Category Archives: Music
We Pyrrhic Conquerors – The End Is Nigh
The Music
The Thoughts
The general free-flowing complexity of zeuhl music and the band name We Pyrrhic Conquerors suggest a sizable ensemble of musicians, performing with some level of loose improvisation. Yet Bandcamp informs us that the richly composed The End Is Nigh is the product of one Joey M. Bishop. That’s about all the information I can glean about the artist; there’s no Facebook page to refer to, no specific location given (Bandcamp tags the project as United States, but the drums were recorded at a studio in Indonesia?), and even Google currently returns zero results for the band … Read more
Hago – Hago
The Music
The Thoughts
Rarely has a progressive metal fusion album been released with so little anticipation, praise, and attention while deserving so much of these. Enter Hago and their self-titled debut album. The Boston band is, as they put it, “a melting pot of progressive metal, jazz, and Middle Eastern elements”, and I couldn’t have said it better – they also call it “falafel djent”, but let’s not go there. Their group consists of the usual instrumental metal and jazz quartet of guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums, while also having a full-time saxophonist on top.
Rooted inside the Berklee … Read more
Matt’s Top 50 Albums of 2017
Some Introductory Words
There was so much good music that came out this year. After barely being able to scrape together ten good albums to make a list out of last year, 2017 redeemed my faith in music in a massive way. I shattered my personal record for new-music-listening this year, and, in the process, I discovered a ton of good, very good, and occasionally mind-blowingly good stuff in the corners and crevices – stuff that many outlets seemed to ignore. And while I admit that I have a tendency to get more excited about lesser-known artists, I assure you … Read more
Jute Gyte and Spectral Lore – Helian
The Music
The Thoughts
The ruin of a generation is shattering.
In this hour, the eyes of the one who watches fill
With the gold of his stars.
Georg Trakl was one of the pioneers of expressionism in its poetry form, an art movement which started in the early 20th century with the purpose of using powerful emotions and moods to express one’s view of the world. “Helian” was, according to him, his most precious and painful poem ever written; dealing with death, decadence, existential crisis and man’s struggle with religion. With this topic on the table, avant-garde masterminds Ayloss … Read more