From the “Everyone needs to have heard them at least once” department – and given their name, just in time for the All Hallows Eve season – I bring you a group that none other Sir Jem of Godfrey from the fabulous Frost* turned me (and hopefully many others) on to a few years back.
The band: Halloween, Alaska.
The album: “Champagne Downtown.”
Released in 2009, this Minnesota-based group won’t ever be mistaken for a Mellotron-heavy prog band writing album side-length epics, but give “Champagne Downtown” a few spins and let their vivid blend of pop and rock (with a dose of electronica) serve as your rainy-day and/or road trip soundtrack, and hopefully you’ll be hooked on this album.
Hardcore progheads should be impressed at their time sense; they can seemingly be playing a straight 4 and then shake things up with an additional few beats or extra measure, just to keep you on your ties.
It’s a brilliant, lovely album. Give these tracks a spin!
While anyone who knows anything about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, or Owen Barfield knows of the existence of the Inklings, The post Who Were the Inklings: A Primer appeared first on The Imaginative Conservative.
Bologna is not the first place that will pop on your mind when it comes to djent, but now we know that this Italian city has incepted at least one band that falls upon the djent tag. Originally project of multi-instrumentalist Flavio Cacciari, Prospective transformed to a full-time band with Cacciari focusing on drums, and…
And, so it begins. . . the anticipation for the next Cosmograf album. Robin Armstrong just posted this rather cryptic thing on his Facebook page this morning.
Pink Floyd are undeniably the most influential rock band of the past 40-odd years. That fact can be perceived simply by looking at the numbers. They are on the exclusive list of music artists who have sold more than 250 million records (by 2013), and each of their albums has enjoyed multi-Platinum, Gold or Diamond…
Bologna is not the first place that will pop on your mind when it comes to djent, but now we know that this Italian city has incepted at least one band that falls upon the djent tag. Originally project of multi-instrumentalist Flavio Cacciari, Prospective transformed to a full-time band with Cacciari focusing on drums, and…
Artist: Teramaze Album Title: Her Halo Label: Mascot Label Group Year Of Release: 2015 Another day, another good news story. Before I was sent a promo for this release, I knew very little about Teramaze if I’m honest. However, a quick look on that there Internet showed me that there was a definite buzz surrounding […]
Prog metal youngsters from Bologna, Prospective released their debut EP titled “Chronosphere” earlier this year. About the release, the working relationship within the band and more, guys talked with Progarchy.
In March this year you released your debut release titled “Chronosphere.” What can you tell me about it?
Chronosphere contains all our influences, emotions and ideas that we wanted to give to other people.It contains anger, rage but also happiness and joy, it’s groovy and catchy and these last adjectives will be a significant part in our new material.
In some reviews, the reviewer said we are Core but also near Between The Buried And Me style, we just make our music, the genre is up to you!
Is the EP’s name inspired by “Command and Conquer” franchise?
(laughs) No, we’ve just heard of it! It comes from an alteration of “Chronos Speaks”, the last song of the EP. We think that the time has a big influence on humans. Chronos was the mythological god of time, and the word Sphere refers to the universe which we are in.
I have a question for Pietro- which vocalists have influenced your style?
The recording process of the EP was really interesting for me cause i had to work fast and do “one shot one kill”. My influences are mainly Spencer Sotelo and Dan Tompkins.
How do you guys go about sharing guitar duties in the band?
That’s an interesting question. In our songs we often play different parts, Davide plays the “reverb and delay” parts and arpeggios, while Luca does the groovy stuff and solos. All the different guitar parts complete each other, harmonically speaking.
Who in the band generally brings an idea for a song? What is your working chemistry like?
Prospective has been an one-man-band for a while, so the ideas came from Flavio only. When the band was complete, Luca gave a lot of inspiration and he composed 3 (of 6) songs in the EP. The working chemistry goes like: Luca sends a GPX file to Flavio, he says “I like it!” or “Meh”, then the composing process can begin.
Is there anything new that your are working on at the moment? When can we expect a Prospective full-length record?
We’re working on the pre-production and rehearsal of new songs, in 2016 we’ll start recording a full-length album and hopefully release an official video.
What have you been listening to lately?
We’ve been listening to Polaris by Tesseract. We’re completely addicted to that album.
In which measure the music you listen influence your songwriting?
In the band there are 2 songwriters, Luca and Flavio. Luca tries to listen every possible genre to make every composition the more personal and different from the others. Instead Flavio tends to absorb every artist he listen to. You can hear a big difference between Increase and Karma’s Lesson, they correspond to a “Proggy listening” and a “Metal listening”.
Which bands from the scene influence your work?
There are many, like: Periphery, Tesseract, Monuments and Meshuggah.
Do you think if djent as a genre has a bright future?
We don’t use it a lot, but we think binary code is a great thing.
“Chronosphere” is available from Bandcamp. The band is on Facebook too.
Progarchy 