Album Of The Day: Enslaved – Vertebrae
Tag Archives: Progressive Metal
Blood Incantation – Inner Paths (To Outer Space)
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.
Dødheimsgard – Tankespinnerens Smerte
“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!
Cynic – The Eagle Nature
“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.
Blue Öyster Cult – Monsters
“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.
Opeth – The Twilight Is My Robe
“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.
Artificial Brain – Celestial Cyst
“A map to a constellation out in space”
As Xmas and New Year approach I’ve managed to drag myself away from my usual festive fare (KISS, Magnum, Steeleye Span) and revisit some of my favourite albums of the 2022. Artificial Brain’s self-titled album has been the most-played of the bunch in December and is definitely a front-runner for the year’s top spot. Here’s one of its best tracks, Celestial Cyst. It’s turbulent and rumbling death metal with relentless blastbeats and subterranean vocals but topped with spacey layers of guitars and keyboards that give it a tranquil, melancholic mood more associated with black metal. It’s a brutal and enthralling combo. Artificial Brain is the third album in the band’s stellar career (and the last in a dystopian sci-fi trilogy) and they are at their absolute peak. Metal fans in search of strange new worlds should get onboard.
Shrines – Ghost Notes (Review)
Given that their frontman Sam Loynes also keeps busy with Akercocke, The Antichrist Imperium, and Voices I can’t blame Shrines for taking six years to follow up their 2015 debut album with a four-song EP. But it helps that the EP, 2021’s Ghost Notes, is good: angular, dissonant progressive metal with pristine guitar tones, killer riffs and Loynes’ unique, melancholic voice and harmonies. While I miss the eclectic creativity and plaintive atmosphere of the debut, its good to have Shrines back and they sound like they have found a strong direction and purpose with Ghost Notes. Hopefully they won’t take so long to make their next move this time. Of all the bands in Loynes’ impressive CV this is the one I’d most like to hear more of.
Queensrÿche – Prophecy
“Begotten are the fools who’ll never know”
I was first introduced to Queensrÿche’s Prophecy via the live version on the Building Empires VHS, before acquiring the studio version as the bonus track on the CD reissue of the band’s 1983 debut EP. Nowadays you’ll find it as a bonus track on the reissue of 1984’s The Warning because it was written during that era but I’ve since discovered it wasn’t actually recorded until the sessions for their 1986 album Rage For Order! Bloody hell. But it doesn’t really matter because this song holds it own anywhere. It’s got the classy Rage For Order production sheen but its traditional melodic metal style fits in nicely on The Warning and the EP. Some extremely bouncy riffing, catchy hooks, nice vocal harmonies and some nifty and memorable guitar soloing from Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton make Prophecy a standout favourite… wherever you hear it.
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 