Earth’s Yellow Sun – The Infernal Machine

After their last year’s debut EP “Prologue”, Toronto-based instrumental prog once-trio now-quintet Earth’s Yellow Sun has released The Infernal Machine, a 5-part, 23 minute long prog rock song of epic proportions. After that overly complicated and long introduction sentence, let’s dig into the music.

The machine starts with a short opening segment, quickly followed by djent-influenced riffing. They don’t lose time with fancy introductions and cut straight to business. The music is heavily layered, with keyboards and saxophones taking lots of place. This isn’t anything new on the current prog metal scene, but it’s well-done enough that it doesn’t … Read more

Novållo sends us a Betty!

Electro-djent band Novållo long teased us for their new material, and we finally get to hear some of it! Betty Phage Goes To Bronxton is the first single from their second album, simply titled “Novallo II” (without the å, much to our dismay). Gino teased us of his experimentation with distortion sounds, and I guess it wasn’t for nothing! The guitar sounds very processed, almost sounding like noise is coming through, but it gets the effect it sought. Also, I think I’ve never heard a swing-felt djent song, and I’m glad that this day has finally happened. In … Read more

Sanguine Hum – Now We Have Light

[Stream samples of the album on Amazon or iTunes.]

Sanguine Hum is a known name in the indie prog/neo-prog community, and with reason. They’ve released consistently good, mellow prog with an ambient vibe to it, but Now We Have Light is on another level. A just over 80 minutes conceptual double album of, arguably, their best material to date.

For the uninitiated here, “neo-prog” is a term that labels indie bands that are oriented towards prog rather than pop or folk. It’s mellow stuff, with electronics and chimes, but with odd-time signatures, long and intricate song structures, and conceptual … Read more

Troyka – Ornithophobia

Troyka is a jazz band leaning on the experimental side of things, reaching outwards instead of trying to stick to the norm. Their first self-titled album was very light and smooth, but still had many musical intricacies, most of them coming from the guitar. On their sophomore “Moxxy”, they’ve quickly evolved into a more whole-band sound, where the very concept of each song is interesting and well conveyed by every instrument, more reminiscent of math rock than of jazz in its execution.

With their third release, Ornithophobia, the band keeps experimenting with various rhythmic and melodic patterns which give … Read more

Sea In The Sky – Visions

Sea In The Sky is a new up and coming band from California, and they focus a lot on melodic vocals and play djenty prog-pop metal with a slightly ambient feel to it.

Being quite technically proficient (what struck me is the slap bass solo in Tamagotchi) doesn’t mean they can’t put the vocals at the forefront. This makes it so that the band is pretty accessible to, well, anyone while remaining enjoyable for the musicians listening because there’s always something interesting that’s being played in the background. Be it the aforementioned slap bass solo, some guitar tapping riff, drums … Read more