From the green dreamlands we call New Zealand come a quartet called Shepherds of Cassini, and with them an exceptional experimentation in “Helios Forsaken,” their second studio release.

It took me good two weeks of non-stop listening to “Helios Forsaken” to come up with a scribbling about it, and I can say that even though I am not a noob anymore when it comes to the record, there is definitely much more to reveal under the hood. I am really thankful to a PR wire for hooking me up with this record and the band, because after many hours spent with listening to “Helios Forsaken” I can call myself a huge fan of the band from Auckland.

Although the album is not easy to capture in a first listening session (or a few), it without doubt gives you hints of its beauty. “Helios Forsaken” is a hook that will catch even the most stubborn fish.

The album itself is a deep ethereal masterpiece, with vocals, courtesy of Brendan Zwaan (who also plays guitar and does it very well), that hit a range of notes with precision and grace (listen to his stunning vocal performance on vocals-only “Mirrors Have No Memory”). Another crucial point for the sound of Shepherds is a violin of Felix Lun, who stays away from neo-classicism but doesn’t hesitate to bring the mid-Eastern-to-Indian influences. This is a sound to itself, and drawing parallels with any other contemporary band is a double-edged sword. Heavy hits from Omar Al-Hashimi are one of the biggest selling points of the record, and while the technical aspects of what he brings to the album are complex, the focus is given to the clarity and timing that just jive so well here. On the other side, bassist Vitesh Bava complements well with Al-Hashimi, but there are parts where he separates from the gang and stands well on his own.

“Helios Forsaken” is one of the albums that preys from the sidelines, and as that it can be a surprise for many and one of the most fantastic discoveries of the year.

Get the album from Bandcamp; it’s available both as digital download and wonderful digipack.

The ancient Greek poet Hesiod sang incredible songs — his original compositions — that were as long as the lengthiest prog epics are today.

Here’s a chance to buy his epic tales from Greek mythology at an epic 73% discount (just in time for Christmas or the Saturnalia):

Founded in February 2013 in Lebanon, it took two years for Turbulence to complete the work on their full-length debut album “Disequilibrium.” The album is out now, and it includes six songs.

“Disequilibrium” vindicates the band for its hard work and the detailed music plans. Influenced by prog metal veterans such as Dream Theater and Symphony X mainly, Turbulence do not fear to play the game and present their own take on progressive music embellished by prog rock, atmospheric, power metal and melodic metal elements. Sometimes the band may remind you of a heavy/power melodic metal band, but Turbulence feel most comfortable in the prog metal music defined in the 90’s.

The band is doing better when they deliver longer tracks, and that’s the case with last three songs on the album. Of course, a prog metal band is obliged to have long tracks, but most of times it feels forced, what is not a case with this Lebanese band.

The six tracks that make up “Disequilibrium” range from the complex “Richardson’s Nightmare” and title song to the highly melodic “Never Le Me Go,” “Everlasting Retribution,” and “My Darkest Hour.” “Disequilibrium” (song) is almost fourteen minutes long and it comes with intricate time changes, spiralling guitars and emotion filled vocals. Vocals of Owmar El Hage, guitars of Alain Ibrahim and keyboards of Mood Yassin combine to drive this complicated yet rewarding song to its powerful conclusion.

If Turbulence can continue to write and perform as they have done on “Disequilibrium,” then their future could be a very bright one indeed.

“Disequilibrium” is out now and is available from iTunes and CD Baby. Follow the band on Facebook here.

At the peak of musical proficiency, Moscow based progressive metal band Mechanical Man make a triumphant debut on the international prog scene. The band’s self-titled full-length release brings to life the sonically explosive heavy prog metal backdrop by way of singer Alexey Efimov, guitarist Sergey Danilov, bassist Alexander Litoshenko, keyboardist Evgeny Komarom, and drummer Vitaly Ostrov. “Mechanical Man” is an ambitious exhibit of power and emotion. No amount of focus detracts from the progressive and heavy metal influences, as both play fair part in providing equal stimulation for ears. A focused balance of both elements is crucial to an effective deliverance, and Mechanical Man do that.

Wrapped in a cinematic veil, Mechanical Man’s music has definitely a lot to offer. Opening track “Mechanical Man” really summarizes this album. The strange bits of music, the sudden changes of tempo, the magnificent performance, it prepares the listener of what’s to come. With an awfully tight performance by the full band, this album proves to be pure gold.

The band remains focused as the album passes by, by delivering more of greatness in the shape of wonderfully emotional “Wonderful World,” lively “Madhouse” and “Nightmare Master,” explosive “Queen of the Night,” balladic “Will of Fate,” and eclectic “Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Mechanical Man” by Mechanical Man deserves your attention, so without hesitation get this album from Bandcamp and dig deep into this amazing album. With an utterly brilliant performance by the band this album is one that has to be heard by every prog metal fan. These guys managed to make an incredible record.

Follow Mechanical Man on Facebook for all future updates.

Finnish rockers Pearly Gates released their sixth EP recently. About “Unchained” and more the band talked for Progarchy. Read on!

You just release your new EP titled “Unchained.” Tell me about the creative process that informed the record.

Right from the start we had a feeling that we needed to release something that sounds professional and international. We also wanted to create something visual to show people the artistic abilities and different sides of our group and our music so we also made music videos for two of the songs.

First we chose the best songs from our live set and did a lot of work in the preproduction phase to get the most out of them. We added some catchy hooks and harmonies to the songs during the demo recordings and thought about all the details in the arrangements. Due to low budget the songs were recorded little by little over a two year period in multiple locations.

Original inspiration for individual songs came from different sources and all the music is written by our drummer Antti and singer Jonne separately and/or together.

Pearly Gates released six EP’s so far. Why that many EP’s, and why not a full-length record?

Before we haven’t really seen value in releasing a whole album without a record company backing it up but now we are planning to start demo sessions for a full-length record. It’s also worth to mention that most of the songs from our earlier releases are not in our live set. We feel that our songwriting is only now reaching the maturity needed to make an album that we’d be satisfied with.

All the releases before 2012 release “Spell Is Broken” are more like demo tapes that never really expressed the full potential of the songs or the band. “Unchained” feels like the first release that we can be truly proud of.

Did your writing approach for “Unchained” change comparing with “Spell is Broken”?

On most of our earlier recordings majority of the music was primarily written by our drummer Antti. On Unchained our singer Jonne has chimed in on the song writing and that has obviously altered our sound a little bit. We also made pretty extensive demos of all the songs before actually going to studio. It really helped getting everything to sound nice and tight.

How does the EP title effect the material presented on the record? Give me a snapshot of the topics you explore on the new songs.

Since there are two different lyricists on the record we didn’t really plan on a theme beforehand but all of the songs do have this sort of existential tint to them. Glass Eyes is a depiction of a person who has this insatiable need to destroy everything good in his life and Sink Hole is about voluntarily staying in an abusive relationship… be it with substances or people.

Lyrics in Unchained and Free Fall explore the process of searching something illusive that could fill the void in yourself so hard that you end up losing who you really are.

What evolution do you feel “Unchained” represents comparing with your previous works?

We have definitely gone a bit darker and modern on Unchained than on our previous EPs. We have always had a soft spot for “Southern Rock” type stuff but on this EP those influences aren’t playing a very big role anymore. We all feel that this is the direction we want to keep exploring on future releases also.

What were the biggest challenges you faced when making “Unchained”?

As an unsigned band we pay everything from our own pockets so that has its own obvious complications. The ideal would be that we could lock our selves in some cabin in the woods somewhere and record the songs there. Unfortunately reality exists and we had to spread the recording process to multiple studios and living rooms around Finland.

Tell me about the technical side of “Unchained”.

We made all the demos using Logic Pro. For the recording and mixing in the studio environment we used Pro Tools and all the other tools available. We also made some home recordings using variety of softwares and recording techniques. While making the demos we had already decided what kind of sounds and performance we want for each track so there wasn’t really room for improvisation during the recording.

We learned a lot about producing the kind of soundscape that we were after and we came pretty close to all of our visions.

How do you go about channeling this inspiration into writing?

Jonne: For me and probably to Antti as well songwriting is mainly therapy and purging of the soul. I can’t really write anything good unless I’m in a state of absolute self-loathing. I don’t really have a technique on making music. Some mornings you just grab a guitar and a song comes out.

Antti: I see a new song as a big stone that has a sculpture inside it. I need to hit my head to it until the shapes start to appear. I jam with my guitar and get the spark of creativity from some beautiful chord or groovy rythmn and try to listen where the song wants to go. I can’t really write a song in a day or too. It’s usually pretty long process.

Where do you see Pearly Gates in 20 years from now?

Well statistically at least one of us has died of cancer or something so it’s kinda hard to say but probably we are still playing in some basement somewhere. Hopefully living off of royalties from our hit christmas album.

Buy “Unchained” now from Bandcamp and follow the band on Facebook.