“Abstracted have been a band since 2013, and their long-gestating debut record, 2022’s Atma Conflux, was an effective and varied slab of djenty progressive death metal, marred by tepid production and less-than-stellar clean vocals. More than anything, though, it showed potential as a record brimming with ideas that was so close to being great. With Hiraeth, can the Brazilian group finally unify their influences into something more than the sum of their parts?” Add and Abstract.
“The game of finding the right words to describe your music is one that all bands must play. Do you tow the line, allowing a reader’s mind to fill in the blanks with something easy like “heavy metal” or “black metal?” Or will you stand out from the crowd with a challenging label, and risk confusion? Thus do we arrive at today’s topic, the Louisiana two-piece Cea Serin. In some circles, the enigmatic term “mercurial metal” has been coined to described Cea Serin. A tricky turn of phrase that could indeed mean anything! However, I’ve become an expert metal translator after my time spent with Cea Serin. My team of expert analysts have helped me decode that into human language. The direct translation: the Proggiest Prog to ever Prog.” Prog for prog’s sake.
“Making good progressive metal is incredibly difficult. Where styles like black metal can still succeed without considered songwriting or astonishing musicianship, prog is a fickle mistress, demanding expert songcraft that balances dynamic peaks and valleys, as well as considerable instrumental prowess. Even prog’s biggest bands still routinely falter when armed with a fearsome squad of world-class musicians and major label backing. Still, this fails to deter new artists without such resources from aiming for the sheer highs the style can offer. Enter English multi-instrumentalist Grace Hayhurst and her debut record, The World Is Dying.” Grace and death.
“When prog and symphonic metal meet in just the right way, they click together like puzzle pieces. Prog’s technicality and excess are balanced by the melody and atmosphere of symphonic metal. Symphonic metal’s penchant for straightforward structure and synth-reliance is buoyed by the dynamism and rhythm-bending of guitar wizardry. Tiago Masseti, the man behind his eponymous band, Masseti, is seeking to walk the line between these two styles on his debut album, Odds and Ends.” Blends and loose ends.
“It’s sexy when things you love collide with things you hate. My lust for mathcore is well-established – I go hard for that mind-numbing dyscalculic tinnitus any day – but if you put a slab of prog metal in front of me, I’m gonna go as flaccid as a gummy worm in a hot car faster than you can say “Wilderun.” That’s Benthos. The Italian collective slides a platter of progressive rock’s lush, ambivalent, and emotive movements alongside mathcore’s jagged edges and feral energy, and you’re guaranteed to find something you’ll love and hate – and get hot and bothered by.” The fresh maker.
“Long, long ago, around when I first joined the staff here, Shepherds of Cassini released Helios Forsaken. I didn’t discover it in time to actually write anything about it, but it quickly became one of my favorite records. Prog is still my greatest musical love. I’ve been burnt out on prog metal of late—or perhaps it all just sucks. But I still often return to Helios Forsaken. I always felt a little guilty about not having been able to bring more attention to a band that deserved to be a lot bigger. Never mind, I told myself. I’ll cover the next album! Ten years later, during which I had entirely given up hope, here we are.” Great expectations.
May Filter uncloggings bring cool metal…sloggings? Work with me here, people!
“One of the greatest feelings as a reviewer is rolling the dice on a completely unknown band and discovering they’re amazing. But you have to play to win, and I totally failed to pick up any reviews by bands I didn’t already know last year. I resolved to do better this year. There’s no magic formula I’ve found to identifying great promos, so I tend to skim the promo submissions queue and wait for things to catch my eye for whatever reason. Look to Windward immediately stood out. Prog with a name that might be an Iain M Banks reference? Perfect.” Rolling the prog bones.
“You never know which bands are going to pull together seemingly disparate minds, whether it be the starving prog fans who can’t agree on anything or the ever-diverging wiles of our own Angry Metal Overlord and Kronos—the polished professor and the angular dreamer. But more so than any other band in the modern progscape, Caligula’s Horse does just that, bridging the gap of the jittery, sweep-starved guitar lover; the hug-craving, sunset-staring sadboi; the chorus-hook, bravado-stricken empath, all with a brand of progressive metal that’s grown alongside genre titans Haken and Leprous in curious, somewhat convergent ways.” Lead a horse to water.
What, you thought I wasn’t going to make a list?
