Never Awake is a Portland-based progressive heavy rock slash metal band and their album Underground is to be released May 19th, 2014. I’ve got to say I’m quite impressed of the release!

They’re not the most out-there, insane musicians ever, but boy do their songs stick in your head! On the prog side of things, their songs show a decent duration: none is shorter than 5 minutes and there’s even a 10 minute closer! Riffs and patterns are often not too recherché, but when the spotlight comes on the instrumental, they put their hands dirty for some hard work that will grab the interest of every musician listening.

In some way, the band reminds me of the outstanding heavy-prog band Vanisher – that I totally recommend – in that they bring similar food to the table. Never Awake, however, is a tad less straightforward and poppy than Vanisher is.

That’s definitely an album I’d recommend you to get. However, I recommend you get a physical copy of it, given that the digital version has the same price tag. So unless the shipping costs are too expensive, order the physical copy.

To the band, I’d suggest giving some kind of incentive to the digital download, like lowering its price compared to the physical order.