A very international week with 4 diverse highlights

Massive and monumental. Absolutely crushing in its singular vision: with “The death of Death”, Greek post proggers Playgrounded have, without a single grain of doubt, created their best work to date. In the Progtalks episode I said I have a feeling that this could be their very own “Night is the New Day”, a comparison they humbly rejected, but I still stand by that assessment. Where the Swedish legends of dark prog metal mostly have the electronic and the heavy live side by side without too much of an overlap, the Greek quintet expertly knows how to create a homogenic melange of both worlds throughout the entire album.  A mandatory listen for fans of Katatonia, A Swarm of the Sun and the likes, I’m not exaggerating a single iota when I say the chances that “The death of Death” will end up in my top 5 favorite albums of 2022 are pretty high. The only negative thing I could say about it is that it might be too heavy emotionally in these bleak times – but that’s hardly the band’s fault. Check out our Progtalks episode with guitarist Michael Kotsirakis and keyboardist Orestis Zafeiriou as well! Dario

You know you’re in for a proggy ride if you see one full-time band member solely credited for his performance on the piano, B3 and Mellotron. (No synths or keyboards mind you, those are credited to guitarist Simon L’Espérance.) Formed in Montréal some 20 years ago and releasing instrumental fusion prog rock for some time, Karcius morphed into a more classic prog rock band with the inclusion of bassist and lead vocalist Sylvain Auclair (Heaven’s Cry) with the release of “The First Day” in 2012. Now, 10 years and two albums later, the four Canadians have ramped up the heaviness factor significantly on “Grey, White, Silver, Yellow and Gold”. Don’t worry, they haven’t gone fully metal just yet, the dynamic contrasts and diversity just cover a wider spectrum overall, masterfully shown in the two longtracks ‘The Ladder’ and ‘The Needle Tree’ that make up about half of the album’s playing time. The four other songs display the same staggering quality in songwriting, production and execution, making “Grey, White, Silver, Yellow and Gold” not only the album with the longest title of the year yet, but also one of the very best in heavy prog rock. Check out our Progtalks episode with Sylvain Auclair as well! Dario

Wyvern is a young quartet from the south of France and after a self-released demo album in 2018 (“World Product”) and an EP in 2019 (“Moonshine & Neoworld”), they are back with a very professionally sounding work of art that is not restricted to aural pleasures alone. “Radiations” is not only a traditional music album. While still being released as such via Wormholedeath Records, it is also an artistic project with an accompanying mini series of cinematic music videos, realized with the help of director (and probably almost fifth band member) Nicolas Fournier which can be seen on the band’s YouTube channel. There you can also find a couple of beautifully re-arranged cover versions of some of their favorite songs from bands/artists like Devin Townsend, Ihsahn, Diablo Swing Orchestra and Radiohead. Their original music itself on “Radiations” is certainly influenced by a couple of more modern prog bands like Haken, Muse or Leprous, yet giving them a proper stir and cooking up their distinctive signature Wyvern sound. Whether you count this as proper debut album or rather a sophomore effort, it comes highly recommended for fans of melodic prog sounds in any case. Dario

Six years after their last album “When We Were Beautiful”, Augsburg/Munich based prog-metal five-piece Dante is back with their fifth album, simplistically entitled “Winter”. Equally led by the sprawling symphonic synth work from founding member Markus Maichel (SubSignal) and some fierce, heavy, forward driving riffs courtesy of Blind Ego’s Julian Kellner, that unique Dante signature sound is topped off by Alexander Göhs’ gritty vocal delivery and Christian Eichlinger’s powerful drum performance. Newest recruit Jim Magnusson on the bass fits in perfectly and completes the picture of a hungry band that had to navigate through a lot of hardships and still managed to preserve their lust and love for epic and heavy music. Get your solid slab (or slap?) of prog metal now with Dante’s “Winter”, quickly before spring is here! Dario