#prog sphere

[letmeliedown]

getting a refill today so i cut open one of my old prog capsules because i was curious what they're made of and woag it's just 100mg of progesterone cream in there! they literally are tiny bath beads. didn't wanna waste what i squeezed out of the capsule so i used it since i was feeling low anyway and had a nap with really strange and beautiful dreams. hormones...

[metalcultbrigade]

Secret Sphere - "Heart & Anger" 30/05/2005

[moonchild-in-blue]

I come crawling on my knees bc who better to ask this than the number 1 Espera fan. 🥺 I've just been thinking about Sleep Token (what a surprise lol), and I'm curious if there's any info on how Ves and the Espera ladies met? Everyone in this band seems so close, so I've been questioning how they all became colleagues and friends. 🥺❤️

AAAAAAAA Crow!!! Thank you sooo so much for this question!!! This is something I've been wondering myself for a long time now, but somehow never really delved into it - this gave me the perfect excuse to do so! 💙

I'm gonna preface this by saying we do not actually have much info about that. This is simply me connecting dots with what little information we have publicly available.

So! We can't really talk about Espera, without talking about Exploring Birdsong. As we all know, they were the opening band for Sleep Token on their first headliner ritual, the infamous St. Pancras Old Church ritual, back in 2018.

This is the first time Exploring Birdsong comes in contact with Sleep Token, and they would be their staple opening band up until January 2020. From there on forward, only their lead singer Lyns and the backing vocalists Paige and Mattie (later known as the collective group Espera) would continue to be performing with the band as live backing vocals (as of 2023 they seem to be permanent live members, as before they didn't tour with them every time).

Now, how did they meet? That's the big question here.

Exploring Birdsong were founded when Lyns, Matt and Jonny were studying music in Liverpool (in LIPA to be precise), back in 2015/16 if memory serves me right. Starting in 2017, they released a couple of singles and started to perform live (with the other 2 Espera girls, before they were a thing). Most (if not all) of their shows at the time were set in Liverpool, Manchester, or around that area.

Sleep Token at the time was playing shows mostly in London and around the south, opening for other bands and such. Quite the geographical difference, so it seems unlikely they would've met then. Even in terms of music, Sleep Token was more involved in the UK metal sphere at the time, while EB were very much in the prog-rock side of alt. music.

In fact, there's this one 2020 interview of EB, right after they finished touring with ST for the last time, that mentions that difference in public between EB fans and ST fans. Here's that excerpt:

To further emphasise that EXPLORING BIRDSONG are making waves they were hand picked to support the enigmatic SLEEP TOKEN on a handful of UK dates which gave them the ideal chance to test the waters and see how their offering would fare in a more metal focused environment.

“The reception was very warm!” Lynsey exclaims. “The crowd were really receptive to our songs. We’re not in a totally different vein to SLEEP TOKEN but I was intrigued to see how we would get on with a more metal oriented crowd. There are definitely elements of our songs which are similar but I was apprehensive how they would react but people came up to us afterwards telling us how much they enjoyed it so I’m really glad.”

Every publication dating 2020 and back that mentions Exploring Birdsong and Sleep Token together, references the fact that EB were hand-picked by ST to open for them (again, they were the staple opener for Sleep Token during that 2018-20 period, save for a couple of dates where schedules didn't align). Which again, is a bit odd given they were in very different scenes, both geographical and musical. As far as I know, none of them (EB) have any connection to any of the guys' past projects, so that can't be it either.

HOWEVER, back in March 2018, Exploring Birdsong announced they would open for the Welsh prog-rock band Godsticks in May 2018, in the Camden Assembly (London).

As far as I can tell from their FB page, this would be their first time as a band performing in London. As we all know, Sleep Token have performed in Camden in the past (Camden Rocks festival in June 2018 actually!) In fact, Camden is a known spot for alt music and culture, so it would make sense for locals (musicians and fans alike) to frequent these places and get to know bands that way.

Funnily enough, Enter Shikari have performed in the Camden Assembly, one of the first bands signed to Basick Records - Sleep Token's first label.

It is very likely that Sleep Token (and I'm gonna go on a limb and say Vessel himself, given the similarity in music influences he has with EB, as opposed to ii and iii who come from VERY different, much, much heavier musical backgrounds) may have seen their opening set, and got in contact with Exploring Birdsong then. They were only announced as opening acts for the ST Pancras show in September, which gives them plenty of time to get acquainted with each other and have that first ritual together.

Exploring Birdsong were already set to be in London in October to support Godsticks again, so it's possible they took the opportunity and invited them to the inaugural ritual.

Now, what's really funny too, is that even though EB would only release their first EP in 2019, they had quite a few singles/repertoire ready (including a few vocal-only covers on their socials).

The most notable is actually their (Don't Fear) The Reaper cover, which was recorded right after their Camden show, and released later that summer, which was recorded in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral - that's right! They performed in a church months before Sleep Token did 😌

The cover itself is beautiful, the girl's voices are pretty much center stage, and the whole vibe feels both eerie and sacred, not unlike Sleep Token's (especially at the time). I've reccomended it here before, and really can't overstate how beautiful that cover is.

Would that maybe influence ST's decision to have them on board? Maybe 👀 This cover was also featured in Kerrang! Radio (which is a big deal given they don't usually feature covers), so you can say it definitely caused an impact.

This is honestly my best guess as how they came together. I can't find any more links between Sleep Token and Exploring Birdsong aside from this, and given their overlapping schedules prior to this, it seems unlikely they would've come across each other.

I think it's really sweet they heard this random band one day and went - "Yeah. These are the ones, this is it." And to see that friendship continue to exist (the girls now being a seemingly permanent part of their live acts; the guys still supporting each other) is really really cute.

Fun fact, although EB stopped opening for ST in 2020, they were actually all together in 2023, where both Sleep Token and Exploring Birdsong were playing Radar Festival. Given their history, and the fact that the girls were part of both sets, it's likely they were all watching each other and having a good ol' time 🥹💙

If anyone has any more info about how Sleep Token and Exploring Birdsong met, I would really appreciate that!! This is as far as I managed to gather.

I'm also gonna leave a link here to my Exploring Birdsong propaganda post, in case anyone is curious about their music and wants a place to start.

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Pest: The albums that disappointed, bored and infuriated us in 2024

We’re lovers, not haters, here at Dusted.  We’ll go to the mat for records you never heard of, records that you probably couldn’t find even with the old, functional Google Search, and a few records that, maybe, technically, legally, don’t actually exist.  We celebrate what’s good and mostly ignore what’s bad or mediocre, at least we do for all but one feature out of a year of them.

Readers, you have arrived at this feature. 

Here, Dusted writers reflect on the music that pissed them off, the songs that, when they turned up on “best of” lists, made us clap our foreheads in consternation, the albums that should have been so much better.  We recognize that these are personal views, and we sincerely hope not to hurt the feelings of people who love and esteem these records.  But we also relish the chance to let loose, for once.  The writing in this feature is some of the best you’ll read all year.  It’s my favorite thing to edit—not sure what that says about me, but there you go. 

Not everyone participated (see paragraph one), but Jonathan Shaw, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Ian Mathers did.    

Blood Incantation — Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)

A slab of maximalist prog and irritatingly supercilious “heavy” music, Absolute Elsewhere pulls off a notable trick. Blood Incantation has conjured (the better word here is likely “produced”) a variety of death metal that’s utterly bloodless, duller than dirt displaced from the grave. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so literal. Death metal doesn’t really have to be malodorous, moldy or mutilated — but it doesn’t hurt. But that suggests a more significant point: the best death metal hurts. It’s full of disgust, dreadful drama and rage at the human condition, which is always doomed to death. Blood Incantation seems to have zero interest in feelings of doom and diminishing concern with the fate of bodies and their meaty materiality. The band would rather get smoked out and gaze into the heavens, spinning Wish You Were Here (check out the near-quotations from “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in “The Message [Tablet III]”) and paging through a pile of Orson Scott Card novels with sticky fingers. Whatever. You do you. But the concepts — a word the record’s arch sensibility just about insists on — are risible, and the music’s preening theatricals have all the charm of Rick Wakeman’s gold lamé cape ‘n’ cowl set. It’s death metal primed for an extended gig at the Las Vegas Sphere, and that might explain why Absolute Elsewhere has ended up on so many highly visible EOY lists: Pitchfork, The Needle Drop, NPR(yep, NPR…). It’s got spectacle, and there are a couple parts where it gets loud, but ultimately, it’s a safe bet.

Jonathan Shaw

Sabrina Carpenter — Short n’ Sweet (Island)

Truth be told, this should really go to Lake Street Dive for me, but I somehow managed to avoid actually listening to them for most of the year. Sabrina Carpenter, though, was much like Chappell Roan and Charli XCX in being unavoidable for several months during the summer. It didn’t matter what kind of place it was, if I stayed long enough, I’d inevitably hear “Espresso.” I couldn’t tell you when it first hit me because, unlike a good shot of the stuff, Carpenter’s sub-Ariana Grande pipes and the casual acoustic guitar plucks do anything but “hit,” the equivalent of aural wallpaper. I’m listening to this record again right now, repeatedly forgetting it’s on, and nothing has swayed my opinion — this is an album and a moment for people really going through it to the point that they can’t hear how boring the vindictiveness is. I’m not even talking about the “everyone except privileged white men” moment, either; I’m talking about your longtime girlfriend cheating on you with your barber and now you’re posting one-star Yelp reviews to get back at them. If that’s not you, if you’re just wallowing in the general malaise of being alive, you don’t count. Also, not for nothing, but I wrote all of this, and I still haven’t gotten to “Slim Pickins” yet. The longest 12 songs and 36 minutes of the year by a comfortable margin (and if Lake Street Dive put a record out, please don’t make me test that theory).

Patrick Masterson

Kim Deal — Nobody Loves You More (4AD)               

Kim Deal is responsible for some of the most monumental—and at the same time minimal—of all rock bass lines, from the ominous pulse of the Pixies “Gigantic” to the anarchic bounce of The Breeders’ “Cannonball.” Her first-ever solo album is very much NOT like that. Instead, it swathes fragile melodies in full-to-overtipping arrangements, with orchestras of strings, Hawaiian slack key guitars, and mariachi bands worth of brass, a lushness that only highlights the ordinariness of her voice and songs. Let’s put some more whipped cream on that turd, how about it?

Jennifer Kelly

Fontaines DC — Romance (XL)

The Dublin five-some swings wide on this fourth full-length, appealing to the masses with pastel colored choruses and limp indie flourishes. It works on a commercial level — after all, this is the disc that got them Grammy nominations, endless “best of” love and a slot on Obama’s play list — but excises everything that made Fontaines DC exciting. What if we took out the dank broody bits and fell in love? What if we ditched the Irish-ness and took a stab at Coldplay? What if we chewed down Fontaines DC’s dark magic into pablum, something so soft and ingratiating that even the Spotify addled masses could get it down? Rarely have I been so excited to listen and so quickly, bitterly disillusioned. One good song comes right at the end in “Death Kink” but that is NOT enough.

Jennifer Kelly

Mercury Rev — Born Horses (Bella Union)

I was so looking forward to this record, the first Mercury Rev album after an almost ten-year gap. I love both the harried brilliance of the band’s early records and the lush psychedelia born of their marriage with David Fridmann. My synapses were short circuiting in anticipation of Born Horses. This fact amplifies my disappointment with the record. Between Jonathan Donahue’s spoken-word delivery, which comes across as a hushed ASMR-inducing purr, and the band’s milquetoast reading of their once-grandiose chamber-psychedelia, I feel the bile rising in the back of my throat and I get choked up whenever I try to play the record. I get it: Donahue and Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak are looking for new directions to take their sound after decades of exploratory music making, and they’re lacking Fridmann’s guidance, but I’d rather experience another See You on the Other Side than this weak-limbed attempt at chamber-beat poetry. Let’s hope this is a mere meander away from the otherwise eclectic and intriguing trajectory traveled by these upstate New York weirdos.

Bryon Hayes

Jessica Pratt — Here in the Pitch (Mexican Summer)

In personal relationships, saying “it’s not you, it’s me” is commonly regarded as the mark of a cad and/or liar, a convenient excuse at best. But here, I swear I am being both sincere and (as far as I can tell) accurate. I know I first heard of Jessica Pratt around the time her second record, 2015’s On Your Own Love Again, came out and I’d been idly meaning to check out her work ever since then. She seemed to be having a real moment this year with Here in the Pitch, she seems like a cool person, and looking at her discography I deeply respect her commitment to the sub-32 minute LP (an underrated length). But after I hit play and quite enjoy the instrumental intro to “Life Is,” Pratt starts singing… and it just hits my ears wrong. I can’t explain it. I don’t at all think she has a bad voice (arguably I like several other singers that have various things in common with her, vocally). I realize, seeing Here in the Pitch show up on more and more year-end lists (including Dusted ones!), that I am in the minority here, and honestly, I think that’s good! But seeing comment after comment praising the singing here specifically is just a stark reminder that sometimes, people just hear things differently. I wish I did like Pratt’s voice; I suspect I’d enjoy this album quite a bit, maybe enough for it to make my own list. And to be clear, unlike some other acts I don’t enjoy, there’s no part of me that irrationally feels like everyone else is ‘wrong’; if anything, I feel frustratingly close to getting the appeal! But I just can’t seem to get past viscerally not getting her singing. I went back to the LP months after my first try, figuring maybe I just had to get used to it, but no. Really, truly: it’s not Pratt, it’s me.

Ian Mathers

Vampire Weekend — Only God Was Above Us (Columbia)

The arguments over Vampire Weekend’s class tourism and cultural adventurisms are old and tired, but the band keeps making gestures that churn up the discourse. See the video for “Gen-X Cops,” which features Vampire Weekend riding a battered, tagged-up subway train, likely making the run to the Bronx — note the several moments at which the train rises into sunlight, onto Upper West Side elevated tracks. The graffitied car conjures a historical NYC, all grainy celluloid footage, lurid spray paint and flashes of urban spaces and experiences now lost to multiple forces: gentrification, trauma, mortality. The video rolls on, unbothered, and briefly Vampire Weekend’s three members sit facing us, having scored seats; the camera presents a further imaginary provocation, as Koenig (still baby faced, ever belying the impression that he should know better by now), Baio and Tomson suddenly wear NYC cop uniforms. The visual metaphor seems to ask: Who has the right to police culture? Whose cops work the history beat? Koenig sings, “It wasn’t built for me / It’s your academy.” The vaguely anti-institutional bent of the lyric is complicated by the video’s closing images: a crowd exiting the subway train in the density of a morning commute. It’s the masses. The camera shifts to a perspective that hovers over them as they make for the exits. One wonders if an additional metaphorical resonance were intended by that vantage: the band’s desire for a place above the press of humanity, observing its struggle but not in it. That’s on the nose for Vampire Weekend, a band that has never made music for those people, has never indicated any sort of an interest in them. Promo chatter about Only God Was Above Us talked up the record’s “grit,” but I can’t discern any. The songs provide the usual gloss and gleam, distractingly slick surfaces and irritatingly bright tones. It’s mostly blithe, here and there preciously mopey, full of snide winks at “Prep School Gangsters” and love letters to uber-hip Soho gallery owners. Whose academy is that? The best Koenig can do by way of answer is in the chorus to “Pravda”: “Your consciousness is not my problem.” OK. Then please stop cluttering it with your effete quietism and get off the A Train. It’s public space, in which everybody’s consciousness is everybody’s problem.

Jonathan Shaw

[ascendandt]

rank prog bands from most to least heterosexual to cause irreparable damage to my tumblr sphere

[vampirezogar]

I had a dream that Peter Weller (of RoboCop fame) invented some kind of pyrotechnic device for a prog rock performance (though to my knowledge he isn't a musician or an inventor). But he chose not to use it, supposedly because the world wasn't ready.

Fast forward to me, as portrayed by dollar store Florence Pugh, living with my whole extended family (none of whom were represented by my actual family except my mom and cousin Dave, though neither were residents of the house).

The house was weird and the end of the hall was filled with so much storage that you couldn't get to the garage. It was kind of a secret that the hall-side of the door in the garage was actually a portal to two other timelines. Apparently if one were to access the other timelines, the power of their alternate selves would be multiplied together.

Knowing this, Grandma, the matriarch of the family blocked off the portal, because she knew her family were a bunch of idiots. However! When I was little, I climbed through the storage, and went through the door, and I had not changed, so I didn't believe it.

Grandma knew though, and despite her best efforts, everyone who knew about the portal eventually learned that two thirds of me had already died.

Fast forward a few years, I'm a bangin blonde babe (British), as previously stated, and Grandma has passed away. We're moving out of the family house, and Dave shows up to help. He tells me that in one of my uncle's desk drawers there is a secret compartment, and my uncle is too dumb to open it. So I'm like, well I don't expect to see that desk ever again so I should take a crack at it.

Ez.

Inside the drawer is a thingamabob something to the tune of airbrush nozzle meets welder head. Gray, unpolished, very utilitarian doohickey. But it's sturdy construction can be unrolled, kinda scroll like, to reveal internals that would take up far too much space. There's like a runic armillary sphere with a gyroscope inside, sitting on what seems to be a gunpowder pan from a flintlock gun???? Clearly, it was constructed with some timeline crossing nonsense.

Anyway I got that shit working off camera and carried it around with my finger off the trigger, knowing that the spirit of Peter Weller (currently still alive at time of writing) would guide my hand.

And yeah, the rest of it was just moving out, going through closets, moving boxes, furniture. But I kept eyeing the end of the hall as it was gradually cleared out.

I do not know what the contraption does.

[johnkatsmc5]

Rainbow Generator "Dance Of The Spheres"1978 Private + Krozier & The Generator "Tranceformer" 1982 double LP Australia  Psych,Ambient,Experimental,Space Rock,Spoken World,Electronic,Synth Prog

full spotify

https://open.spotify.com/album/6b1iMRNaVFy24mcmEjWb1p

https://open.spotify.com/album/2fxxtqnwQn6w1P4jBZDZaQ

Rainbow Generator "Dance Of The Spheres"1978

Official reissue of a record originally privately pressed and released in Australia in 1981. Tracks on this album were selected from recordings of live shows and rehearsals conducted at Fission Chips studio between the dates of January 7th and 26th 1981, these being the last performances by the group prior to Geoffrey´s death. These tracks were originally recorded on a four-track TEAC and were subsequently transferred to an Otari eight-track, when they were overdubbed by David and Keith, and were then mixed and mastered at Fission Chips. Dedicated to the memory of Geofrey Crozier 1947 - 1981.....~ Rainbow Generator are Australia’s first true experimental electronic music group. Consisting of David Labuschagne AKA Mojo, and Rob Greaves AKA Ras. Starting in the mid-70’s, the pair took it upon themselves to begin exploring the possibilities of the sonic dimension and with an ‘open mind’ began investigating the interface between psyche and sound. In 1976 David established the ‘Lectric Loo’ studio in Woolloomooloo, Sydney. Known to the ‘heads’ as simply the “Loo”, the 3-story building was owned by the Department of Main Roads, and slated for demolition. So, it was that the entire block became a haven for squatters, and while Mojo had the main 3-story building to himself, the rest of the buildings were taken by a hotch-potch of people that included Anarchists, a Clown School and a collection of other random squatters. Recording in the ‘Lectric Loo’ provided them the ability to record freely. In 1975 they began to experiment, putting Mojo’s Fender Strat through effects pedals, playing with sounds while manipulating shortwave radio stations and also challenging convention by playing the insides of instruments. By 1976 they had built a kit synthesizer and shortly after purchased a full Roland 100 Synthesiser set-up and were on their way. In 1978, with little resources, or any form of distribution they released their sole LP ‘Dance of the Spheres’. As Mojo puts it, “we were intent on making music with whatever we could beg, borrow, buy, and liberate. Albeit with scant regard for the rules or conventions or niceties of the game. Ultimately, it was all an act of love, of joy. Not just an adventure; it was a musical odyssey”. This odyssey continued their exploration of the interface between psyche and sound. Fusing genres and boundaries, Dance of the Spheres incorporates elements of 70’s psych and folk with spoken-word and of course the emerging sounds of the synthesizer and drum machines. Furthermore, the addition of traditional instruments such as the didgeridoo and the classical Indian instrumentation technique of a Raga add a timeless layer, all seamlessly complementing the other elements and launching the album to another dimension....~ Line-up / Musicians - Rob "Ras" Greaves / All keyboards and all other instrumentation - David "Mojo" Labuschagne / Guitar and all other instrumentation Guests: - Damien Burnett - Didjeridu (track 3) - Naomi Lego - Vocals (on Essence and Rainbow Raga) - Tor Davis - Vocals (on City of the Sun) Tracklist Polyploid Spex Quiblings Query Wandjina Asymptote Embryonic Eye Essence Shockwave Rider City Of The Sun D.Lirium Rainbow Raga 'Ssence

Krozier & The Generator  "Tranceformer" 1982 double LP

One of the rarest Australian synth post-prog vinyl artefacts. Combining shamanic spoken word with nodding kosmische instrumentation fuelled by Australian synth technology....~ Credits Guitar, Synthesizer, Drum Machine [Rhythm-Machine] – David Mow Liner Notes [On sticker] – Anton Newcombe Percussion – Keith Casey* Producer [Reissue] – Andy Votel, Doug Shipton, James Pianta Remastered By – Gareth Mallinson Synthesizer, Drum Machine [Rhythm-Machine] – Robert Greaves Vocals – Geoff Krozier Tracklist House Of The Sun 2:33 Khan-Khallili Razaar 3:18 The Devil May Care 8:01 Slave Traders 2:33 Land Of Unclean Spirits 3:54 Perhaps Reincarnation 2:02 House Of The Joker 8:15 Take A Look 4:42 Temple Of Exotic Delights 14:23 Feed You To The Sharks 1:43 Lapis-Lazuli 6:35 I´ll Be A Sphinx For You 1:30 Doubting Thomas 1:30 Paid Your Money 7:18

Rainbow Generator "Dance Of The Spheres"1978 Private + Krozier & The Generator "Tranceformer" 1982 double LP Australia ��Psych,Ambient,Experimental,Space Rock,Spoken World,Electronic,Synth Prog

https://johnkatsmc5.blogspot.com/2025/02/rainbow-generator-dance-of-spheres1978.html?view=magazine

https://johnkatsmc5.tumblr.com/post/775657662252810241/rainbow-generator-dance-of-the-spheres1978

[liminalitycarb]

I gotta fly like the wind I gotta cry like a wounded eagle Goin' back to paradise Got a long long way to go

We've got all the spheres. It's time to climb to the top of the world tower to the our promised paradise. And thus I'll make references that probably NO ONE WILL GET as we try to finish Final Fantasy Legend!

And after as always, the Glass Carbuncle Company dives back into the aetherial sea in order to take on the moth that is Athena. Will we get Super Chain II prog? Or will the silliness cause us to misstep?

Watch both on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/LiminalityCarb

[thelambliesdown1974]

There needs to be sliding scale indicating where music in the Prog-o-sphere lies from pure unaltered prog to prog adjacent art rock to verging on pop hmmm okay papa will be back momentarily

[aaronmaurer]

Music I Liked in 2024

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

What to say about the Music I spent the past year listening to? 2024 another year without much discovery for me, with no debut albums or artists making my regular rotation. I also probably didn’t listen to as much music overall as some recent years, so perhaps continuing to even recap this medium has become tedious or futile. That said, I still enjoyed a lot of releases by both perennial and newer favorites, so here’s a list (again alphabetized by artist) of 15 albums worth taking for a spin.

Per usual here’s a playlist of songs from these records for your sampling pleasure:

Abandoned Pools – The Haunted House

Tommy Walter’s project (perhaps most famous for the theme song to Clone High) returned for the first time in over a decade with a beguiling new collection of moody and moony melodies.

Bonny Light Horseman – Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free

An ostensible double album (albeit one that fits on a single CD, if that’s your preferred physical media format), Bonny Light Horseman’s third record of signature neo-folk is no less warm and gorgeous than their prior outings.

Charly Bliss – Forever

Charly Bliss’ continued evolution from the 90s riot grrrl-inspired grunge of their debut Guppy to the pretty and polished power pop of third full-length Forever may be unexpected, but when the tunes are this good, who cares about any genre gate-keeping? Forever is a fantastic collection of shimmering songs about love and longing that deserve a bigger stage.

Coldplay – Moon Music

Is Moon Music top tier Coldplay? No. Is Moon Music a significant improvement over predecessor Music of The Spheres? Without a doubt, yes. Still finding the band in “global pop” mode, there are no shortage of the quasi-embarrassing BIG SWINGS found on any later-day Coldplay record, but the hooks are stronger and the emotions more deeply felt. Slot this one somewhere around Mylo Xyloto and Everyday Life.

The Decemberists – As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again

The latest from Portland’s indie royalty has almost the flavor of a mixtape, with styles ranging from the Squirrel Nut Zippers-ish “Oh No!” to the country-tinged “Long White Veil” to the Picaresque-esque “America Made Me” to the 19+ minute prog mini-epic (aka the MOST Decemberists-ist) “Joan in the Garden.” A welcome return.

Geographer – A Mirror Brightly

Mike Deni’s newest collection of swoony synth-pop is decidedly upbeat affair, with lively melodies and sparkling hooks.

Pearl Jam – Dark Matter

There’s nothing exactly ground-breaking about Dark Matter, but it proves a solid outing from Eddie and the boys, mixing heavier fare like “Running” and the title track with the more introspective likes of “Wreckage” and “Won’t Tell.”

Snow Patrol – The Forest Is The Path

Snow Patrol may be well past their time in the spotlight, but Gary Lightbody and Co still know how to make deeply felt and searching rock music with this album of layered songs that get their hooks into you.

Tall Heights – Softly Softly

A return to more of the folk-inflected mode of their first couple albums (after leaning into a bit more of an electro-pop vibe on Juniors), Softly Softly has no shortage of hauntingly elegant harmonies and the unique sound that comes from instrumentation provided primarily by just a cello and acoustic guitar.

Travis – L.A. Times

Travis’ profile may not have kept pace with their peers Coldplay, but they’re also still reliably putting out new music and also released a new album in 2024. L.A. Times is a fine mix of pub-ready singalongs and signature evocatively yearning anthems.

Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department

I can’t make any real claims to being a Swiftie, only favoring a couple of her “Eras” (Red and Everlore), and finding Midnights to be uneven at best, so I’m clearly not the best source for either the objectivity or subjectivity to appropriately rate TTPT.  And while I recognize that it isn’t the best album in her catalog, it is also the release I probably spent the most time with in 2024. The record’s introspective moods and interrogations of heartbreak were an apt soundtrack to most of my year.

Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

The fifth LP from Vampire Weekend manages to simultaneously sound almost nothing like what you might expect while still undeniably the work of this particular band. Tighter and more immediate but no less experimental than Father of the Bride before it, Only God Was Above Us proves that any release from Ezra and the Chrises is still appointment listening.

Young Oceans – Somehow I Know It’s Love

I’ve never been much for the bombast and performative nature of most “worship” music, but thankfully there are artists like Young Oceans creating meditative spiritual work more akin to art-rock that invites actual introspection.

Various Artists – American Football (Covers)

I came to American Football late, missing their 1999 debut when it arrived but discovering them upon their 2010s reformation and subsequent releases. I have since grown to love LP1 as well and its 25th anniversary brought not only a remaster but also this thoughtfully curated companion of covers. Artists including Iron & Wine, Blondshell, Ethel Cain and Manchester Orchestra interpret and interpolate the emo masterpiece in fittingly loving and lovely tribute.

Various Artists – I Saw The TV Glow OST

The soundtrack to Jane Schoenbrun’s 1990s-set psychological thriller is a perfectly evocative accompaniment to the film, with artists leaning into sounds befitting the era and aptly complementing its uncanny visuals.

[darkarfs]

Top 25 Albums of the Year, No

Top 25, No Order

Fire-Toolz - Breeze I love everything Angel Marcloid does. You can hang labels on it if you want: pervasie ambient with World of White Ice, Weather Channel synthwave shred jams with Nonlocal Forecast, and the most varied and mad project she hangs her hat on: Fire-Toolz, who this year outdid itself with a bonkers, loving mix of volcanic metal vocals, lush jazz fusion, scrambled electronics, knotty prog riffs, and an unyielding devotion to making them all stick. Mark McGuire has a song called "Here Comes Every Color." And while good, doesn't capture the essence of the title. This is the actual sound of every color coming toward you.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of the Last Human Being The theater kids playing at being heavy music goes a number of ways. You can be Ghost and play Eurythmics and Broadway hits and be…that version. Or you can be the weirdos who literally don't care if anyone likes what you do or not, a puckish commitment to "this is what we are" in an unenviable sphere of people claiming to not care. You might not want the heavy metal riffs and weepy violins and and cabaret bullshit to slam into one another, to abut like table leafs affixed to couch cushions and thrown down a mineshaft. But they don't care. I do. It's good for you. A warning, though: if your comfort zone is madness, when things become linear again, you will need to regain your balance.

Carnosus - Wormtales Straight-up not as good as their last one. But better than the Wormed, the Wormhole and the Worm that came before it. Goddamn, other than the "void" and the word "threnody" there may be nothing metal loves more than worms. Anyway, Hath and Slugdge and Afterbirth with better vocals, more intricate and better mixed playing, and a psychotic devotion to complexity, but in a brutally dumb yet imaginative way. Like a monster who's suddenly become too smart for its own good and is too strong to be put down.

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere More goofs from arguably the world's most cosmic band. (Yes there are a billion black metal bands who play whole albums about the constellations of the Forever Winter but almost none of them have an equally stellar ambient catalog. Seriously I didn't make a list last year but Paul Riedl's Ocean of Peace would have made 2023 no sweat, best ambient of the year). What? Anyway, these guys are always amazing. Mixed in the thumbhole of a bowling ball, yeah, but with these guys, it's become a part of their charm.

Mamaleek - Vida Blue You may have noticed by now that I marinate in a bathtub of weird. Self-conscious or not, it's where sit, a throne of battered creosote siphoned from the pyrolysis of silly, disturbed, goofy or otherwise. And the erectors of that throne may very well be these deeply troubled, howling hierophants. It's shambling, it's the Scott Walker/Jesus Lizard/Bathory album from the abattoir of your own mind, and it's been melted into a glass floor. Stand on it and look down. There I am. In my bathtub of weird. No worries. But vocalizing all of them.

Orgone - Pleroma I don't want to describe "progressive metal" because that means everything to everyone, from Dream Theater to BTBAM to Ayreon to Ne Obliviscaris. And that's not why I write. I write because I like reading sentences like "More like Gorguts but if they broke into Opeth's house and broke all their stuff" and sometimes, if you wanna read stuff like that, you have to write it yourself. And sometimes, that's what a dense-ass album of stuff like this is. And while that sounds mundane to some people, this is one of the best THINGS, album or not, I've heard all year. I got weird rushes and my mind and heart went places they weren't meant to, and happier for it.

Opeth - The Last Will and Testament They said they were gonna do it. "We're going back to the growls as soon as people started to miss them." And then I saw them live and it changed my life. And that informs that this album, yes, has the growls, sure, but also has some odd songwriting choices that hooked me in, made me realize that I'm one of those people who genuinely would put Opeth in his favorite bands of all time. Compile a list of bands you wanna see before you shuffle off this mortal coil, and Opeth is on it? Favorite. If you're new to them, it won't win you over, but a longtime fan will find much to love.

Loscil & Lawrence English - Chroma Their previous album, Colours of Air, found these two people on opposite ends of the ambient spectrum - meditative vs. white noise, steadfast vs. dissonance - finding common ground within a 132-year-old pipe organ. It worked so well that they wanted to do more with one another. And, like with Wormtales, it's not as good as what came before, but it's still incredibly great, sublime, worth every minute. And this will be the only corner of the internet where an ambient album and a Carnosus album will be mentioned in the same sentence. See? I told you, it's why I write.

Caligula's Horse - Charcoal Grace Speaking of bands I saw live…this isn't one of them. It was a Wednesday and I have a day job and didn't have a phone yet, thus no Lyft or Uber, nor anyone else who wanted to go who ALSO had a car. And it burns me a little. Or a lot. People like comparing these guys to dudes like Haken or Leprous, and while not INaccurate, Caligula's Horse have two things over dudes like them, in my mind. One: a much more consistent discography with fewer albums, and by dint of that, fewer duds. (No shade at Haken and Leprous fans, I like them both quite a bit, both the bands and the fans). And the other thing that sets CH apart, for me, is Jim Grey's crystalline singing voice. Prog giants try to hit the Geddy Lee threshold and so often just…wail, tunelessly and louder than bombs (Looking at Coheed sideways…). No yawps, no yaps, no yowls, no lines that sound like someone who sat on a frozen toilet seat…just the prog sphere''s most crisp and clean vocals, in service to some of their best songs.

Replacire - The Center That Cannot Hold Sure, another proggish tech death brouhaha. But like Carnosus, seriously disciplined and FUN. I sing along to death metal, often, because I can, and this was that one growled line in "Why?" by Devin Townsend, just album-length. For me. Again, I like to sing along to stuff like this. Sure, members of Native Construct and the Black Crown Iniitiate. Sure, pedigree of Boston music nerds. People who know the band know this stuff. Live with it, it'll treat you right.

Sgàile - Traverse the Bealach I've heard some people call this guy the Scottish Devin Townsend. I don't think that's necessarily fair, but neither is it inaccurate. (Well, in terms of prolificness, Tony Dunn is nowhere near him, but he's also a bit younger). Anyway, dude's got a phenomenal voice, chops to spare, and is a songwriter who is ambitious without knowing whatever limits he's set for himself. But the main reason I put this on here is because it's an album that gave me HOPE early in 2024. Granted, a lot of them were dashed and despite being an eternal oprimist, I felt like this year Cormac McCarthy'd our collective psyches into the hard dirt. I needed a tonic, and there was no balm in Gilead. This album, a conceptual one about a man wandering a post-apocalyptic Scotland (heh, I didn't even mean for the Cormac thing to apply) really helped me work through some things I was internalizing. It gave me hope, more than once. There's something to be said for that. But the songs are also really great. Get on board.

Adam Wiltzie - Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal Was this a gimme because Stars of the Lid have made some of my favorite ever music, both collectively and in collaboration with other people? (The Dead Texan is literally the best ambient album of all time and I haven't budged on that since 2014 when I finally heard all the Eno and Budd to that point and it still came ahead) Yes it was. Is it on its own a beautiful meditation with goofy titles and some of the most gentle transitions, pelagic swells (ha!) and effervescent sound engineering in ambient music? Yes it is.The fact that we lost one half of this iconic duo saddens me so much, and I'm happy that this is still in the living half, and I hope more comes.

Gaerea - Coma And rounding out the bands I saw live this year, who delivered an intensity that I did not think could be recorded…hi, Gaerea. Their intense, squealing, hellish brand of cult-world black metal really hits me where I live. This one won't be as flowery because this was a latecomer in the race, and I really felt this one more than I thought about it. To take a page from Victory Over the Sun, this is God, howling in a cage.

Sierra Ferrell - Trail of Flowers I am in love with this woman and her plaintive drawl. I am in love with her songs, I am in love with her retooling of a classic country sound. Country songs don't reach me because I relate to them, necessarily: they reach me, often, because they highlight a sadness I can identify and sympathize with without ever having experienced for myself. In other words, she makes me sympathize with things I hadn't thought about before, expanding where my heart can go. Willi Carlisle did it to me, too, but I HAD experienced, or at least I thought I had, what he sang about. Her emotions are here for me, and I am here for them, despite living in different parts of the world.

Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God The masters. The unchallenged champions. From not exactly a metal hotbed (New Zealand, arguably the least angsty place white people have ever read about), they somehow came for the crown of expansive, definition-straining dissonant death in like, 2009 (Everything Is Fire, yo) and nobody's been able to wrest the diadem from their gnarled hands. Everything is superfluous before their ashen breath, and they wield it like the smog coming for your lungs.

Replicant - Infinite Mortality I really could, conceivably, just cut and past the Replacire write-up here and it would apply equally. Replicant are heavier, less tech-y: in a cavernous ecosystem, they're not yet atop the food chain, but the climb is consistent and rapid. So maybe not. But they're pretty close. Not as clean a recording, but what, is a quibble like that gonna stand in your way? You like Gorguts worship? Would you like Imperial Triumphant better if the instruments were recorded separately and thus didn't sound like bees in a mayonnaise jar with the BEST headphones you can afford, to the point where the notes don't sound like separate notes? Replicant's your jam.

Alcest - Les Chants de l'Aurore The brightest, happiest, least-cheesy metal album I've heard in years, and the best thing Alcest have done since Kodama. And when I say least-cheesy: I've heard two Fellowship albums, and while I dug the optimism (again, a thing I regularly think is desperately needed), theirs sounds like a bunch of the Christian metal albums kids tried to get me into in high school. Not bad, but dangerous, almost toxic levels of optimism…also known as faith, I guess? But I'm not being fair, and this is becoming a slam on faith, suddenly, something else that is toxic in the wrong hands. But Alcest created something bright, something warm, something positively sunny, yet never losing the stewardship of what would eventually be known as blackgaze. And to make a hopeful, sunny blackgaze album in 2024 is maybe one of the most impressive things about this veteran band.

Resuscitate - Immortality Complex Hey, remember when I brought up Native Construct? The world misses them, and their ONE album. Isn't that always the way? Everyone wanted a SECOND Young Marble Giants album after the first one. Life Without Buildings? Rites of Spring? Sure. Green Mile? Op Ivy? Yeah, fine. And much like these bands, in 2015, Native Contrusct took the rulebook of their parent genre and didn't REWITE it. Just added extra chapters, better footnotes, fewer marching orders. And Resuscitate just took that rulebook and played with it some more, cribbed, took what they needed, wrote a great album with it. And it feels right. The rules don't always need to be rewritten, but enforcing them would take too much effort. And the end result is great. There are always stops between birth and transcendence, y'know?

Folterkammer - Weibermacht I will preface this by saying that I don't like Fleshgod Apocalypse. Not to start on the negative, but their marriage of black metal and opera is something that, on paper, does not work for me. So why does THIS marriage of the same two genres work for me? Is it because every song is about weird sex? Is it the way the German language sounds in my head? Is it because it kind of reminds me of Myrkur and their last album left me kinda cold? You feel it out for yourself. I am a fan of bombast, pomp AND circumstance. This is for me.

Iotunn - Kinship Ne Obliviscaris is one of my newest favorite bands. And while it might be incredibly reductive to say "but this'll do for now in their stead," it is the sentiment that comes most readily to my mind when I think of the write-up for this album. They definitely do enough different things with the formula: their guitarists definitely crib more from power metal than the melodeath world, and the death feels more Insomnium than Black Dhalia. And the songwriting veers into Pink Floyd, even, at times. Not so far away from NeO, but far enough that they've written their own name on the wall, and you can read it when you look in the mirror.

Lord Buffalo - Holus Bolus I don't know from "desert rock." I know from what I like, and what I like is American gothic, sun-bleached weird and morose. A sacrifice at the Bad Seeds/Wovenhand altar, with twangy stumbles and odd swaggering, and it's a sacrifice whose bones I will fish through for details for a little while longer. (The word "haruspex," speaking of picking through remains, is one metal bands LOVE. Metal bands with songs called "Haruspex" number in the dozens. And Maria BC.)

Melt-Banana - 3+5 Melt-Banana, along with Opeth, are a band that I've literally been enjoying since the late 90s. So, high school. So, one of the few bands on this list I can say that I've seen live, AND a band that's been active in all 4 decades I've been alive (though I've technically been alive in 5). And everything is JUST different enough to keep me coming back…or in the case of this band, forgot they existed until this came out. And then I said to myself, "oh wow, I remember them being good!" and since I really don't like nostalgia, for a while I was content with my memories. And then I listened to this, was so happy to have been wrong. This band still rips, they've always ripped. Long may they rip.

Kyros - Mannequin Imagine saying the word to me "pop-prog" in my 20s. I would have spit, sneered. But my edges have softened, my carapace molted, my exterior kinder and more open. And that's what this is. It's joyous, silly, and the theme I return to at all times in this list: hopeful. I need hope, I often HAVE hope. This album IS hope, with it's gorgeous instrumentation and floating, buyoant choruses, sparkling production and basslines that could have come from John Taylor or Simon Gallup. The companion EP that came out…a week ago? is also very nice, and arguably necessary to enjoy this album. But the full-length is love, as is their whole discography. Love Kyros. They most likely love you back.

Job For a Cowboy - Moon Healer Progressive death has many mad geniuses, or people who can claim to be. And it's full of people whose name makes me go "nah." JFAC are somehow both. Like, tell me that "Tombo's Wound" is a great song, and then read me that the band's name is The Number Twelve Looks Like You? Stop. But in keeping with my edges softening, I gave this band a try, and I'm incredibly happy I did. It's a reference point for every band that got me into the genre - Opeth, Gorguts, the Faceless, Dissection, Carcass - with enough distillation of elements that I found…memorable. Pleasing. Weird and comforting.

Pyrrhon - Exhaust The exact thing I gave Imperial Triumphant shit for - mixing everything so that instruments are all the exact same volume - Pyrrhon is guilty of. And they bring the same things to the table: scrabbling, scrawling dissonance, a hardcore band's rhythm section, an overall nihilsm that is convinced a better world ISN'T possible but it's important to fight the whole way down. However, there's an energy, a madness here that I straight up do not hear with IT. It's also paced way better than any of their albums: a brusque 38 miniutes of sustained hate, rage, despair…and a final hope. If for no other reason, listen to the song "Not Going To Mars." You can probably guess what it's about. But this album is more than what it ISN'T. For an album so dense, the riffs and song structures are remarkably accessible without sacrificing an ounce of challenging musicality. Shrooms and a cabin perfected Pyrrhon’s approach, and while I’m exhausted all of what we see, what we hear, what we do…Exhaust is providing me with a breath of fresh air and the vivacity to persevere.

[djch3]

Progotronics 37 from Prog Sphere

[overdriveorchestra]

Stoked to have “Dark Mountain” featured on Prog Sphere’s ‘Progotronics XLIII’ compilation! Give it a spin - you may just find your new favorite progressive band.

[grimoiremanifest]

what kinda music do u like :3

I really do like pretty much anything, but my taste centers on stuff with intensity/energy and a good atmosphere, stuff that resonates well. so the genres i drift towards are EDM fusion, speed metal, prog rock, and folk. my favorite artists are Creo, Waterflame, and Cosmo Sheldrake, but I like MGMT a lot as well

favorite songs of all time are:

Stop the Music by Cosmo Sheldrake (Neo-Folk)

FLAMEWALL by Camellia (Symphonic Speed Metal)

Robot Stop by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (Prog rock)

Something Different by Derpcat, feat. Talurre (liquid DnB)

21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson (Prog rock)

10 songs i've been listening a lot to recently are: (* are favorites as well)

Classical VIP by NIGHTkilla (American Dubstep)

No Children (Ska) by Sad Snack (Ska)

Slow Down by Creo (Chill Electro)*

Aurora by Creo (Electro)*

Sphere by Creo (Electro Jazz)*

Thermodynamix by dj-Nate (House dubstep)*

Stalker by Waterflame (Techno)

Body Jammer by Waterflame (Techo)

Get smooshed! by Cursedsnake (Chiptune house)*

[hustlerose]

of anyone has recommendations, i'd love to hear them! i am very new to metal, and it's a big genre :)

albums i've really liked so far:

mastodon - leviathan

amorphis - am universum

amorphis - skyforger

agalloch - the mantle

agalloch - the serpent and the sphere

liturgy - haqq

metallica and lou reed - lulu (seriously)

mostly prog so far, but i want to branch out!

you all know me. i love experimental stuff, i love a strong groove, and i love a focus on intrumentals and great production

so far i've really liked prog, death, and extreme metal. stoner metal looks cool but i haven't heard an album that really grabs me yet. i haven't really enjoyed the techy djent stuff, but i'm open to having my mind changed on that. but most of all, i wanna know what YOU like and WHY !

theres so much music in the world <3 i am finally getting into metal :D

[progspherepromotions]

FAT MAN DON'T PLAY: Art With Drive

FAT MAN DON'T PLAY: Art With Drive

Define the mission of Fat Man Don’t Play. I would say that my mission is to create music and art that drives me and gives me a sense of relief. I use music creation as a coping mechanism to deal with emotion, and worldly troubles in general. Tell me about the creative process that informed your recent EP “Vilomah”. I am constantly creating and coming up with ideas. These 4 songs seemed to fit…