Our Oceans – Our Oceans

a2936028470_16What do you get when you put ex-members of progressive metal band Cynic with members of atmospheric black metal band Dodecahedron? Not what you would expect.

Our Oceans is a post-rock band in which Tymon (ex-Cynic) lulls us with his soothing melodic voice, which we really aren’t used to. Behind his voice and his guitar work is a silky smooth fretless bass playing jazzy lines and drums that put the emphasis on the ambient side of things: painting the background with cymbals over slow odd time signatures and polyrhythms.

Over the course of the album, there is some variety to … Read more

Two amazing math rock bands team up for a promising collaboration!

ni and PoiL are two French math rock bands that blew us away the minute we heard of them, respectively. Thus, the news of them both collaborating for a new project, Piniol. It is not said whether it will be a one-time only thing or if the merging of these two beasts will be perennial. All the information we’ve got is that video, and that we’ll have more early 2016.

Let’s be patient!… Read more

Thieves’ Kitchen – Clockwork Universe

Prog rockers Thieves’ Kitchen hail from the UK and Sweden. Their sixth full-length album,  The Clockwork Universe, charts a course through spacetime to a destination somewhere in 1970s Canterbury, UK. The jazz and folk infused style of progressive rock particular to this spacetime neighborhood, rather than being an obsolete relic of the past, still boasts untapped veins of creative gold. Along the journey, we’re treated to a sprawling 20 minute prog epic, as well as a couple instrumental and percussion-less tracks that sound more like contemporary classical chamber music than any kind of … Read more

Sithu Aye – Senpai EP「先輩EP」

Through a significant amount of releases, Sithu Aye accustomed us to quality material: great music, especially for guitar solo lovers, high quality production, and the thematics of space and astronomy. The latter is obviously absent from the Senpai EP, but the music is still on par with most of his releases, although being quite different.

So,「先輩EP」is a fun, light-hearted EP about a Japanese anime girl waking up late for school, being stalked by a “kouhai“, and dreaming in class about battling evil frets (all that is in the video below). Sithu puts his heavier elements … Read more

Serious Beak – Ankaa, an overanalysis of

After their wildly acclaimed debut album “Huxwhukw” back in 2011, we didn’t hear much from Australia’s psychedelic progressive band Serious Beak. I was much delighted when they announced a sophomore album under the name of Ankaa and released a single for it, “Red (Laniocera hypopyrra)”.

First of all, “Ankaa”, from my best suppositions, comes from the Arabic العنقاء, al-ʿanqā’, which means “the phoenix”. Now, a Phoenix is a mythological bird related to the sun, and that lives cyclically. Ankaa is also a star, otherwise known as α Phoenicis, a rather common binary star that will … Read more