Cetacean is a band from Los Angeles, California, that came to being in 2015 under the direction of David Sais, with members from well-established bands, such as Black Sheep Wall and Horse the Band, and other musicians. The result is a progressive blackened doom sextet and a 35-minute EP called Breach | Submerge, which was released on January 29th on CD, and will see a vinyl release on March 27th. The designation of EP for a piece longer than half an hour is quite unusual, but understandable given the lengthy nature of doom music, where slow and atmospheric riffs … Read more
Category Archives: Review
Doom Salad – Sunscreens and Aerosols
I’ve been a fan of Doom Salad for about a year or two now, just listening to their mind-bending experimental math rock compositions gave blisters to my fingers and cramps in my hands. However, instead of meticulously written and thoroughly thought about pieces, their newest EP, Sunscreens and Aerosols is four improvised tracks with titles drawn from a Twitter non sequitur spam account.
The songs stem from five recorded improvised tracks that were edited to keep the best parts and leave the bad ones, what resulted is fifteen minutes of music split into four distinct parts. The proficiency of the … Read more
Blumen/With a Smile – Banana Split EP
As the collaborative work of two great one-man projects on their own, namely Blumen and With a Smile, this Banana Split EP should be very nearing perfection! Blumen’s “Press 1 for Music” was released in 2015 and presented something fresh in the modern prog scenery. As for With a Smile, I didn’t have the chance to be acquainted with it prior to this collaboration, but I quickly realized my misfortune when I played their “Never Listen” EP, which is a welcome addition to my regular playlist.
The Banana Split is three songs long, the first of which is a … Read more
Sunless – Demo 2016
Sunless is a band from Minnesota created in 2014 and comprised of four members. With heavy influences from dissonant death metal acts such as Gorguts and Ulcerate, and a surprising audio quality considering it’s labeled a demo, Sunless will most certainly get people talking, and chances are that Demo 2016 is only the first of many great albums they put out. But why is it so good?
If you haven’t noticed already, it dwells on dissonance, and equipoises technicality with atmosphere. Indeed, the very first, lone arpeggiated and distorted chord from the song Born of Clay immediately screams “You’ve come … Read more
Steven Wilson – 4 ½
Steven Wilson surprised me last year with his album Hand. Cannot. Erase. which I absolutely loved. So when I heard that his new EP 4 ½ mostly contained unreleased material from the Hand. Cannot. Erase. sessions I got pretty excited.
And it didn’t disappoint! The lineup that’s been on Steven’s solo albums since The Raven That Refused to Sing has been really solid, and they continue to nail it with this half album.
4 ½ has a nice mix of soft proggy melodies, rocking riffs, and unique solos. The glitchy sounding solo on “Vermillioncore” sounds especially cool and actually has … Read more