Style: Progressive rock, symphonic rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: King Crimson, Camel, Vangelis, Anekdoten, Focus
Country: Norway
Release date: 25 July 2025

In the kingdom of the rock band, the throne usually belongs to the singer, who commands attention while the instruments orbit like loyal courtiers. There may be a guitarist lurking like a scheming vizier, angling to one day seize control, or a keyboardist playing the role of the staunch and trusty chancellor—perhaps the favourite of the court, even if the crown rests elsewhere. But in instrumental bands, the throne sits conspicuously empty. Some groups fill the vacancy by crowning another instrument as monarch. Others leave the court in disarray, offering tracks that feel like singer-less karaoke, shapeless without a clear voice from the throne.

But there is a secret third option: on their debut album The Book of Hours, Norwegian band Agropelter opts for a little throne room reno, removing the seat of power entirely in favour of a round table. Gathered around it are flute, organ, mellotron, guitar, fretless bass, piano, and more; each takes turns steering the conversation and weaving lush, indulgent harmonies. The resulting sound draws heavily on the pizzazz of 70s and 80s prog rock while peppering in jazz, classical, cinematic hues, and even a dash of AOR. It’s a lively musical dialogue, rather than a single ruling figure holding court.

Evoking everything from Rachmaninoff to King Crimson to the Old-School RuneScape soundtrack within a single track, one could easily imagine Agropelter’s multi-instrumental milieu feeling cramped or scatterbrained. However, The Book of Hours unfolds with unhurried assurance. Those who prefer their music structured will find no catchily-packaged verse-chorus deals here; the album flows more like a stream of consciousness, a winding road meandering towards something that always stays just past the vanishing point. Most of the time, this works: I wouldn’t bat an eye if you told me that the solo five minutes into “The Book of Hours Pt I” was lifted from a Rachmaninoff or Beethoven piano concerto, as its long phrases lope elegantly in arcing forms, but the final tumble down the keyboard’s low end to the waiting mellotron feels effortless and natural, too. However, not all twists in the road are as deftly navigated. Take, for instance, the bass solo that bubbles up from the murky bottom of the dense soundscape in “Burial Mound”. Though sharply executed and poignantly eerie, it trails off without a true resolution. And the same goes for album opener “The Flute of Peril”—Agropelter hasn’t yet mastered the art of gracefully laying a track to rest once the journey has run its course.

The Book of Hours opens with an atmospheric fricassée of cawing crows, thunder, and rain that occasionally reappears between tracks. Though the colourfully varied instrumental tapestry often delights with unexpected timbres poking out of the thrumming inter-track ambiance, there are fewer surprises when it comes to the melody. That is to say, Agropelter is content to resolve phrases and harmonies in ways that you might anticipate—pretty and satisfying rather than challenging, dissonant, or unsettled. For example, the cinematic major-key theme that closes “The Book of Hours Pt I”:¹ harmonically, its path is somewhat telegraphed, but the effect is less that of a predictable cliché, and more of a puzzle piece sliding neatly into place.

Whether it’s the sultry, jazz-tinged piano in “The Book of Hours Pt II” or the shimmering AOR glint of the keys and guitar that open “Levitator”, Agropelter’s stylistic flourishes never feel out of place. Instead, though the dominant accents are the brio of vintage prog rock and the elegant grandeur of Romantic Classical music, each voice still finds its place at the round table. Agropelter may have never crowned a ruler, but The Book of Hours proves that a court can thrive without one. Together, the album’s numerous influences and instruments coalesce into a debut that surprises and charms at nearly every turn.

Recommended tracks: Burial Mound, The Book of Hours Pt I, The Book of Hours Pt III
You may also like: Øresund Space Collective, Agusa, Änglagård, King Garcia
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Instagram

Label: The Laser’s Edge – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Agropelter is:
– Kay Olsen (guitars, bass, church organ, keyboard)
– Jonas Reingold (fretless bass)
– Mattias Olson (percussion, synths)
– Andreas Sjøen (drums)
With guests:
– Jordi Castella (grand piano)
– Eli Mine (harpsichord)
– Norlene M (cello)
– Aileen Antu (double bass)
– Luis Vilca (alto flute)
– Hannah Danets (flute)
– Zhivago (bassoon)
– Edgar Asmar (duduk)

1. This and a few passages in “The Book of Hours Pt III” call to mind Mark Knopfler’s soundtrack work. ︎

The post Review: Agropelter – The Book of Hours appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive rock, progressive metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Haken, prog rock Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Riverside
Country: Norway
Release date: 13 June 2025

What do you know about America’s tenth president, John Tyler? I’m willing to bet the answer is ‘not much.’ Succeeding William Henry Harrison, who died a month after his own inauguration, Tyler’s leadership was mocked for the unorthodox—and, at the time, unprecedented—way he had come to power. Fearful of alienating political allies, he kept his predecessor’s cabinet despite the fact many of them actively disliked him. At the same time, he took stances in such flagrant opposition to his own party’s platform that they tried to impeach him. Generally regarded as an unremarkable president with a few minor achievements to his name, he carries the ignominious honour of being the only president whose death wasn’t officially recognised in Washington (because of his allegiance to the Confederacy). You haven’t heard of him because historical memory rewards the noteworthy, be they good or bad. The John Tylers of history tend to be forgotten. 

Vying for the title of “the John Tyler of prog” comes Norwegian outfit Avkrvst with their sophomore effort Waving at the Sky. Like their peers in Altesia and Moon Machine, Avkrvst’s sound sits somewhere between prog rock-era Opeth and early Haken with splashes of Porcupine Tree and Riverside for good measure, straddling that thin marigold line between prog rock and prog metal. If my memory serves me correctly, we didn’t end up covering their 2022 debut The Approbation because the writer who had opted to review them suddenly left the site. If that sounds like an inauspicious start for Avkrvst in our dank, poorly-lit halls, then I’m afraid all that talk of John Tyler up top isn’t a harbinger of any improvement.

Instrumental opener “Preceding” gives a flavour of things to come: wonky time signatures and staccato riffing plus melodic lead guitar and synth lines backed by whimsical Mellotron. Like so many intro tracks, it adds little to the overall album. At least follow-up “The Trauma” gives us some galloping drums and a tension-building riff to feast on before presenting Waving at the Sky’s predominant issue which, like the band, we’ll avoid for a hot minute. Tracks like “Families are Forever”¹ and “Conflating Memories” offer us some melodic, almost Floydian guitar solos, the latter also featuring a spicy flute cameo, while a couple of synth leads adorn “Waving at the Sky”. “Ghosts of Yesteryear” offers an adrenaline booster of much-needed energy with strong riffing and energetic drumwork. Indeed, the rhythm section in particular excels throughout the record, with the low-tuned, Yes-inspired bass work (credited to both Simon Bergseth and Øystein Aadland) thrumming pleasingly in the mix at all times, and the energetic drumming of Martin Utby being the most obvious plumes in Avkrvst’s cap. 

These better angels of Avkrvst’s nature, however, are the exception rather than the rule. It takes Waving at the Sky five minutes to introduce the vocals, and when they do arrive you can see why the band filibustered with instrumental prevarication. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that Simon Bergseth’s vocal performance is bland². He invariably sticks to safe, tried-and-tested vocal lines, singing whole notes in a barely varying cadence and with a near-total lack of expression. Every note is extended long beyond the point at which any interest could be maintained and he never varies from this mode of delivery. Harsh vocals are used sparingly, which is for the best because they’re always superfluous to the band’s sound; Avkrvst don’t need them, and they hang awkwardly every time. 

“Families are Forever” is by far the worst offender in this vein. In practice, the restrained instrumental work, the low burr of the bass and the nuance of the drumwork, is perfect for this sort of track. But Bergseth’s utterly lifeless vocal melodies, which should be the focal point of this section, instead rob the song of any intrigue. And this happens every time, the band members almost sabotage themselves in trying to match the soporific quality of the vocals. Historically, I haven’t been all that kind to Ross Jennings’ guest appearances (will his turn on the upcoming Scardust change that track record?), and I’m hardly going to start now, but his cliched and rather unremarkable contribution to “The Malevolent” is leaps and bounds ahead of any other vocal performance on this record. Whatever mitochondrial deficit the band were suffering from heretofore briefly abates and the band finally finds some damned energy which certainly helps “The Malevolent” as well as Jennings’ chances to steal the show.

That same energy rears its head a few times and always sees Avkrvst at their most compelling. “Ghosts of Yesteryear” features some sick bass, animated drumming, and big guitar chords all with a flavour of Porcupine Tree’s iconic “Deadwing”. Strong riffing and an ominous lead motif with an almost saxy timbre all make for a standout track—like John Tyler’s annexation of Texas, it’s probably their greatest achievement on the record. Naturally, the vocal-led sections are still a dirge, but the band at least manage to vary the track enough to keep it interesting. Twelve minute closer “Waving at the Sky” possesses a certain portentousness absent from the rest of the record, and the sense of a compositional goal in mind. With a wealth of solos and ominous riffing in its instrumental back half, it’s hardly surprising that it’s one of the better tracks. But the track also features a moderately interesting chorus. That may sound like damning with faint praise—probably because it is—but on a record with vocal performances this expressionless, moderate intrigue is a win. 

Ultimately proving as insipid as its title, Waving at the Sky contains flashes of compositional talent and energy in an album that, for the most part, has a contrarian tendency to be uninteresting in spite of the obvious potential that occasionally rears its head. And yet, I don’t want to sound too harsh; Avkrvst’s main sin is John Tyler-style blandness, not James Buchanan-esque badness. A focus on strengthening and varying vocal melodies in a way that matches the rest of the band’s talents would provide a much-needed shot of energy to the compositions. Then again, why should Avkrvst listen to me? After all, a certain president never listened to his haters³. Can you guess which one?

Recommended tracks: Ghosts of Yesteryear, Conflating Memories
You may also like: Altesia, Moon Machine, Keor, Novena
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: InsideOutMusic – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Avkrvst is:
– Simon Bergseth (lead vocalist, guitars, bass guitar)
– Martin Utby (drums, synthesizer)
– Øystein Aadland (bass guitar, keyboards)
– Edvard Seim (guitars)
– Auver Gaaren (keyboards)

1.  You know who might have something to say about this song title? John Tyler! He was both the first president to lose his wife in office and the first to get married in office (to his second wife). Woodrow Wilson would later become the second and only other president to become both widowed and remarried while in office. ︎
2.  Unlike John Tyler, who reportedly had a rather pleasant singing voice and could play many instruments. Given how much everyone seemed to dislike him, we can assume he really must’ve been quite good. ︎
3.  “My own personal popularity can have no influence over me when the dictates of my best judgment and the obligations of an oath require of me a particular course. Under such circumstances, whether I sink or swim on the tide of popular favor is, to me, a matter of inferior consideration.” God, what a bore.  ︎

The post Review: Avkrvst – Waving at the Sky appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-metal, post-black metal, blackgaze
Recommended for fans of: Messa, Oceans of Slumber, Suldusk
Country: Norway
Release date: 23 May 2025

There are, it seems, two kinds of post-metal, which can be neatly divided into the kind that bores me and the kind that interests me. The genre inherited the entrenched ideal of build and crescendo that defines much of the more uninteresting post-rock out there—Mogwai to Pelican, Explosions in the Sky to Amenra—centering a compositional conceit over giving the music a sense of purpose beyond its structure. On the other hand, you’ve got the more dynamic post- acts who dare to insert outside influences and build on the genre’s foundational precepts to create something more, which is how we get to the likes of Talk Talk to Bruit ≤, The Ocean to M​ú​r. Notions of genre purity are unnecessarily limiting, the post- genres are better when they get weird with it.

Fortunately, on debut Man Under Erasure, Norwegian quintet Feversea are melding post-metal and post-black influences with occasional hints of sludge and doom. Led by the airy, haunting vocals of Ada Lønne Emberland, the band sit firmly between the lighter blackened stylings of Suldusk, the creative post-metal of Messa, and the melodic doomy leanings of Oceans of Slumber. Thick riffs vie with blackened tremolo while occasional blast beats and banshee screams cut through the languid clean vocals that dominate throughout.

After a quick introductory track featuring whispered male vocals over an arpeggiated synth motif, “Murmur Within the Skull of God” gets the ball rolling with a blackened sludgy riff that forms an indefatigable foundation for Emberland’s almost disdainful delivery, the track eventually capitulating to blast beats and screams. “New Creatures Replace Our Names” follows that same structural pattern, with an intense blackened mid-section after a delicious slow-build and a compelling ascending riff, but the rest of the song is rooted in a more doomy milieu reminiscent of Oceans of Slumber. This is the general formula of Man Under Erasure, by no means adhered to rigidly, but representative of the record’s tenor.

The problem with a lot of emergent post-metal bands is their lack of dynamism, a willingness to trudge along at the same tempo for fifty minutes. Thankfully, Feversea’s wider range of influences get the metronome working overtime, as with the fevered blackened punk of “Until it Goes Away” which, its energy spent, spends its latter half in keening lament. Meanwhile, “Decider” with its rather gothic, almost ritualistic intro gives way to a thick bass riff over incessant blasts, eventually exploding into quasi-mathcore freneticism ala Rolo Tomassi. Simultaneously, outside of these moments, much of the rest of the track is a dead-ringer for recent Dreadnought, particularly the epic instrumental outro. Feversea contain multitudes. 

Closer “Kindred Spirit” leans further into the post-black influences, opening with a lengthy instrumental section which centres tremolo picking and unrelenting blasts. The move towards a doomier pace and emphasis on vocal harmonies thereafter recalls the more recent work of Dreadnought, probably Feversea’s closest match in style. “Sunkindling”, despite its brevity, is perhaps the most unique track. Centred around a defiant chug, a palimpsest of vocal layers form a subtle-yet-apocalyptic backing choir bestowing a much more epic quality, and yet an instrumental wall-of-sound constantly threatens to drown out the voice of the collective. The production, clear and capacious, allows the comparative weightiness of this track’s choices to really shine; the dynamic contrast between Feversea’s inherent sonic chiaroscuro is prioritised by the production for the better. Nevertheless, this is one of few moments to truly wow; it’s the moments that stand against the post-metal and post-black foundations that see Feversea at their best, but these aren’t enough to define tracks.

Demonstrating an intimate and accomplished understanding of the trappings of the genre, Feversea show a great deal of promise here. Whilst the band’s promise of “incorporating influences from neofolk and post-punk” feels a touch overstated, lacking the more overt swings of Messa’s latest, it’s nevertheless the daring to incorporate outside influences that makes Man Under Erasure. Perhaps the trap of pedestrian post-metal hasn’t been fully shorn, but Feversea are at no risk of being erased.

Recommended tracks: Sunkindling, Decider, Until It Goes Away
You may also like: Dreadnought, Huntsmen
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Dark Essence Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Feversea is:
– Isak Lønne Emberland (guitar)
– Ada Lønne Emberland (vocals)
– Alexander Lange (guitars)
– Jeremie Malezieux (drums)
– Aleksander Johnsen Solberg (bass)

The post Review: Feversea – Man Under Erasure appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Atmospheric black metal, post-metal (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Summoning, Alcest, Sylvaine
Country: Norway
Release date: 4 April 2025

If you frequent online progressive metal spaces, you’ve likely seen memes of people deriding ‘slow-burn’ bands or tracks that generally don’t go anywhere. One I see often shows an ascendant silhouette with the caption ‘Tool fans fifteen minutes into the worst song you’ve ever heard’. Regardless of your opinions on Tool, the meme raises a simple-yet-effective point: there is nothing more frustrating than a slow-burn track that never truly ignites. So when I found out that one-man atmoblack project Eldamar had transitioned away from his magical, Tolkien-inspired origins to something more akin to long-form post-metal with the sensibilities of atmoblack, my eyebrow raised. Could Mathias Hemmingby distill his exploratory sound into a focused crescendoing fire on latest release, Astral Journeys, Pt. II: Dissolution, or does the record fizzle out before it can catch flame?

Astral Journeys II is the second half of a four-’Akt’ piece with a focus on the themes of euphoria in the moments before death. Each of Astral Journeys II’s ‘Akts’ are extended post-metal tracks that vacillate between Jeremy Soule-style orchestral atmospherics, jangly 90s alt-rock guitars, and cinematic buildups into atmospheric black metal riffage. Each piece features multiple buildups, starting more narrow in scope with a focus on approaching the buildup and then exploring ideas more freely within the crescendos. While harsh and clean vocalizations are peppered throughout each track, only the first third of “Akt III” features lyrics as a means of establishing Astral Journeys II’s point-of-view.

The prevalent symphonics work the hardest to sell Astral Journeys II’s ideas, used both as a tool for establishing atmosphere and later as a means to augment the more grand and cinematic moments. “Akt III” introduces the record with hazy, dreamy atmospherics and pulsating synthesizers, later swelling in tandem with a tempo increase and transmuting jangly guitar work into a vast technicolor expanse. In a similar fashion, “Akt IV” begins with Soule-style orchestration which later acts as a central focus for its climax, vamping what sounds like the first seven seconds of House of Pain’s “Jump Around” on repeat. Take that how you will.

This extended vamping at the end of “Akt IV” is a microcosm of Astral Journeys II’s flaws. The record undoubtedly features some gorgeous instrumentation and lush soundscaping, even throwing in a series of killer guitar/keyboard melodies to maintain interest across its runtime. At the same time, there is a nagging insistence that tracks must continue well after they reach their peak. Both of these Akts dawdle endlessly and end up massively overstaying their welcome. The “Jump Around” outro of “Akt IV” would be much more palatable if it wasn’t at the end of an overlong and bumbling journey and then repeated for three minutes. Additionally, the gorgeous buildup of “Akt III” and its subsequent cooldown would have made for a much more sensible end than extending the track a further nine minutes. Should Eldamar be interested in continuing this style, dialing back the song lengths just a touch and indulging in the pleasant interplay between orchestration and melody would bring a much stronger focus to the more compelling ideas that make up Astral Journeys II.

In the face of post-metal, it’s easy to decry any criticism of its length as an issue of patience, but Astral Journeys, Pt II: Dissolution is a prime case of a record resting too long on the laurels of a good idea. Its orchestration is undoubtedly lush and gorgeous, intertwining nicely with the keyboards and the more pleasant guitar melodies, but the approach of maintaining a climactic excitement after reaching the natural peak of a piece ends up wearing on the listener more than it keeps them in that initial euphoria. If patience is a virtue, then dawdling is a sin.

Recommended tracks: Akt III
You may also like: Ashlands, Karg, Unreqvited, Skyforest, Lustre
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives
Label: Northern Silence Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook

Eldamar is:
– Mathias Hemmingby (everything)

The post Review: Eldamar – Astral Journeys, Part II: Dissolution appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Deep Purple, Yes, The Flower Kings, Kansas, Spock’s Beard
Country: Norway
Release date: 16 May 2025

To meaningfully assess a modern progressive rock band, one must first embrace the act of judgment—a process I’ve long since systematized. In the incomprehensibly vast progressive musical landscape of the year 2025, whether they know it or not, all prog rock bands that come across my desk are being judged. While this may sound harsh, it’s more of a complex calculation than it is an exercise in caviling, with all bands landing somewhere on a three-dimensional vector graph in my mind: the X axis measures how technically proficient the band is; the Y axis measures their creativity and originality; and Z is for how seriously they take themselves. While I am not prepared to misappropriate my professional Microsoft Visio license to create a full diagram of how various well-known prog rock acts slot onto the plane, this graph is foundational to my assessment and appreciation of bands in the genre. And there’s certainly an optimal zone when it comes to seriousness: the more unabashedly zany or tongue-in-cheek a band is (think Cheeto’s Magazine), the greater creativity and technical prowess I expect in order for them to establish a foothold in a favourable quadrant. Conversely, many titans of the prog rock scene (Jethro Tull, Transatlantic, etc.) engage in a degree of navel-gazing pretension which cannot, in my eyes, be redeemed, even by their beefy musical chops.

So, do Norway’s Magic Pie land in the sweet spot? One could reasonably assume that the band’s name belies a lack of seriousness. But these seasoned rockers have a deft hand with the ingredients on their latest record Maestro. The goofiness is not mixed in too liberally; rather, the prevailing flavour is a hearty, feel-good seventies-inspired prog in the vein of Flower Kings or Steve Hackett, with dashes of Kansas– or Queen-like vocal harmonization, and a few heavier spikes of Dream Theater dashed in.

Almost all of Magic Pie’s previous albums have featured a long epic track, and Maestro is no exception. Does the rather prolixly-titled opening track, “Opus Imperfectus Pt.1 – The Missing Chord” need to be eighteen minutes long? Certainly not, but Magic Pie are enjoying themselves throughout. The free-flowing, unhurried compositional structure sees the band ramble through a symphonic intro, mellotron-infused retro shine, and amply proportioned, meandering solos. It’s less a circle-jerk and more of a jovial fun time, calling to mind some of the stream of consciousness unwinding of Deep Purple or Dire Straits’ live acts. Maestro‘s fun, catchy verve is perfectly captured in the track’s unhurried, anthemic chorus, which slides into a catchy modulated phrase as the backing vocals build a sort of intoxicating thrall.

But not all of Maestro unfolds with such buoyant charm. As a follow-up to “Opus Imperfectus”, the ballad “By the Smokers Pole” is a down-tempo snooze, and this is where Magic Pie’s pacing issue comes into the foreground. There’s certainly fun to be had in the space between the two-part “Opus” that bookends Maestro, as in the straightforward rockin’ opening of “Somebody Else’s Wannabe” that blooms into a rhythmically fleet-footed proggy jaunt. Dedicating so much space to the opening and closing tracks, however, leaves the five tracks in the middle shuffling to find a place to stand; some more successfully than others. The two-minute “Kiddo…”, for example, has no footing at all, stuck in some no man’s land between an interlude and a full song.

Vocally, Icelander Eirikur Hauksson never really stuns. While he flashes some zany theatricality across the album, calling to mind the gusto of David Bowie or Freddie Mercury, his delivery prevailingly rests in an unremarkable mid-range comfort zone marked by a loose vibrato—capable if a little cut-and-dried, though the plush backing vocals do some work to infuse more flavour. By comparison, the instrumental deliveries are punchier, and easily shoot Magic Pie up my technical proficiency axis: the guitars and keys tumble and cavort around each other, cascading into long, careening solos that weave together everything from bluesy twang to spacey prog-metal shimmer, as the bass and drums knit a tight groove underneath.

Conceptually, I lose Maestro’s lyrical thread somewhere in between the Maestro jumping into the ocean in the first track, and Hauksson opining about the proliferation of social media in “Kiddo…” While “tortured virtuoso struggles to compose his magnum opus” seems like a premise spit straight out of Prog Rock Idea Generator Dot Com¹, and it certainly isn’t scoring the band any gains on my originality/creativity axis, the concept is so light-handed as to be virtually untraceable across the album’s forty-nine minutes. This is just as well with me, albeit probably not in line with Magic Pie’s intention.

Maestro may not push boundaries, nor does it fully transcend the gravitational pull of its own “epic” opening. But with a high technical coefficient and just enough self-awareness to avoid tumbling into the black hole of prog pretension, Magic Pie chart a respectable course through the vector space. For all its uneven pacing and conceptual fuzziness, if you’re looking for a warm, comforting slice of prog rock that’s easy on the palate, Magic Pie’s Maestro is worth digging into.

Recommended tracks: Opus Imperfectus Pt. 1 – The Missing Chord, Somebody Else’s Wannabe
You may also like: Moon Safari, Southern Empire, The Twenty Committee, The Cryptex
Final verdict: 6.5/10

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

Label: Karisma Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Magic Pie is:
– Kim Stenberg (guitar)
– Eirikur Hauksson (vocals)
– Erling Henanger (keyboard)
– Lars Petter Holstad (bass)
– Martin Utby (drums)

1. Whether or not this is a real website is left up to your imagination, dear reader ︎

The post Review: Magic Pie – Maestro appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album photography by Anne-Marie Forker

Style: Progressive rock, neo-prog (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Airbag, Steven Wilson, David Gilmour, Lunatic Soul
Country: Norway
Release date: 11 April 2025

What makes a musician in an established band turn towards the path of solo artistry? For many, it is the prospect of complete creative control that draws them in—the lure of making something that is yours and yours alone, without having to compromise with those other people that ordinarily make music with you. But what of those who are already their band’s leader and primary songwriter—those who could already write what they want and have their glorified session musicians bandmates follow along with little issue? Well, in that case, it’s often out of a desire to branch out stylistically in ways that might not make sense in terms of their existing group’s oeuvre. Take Steven Wilson for instance. While he was already the undisputed main creative mind behind Porcupine Tree, his various adventures into trip-hop, ’70s prog pastiche, and electronica likely wouldn’t have happened without starting a career under his own name. 

In a possibly similar vein, we now have Bjørn Riis, guitarist and bandleader of Norwegian neo-prog stalwarts Airbag. Less than a year after his main band’s release of The Century of the Self, Riis is putting out a brand new solo release by the name of Fimbulvinter. I’ve been a fan of Airbag and their melancholy, guitar-driven brand of David Gilmour-core ever since I found a YouTube album upload of All Rights Removed over a decade ago, but Riis’ solo career is new to me, despite the fact that he’s apparently been at this since 2014. He’s evidently quite experienced as a solo artist, which seems a positive sign; after four albums, Riis has had plenty of time to solidify a musical identity all his own, purporting to blend the atmospheric, introspective prog that put him on the map with the energetic, hard rock swagger of the bands he grew up with in the early ’80s. Will Fimbulvinter, in its themes of cold, empty isolation, expose new facets of this soulful shredder, or is it just a bag of frozen musical leftovers?

After a quiet, atmospheric intro to ease listeners in, “Gone” ratchets the intensity up significantly, with an insistent, propulsive beat driven by some nicely audible bass. It’s refreshing to hear an artist known for slow-burning, gradual buildups just put his foot on the gas and unleash some good old fashioned rock and roll for a change. As a cherry on top, Riis throws in a killer guitar solo, trading his usual Gilmour-esque weeping tone for a commanding, wah-pedalled wail designed to play out the open windows of a car speeding down the highway. Of course, there’s still a strong dose of that signature melancholic unease, largely present in the lyrics’ vague but deeply insistent themes of wanting to get out, to run away from… something. Riis also is a surprisingly adept vocalist, sounding almost exactly like Airbag frontman Asle Torstrup in places. In fact, almost eerily like him. Hey, wait a minute…

Apologies, readers. I seem to have put on “Machines and Men”, the opener from Airbag‘s A Day at the Beach album, by mistake. And yet, when I put on the actual “Gone”, I find that pretty much all of the prior paragraph still applies. Same driving bass-led beat, similar lyrical themes, very similar wailing guitar solo. To be fair, it’s not complete self-plagiarism: for one thing, the atmospheric intros are different, with “Gone” being preceded by a separate, acoustic intro track (“Illhug”) as opposed to “Machines and Men”, which folds its synthier intro into the track itself. Riis is also a slightly rougher, less polished vocalist than Tostrup, and the lyrics aim for a vibe of disconnection as opposed to paranoia. But the fact remains that the track is, by and large, a retread of territory Riis has already been over. Sure, it’s a good song when taken on its own merits—the energy is infectious, the guitar work gripping, and the melodies nicely emotional. But, the thing is, those aren’t its own merits; they’re the merits of a song released five years ago, and it makes this song’s existence hard to justify.

Alright, let’s not bang on about one track’s self-plagiarism too much. Surely the next song, “Panic Attack”, represents a brand new musical direction for Riis, something we’ve never seen. I hit play, and it’s an eleven-minute slow burn of a track, alternating between soft, echoing passages of understated sadness and big, emotional walls of heavy guitar, which… goddammit, I could be describing a dozen different Airbag songs right now, couldn’t I? Indeed, both it and closer “Fear of Abandonment” feel like B-sides from The Century of the Self, with the latter taking on the “soft ballad that builds into climactic guitar solo” side of the formula as opposed to its more progressively structured counterpart. Again, they’re not bad executions of said formula, with “Fear of Abandonment” in particular serving as a fine example of the sort of soulful Gilmour-isms that Riis can no doubt pull off in his sleep at this point. But they’re not nearly on the level of Airbag classics like “Homesickness” or “Disconnected” either, lacking the oomph of those tracks’ sheer catharsis and suffering somewhat from the absence of Tostrup’s emotive tenor.

When Riis isn’t cribbing from his own work, he’s taking inspiration from the aforementioned Steven Wilson, with mid-album ballad “She” offering a very familiar-feeling mixture of gently strummed guitar and echoing synth pads while the title track is a lengthy instrumental workout reminiscent in places of Wilson’s “Regret #9”. Here, however, there’s a bit more creativity and verve in how Riis incorporates said influence. “She”, though a bit minimalistic and simple in its lyricism, grows into a genuinely lovely, gentle tug on the heartstrings, thanks largely to some brilliantly warm layers of synths in its second half that wrap around its anxious electric guitars like the comforting hug of a loved one and form a welcome respite amidst the album’s otherwise dreary mood. And yes, “Fimbulvinter” is a bit overlong and inexplicably bitcrushes its rhythm guitar track to the point where it sounds ripped from the original Doom soundfont, but it also manages to throw in an entertaining variety of styles in an admirable attempt to fill its nine minutes. From wintry atmospherics to stately synth leads to even some Black Sabbath-style tritones, it manages to be the most unique track here, if nothing else.

And yet, despite all this, I can’t shake how generally inessential Fimbulvinter feels as an album. Not bad, not pointless, not really even boring, just… not something that I’d ever recommend anyone actively seek out unless they’ve already heard Airbag‘s entire discography and simply must have more. It’s got its fair share of musical highlights, and overall serves as a somber yet decidedly pleasant listen with few noticeable flaws. Yet it doesn’t offer much that hasn’t already been offered by Riis’ influences, as well as his own band, in a dozen other albums. For those who love music that trends toward the cold yet wistful, you could certainly do much worse than Fimbulvinter. But unlike a snowflake, this is an album whose shapes have been made many times before.

Recommended tracks: Gone, She, Fear of Abandonment
You may also like: Dim Gray, Jonathan Hultén, Alex Carpani
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Karisma Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Bjørn Riis is:
– Bjørn Riis (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards)

With:
– Henrik Bergan Fossum (drums)
– Arild Brøter (drums)
– Kai Christoffersen (drums)

The post Review: Bjørn Riis – Fimbulvinter appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Gothic metal, progressive metal (mixed vocals)
FFO: Green Carnation, Ulver, Borknagar, Amorphis
Country: Norway
Release date: 11 April 2025

In the Woods… have been in those woods for such a long time, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they may have gotten lost out there. Various incarnations of this Norwegian gothic metal outfit have come and gone since their formation in 1991. Born of the same womb as the great Green Carnation¹, the two bifurcated sometime after their birth (I’m pretty sure that’s not how biology works, but cut me some slack; I’m not that kind of woman in STEM), with members going their separate ways as two distinct projects. Each band went on to develop coherent but distinct sounds, both foundational to the development of gothic metal in Norway. After numerous personnel changes, genre shifts, a fourteen year hiatus, and seven albums, In the Woods… on Otra are not the same band that they used to be, neither in membership—only drummer Anders Kobro remains from the original lineup—nor sound. 

These days, In the Woods… offer up a somewhat mellower iteration on their blackened doom-metal roots, and bear comparison with a host of other bands: there’s a fair bit of Green Carnation-ish melodicism and emotional poignancy even in the instrumental deliveries; some Borknagar-ian blackened explosivity; and warmly inviting poppy Ulver-esque tones. Though I may be running out of suffixes to adject-ify band names, In the Woods… are far from running out of inspiration, with cohesive songwriting that draws freshness from their various influences without needing to reinvent the wheel.

While opening track “The Things You Shouldn’t Know” establishes the playbook for Otra, sprawling over eight minutes with cavernous, melancholy riffing and a deft display of vocalist Bernt Fjellestad’s versatility, it’s the following track “A Misrepresentation of I” where these elements start to synergize to their full potential. With an uptick in tempo, shades of Amorphis peek through, and the vocal harmonies in the pre-chorus at 3:40 are delectable. My one quibble with the track—and I apologize if you are one of those who normally ignore lyrics and I’m now ruining this for you, but misery loves company—is that nobody noticed the missing syllable in the word “misrepresentation”, either while writing, or the six times that Fjellestad repeats it during the song.

Mispronunciations aside, Fjellestad’s vocal performance is dynamic and versatile. His growls roil with a bubbling bog-monster potency evocative of Amorphis’ Tomi Joutsen (see the punchy, syncopated growls at 2:10 in “The Crimson Crown”), while he slides effortlessly across a honeyed clean vocal range, especially satisfying in the upper register (2:16 in “Come Ye Sinners”). Best of all, the balance and interplay of these elements seems to be fine-tuned from 2022’s Diversum; here, harsh and melodic passages interweave mostly seamlessly, with the exception of “The Kiss and the Lie”, which struggles with a more jarring vicissitude. 

Indeed, Otra is the band’s second album with their current lineup, and this comparative stability bears fruit across the board: the whole instrumental package is smooth. One might expect a heavy, crushing sound from dual guitarists André Sletteberg and Bernt Sørensen. But they instead inhabit a more chambered and timeless sonic space, a hall of mirrors echoing with riffs that ripple and reflect rather than pummeling, evoking more rock than metal with a light hand on the distortion. They also have a bit of a penchant for power chords; whether sweeping under the scorching growls in “The Kiss and the Lie” or more subtly in “The Crimson Crown”, these harshen the edges and lend a sense of foreboding to the musical landscape.

To my ears, the style of songwriting that In the Woods… have cultivated since their reunion is one with a high floor and a relatively low ceiling. That’s not to say that Otra doesn’t have its flowing peaks, but more so that the band takes only calculated risks, making for music that’s easy to like and somewhat harder to love. Fans of original In the Woods… may miss their truly avant-garde bent, but modest variations on the playbook like the delicate pop-Ulver stylings in the intro of “Let Me Sing” or the rock ‘n’ roll groove of “Come Ye Sinners” variegate the palette without colouring too far outside the lines.

Otra’s sepia-soaked cover depicts the river in Norway for which the album is named. The scene is melancholy, vivid despite the lack of colour, and timeless; all qualities that permeate the album’s forty-six minutes. Thirty-four years after first setting out, In the Woods… may never fully return to where they began, but somewhere out in those perennial woods, they’ve learned how to dwell in the introspective melancholia of the spaces between then and now.

Recommended tracks: A Misrepresentation of I, Let Me Sing, Come Ye Sinners

You may also like: Novembre, Throes of Dawn, Octoploid, Barren Earth

Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Prophecy Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

In the Woods… is:

– Bernt Fjellestad (vocals)
– Anders Kobro (drums, percussion)
– André Sletteberg (guitar)
– Bernt Sørensen (guitar)
– Nils Olav Drivdal (bass)

1.  Whom I have also had the privilege of reviewing for this website ︎

The post Review: In the Woods… – Otra appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: doom metal, progressive metal, progressive death metal, dissonant death metal, avant-garde black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tomb Mold, The Ruins of Beverast, Mournful Congregation, Ahab
Country: Norway
Release date: 25 April 2025

In the beginning was the Doom, and the Doom was with Metal, and the Doom was Metal. You all know the story: fifty-five years ago, metal was brought into existence in Birmingham by Black Sabbath. Taking psychedelic blues to previously unknown levels of distorted heaviness, the Brits’ style revolutionized rock and became the archetype of doom metal to come—slow, heavy, evil. And in the depths doom has stayed for half a century, content to drag down the stray thrash or death metal fan who seeks something even more punishing. Doom is the Charbydis of metal, and once you’ve been sucked into her grasp, escaping the sonic mass is near impossible. 

Felgrave, a one man Norwegian death/doom band, has returned after a long five years with his newest album Otherlike Darknesses, a hulking album of three beastly tracks—two eighteen-minuters and a twelver. I was ready to be painstakingly slowly crushed by the force of the tracks, have them extinguish any sense of hope or purpose like Spiine did last month. However, while at its core a doom metal record, Otherlike Darknesses claws its way upwards from the abyss and towards the stars, fighting against its own colossal weight all the way. “Winds Batter My Keep” starts by basking in grimy vulgarity like generations of doom bands have before, the riffs oozing forward like pitch. A few minutes later, the dirging doom pace speeds up to a death/doom clip, and Felgrave introduces the predominant riff style for the album: dissonant, entangled guitar lines. Their contorted bickering is a hideous aural spectacle but gripping, nonetheless. Alas, once you’ve accepted your fate of an aural beatdown, from within the distortion, an atmospheric synth creates room in the soundscape for M.L Jupe’s dramatic, heartfelt clean vocals to break through the murk. They’re a recurrent guide through Otherlike Darknesses, a beacon to follow once you get lost in the depths—which you will.

Moreover, while the guitar parts are horrifically dissonant at times—swaths of “Winds Batter My Keep” and “Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky” get close to the style of playing my Subway peers refer to as “car alarm metal”—they coalesce into melodic leads at others. Rewarding, indeed. The guitars climb ever upwards in complicated, twisting scales not unlike Thantifaxath or SkyThala, with rich tones reminiscent of funeral doom icons Mournful Congregation. When the maelstromic blackened trems break out, the riffs are transformed in a moment to dreamlike abstractions. The dynamic drumming courtesy of Robin Stone provides a dramatic levity to the sound, as well, liberating the death/doom from itself. 

The songwriting, too, is dreamlike—unpredictably stream of consciousness. There are rare reprisals, like the middle section and ominous ending of “Winds Batter My Keep,” but otherwise Otherlike Darknesses is wonderfully amorphous, the songwriting always imaginative and natural. Fans of face-scrunching riffs and cerebral dreaminess alike will be satisfied. Each track is a full saga, spanning the gamut from Warforged nightmarishness to Dessiderium-esque serenity.  

Otherlike Darknesses’ desperate climb into the heavens would carry significantly less impact were it not for Brendan Sloan’s (Convulsing, Altars) magic dissodeath fingers working the production. The bass is as equally important to Otherlike Darknesses as the wicked guitars, its vibrant, full-bodied tone another speck of brightness when the metal is at its heaviest—but the bass is also the heavy grounding when the clean vocals hog the foreground. The hazy atmosphere from the synths in “Winds Batter My Keep,” the Morningrise and Orchid inspired bits in “Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky,” the spacious, all-enveloping chords of “Otherlike Darknesses,” the spine-crushingly heavy riffs everywhere… there is no detail in Otherlike Darknesses which doesn’t sound natural, beautiful, yet twisted.  

This is the most ambitious album I’ve heard from a one-man project since, well, Keys to the Palace by Dessiderium earlier this year, but it’s damn ambitious, and M. L. Jupe nails the takeoff and landing. I’ve never heard a doom record quite like this, lifting me from Tartarus to the heavens and back down. Maintaining sharp focus through such gargantuan, meandering tracks requires the mastery of harmony and dissonance that Jupe possesses. Breaking free from the chains of its genre to land in another plane of existence, Otherlike Darknesses is surreal doom metal far removed from metal’s roots but at the same time tethered to them.

Recommended tracks: Winds Batter My Keep
You may also like: Worm, Panegyrist, Chthe’Ilist, Dream Unending, Qrixkuor, Warforged, Dessiderium
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Transcending Obscurity Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Felgrave is:
Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards and programming by M. L. Jupe

Drums by Robin Stone (Evilyn, Norse)

The post Review: Felgrave – Otherlike Darknesses appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive rock, progressive pop, art rock, electronica, post-rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Katatonia, Steven Wilson (all), The Pineapple Thief, Gazpacho
Country: Norway
Release date: 25 April 2025

Dust off that box of corpse paint you haven’t touched since Halloween 2022, because woodland-monikered Oak are taking us to the grim forests of Norway. Delivering a blasphemous brand of black metal, the band… no, wait, this doesn’t sound like black metal at all. This is actually a clean, artsy take on progressive rock. And was that an electronica section? This Oak clearly isn’t the typical tree of the frozen north’s dark timberlands. Ah, that’s right, we’ve even covered these guys before. My bad. Put away that corpse paint because there’s no black metal to be found here. Or is there?

The Third Sleep picks up right where Oak’s previous album left off, providing another highly listenable and densely melodic slab of progressive rock. The band’s work rings familiar: melancholic passages drawing clear inspiration from Katatonia and Steven Wilson are scattered throughout, and tinges of the softer sides of Opeth and Ulver can also be heard. But Oak spin their influences into a style unmistakably their own, due in part to how well they weave electronica into a more common, moody prog-rock sound. Vocalist Simen Valldal Johannessen also has a distinct, emotive baritone that colors the music a darker shade. Johannessen takes on piano duties as well, and the instrument plays a significant role as the album’s main melodic driver.

Pensive yet poppy, Oak craft nuanced prog that stays remarkably accessible. Right from the opener, “No Such Place,” Johannessen effortlessly carries a tuneful vocal melody over a 5/4 verse while accenting acoustic strumming with his piano. The song also features a soulful saxophone solo—one of several on the album. A couple of tracks later, “Run Into the Sun” delivers a real earworm: the chorus is infectious, something fit for the radio on its surface. However, a deeper listen reveals an impressive interplay between a guitar lead and piano melody underneath. “London” has a similarly singable chorus, but incorporates some slick rhythmic guitar punches and drumming far more dynamic and complex than a typical pop chorus. The song’s verse is another instance where intricate playing meets listenability, with a wandering fuzzy bassline and synth textures driving behind Johannesen’s crooning. 

Although The Third Sleep leans on conventional song structures, each track has at least one extended instrumental detour, often post-rock in feel. The lead single “Shimmer” is a shining example: after primarily following a verse-chorus pattern for its first half (with some really great percussion, I might add), the track is stripped down to simple bass, drums, and piano. Additional instruments and textures are then layered in patiently before it all swells gently and resolves. It’s a lovely listen, the song’s back half providing over three minutes of mellow instrumental bliss. “Borders” pulls a similar trick in its second half but centers around programmed drums and a somber, lingering synth. “Sensory Overload,” meanwhile, has a noisier and heavier bridge at its midpoint, at times including dissonant distorted keys and cacophonous saxophone. Oak’s ability to combine conventional song structures with these detailed and varied instrumental explorations makes The Third Sleep incredibly listenable and fulfilling enough to revisit. The album’s warm, clear mix helps bring it all together, allowing plenty of space for each instrument—real or programmed—to breathe without the whole package sounding sterile. 

Despite the album’s various textures and clear craftsmanship, though, it lacks exceptionally memorable or compelling passages—no true peaks. The Third Sleep isn’t middling prog, but it’s quite safe for the most part: it’s the kind of release you bring home to meet Mom and Dad; you then settle down, get that spacious two-story house with the yard and white picket fence, grow old, and retire comfortably. It’s a good life, not necessarily boring, but without major excitement. That’s The Third Sleep. An exception to this suburban dream (or nightmare) of a metaphor does come with “Sensory Overload,” ending the album—much to my surprise—with a minute or so of something bordering on straight-up black metal (better bring that corpse paint back out!). The section is complete with double bass drumming, a riff not far from a blackened tremolo, and demonic growls. And although I appreciate the section’s unexpectedness, it’s more memorable for its surprising nature than execution—it’s a fun touch, but not much more.

Even if The Third Sleep doesn’t have any moments as astounding as I’d expect from a band so capable, I can repeat exactly what we said about Oak’s last album: “There’s still a hell of a lot here to enjoy.” The Third Sleep is engaging in its variety and detail, gorgeously produced, well-performed, and accessible enough to bring home to your parents—just don’t let them catch you donning your corpse paint for that final passage.

Recommended tracks: London, Run Into the Sun, Shimmer
You may also like: Jonathan Hulten, Bruce Soord and Jonas Renkse’s Wisdom of Crowds, Playgrounded, Haven of Echoes
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Karisma Records: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

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

The post Review: Oak – The Third Sleep 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.