour-inspired solo. When the band lean into Middle Eastern folk, the result is lively and robust, making fantastic use of both standard rock instrumentation and an eclectic mix of woodwinds, traditional percussion, and more. Between all this, it’s easy to forget that Suspended Animation Dreams is a metal album at its core, until SubMasq remind you with moments like the infectious guitar leads bookending “Six Strings To Cover Fear,” and the tremolo picking and double bass lying beneath the track’s growled verse. “Awake” ends with similarly catchy guitar leads soaring over distorted riffing, offering a climactic ending to the track’s winding, epic composition. These passages aren’t necessarily “heavy,” but the bit of added heft provides excellent juxtaposition to the lighter stretches for a richer sonic palette. 

Suspended Animation Dreams’ instrumental and compositional diversity is nearly matched by the diversity of its vocals. Paul Kuhr’s (Novembers Doom) primary delivery is a well-enunciated growl, one in which you can make out each word and subtle change in emotion. These harsh vocals fit the album’s more intense moments while also providing an emphatic contrast to softer ones—particularly effective are the emotive growls over the gentle piano passage in “Awake.” Across the album, Kuhr cycles consistently among differently textured cleans as well, ranging from stylized narration to subdued, melodic singing. Soulful female vocals embellish many of the tracks, whether as backing accents in “The Rock N Roll Preacher” or by taking center stage through much of “Awake” and “X.” The ever-changing vocals further imbue the album with a dreamy feel: one moment, an articulate demon is speaking; the next, an inner voice is narrating; and soon after, a women’s choir echoes through with a sense of hope. Yet, somehow, it all remains coherent. 

Ultimately, it’s the album’s full experience that makes our expedition deep in the underground worth the effort. Beyond what Suspended Animation Dreams offers musically, its surreal atmosphere and sense of adventure give it enduring appeal. The descent begins with the titular opener, as Kuhr announces, “For the rest of the session, you will be asking yourself, ‘Am I going crazy?’” From there, a transportive magic takes hold as the tracks unwind, journeying the listener fluidly through different aural surroundings until unintelligible chants intensify behind the final guitar solo in “X” and end abruptly to close the album. This sudden ending is a snap back to the above-ground world left waiting as our voyage ran its course. I’m yet to experience another album quite like it. 

With Suspended Animation Dreams, Subterranean Masquerade charted a spellbinding trip that sacrificed nothing in its songwriting or performance. The album stands as one of progressive metal’s great, unique debuts, even if it continues to reside deep below the genre’s surface. Although Suspended Animation Dreams holds an unrepeatable magic, fortunately, the band have steadily released quality album after quality album, cementing themselves as a Subway favorite and a stalwart of folky, progressive music. SubMasq’s debut might have been lost in time, but the band remain present—and with four years since their last release, we’re about due for another one. If the last twenty years have taught us anything, we’ll be shouting their praises from the underground again soon enough.

Recommended tracks: No Place Like Home, Six Strings To Cover Fear, Awake
You may also like: Papangu, OMB, Seventh Station, Obsidian Tide, In the Woods…

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

The End Records

On Suspended Animation Dreams, Subterranean Masquerade was:
– Paul Kuhr (vocals)
– Tomer Pink (guitars, dulcimer, harmonica)
– Jake DePolitte (guitars, bass guitar)
– Steve Lyman (drums)

With guests:
– Kobi Farhi (additional vocals in “No Place Like Home”)
– Mike Sartain (additional vocals in “The Rock N Roll Preacher”)
– Mitch Curinga (electronics)
– Joe Chrisholm (trombone)
– Willis Clow (guitars, mandolin, spoken vocals)
– Andrew Kuhnhausen (saxophone, clarinet, flute, spoken vocals)
– Wendy Jernijan (additional vocals in “Awake”)
– Wayne Burdick (percussion)
– Yishai Sweartz (additional vocals in “No Place Like Home”)
– Sarah Pendleton (spoken vocals)
– Bronwen Beecher (strings)
– Susan Naud (vocals)
– Dave Chrisholm (trumpet)
– Ben Warren (piano, hammond organ)
– Samuel Johnson (spoken vocals)

1.  Dan Swanö wasn’t involved in Suspended Animation Dreams, but he would go on to mix and master both the first EP and LP Subterranean Masquerade released following their hiatus. What’s more, Swanö handled mixing duties for now-ex-SubMasq vocalist Paul Kuhr’s other band, Novembers Doom, on their album The Pale Haunt Departure, which was released just months before Suspended Animation Dreams. ︎

The post Lost In Time: Subterranean Masquerade – Suspended Animation Dreams (20th Anniversary) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Melodic black metal, folk metal, dark folk (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Agalloch, Panopticon, Ulver, Saor
Country: Utah, United States
Release date: 17 September 2010

The Cascadian black metal movement birthed many artists who reflect on nature through a Romantic framework. Agalloch traverse snowy landscapes, looking on at modern society through sorrowful eyes and a yearning for ancient mythologies; Wolves in the Throne Room bring these mythologies to life through incantation and reflective rituals; and Ash Borer cling on to the natural world as they anticipate our impending doom. Being from Salt Lake City, Utah, multi-instrumentalist Jake Rogers’ Gallowbraid project is geographically removed from the Cascadian black metal scene, but his heart is planted firmly in the scene’s aesthetics, style, and ideals. Singular opus Ashen Eidolon evokes the same heartbreak as Agalloch, taps into the same desire to ‘just become one with the moss’ as WITTR, and ruminates on the same fears of death as Ash Borer, all in a concise and urgent folk/black metal package.

Ashen Eidolon follows in the footsteps of Agalloch‘s landmark debut, Pale Folklore: mournful arpeggiation meets mid-paced crunchy guitars, melodic tremolos, and a raspy, world-weary vocal delivery. Intertwining the gravelly and heavy sensibilities are much lighter elements, like acoustic guitar, flute, and clean group vocals. The quieter moments carved out by folk instruments not only work as contrast against the black metal ideas, but are a force unto their own, acting as a springboard for explosive climaxes on the two extended tracks and leading along the pensive “Autumn” interludes. Compositions are nonlinear in structure, stringing along a series of contemplations that build into a larger narrative. Filtered through the lens of a golden Autumn forest, a Gothic Romanticism seeps through the album’s painful recollections of loved ones past (“Ashen Eidolon”) and the unease of coming to terms with one’s own death (“Oak and Aspen”).

Though undoubtedly imposing in scope, Ashen Eidolon dials back the cinematic approach of its predecessors in exchange for additional heft in its compositions. Each piece exudes a weighty kineticism through powerful, forward drum work and an uptempo punch; the end result is a masterful balance of plaintive heartbreak and fervent chthonic energy. “Ashen Eidolon” in particular opens with a roiling and hypnotic wall of distorted guitars, tearing through flaxen canopy while remaining grounded by wistful melodic accents. “Oak and Aspen” features soaring arpeggios, chunky drum grooves, and stunning walls of black metal trems, but leans into more melancholy ideas in its climax: the instrumental intensity is dialed back and room is given for Rogers to proclaim a quiet river as his final resting place among the aspen.

The use of folk instrumentation contributes greatly to Ashen Eidolon‘s grandeur, both in the longer tracks and the palate-cleansing acoustic pieces. “Autumn I” bridges the title track and “Oak and Aspen”, offering space to sit and process the opener’s intensity through gentle guitar work, dirging group vocals, and lingering flutes. “Autumn II” acts as an epilogue, its mournful guitars intertwining with warm flutes that hint at the sense of closure brought by the narrator’s death at the end of “Oak and Aspen”. However, Ashen Eidolon‘s most effective use of folk ideas comes about two-thirds through the title track, as ferocious tremolos rip and roar through the forest until they’re given pause by fast-paced, staccato acoustic strumming. The electric guitars and drums respond in kind, mimicking the acoustics and soaring high above the trees in ascendant splendor before gently gliding back into the woods on the backs of doomy chords and haunting clean vocals.

Adorning these arboreal peaks and valleys are reflections on the elegance of Autumn and contemplations on the nature of death. The title track takes a stream-of-consciousness approach to its lyricism, lines like ‘Gold and ochre / behold the tapestry of the Fall / There is a beauty, a certain subtle grandeur / In the withering that consumes us all’ ruminate on the ephemeral qualities of life through the lens of changing seasons. “Oak and Aspen”, on the other hand, is more story-driven, Rogers at first frustrated by his grief but ultimately accepting and even embracing it by the track’s end. Unable to define his sorrow as he watches the seasons pass, he contemplates how the trees that surround him experience death: ‘Do the oaks feel this distant pain? Can the pines offer me relief? / Have the aspens wept with the rain? Does the forest know this untouchable grief?’ The track concludes by finding solace in how death and change are are fundamental connectors of all things and that, even through heartache and suffering, not all is lost: ‘Through words of wind and verse of falling leaves / Its song is one of sorrow and days long past / The time is gone but the memories always last.’

Ashen Eidolon is a testament to death and the myriad ways it manifests as an agent of change. Through high-energy songwriting, evocative Romantic imagery, and earthen folk instrumentation, Rogers reminds us that there is beauty to be found in small moments, in nature’s inevitable decay, and in how our lives and bodies continue on in ways anew after our passing. The added heaviness in Gallowbraid‘s approach gives extra impact to its sentiments and establishes a stunning contrast for both its quieter moments and its climaxes. Even in the most barren of deserts, the spirit of black metal and the misty Cascades live on.

Recommended tracks: Ashen Eidolon, Oak and Aspen, Autumn I
You may also like: Fellwarden, Thrawsunblat, Cân Bardd

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

Label: Northern Silence Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook

Gallowbraid is:
– Jake Rogers (everything)

The post Lost in Time: Gallowbraid – Ashen Eidolon appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive metal, gothic metal, doom metal
FFO: Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Anathema, In the Woods…
Country: Norway
Release date: November 2001

Iconic albums can be great for many reasons. They may take us on fantastical journeys, dazzle with virtuosic musicianship, or give voice to feelings we thought nobody else had ever felt. And as metal fans, like most humans, we tend to get excited about things we love, which is why words like “seminal”, “gem”, “masterpiece”, and “underrated” get thrown around like they’re a dime a dozen in the musical discourse. So naturally, I’m going to use all those words in today’s post about Green Carnation.

As an ardent live music fan, I keep a spreadsheet tracking over 300 live metal performances I’ve attended with an obsessive degree of detail. For others, scrolling through this sheet might be a source of some concern regarding my mental state (and the health of my eardrums). But for me, it’s a window into countless reminiscences of fond live music memories. Amongst these, one of the greatest to date took place at ProgPower USA in 2016 where I witnessed Green Carnation performing the entirety of their 2001 album, the sixty-minute one-track wonder Light of Day, Day of Darkness. Though the show took place almost ten years ago¹, the solemn appreciation that I cemented for LoDDoD has remained to this day.

Veterans of the Norwegian progressive metal scene, Green Carnation have drifted across various subgenres since their formation in Kristiansand in 1990: death metal, death-doom, acoustic, hard rock. Light of Day, Day of Darkness sees the band charting a course that touches on elements of progressive, gothic, and doom metal. From the opening bars, the album is brooding and melancholy; otherworldly synths, whispers, and guitars are overlaid with the sound of a baby’s cries. Though there are miles to go and many themes to explore over the next hour, there are no real shifts in style or full stops in the momentum; the direction is set, and the first-rate lineup of Green Carnation members and guests will be our guides.

While he does not hold compositional or lyrical credits for LoDDoD, Kjetil Nordhus’s lead vocal performance nonetheless resonates with dimensions of anger, tenderness, grief, and wonder across LoDDod’s sixty minutes. And he strikes a rare balance, weaving into the instrumental tapestry seamlessly with a poignance that doesn’t demand to be the centre of attention. Indeed, the ensemble of performances from Green Carnation tends toward understatement: there are chugging, down-tempo guitar riffs aplenty, mid-range vocal lines, subtle keyboard touches. This makes the rare extravagant moments like the sprawling, mournful guitar solo at 42:10 feel all the more earned and laden with gut-wrenching emotion. As well, Anders Kobro’s drumming plays a role not necessarily typical of bands in the gothic death/doom sphere. It’s catalytic, insistent; it drives the other instruments forward when they long to linger pensively on a certain theme.

Some of the power in Light of Day, Day of Darkness as an epic lies in the fact that it is not mounted on the shoulders of any grand, fanciful concepts. We aren’t jettisoning humanity off a dying planet into space, or trying to avoid our own death after experiencing mysterious premonitions (with much love to Seventh Wonder, Haken, et al.). Rather, the album is grounded in a realm both soberingly realistic and tragic: it explores founding Green Carnation member and guitarist Tchort’s feelings about the death of his young daughter and the birth of his son. The lyrical path trodden across the album’s sixty minutes passes through peaks and valleys—the wonder and joy of one child’s arrival, soured by the guilt and sadness of remembering the other.

A notable detour from LoDDoD’s main route happens around 33:10, where we seem to fall into the dream conceived by the narrator. Smokey saxophone undulates, parallel to but seemingly a world apart from Synne Larsen’s (ex-In the Woods…) ethereal, mostly wordless vocal performance. In the course of my research (ie., reading Reddit threads) for this post, I was shocked to see so many comments besmirching this section of the song, calling it filler or out of place. For my money, the passage is artfully executed and the inescapable melancholy on display here seems to bubble up to the surface from the same fathomless depths explored throughout the course of Light of Day, Day of Darkness. As we prepare to surface from this polarizing dreamlike detour, a tentative conversation between guitar and saxophone pulls us back to the waking world. Neither one wanting to shake us awake, the two trade gingerly back and forth for a few measures before another chugging riff finally rends the stillness. And this is the elegance of the album and Tchort’s vision: with as many as 600 samples and sixty tracks in the mix, LoDDoD could easily be too much. But the elements are intertwined with such scrupulous attention that whether it’s a guitar solo or a sitar interlude (51:30), each thought flows smoothly into the next.

Nearly twenty-four years after its release, Light of Day, Day of Darkness is a treasure trove of masterfully crafted and emotionally resonant progressive metal. Insouciant attributions of the accolades “gem”, “masterpiece”, and “seminal” aside, Green Carnation are unshakeable from their position on the Mount Rushmore of underrated Norwegian prog bands. (See also: Conception, Pagan’s Mind, and Circus Maximus.) Equally as exciting to me as the opportunity to revisit this wonderful album is the fact that the band is still making music: with rumblings of a new album on the horizon, and a return to ProgPower USA this year, I can only hope that there are many more captivating musical journeys for new and old fans alike to venture on with Green Carnation.

Recommended tracks: Perhaps a controversial pick, but I’ll go with “Light of Day, Day of Darkness”

You may also like: Throes of Dawn, October Falls, Subterranean Masquerade, Communic

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

Label: Prophecy Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Green Carnation was:
– Terje “Tchort” Vik Schei: acoustic guitar, electric guitar
– Bjørn Harstad: lead guitar, slide guitar, ebow
– Stein Roger Sordal: bass
– Anders Kobro: drums
– Kjetil Nordhus: vocals

1. Am I Getting Old? ︎

The post Lost in Time: Green Carnation – Light of Day, Day of Darkness appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive metal, avant-garde (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Arcturus, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Leprous’s first two albums
Country: Norway
Release date: 27 September 2013

In the fall of 2013, two newly released albums—both coincidentally named after symbolic, elevated landmarks—filled my headphones incessantly and etched their way into my brain forever: Haken’s monumental The Mountain, and Vulture Industries’ lesser-known The Tower. The former launched Haken into prog royalty and has stood proudly as one of the genre’s modern peaks, while the latter created some short-lived cult buzz and has since remained all but abandoned. I won’t cry ‘Injustice!’ or argue here that The Tower deserves the same exalted fate as The Mountain, but a dozen years ago I held them in the same regard—and to this day, I still do. 

The Tower is a work that simultaneously sounds like everything else and nothing else out there—to me, that’s what makes it so magnetic. To use a needlessly pretentious analogy, replace a wine connoisseur tasting a complex red with a seasoned listener sampling this release: ‘Ah, yes, a full Arcturus body with strong notes of Tom Waits and Nick Cave theatrics; oh, some hints of Devil Doll and Faith No More, perhaps with early Leprous undertones as well…’ You get the point. But The Tower is much more than its influences. Vulture Industries spun whatever inspiration they had gathered into a work that is distinctly their own, striking a delicate balance between fresh and familiar. Accessible, but never bland.

The Tower’s titular opening track perfectly depicts the album’s ‘like everything else and nothing else’ sound. Beginning with rapid double bass drumming, accompanying guitar, and a drooping saxophone accentuating the melody, Vulture Industries appear to fit in neatly with other Norwegian metal and avant-garde artists of the period. Bjørnar Nilsen’s baritone voice belts out over a well-written and somewhat standard verse and chorus, and then the real fun begins:

‘Rule number one!’ Nilsen shouts, in a demented, authoritative tone. ‘Each man is what he owns. Whether or not one truly exists is a question of having things.’ ‘Rule number two!’ he continues, still with a deranged yell. ‘Things have purpose while the only purpose of flesh is to possess them.’

Nilsen goes on to manically list five rules of the authoritarian, hyper-consumerist and decaying society that The Tower brings to life, before the band switches abruptly yet naturally into a smooth, groovy bridge carried by a sax lead. Not long after, Nilsen gives what sounds like his best Gollum impression in another bridge that’s sandwiched between two melodic choruses—and somehow it all works. We’re hardly three minutes into the album and the scope of the quirky ride we’re in for is already clear. 

Nilsen’s theatrical vocals focus just as much (or more) on dramatic storytelling as on technical delivery, and his vocal ingenuity plays a large part in separating The Tower from the endless other releases that spend a shorter time living between my ears. Two particular moments grabbed me on my very first listen and haven’t let go in the twelve intervening years: the collection of spirited calls and militaristic responses toward the end of “Divine – Appalling,” and the way Nilsen bursts out into the chorus of “The Pulse of Bliss” following his subdued, raspy verses—‘Blood upon stone! Consecrate, unify!’ (Goosebumps every time.) The whole album is chock full of such moments, adding up to a vocal performance that, in my case, I can describe as ‘unforgettable’ without being hyperbolic.

As instrumentalists and composers, Vulture Industries are no slouches either. “Blood on the Trail” is a prime example of just how well the band carries out its more standard metal fare, and the tightly composed “Divine – Appalling” and “The Pulse of Bliss” each showcase a strong rhythm section and an array of infectious riffs. Meanwhile, waltzy bars of 3/4 carry the epic “The Hound” on an eclectic and brooding journey through several of The Tower’s dynamics. There’s the eccentric, twisted ballad “The Dead Won’t Mind,” which could be at home on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads, and there’s the lush, emotional cut “Lost Among Liars” providing delightful contrast a few tracks later. Whether throwing down heavy riffage or wandering off on cabaret-inspired diversions replete with bouncy keys, Vulture Industries do it with grace. The ‘like everything else’ and ‘like nothing else’ aspects of The Tower’s sound coalesce masterfully into a work that has aged like a fine… no, not this analogy again!

Ultimately, The Tower’s effect as a complete package is what makes it worth profiling all these years later. Maybe once in a career (or, like seven times if you’re Death or Iron Maiden) a band will formulate a vision or concept that transcends other works of its ilk and execute each detail with intent. Between the dark, sardonic artwork adorning the album’s cover and the colorful lyrical metaphors of each track—breathing new life into tired topics like the dangers of authoritarianism and consumerism—Vulture Industries craft a thick, alluring atmosphere; they then materialize it artfully with diverse yet harmonious compositions and performances never lacking in character. Cliché as this praise may be, The Tower is not just a collection of excellent songs but also an immersive plunge into the evocative world Vulture Industries have created. 

*                                        *                                        *

Witnessing an album you love catapult a band to (very relative) stardom is one of the great joys of following music outside the mainstream, and since the fall of 2013 I’ve felt a certain connection to Haken and The Mountain because of this. But there’s also a satisfying ‘in the know’ feeling that comes with taking another listen through Vulture Industries’ little-known contemporary counterpart and thinking, ‘Man, folks out there don’t know what they’re missing.’ Of course, here at The Subway, we’re selflessly willing to sacrifice some hipster-esque satisfaction and shine a light on gems buried deep in the underground—or, in The Tower’s case, an obscure peak off in the distance. Vulture Industries’ cult classic has quietly accompanied me through over a decade of sweeping life changes,¹ and our modest platform is a fitting place to heap some well-deserved recognition upon it.

Recommended tracks: The Tower, Divine – Appalling, The Hound, The Pulse of Bliss, Lost Among Liars
You may also like: Hail Spirit Noir, Unexpect, OMB, Dog Fashion Disco, Dissona

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

Label: Season of Mist – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Vulture Industries is:
– Kyrre Teigen (bass)
– Tor Helge Gjengedal (drums, percussion)
– Eivind Huse (guitars)
– Øyvind Madsen (guitars, keyboards)
– Bjørnar Nilsen (vocals, keyboards, percussion, additional guitars)

1. Speaking of life changes, I’m getting married this summer and we’re beginning our honeymoon with a day at Hellfest (romantic, I know). As fate would have it, guess who’s playing—Vulture Industries. ︎

The post Lost In Time: Vulture Industries – The Tower appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal, power metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Kamelot, Symphony X, Circus Maximus
Country: Sweden
Release date: 3 December 2010

Back in my day, all prog metal was either power metal or thrash metal rabble rabble. Prog-tinged USPM (Queensrÿche, Savatage, early Dream Theater) or techy thrash (Toxik, Mekong Delta, Watchtower) were prog metal before all this djent and “dissonant death metal” nonsense. At the blog, Sam and I often lament about the dearth of power/prog releases in the 20s, and even scouring the depths of the underground often nets us nothing. Heck, modern cult classics from Tanagra, Dimhav, Eternity’s End, and Michael Romeo are nearing (or have eclipsed) half a decade ago now. It’s rough to be a fan of traditional prog metal and its power-tinged sibling in 2025 and has been for ages, but 2010 was a different story. Seventh Wonder’s fourth album, The Great Escape, is a (semi-) modern masterpiece of power/prog, arguably the genre’s pinnacle of the last fifteen years straight. 

A power metal band is no stronger than their vocalist, and Tommy Karevik is a cult favorite pick as among the best in all of prog, combining a rich timbre and vocal agility with a musical theater sensibility. The closest touchstone for style and timbre I have is combining Roy Khan (ex-Kamelot) and Brendan Urie (Panic! at the Disco), but Karevik is easily equal to those legends himself. He injects endless energy into The Great Escape’s already energetic instrumentals, his flair for drama always over-the-top yet satisfying. For instance, in iconic opener “Wizeman,” after a slick guitar solo near the end, the track isolates Karevik and a lovely melody before the bass drags the duet back to metal; then, after a grand pause, Karevik belts “FLY A————WAAAAAY” into a reprisal of the main theme. There isn’t a single other vocalist on Earth who could have me not rolling my eyes from cringe on the group’s most popular song “Alley Cat,” but when Karevik sings “Oh baby let me stay your alley cat” I totally would let him. The best vocal performance, however, is on “King of Whitewater,” his agility and belting showed off more than any other song because of the sense of urgency in the chorus.

The Great Escape is breathless. Of course, Karevik hits impressive notes endlessly, but instrumentally Seventh Wonder almost always reach the same kind of balls-to-the-wall intensity except for brief, well-timed pauses. “Wizeman” starts the album without any frou-frou entrance, diving straight into a shreddy synth and guitar riff. Moreover, The Great Escape has so many hooks it’s comically unfair to other music; this also contributes to the breathless quality. By that I mean that once you’ve absorbed a hyper power/prog section and have it stuck in your mind, all of a sudden a new chorus or killer solo or resplendent melody comes along before your brain has time to take in what’s happening. So even seven years after I first heard The Great Escape, new earworms routinely crawl their way into my brain and latch on. While writing this Lost in Time piece, the duet with Karevik’s wife on “Long Way Home” stood out to me like it had never before because the track is a sweet moment—the bass on the track is killer, too. 

Although Karevik is the highlight and the zenith of prog singing in general on The Great Escape, the instrumentalists also attain a level of awesomeness that few prog bands before or since have on an album. Holding the whole thing together is bassist Andreas Blomqvist, his phat tone often mimicking the active guitar parts perfectly or else soloing on his own like on “Move on Through.” Seventh Wonder pays the bass its due. The two melodic players, Johan Liefvendahl on guitars and Andreas Söderin on keys, alternate between complex, Dream Theater-inspired solo sections and smart little keyboard-orchestrated bits and stellar riffs like at 2:30 into “Alley Cat.” For a genre which thrives on technical ability and the individual, these guys work perfectly on their own and as a unit.

Of course, I’ve ignored the pink elephant in the room: “The Great Escape” (song). Much like Symphony X’s genre-perfecting closer “The Odyssey,” “The Great Escape” is modeled off an epic poem, Sweden’s own 50s classic Aniara. Over the course of a bombastic, euphoric thirty minute journey, the band re-weave the story of the spaceship Aniara: the triumphs and tragedies of a ship destined to save humanity from a dying planet. In structure and story similar to Shadow Gallery’s “First Light” but much more metal in execution, the story is touching and by the final acoustic re-hashing of the main theme you’ll have the breath knocked out of you. If anything, the track is so tirelessly climaxing in sweet melodies that it can be a little over-the-top for my brain, but the explosions of brilliant songwriting—the galloping heavy metal riff at 5:00, the backing vocals at 9:00, the bass tapping at 15:35, the synths at 26:20—ensures that each moment is necessary. “The Great Escape” transcends the rest of the stellar album, and the track is in an echelon of epics like “The Odyssey,” “Octavarium,” and “First Light,” downright essential prog metal no matter who you are. 

At sixty-eight minutes long, each half of The Great Escape would make a killer album (or lengthy EP) on their own, and, admittedly, they come across a tad disjoint. But together, the album and epic are power/prog of a magnitude we literally haven’t seen since. With possibly the best vocal performance on a prog metal album ever, classy production, and a ton of replayability from all the catchy riffs and choruses, The Great Escape is indispensable. I long for the glory days of power/prog when bands were unafraid to write album-length epics and the Dream Theater worship bands transcended being mere clones.

Recommended tracks: The Great Escape, Wizeman, Alley Cat, King of Whitewater, by the way did I mention The Great Escape
You may also like: Pagan’s Mind, DGM, Darkwater, Teramaze, Shadow Gallery

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

Label: Frontiers Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Seventh Wonder is:
– Tommy Karevik (vocals)
– Andreas Blomqvist (bass)
– Johan Liefvendahl (guitars)
– Andreas Söderin (keyboards)
– Johnny Sandin (drums)

The post Lost in Time: Seventh Wonder – The Great Escape appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

No artist credited

Style: Black Metal, Dissonant Black Metal, Progressive Metal (Harsh vocals with cleans on the last track)
Recommended for fans of: Krallice, Thantifaxath, Celeste
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 15 October 2013

The early 2010s were a volatile and explosive time for black metal, full of experimentation and change. A decade earlier, bands like Blut Aus Nord, Abigor, and Dødheimsgard were planting the seeds of an uglier, more abrasive twist on the genre; not long after that, Deathspell Omega would blow the scene wide open with their infamous trilogy. Since then, countless groups have tried their hands at the style of dissonant black metal laid down by these titans of the genre to wildly varying success. Many bands have come and gone, lost to the wind, with Castevet counted among them—though not for lack of quality. 

Castevet were a modest three-piece outfit consisting of Andrew Hock on guitar and vocal duty, Ian Jacyszyn on the drums, as well as sharing Krallice member Nicholas McMaster on bass. The style of music played by these three certainly follows in the footsteps of the aforementioned titans but takes a subtler approach to the oddities and complexities that are so prevalent in the genre. Krallice is, fittingly, the main point of reference to be heard on Obsian, though with a shimmering, prettier take on their sound, even dabbling in softer ambient pieces like on the title track. Obsian is an album full of technical marvel wrapped up in a vague, melancholic atmosphere; an ever-unfurling organism that refuses to be fully defined.

“The Tower” introduces the primary style found on Obsian: harmonically and rhythmically dense black metal. Instantly recognizable and distinctly memorable is the psychedelic fuzz of the bass tone of McMaster, who spends nearly as much time providing countermelody and even lead melody as he does laying down a foundational groove. The production—courtesy of other Krallice mainstay Colin Marston—is warm and just hazy enough for the instruments to shine while also providing context for the atmosphere created by their performances. Herein lies one piece of the puzzle that makes the sound on Obsian so unique: the performances create just as much of the atmosphere as the production job does. From the jarring chords at 2:20 in “Cavernous” that seem to spill out of the aether, to the assertive bass line that drops down to the tonic during the intro/chorus riff on “The Curve,” Castevet make full use of the context provided to them through the stellar production job. 

As Obsian continues, it patiently reveals more of its unique strengths, most notably an acumen for intricate songwriting. Castevet are less overtly dissonant than their peers, instead choosing to utilize smart composition and performance techniques to achieve the same effect. The guitar and bass will often play similar arpeggios that are just slightly off from one another, giving an organic off-kilter feel. Unique chord voicings and smart chord inversions are littered throughout Obsian’s runtime that, when paired with its stilted rhythms, give the experience a sense of constantly folding in on itself—like an auditory set of penrose steps. More specifically, Castevet have a knack for finding strong melodic lines and recontextualizing them through harmonic interplay, giving the listener an opportunity to approach the same sections of songs from different angles during repeat listens; look no further than opening track “The Tower” or the back half of “The Curve” for examples of this.

Another piece of Obsian’s puzzle is its bold rhythmic flair, especially when coupled with some of the more idiosyncratic instrumentation choices and drum kit orchestration. Castevet weave in and out of time signatures, extend and cut phrases short, and play with subdivisions, always in a way that is still conducive to just sitting back and instinctively nodding your head. “As Fathomed By Beggars and Victims” is perhaps the best example of this rhythmic quirk: a pervasive 9 against 4 polyrhythm being played on the hi-hat gives the song an unsteady gait, and even the foundational groove shifts depending on how you listen to it, with 3/4 and 4/4 time each being equally valid ways of counting. When put together, the result is a sonic illusion that is not unlike a desert mirage, shifting from afar but coming into clarity when given more attention. This same song is also a good example of Jacyszyn’s clever kit orchestration. The drums drive the song forward, giving the relatively stationary guitar performance much more bite than it would have on its own. Jacyszyn is able to fill in droughts of movement from the rest of the band with precisely tuned toms and flowing fills, and the drum performance can largely be listened to as melodically as the guitars. 

What really ties everything together for Obsian, though, are the subtle details that Castevet incorporates into every aspect of the experience. Acoustic guitars accentuate riffs at opportune times (“Cavernous”) that, while not quite folky, make the performance feel more human and easier to attach to emotionally. Castevet knows when to vamp on a good idea (ending of “The Curve”) but always have some sort of subtle variation to keep it interesting, allowing the atmosphere to consume the listener while keeping the music engaging. Phrases often start with familiar riff structures and harmonic voicings, only to devolve into swirling, gestural approximations of these forms in the second half of the same phrase. A question is being posed: what exactly are the most important aspects of these beloved techniques and tropes? What makes them tick? Castevet probes for answers with a delicate touch, achieving and even exceeding the same standard set by classics of the genre, doing more with less.

Just when you think that Castevet have shown all they have to offer, they pull one final trick out of their sleeve with “The Seat of Severance”, starting with one of the most straightforward riffs yet and marking the only time that clean vocals make an appearance. The choice to forgo harsh vocals completely is a brave one in music as harmonically vague as this, and proves that the music on Obsian is not reliant on familiar textures and cliches; instead, rock solid composition is what carries the sound and makes it a standout experience. While Obsian is certainly dense and full of anxiety, it is not quite as dreary or oppressive as its peers, merely introspective. The run time is short, inviting necessary repeat listens while also justifying its experimentation and occasional ambiance. My single critique of Obsian is that I wish there were two or three more songs to flesh out the experience, though this is just because I can’t get enough of the sound crafted on this forgotten relic. As it stands, the listener is left with the same feeling of finishing an exceptional book or television series, where you sit there in silence for ten minutes thinking… What now?

Well… you hit play again.

Recommended tracks: The Tower, The Curve, As Fathomed by Beggars and Victims
You may also like: Scarcity, Flourishing, Yellow Eyes

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Metal-Archives page

Label: Profound Lore Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Castevet is:
– Andrew Hock (guitars, vocals)
– Ian Jacyszyn (drums)
– Nicholas McMaster (bass)

The post Lost in Time: Castevet – Obsian appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-garde metal, progressive metal, black metal (Mixed vocals, mostly clean)
Recommended for fans of: Ulver, Borknagar, Voivod, Thy Catafalque
Country: Norway
Release date: 22 April 2002

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Kristoffer Rygg, aka Garm, to the world of black metal: even from his musical entrance on Ulver’s Bergtatt, he postured himself as a forward thinker, integrating black metal with folk sensibilities in a way never quite seen before. One year later, Garm and co. dropped Kveldssanger, one of the first renowned dark folk pieces (and a contender for my all-time favorite album), all before taking a radical left turn into ambient and synthwave. But before Garm’s fascination with electronics and ambience, he also contributed vocals to progressive black metal outfit Borknagar, a renowned Subway favorite, and spent some time in Arcturus, one of the most avant-garde of Garm’s groups and the subject of today’s Lost in Time. Today, we’re discussing The Sham Mirrors, Arcturus’s magnum opus and my introduction to avant-garde metal as a young metalhead.

Touches of weirdness were always present in Arcturus’s sound: though their debut Aspera Hiems Symfonia stays fairly true to its raw black metal aesthetic, tracks like “The Bodkin and the Quietus,” “Wintry Grey,” and “Raudt og Svart” introducing bizarre backing clean vocals and a glacial, ethereal songwriting style betray the quirkiness at the heart of their sound. However, Arcturus quickly sidestepped their grim and frostbitten aesthetic in place of something with a touch more sideshow: follow-up La Masquerade Infernale was an avant-garde album so theatrical and so dramatic that it bordered on camp, foregoing the black metal of Aspera and squeezing every last drop of juice out of its stranger moments.

But which direction to go when you’ve emptied the well of cabaret theatrics? On The Sham Mirrors, The only logical answer for Arcturus is “both ways,” re-introducing the black metal that permeated Aspera (even including a feature from Ihsahn on “Radical Cut”) and at the same time launching the infernal masquerade into the bleakness of space: whereas Pagan’s Mind’s Celestial Entrance is a grand tale of shimmering auroras, cosmic deities, and warriors, The Sham Mirrors is considerably more stark and hostile, exposing the listener to unforgiving coldness, bursts of stellar radiation, and the sharp, jagged surfaces of lifeless celestial bodies who have never felt the wind weather their crags. The Sham Mirrors is littered with astral imagery and spacey atmospherics, from the desperate lyrical transmissions from an apocalyptic distant planet on opener “Kinetic” to the twinkling keyboard breakdown on “Collapse Generation” and the delicate piano work leading into extended synthesizer ambience in the middle third of closer “For To End Yet Again,” giving the listener a brief moment of tranquility among its austerity.

This is not to say that The Sham Mirrors is an actively hostile experience – despite the extrasolar anguish that permeates its runtime, moments of triumph and even cinematic songwriting surface throughout. “Kinetic” offers a great example, immediately opening the album with huge chords from guitarist Knut Valle, active and trippy drumwork from Hellhammer, and one of the biggest riffs on the album. Switching back and forth between spoken-word transmissions and vocals that border on yodeling, the track builds into powerful drumming that culminates in a ferocious guitar solo before petering out with delicate piano interplaying with a soft vocal delivery. Following track “Nightmare Heaven” works in similar fashion to “Kinetic,” making a grand opening statement by pitting an oscillating guitar riff against pummeling drums before transitioning into a breakneck piano solo by Steinar Johnsen. The track disintegrates into electronic drum/synthesizer interplay, rebuilding itself into something more metallic and mounting in tension until frantic synthesizers underlie falsetto shouts from Garm.

A cornerstone of The Sham Mirrors’ songwriting is its ability to coalesce bizarre song structures and unconventional instrumentation in a way that exudes flow. In the hands of more amaetur songwriters, the use of a drum and bass breakdown or quasi-yodels in the middle of a metal song would spell instant failure, but Arcturus thrive and succeed in these moments, whether it be the breakdown from frantic symphonic black metal into what is effectively the ice cave music from Donkey Kong 64 on “Collapse Generation,” the sudden trailing guitar riff into a brooding ambient section on “Ad Absurdum,” or the slap in the face by “For to End Yet Again” when heavy guitars and over-compressed vocals suddenly overtake subdued-yet-twisted sideshow instrumentals. Despite its oddity and foregoing of convention, The Sham Mirrors feels effortlessly written, as if this kind of songwriting is standard fare on whatever planet Arcturus are from.

Arcturus are fully aware of the silliness and camp that The Sham Mirrors is borne from: despite its pervasive themes of otherworldly suffering and outer isolation, it never takes itself too seriously, making a point to absolutely take the piss out of the music with the most non-sequitur word salad lyricism to be found in their career. The desperate outcries on “Kinetic” in lines like “As return is no option / Our eyes were removed / For our own safety / The distance too great / For you to hear our cries” and the lamentations on “Ad Absurdum” of “I’m tired of telling stories / With this ghost voice of mine / So you can say you don’t / Believe in ghosts” sit alongside lines like “Police, police, police / Please stop the Euro / From binar, bin Laden / Io, paramount pan / Io, paradox pan“ from “For to End Yet Again,” a drastic change in tone from morose to incomprehensible. However, like the quirky instrumentation and the oxymoronic songwriting, The Sham Mirrors never showboats its silliness, sneaking its way into the lyrics only to be found by those who listen hard enough to go, “What the fuck did Garm just say?”

At the heart of The Sham Mirrors’ success is its paradoxical beauty: it manages to balance the tragic and the cinematic with the absurd; it is at times as theatrical and campy as its predecessor and at others is effortlessly cool and even takes the piss out of itself; and it paints harsh and unforgiving alien worlds in a way that is approachable and listenable. Even though The Sham Mirrors was likely just a stepping stone on Garm’s path through musical experimentation, as Garm moved on from Arcturus a long time ago, it had a considerable effect on me and sparked my interest in avant-garde metal. Even as a young listener, I recognized its merit as a cool and weird metal album and after nearly a decade and a half of spinning, I am intimately familiar with its quirks and consider The Sham Mirrors an essential avant-garde metal listen.

Recommended Tracks: Kinetic, Radical Cut, For to End Yet Again, Nightmare Heaven
You may also like: Fjoergyn, Unexpect, Malariii, Frore 5 Four, Dreamslain

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

Label: Ad Astra Enterprises

Arcturus is:
– Garm (vocals)
– Steiner Johnsen (keyboards)
– Knut Valle (guitars)
– Dag Gravem (bass)
– Hellhammer (drums)

The post Lost In Time: Arcturus – The Sham Mirrors appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Label: Ice Level Music – Bandcamp | Facebook

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

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

Style: progressive thrash metal, technical thrash metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Voivod, Crimson Glory, Coroner
Country: United States-TX
Release date: 6 November 1989

The four short years between Energetic Disassembly and Control and Resistance saw a changed progressive metal landscape. No longer were Watchtower alone: Fates Warning and Queensrÿche reigned supreme; USPM bands like Savatage and Crimson Glory picked up some flourishes from the prog thrash world, which, at the time, was being pushed to new levels of instrumental competence—undreamt of five years earlier—by groups like Voivod, Toxik, Coroner, and Death Row. Meanwhile, just eight months earlier, a little band from New York released their debut album When Dream and Day Unite. 

Beyond the drastically changed landscape, Watchtower were a new band with guitarist Billy White and vocalist Jason McMaster leaving to pursue other ventures. Alan Tecchio replaced McMaster, and his vocals, if anything, are more polished than McMaster’s while retaining that unhinged energy. The timbre of McMaster is missed, but Tecchio sings his heart out on Control and Resistance with a technical ability and wide range seamlessly fitting the infamous skill of the Watchtower family. More importantly, the man, the myth, the GOD of guitar in progressive metal Ron Jarzombeck joined the fray, a man I consider to be one of metal’s preeminent musical geniuses with his work in acts like Blotted Science and Spastic Ink, his mix of jazzy sounds and serialism techniques unlike anything else in all of metal. And this album right here is where he honed his progressive style. He has a distinct style and tone—nobody else sounds like Ron Jarzombeck with his bright jazzy spring—and it’s clearly at play here, upping the ante for Watchtower from mere technicality to a stunning display of the pinnacle of metal guitar-playing—all several years pre-Images and Words.

The songwriting and production dramatically improved between Energetic Disassembly and Control and Resistance, Watchtower reigning in their talents into a more controlled album. The group winds through seemingly dozens of tempos per song with perfect, stylish instrumental pyrotechnics. The clean bass tone provides the foundation, and then Jarzombek builds towering songs out of power chords, riffs, and crazy, indescribable solos. He does things on a guitar that nobody else that I’m aware of does even thirty-five years later: the break near the middle of “Mayday in Kiev,” for instance, utilizes some classic Jarzombek shenanigans, playing unpredictable notes that allude to his future forays into Serialism. The track’s lyrics meditate on Chernobyl, fitting since these guys were clearly hit by some radioactive amp feedback (à la Peter Parker and his spider) to achieve their superhuman abilities. The precise songwriting works in their favor, too, as Watchtower dazzle on tracks like “The Eldritch” which uses a drum fill to bridge the shreddy intro to the shreddier verse. Longer tracks like the titular “Control and Resistance” have clearer sections than songs on Energetic Disassembly had, switching from intro chords to thrash metal insanity with finesse that the unwieldy debut songs lacked. Across the album, the interplay between Keyser’s bass and Jarzombeck’s guitar is spot-on, the two soloing and riffing start-and-stop time-signature freakouts as if they’re an extension of each other’s brain and fingers from the first moments of “Instruments of Random Murder” to the last of “Dangerous Toy.” The biggest difference between the two albums is Jarzombeck’s increased propensity for soloing compared to White, and Watchtower benefited from it. 

Control and Resistance is a display of talent that, while not as important as Disassembly, is much more refined, cementing Watchtower’s legacy in progressive metal (and kickstarting the career of Jarzombek who has brought a range of new techniques to metal thanks to his nearly unmatched creativity). I’m still blown away by these Texans’ talent and vision in the present day; I don’t know many riffs that can rival the likes of 3:10 in “Hidden Instincts” or 3:10 in “Dangerous Toy” for their sheer swagger. Watchtower were frantically riffing circles around everyone else, in weird time signatures, too, and they knew it.

For those of you still doubting their importance, the following bands have cited direct influence from the classic band: Testament, Dream Theater, Death, Annihilator, Coroner, Atheist, Pestilence, Cynic, Symphony X, Devin Townsend, Toxik, Sieges Even, and Spiral Architect. With only two albums to their name, they managed to birth a genre and influence all your favorite bands. Of course, groups like Fates Warning were right in line and metal was on the brink of its technical and progressive breakthrough, but Watchtower did it first and, importantly, as well. Respect your ancestors and check out these legendary albums.

Recommended tracks: Instruments of Random Murder, The Eldritch, Mayday in Kiev, Control and Resistance
You may also like: Toxik, Blotted Science, Deathrow, Spiral Architect, Howling Sycamore, Dissimulator

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

Label: Noise Records

Watchtower was:
– Alan Tecchio (vocals)
– Ron Jarzombek (guitars)
– Doug Keyser (bass)
– Rick Colaluca (drums)

The post Lost in Time: Watchtower – Control and Resistance appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive thrash metal, technical thrash metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Voivod, Crimson Glory, Coroner
Country: United States-TX
Release date: 2 February 1985

Ask the prog metal obsessed and you’ll get a few different answers for the earliest band in our beloved genre. Queensrÿche debuted in 1984, but The Warning isn’t really progressive; King Crimson and Rush certainly had the progressive but only truly explored the metal beyond riffs here and there; The Spectre Within by Fates Warning is the obvious next choice, particularly as the band remains notably influential and active; Iron Maiden, Rainbow, and even Metallica had released proggy tracks by the mid 80s, though they clearly weren’t the progressive metal we know as its own thing; but depending on a not-well-documented release date discrepancy to beat out The Spectre Within by mere months, my champion is Watchtower, taking the mold of thrash metal light years beyond their peers to something that’s recognizably progressive metal. In February of 1985, these wizards changed the metal paradigm with their skill alone and birthed the genre that brings us all together (and tears us all apart, too).

Rampant time signature changes, driving bass, uniquely (at the time) technical riffs, and, of course, the blueprint-for-prog wailing mezzo-soprano; together with a thrash grit, we have the core of Energetic Disassembly, heaviness with an intricacy of playing lost since the heyday of progressive rock, even. This was a completely new dimension of metal: riffs like this were so far beyond any other band. Billy White and Doug Keyser on guitars and bass, respectively, pranced and shredded and bounced around their instruments like men possessed by the dancing plague of 1518, tirelessly racing through feverish, spidery riffs in several time signatures with seemingly endless range across the fretboard. Heck, even from a speed perspective hardly any other thrash up to then could  match the tempo of tracks like “Social Fears,” the almighty, riff-tacular title track, and “Meltdown”; grind was in its demo-phase infancy, and speed metal was pretty much just a name compared to the efforts of Watchtower. The riffs and acrobatics on every track, but particularly ones like on sections like near the start of “Asylum” and the hyper version of the classic heavy metal gallop on “Argonne Forest,” are as memorable as they are influential. Even when comparing their music to artists a decade and a half later like Spiral Architect who helped take the helm for purely technical prog metal, Watchtower hold their own—these boys from Austin, Texas were visionaries.

One must mention Jason McMaster’s iconic voice with his dramatic wails. While his style has only improved in the following decades (see: Howling Sycamore), his frenzied singing takes Watchtower’s energy from simply next-level to outright fanatical: just listen to that scream at the end of “Cimmerian Shadows.” Finally, Rick Colaluca’s work behind the kit is admirable, also pretty much unique for the time—you sure as hell didn’t hear Lars jumping around the kit like this. It simply had to be the fastest and most precise drum performance ever at that point in time. The level of intricacy while maintaining thrash grooves… Colaluca is underrated for his importance to developing progressive metal. All together, Watchtower were a well-oiled machine even on their debut with zero contemporaries. The next couple years would see the blooming of prog metal, but these guys broke the barrier.

I can only imagine what it would be like to walk into an Austin record store in early 1985, pick Energetic Disassembly up on cassette, and hear “Violent Change” come out of the speakers, distinctly thrash metal but so new: faster, more technical, and with a level of intelligent density not seen yet in metal’s fifteen-year history. It would be life-changing and truly mind-blowing—I’d probably have had to pick up pieces of my brain from across the street. Nearly forty years of prog metal releases later, and Energetic Disassembly does more than stand up or remain notable just for its early release: this is still great progressive thrash (although the production is rough even for this point of time), and the prog community should be shamed for allowing this one to be lost in time: rectify it.

Recommended tracks: Tyrants in Distress, Energetic Disassembly, Social Fears, Meltdown
You may also like: Toxik, Blotted Science, Deathrow, Spiral Architect, Howling Sycamore, Dissimulator

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

Label: Zombo Records

Watchtower was:
– Jason McMaster (vocals)
– Billy White (guitars)
– Doug Keyser (bass)
– Rick Colaluca (drums)

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