Review: Project Sapiens – Here We Are

On By NickIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

Project Sapiens - Here We Are album art

“Here We Are” is a debut EP release from a Copenhagen-based alternative/progressive metal act Project Sapiens, comprised of five songs.

Kicking off with the title track, “Here We Are” hints its diversity. Elements ranging from hard rock, heavy metal to Opeth-influenced Prog Metal and alternative motifs are included. 

There is definitely potential here, and “Uprising” and “My Prison Cell” prove that. The transition between different parts is rather smooth. “Anger” starts with a very nice melody provided by a clean guitar of Poul Jakobsen and clean vocals by Mads Rahbaek. The guitar riffs that can be heard on this one, and throughout the record, are another highlight and an element that makes difference. Closing “Keepers of the Realm” starts very atmospherically, but it doesn’t take too long to become a hybrid child of Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Porcupine Tree.

What is important here is that Project Sapiens made a brave step to produce a release that is stylistically very different, and with the experience called “Here We Are” I’m sure that they will take the best out of it and use that knowledge on their next release.

“Here We Are” is available here.

Kscope: 10 Years of Offers

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

A nice update from Kscope, in the midst of celebrating 10 years of excellence.

k10-offers-800px-1

 

To see the sales, click here.

Review: Rainburn – Insignify

On By NickIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

Insignify

Indian progressive rockers Rainburn are a band who sit firmly within that region of emotive music which crosses the line between the plaintive sound of Porcupine Tree and the bluster of cinematic indie. Now on their second release, Insignify out on November 7th, they return to the age old trope of the concept album with a narrative, which feeds into the at times explosive music.

Telling the story that deals with issues of existentialism, the significance of human life, narcissism, craving importance, insecurity and the search for reason, you may consider it all a bit convoluted. At nearly 50 minutes long it does test your patience and you may find yourself drifting away from the main theme. Give it some due listening though, and you’ll find a concept which works to keep your attention.

Although thematically it’s difficult to keep up, within the music you find a way to enjoy this album. Cinematic in not just scope, but in drive, the peaks and troughs of a film are recast within some wonderful playing. Particularly good are the plaintive guitar solos, feeding off a classic sound developed by masters of prog, and given new life here. They are moments which lift the album to another level and become moments of transcendent emotion.

Rainburn can do heavy too and on the tumultuous end of “Suicide Note”, the devastating centrepiece of the album, they bring a new heaviness to prog rock which only the metal maestros dare explore. Unafraid to raise the tempo, it’s fascinating to listen to the way the band use their music as a kind of soundtrack of emotion, rather than a classic style of songwriting. They may veer on the more predictable side of prog, but at least they do it well.

There is plenty on Insignify to excite prog fans. It’s always difficult to deliver emotional music such as this without veering into cloying territory and with a concept verging on the slightly pretentious, you’re edging towards dodgy terrain. All dues to Rainburn for pulling this off in the main though, and if you’re willing to give it the time you’ll find plenty to keep you coming back. Pour yourself a drink, stick your headphones on, and lose yourself in the story for a while. You’ll enjoy it.

 

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Effigy of the Forgotten

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metal3 Comments

8th October marks 27th year of “Effigy of the Forgotten” – the first full-length release from these NY brutal death titans.

As expected, the debut is rife with jarring temporal switches, blistering harmonies and precision drums. Suffocation’s craft is immaculate, and at times insane. From “Liege of Inveracity” to “Jesus Wept”, the album is a pursuit of deathly perfection. Brutal and relentless, both in terms of guttural vocals and complexity, it simply razes all the barriers to the emergence of technical death.

If Tampa and Stockholm scene introduced the framework, Suffocation took an axe to it with their brand of restrained, but even more gruesome, assault. Channeling Immolation, the band introduced layers of sophistication to that unbridled madness of old-school death. All the electric blues hues were now completely subdued, and comfortably buried beneath broad downtuned riffs and incessant double bass. Both typically advancing in tandem, like a grand symphony. Quite reminiscent of later era Morbid Angel.

Undoubtedly, evolution tends to be incremental, and Suffocation is a vital link leading to technical death. Quite like any other searing metal classic, Effigy of the Forgotten is something all the extreme music fans should endure.

 

 

—- Image Attribution

© pitpony photography /

Reign In Blood

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metal1 Comment

Reign in Blood emphasizes Slayer’s nearly complete departure from NWOBHM roots. In fact, the last remaining cross-over imprints are only on the additional track, “Aggressive Perfector”, included in the 1998 reissue. In other words, this album begins the Slayer epoch of dissonance. Here the band march into the margins, with a level of fury steamrolling the genre sideways, inflicting legions of extreme metal imitators.

With aggressive structural progression and a signature speed — Hanneman and King effectively blend conflicting strands from hardcore/punk and heavy metal. Dissecting this intricate chaos mandates schooling in multiple extreme genres. But glad that appreciation only requires an ear for some atonal brew – of genre-bending twin guitar dissonance. The band simply accomplished what they actually state in Raining Blood — “abolish the rules made of stone”—and they did it while remaining grounded in that ever snowballing extreme metal roots.

Released on October 7th, 1986 – so today marks thirty two blood soaked years.

— Image Attribution
By Benoît from Tours, France (Hellfest 2007 – 22/06/2007 – Slayer) [CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

Riverside’s Incredible New Album is a WINO (Wasteland in Name Only)

On By Erik HeterIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

One of the lamentable facts about great art is that it is often inspired by pain.  It is wasteland by riversidefrequently beauty borne of suffering.  As many readers of this blog (and virtually all of the writers) are Rush fans, we are keenly aware of how the dual tragedies of Neil Peart’s life served as a creative impetus behind the band’s triumphant return on 2002’s Vapor Trails.  Riverside itself is no stranger to tragedy, having lost their brilliant guitarist Piotr Grudzinski in 2016, while the band’s de facto leader, Mariusz Duda, lost his father only months later.  Thus, the fuel for the creative fire behind Wasteland includes the pain of tragedies both real at a personal level, as well as imagined at a civilizational level when one considers the album’s apocalyptic theme.  And based on some of Duda’s own words in a recent interview (see here), it may also serve as a metaphor for our current, chaotic times.  The results of this creative fire are nothing short of stunning.

Continue reading “Riverside’s Incredible New Album is a WINO (Wasteland in Name Only)” →

Emanon: Wayne Shorter’s Triple Dare

On By kruekuttIn jazz3 Comments

Jazz shouldn’t have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that’s required to sound like jazz. For me, the word ‘jazz’ means, ‘I dare you.’

Wayne Shorter, the last saxophonist standing from jazz’s golden age, its great lateral thinker both as player and composer, tossed off that quote in 2013 when he turned 80.  For his 85th birthday, Shorter has tripled down: his latest project Emanon breaches multiple boundaries, stretching out not just beyond jazz, but beyond music itself.

Emanon (“no name” spelled backwards, referencing both a Dizzy Gillespie tune and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man) is a marvelously ambitious sprawl, Shorter’s stab at a work of total art.  Containing a 2013 suite of his music re-imagined for jazz quartet and chamber orchestra, a double album of his quartet’s 2016 live date in London, and a graphic novel in collaboration with screenwriter Monica Sly and comic/children’s book artist Randy DuBurke, it’s meant to be heard and seen as a whole.  Also touched — it’s not available digitally, only in CD (Standard) or CD/LP (Deluxe) box sets.  Or as Shorter puts it, “The packaging is intentionally designed to reveal its dormant possibilities as it travels between alternative realities of the multiverse.”  Sounds kinda progressive to me …

Continue reading “Emanon: Wayne Shorter’s Triple Dare” →

The days of …

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metal, Progressive rock, Rock and Roll4 Comments

Remembering the days of big metal bands or rock bands seems like a recurring theme:

“Where’s the iconic bands that initially came out with the sounds that you love? I’ve never seen a band that impressed me that looks like they’re going to be the next Judas Priest or Iron Maiden.” “ — Says Exodus Vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza

“there seems to be no Led Zeppelin for the current generation of music fans” — Forbes

But, we need note that there was no Iron Maiden until there was one. In other words, emergence of The Beatles or a Black Sabbath or an Iron Maiden is sort of non-cyclical. We may assume otherwise, but history itself is non-cyclic. What’s generally cyclic is human behavior. Especially our propensity to repeat mistakes, or ask instinctive questions. Even outside of rock and roll, same questions might arise. For example, who is the Antoine Lavoisier or Adam Smith or Charles Darwin of the last century! But the answer is the same.

We definitely don’t have giant arena filling heavy metal bands anymore, but the question is do we even want to go back to that time? Dialing back a vibrant musical evolution of 40 years seems inane. Back then we just had heavy metal, now it has mutated into hundreds of sub-genres. Instead of arena filling giants, we have an ecosystem and an extended research worthy genealogy. So, do we go back to stadium filling old school purists or just sit back and appreciate a hybrid fragmented mosaic — of Tribulation, Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan! We definitely cannot have both.

Analogous to Charles Darwin or Karl Marx — Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones were also originators of powerful ideas. Those ideas were transformative and spawned whole new schools of thought. They were giants because they were at the beginnings — of something captivating and novel. In other words, we simply cannot expect arena filling giants from an aging refined genre, for that we simply might have to look elsewhere.

— Image Attribution
By S. Bollmann [CC BY-SA 3.0 ], from Wikimedia Commons

Joy in the Wasteland: Riverside’s Seventh

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rock2 Comments

A Review of Riverside, Wasteland (Insideout, 2018).

wasteland by riverside
Wasteland, released two days ago.

At first, I was surprised that the two best (and best known, at least in American prog circles) Polish bands named their most recent albums, Wasteland. Well, ok, there’s a slight difference. Newspaperflyhunting named its album with a plural. Still, it must be more than a coincidence. Presumably, each took the name either from the Arthurian legends or from T.S. Eliot (who took his from the Arthurian legends).  Regardless, the title fits for most of our world of 2018.

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FROM GENESIS TO PUBLICATION: Jon Kirkman’s new Prog book,”And The Lamb, Lies Down, On Broadway” Limited Edition

On By Paul WatsonIn Progressive rockLeave a comment
bk cover 1
The hard back cover of Jon Kirkman’s new book.

In some ways, Genesis working on their new album at Led Zeppelin’s old stamping ground, Hedley Grange in rural Hampshire  was probably fitting they would collaborate together on their very final studio album featuring Peter Gabriel. Both Phil and Steve reflected in hindsight how it was a strange and weird time in their lives. Phil’s parting recollection of this album and the final tour concert, 22 May 1975, in his autobiography, “Not Dead Yet,” sums it up best with this quote: “It’s our last gig with Peter. It’s the last time we’ll see him crawling through a big cock.”  Prog definitely has it’s defining moments for sure.

Continue reading “FROM GENESIS TO PUBLICATION: Jon Kirkman’s new Prog book,”And The Lamb, Lies Down, On Broadway” Limited Edition” →