Tag Archives: Progressive Metal

Classic Rock, Genre, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM, Progressive Rock

Iron Maiden – Brighter Than A Thousand Suns (Song Review)

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“Cold fusion of fury”

Iron Maiden’s 2006 album A Matter Of Life And Death proved that the British metal veterans were still an act to be reckoned with, delivering some of their most vital and creative material for years. No track illustrated this better than album highlight Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. Making great use of a churningly tense and ominous time signature, it’s one of Maiden’s proggiest and heaviest songs. Frontman Bruce Dickinson goes all Van Der Graaf Generator with dark, coded lyrics that depict the dawn of the nuclear age (and the influence is made crystal clear with a lyrical nod to the VDGG track Whatever Would Robert Have Said?) Musically there’s a Rush-like feel with the band twisting and turning through a range of moody, tricky sections. And Dickinson responds to the song’s dynamic shifts with a vocal performance that builds in intensity in a breathtaking and explosive way. Brighter Than A Thousand Suns is a track that is stylistically uncharacteristic for the band but, in terms of theatrics and excitement, has all the spirit of Maiden at their most classic.

Black Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

King Diamond – Black Horsemen (Song Review)

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“That’s the end of another lullaby”

Black Horsemen is one of my favourite metal album closers of all time and it also succeeds perfectly in bringing King Diamond’s 1987 ghost story concept album Abigail to a satisfying conclusion: lyrically, musically and emotionally. As with the rest of Abigail‘s tracks, Black Horsemen is chock full of dazzling musicianship, deadly riffs and King Diamond’s demented theatrical vocals. But the song is elevated by a serene, Randy Rhoads-esque acoustic guitar intro that evokes the sun rising as the horrific goings-on at the La’Fey mansion come to an end. And the climatic guitar solo is so joyous it feels like an ecstatically received curtain call.

Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Dream Theater – Wait For Sleep (Song Review)

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“Where images and words are running deep”

I wouldn’t exactly say Wait For Sleep is a standout track on Dream Theater’s 1992 album Images And Words. It’s just a wee piano/vocal ballad sandwiched between two prog metal powerhouses, Under A Glass Moon and Learning To Live, and works like a theatrical segue between them. But it’s a wonderful song that stands out all the same. Its lyrics provide a lot of inspiration for the album’s artwork as well as providing its title and it seems like a central track thematically with its pondering on life, death and grief. But, most importantly, Wait For Sleep is just bloody lovely. A cosy winter warmer that adds a crucial dash of tender humanity amidst the fearsome technical prowess either side and contributes to the total experience that only truly great albums have.

Album Reviews, Black Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal

Celtic Frost – Into The Pandemonium (Album Review)

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Celtic Frost – Into The Pandemonium (Noise Records – 1987)

On its release in 1987, Celtic Frost’s third album Into The Pandemonium achieved instant fame as a ground-breaking work of avant-garde ambition. Notoriously, Frost kicked off the album with an unexpectedly playful cover of Wall Of Voodoo’s Mexican Radio, brought in a soul singer for the should-have-been hit I Won’t Dance (The Elder’s Orient) and went all n-n-n-nineteen on the bonkers One In Their Pride. But the band also continued their established style with aplomb on formidable black thrash songs like Inner Sanctum and there were sumptuously dark, gothic tracks like Mesmerized and Sorrows Of The Moon that would influence future pioneering masterpieces like Paradise Lost’s Gothic and My Dying Bride’s Turn Loose The Swans. Overall, Into The Pandemonium has a mournful, decadent and poetic quality that I’ve loved for aeons. And, listening to it this week, it sounds as bold and adventurous as ever.

Album Reviews, Black Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock

Enslaved – Vertebrae (Album Review)

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Enslaved – Vertebrae [2008 – Indie Recordings]
Enslaved have a ton of impressive albums to choose from, and I own them all, but 2008’s underrated Vertebrae has always been my favourite. It’s a genuinely brilliant mix of mellow prog and black metal frost. It also doesn’t hurt that it was the first album of theirs that I heard. The Norwegian band’s discography is varied and challenging so it’s always tempting to just return to the album I’ve listened to the most and know best. It’s also the Enslaved album that I have bought the most copies of. In order of purchase I’ve picked up the fold-out digipak version, a box set with a bonus live disc and also the 2019 reissue with bonus covers of Rush and King Crimson tunes (a meh Earthshine and a pretty good Red, in case you’re wondering). If you like both of those bands and fancy adding a bit of extremity to your listening then Vertebrae is a great place to start.

The 2009 Box Set with essential patch and lanyard!
The 2019 remaster/reissue
Death Metal, Genre, Song Reviews

Blood Incantation – Inner Paths (To Outer Space) (Song Review)

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One of the best extreme metal bands of recent years, Denver’s Blood Incantation have shown a knack for instrumental music that culminated in 2021’s entirely ambient EP Timewave Zero. But my favourite of the band’s instrumental tracks is their extremely cosmic Inner Paths (To Outer Space), taken from the stellar 2019 album Hidden History Of The Human Race. A rare example of an instrumental being an album highlight and choice for lead single, Inner Paths (To Outer Space) skews a bit mellow, as metal instrumentals often do, but builds up from the ambient opening and hypnotic prog guitar to a properly brutal death metal climax. It’s the most immediately enjoyable and memorable song on a challenging, intense record. A short guest vocal from Demilich’s inimitably guttural Antti Boman almost stops this being classed as an instrumental but he’s not singing any words, let’s face it! Not ones known to humans anyway.

Black Metal, Genre, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Dødheimsgard – Tankespinnerens Smerte (Song Review)

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“Where everything feels damn good”

Now we’re into the second half of 2023, I thought I’d share a track from my favourite album of the year so far. Here’s Tankespinnerens Smerte from Black Medium Current, the new album from Norwegian weirdos Dødheimsgard. It’s atmospheric black metal that blasts off with layered grandeur and a captivating mix of croaks and croons from DHG frontman Vicotnik. Then it heads off, brilliantly, into an eclectic mix of quiet, sinister and ominously discordant sections and also features the most blissful, uplifting vocal hook I’ve heard in ages. If anyone thinks they can release better music than this before the year is through, they avant-garde a chance!

Death Metal, Genre, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Cynic – The Eagle Nature (Song Review)

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“Don’t be shallow”

Not that I need a reason, but with the 30th anniversary and an imminent remixed, remastered reissue, it seems like a good time to give Cynic’s incredible 1993 debut Focus a spin. Here’s The Eagle Nature, one of my favourite tracks from the album. Knotty thrash riffing and growling vocals keep this in familiar brutal territory but King Crimson-esque interlocking guitars, weirdo vocoder effects, moody synthscapes and a general sense of wellbeing make this a bit of a space oddity in the death metal realm. Back in 1993 (just six years on from barbaric early death metal classics like Scream Bloody Gore) Focus must have sounded like it was from another planet. And 30 years later, tracks like The Eagle Nature still sound like they’re at the cosmic cutting edge.

Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Blue Öyster Cult – Monsters (Song Review)

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“New worlds waiting in the sky”

In Blue Öyster Cult’s Monsters, one woman and three men form a crew to steal a spaceship and head out into the cosmos in order to escape a laughter-free Earth. Unfortunately they don’t reckon on the monsters of their minds and the trip ends in sex, jealousy and murder. On BÖC’s 1980 album Cultösaurus Erectus, the band were keen to focus on their enigmatic, heavier side and Monsters‘ dark sci-fi yarn definitely delivers on that front. It’s also a ton of fun: a demented mix of sex and sax where huge stadium rock mixes with schizoid King Crimson riffs and swinging jazz interludes. And while the story ends badly for the crew, Monsters takes off in a climax that is Blue Öyster Cult at their euphoric best.

Black Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Opeth – The Twilight Is My Robe (Song Review)

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“You are the embodiment of pure freedom”

The lengthy, linear songs, relentless changes and a lack of repetition make Opeth’s debut album Orchid a tough nut to crack but it’s well worth the effort. Here’s one of the album’s best and most accessible tracks, The Twilight Is My Robe. It’s brilliant questing stuff that gallops across rolling Maidenesque hills, ventures through bleak forests of gothic doom and rests its weary head in a dingly dell of acoustic enchantment. It’s astonishing to think this band hadn’t been in a proper studio before they recorded this. It’s audacious, ambitious stuff from an adventurous band that was clearly going places.