Review: Ur Draugr – The Wretched Ascetic

Australia seems to be a great spawning point for good dissonant heavy metal, Ulcerate and Ne Obliviscaris being the two most obvious examples. Ur Draugr falls between these two bands in sound. Being on one hand relying on dissonance a lot and on the other hand progressive and black metal.

Often taking one idea, or riff, or motif, and building on it, applying it in different environments and dislocating it in a lot of ways. The mind(s) of the band really know how to craft a song so it’s a continuous flow, evolving and keeping our interest up. With a … Read more

Review: No More Pain – The Post Human Condition

We rarely review progressive rock albums here. This is mostly because most “prog-rock” nowadays obviously don’t know that “prog” is short for “progressive” and that “progressive” means “favouring or promoting progress”. Well, No More Pain is no different. The Post Human Condition is a great, albeit standard, prog rock album; it sticks to the prog rock formula.

Heavily influenced by Spock’s Beard, apparently, themselves heavily influenced by the likes of Gentle Giant, ELP, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd, NMP dwell in 60s and 70s progressive rock, with a modern edge to it. There’s nothing new that’s brought to the … Read more

A Sceptic’s Universe’s 15 years

Today marks the 15 year anniversary of what is widely known as one of the most important releases in progressive metal. One that has no equivalent, and very few competitors. Personally, Spiral Architect changed the way I viewed music, and the way I viewed the bass player in a band. It is a really important album for me, and I believe it deserves a little post here, for its 15 years of loyal service. If you aren’t already into the spiral train, it’s never too late to embark.

Happy 15 years and let’s just underline that the band is … Read more

Review: Pryapisme – Futurologie EP

If you didn’t already know our blatant bias towards French experimental metal band Pryapisme, now is the time to witness it. The reason is that the band’s newest work, Futurologie EP, has just come out, and, as you would expect from a totally biased reviewer, it’s fucking incredibly awesome! Now let’s dig a little deeper to see why, and try to convert you into our Church of Pryapismology.

First of all the band has made it clear from the very beginning that they would be including a lot of humour into their instrumental mayhem. With an imagery based … Read more

Review: Kooba Tercu – Kooba Tercu

I quite frankly wasn’t expecting that one… Over the very first listen there wasn’t much that just hit me. It wasn’t overly impressive and it wasn’t really “novel” in any way, but I kept coming back to listening to that album. I didn’t really know why, but there was something drawing me towards it. And now, after quite a bunch of listens, I can safely say that I really like the album. It’s good, well varied, nicely constructed, and the fact that it’s a live recording (with ulterior overdubs) makes it all the more interesting.

Kooba Tercu is the work … Read more