I have lauded Warp Prism (now known only as Warp) more than once in the past. Their 2013 concept album, The Infinite II, was – and still is – one of the best prog metal releases I’ve heard. It mixed in djent and electronica in a more than decent manner, and the song structure there was stellar: continually evolving while still keeping its place under the overarching story. The album was a marked step up from any of their previous works, namely Evolution and Transcode. This led me to pre-order Anima as soon as it was made … Read more
Tag Archives: metal
Amia Venera Landscape cured my longing with their new music video for Hiraeth
Amia Venera Landscape released their widely acclaimed album The Long Procession back in 2010, and we’ve all been eager to listen to new music from them since! Well, they wrapped up a cool gift for us in time for the winter solstice with “Hiraeth”, and a release date for Vision I: The Great Mystery: April 30th, 2016. Seems like they took their sweet time to carefully craft this album, and this rather short song, for their own standards, proves it! I just hope there’ll be longer songs since I think that’s where the band shines the most!… Read more
Nono Cerchio – Ombre
From the beautiful Italian city of Bologna, here comes Nono Cerchio – Ninth Circle -, a progressive post-metal band with two members from one of last year’s biggest new names: Nero di Marte. Their debut album, Ombre, was released in early November, and clocks in at almost 50 minutes.
With draughts of experimental music imbuing the atmospheres of the post-metal background, we get a work of art heavy with dissonance, and deeper meaning than can be thought of at first listen. In fact, the album is influenced by Dante’s Divine Comedy, most specifically, the 32nd Canto of “Inferno”, … Read more
Mombu / Mosca Violenta – Hunting Demons
The presence of jazz in metal music seems to be an increasingly popular trend. Most noticeably, it’s the addition of the saxophone that’s often just enough to make us think that the band has successfully merged the two genres into one, but most of the times it’s just a clin d’œil to it, and the music itself doesn’t bear any of the subjacent characteristics of jazz.
The first ones to incorporate jazz, in a form or another, into metal were Atheist, Meshuggah, and Cynic, back in the early ’90’s. Since then, it gained in popularity and it’s … Read more
Forced Fusion
Mute the Saint is the latest example of what I will call forced fusion, but they are certainly not the only one, and definitely not the first or last one we’ll have to endure. Forced fusion is the merger of two musical genres, or the addition of a gimmick to an already existing genre, in a rushed or shallow manner.
The first other band I can think of is M.A.N, later known as Massive Audio Nerve. They claim to be the first microtonal metal band, and I am very highly doubtful on that, with their first album released … Read more