Up to 57 releases overall and 10 highlights again: as diverse as they come!

Norwegian trio Grant the Sun is inviting us to join them on their “Voyage”. The journey they’re taking us on, on their sophomore full-length record six years after their self-titled debut, is filled with wondrous and floating post-metal sounds, often instrumental, sometimes with few vocals both clean and extreme for added effect. But always dreamlike, yet heavy, flowing like a stream of serene lava, making its way down the side of a volcano unaffected by its surroundings. With a lead guitar tone that’s got an almost singing quality to it, their sound is like a unique amalgam of slow, atmospheric prog metal (think Chaos Divine’s ‘No Road Home (Solastalgia)’ minus the Karnivool twist), post metal and subtle jazz leanings on occasion. Or you could say: it sounds like a panda diving for a frogfish. In the best way possible. Dario

Ever since Jim Matheos, the musical mastermind behind legendary US prog metal innovators Fates Warning has announced that he might not be doing any more Fates Warning music in the future, there have been plenty of projects that involved Matheos or Ray Alder, the voice of Fates Warning since 1987. Lots of them it seemed, chose a melodic, less proggy approach, like Kings of Mercia with Matheos and FM vocalist Steve Overland, A-Z with Alder and long-time Fates Warning drummer Mark Zonder, or also Ray Alder’s debut solo album in 2019. “What the Water Wants” so Alder team up with Fates Warning live guitarist Mike Abdow, Tony Hernando (Lords of Black) also on guitars and songwriting and drummer Craig Anderson (Ignite, Crescent Shield). Four years later, Alder returns with the same team and a second solo album under his own name, simply called “II”  that expands the direction established on “What the Water Wants” to a wider palette of influences (even some moderate modern Sleep Token-ish vibes in ‘Waiting for Some Sun’) and an overall darker mood. Alder’s crooning, melancholic timbre is a perfect fit for these songs and with almost two hours worth of quality material to choose from, I think it’s high time these four gentlemen grabbed Joey Vera and hit the road. I’d definitely go and check them out live. Dario

Danish extreme metal act The Arcane Order are back with their fourth record, which is called “Distortions from Cosmogony”, and tells the story of mankind’s eternal existential conflict between autonomy and submission. With the addition of Kim Song Sternkopf (Møl) behind the mic and bass player Anders Frodo S. Mikkelsen to the line-up, which also sees Bastian Thusgaard (Soilwork) on drums as well as double guitar powerhouse Flemming C. Lund and Kasper Kirkegaard (HateSphere), the band impressively managed to further evolve their style. The ten tracks are all fast paced and highly technical, pushed forward by the pummeling drums and hard-hitting bass. Epic guitar work and a well-placed background orchestration build a massive soundscape, on which Kim lays his relentless, expressive growls and screams. Even though there are some lighter moments in between, coming along in form of a virtuoso guitar solo here or a melodious keyboard part there, most of the album is very gloomy and absolutely mind blowing, with ‘Cry of Olympus’, ‘Starvations for Elysium’ and ‘Favors for Significance’ being my favorites due to their rather progressive approach. The Arcane Order sometimes feel a bit like the impetuous brother of Darkane and Disillusion to me, being as brutal and mighty in sound, just a bit less detailed and varied, but all-together, they deliver a beast of an album. Crank it up! Katha

Swedish melodic progressive death metal giants of Scar Symmetry even took one year longer than their Danish peers The Arcane Order to complete their newest record. “The Singularity (Phase II – Xenotaph)” comes nine years after “Phase I – Neohumanity”, but still manages a seamless continuation of their signature sound between catchy melodic death metal and tasteful guitar awesomeness courtesy of the legend that is Per Nilsson (ex-Meshuggah, Kaipa). And even though there’s not much new under the sun to be heard on the album, it’s still a lot of fun and songs like ‘Altergeist’ and ‘A Voyage With Tailed Meteors’ or the epic closing quasi-title track ‘Xenotaph’ will count among the best within the genre towards the end of the year I’m sure. Dario

A very unusual signing for Nuclear Blast records in several regards, Stellar Circuits from North Carolina play some sort of technical modern prog metal, which you wouldn’t expect from a band signed to that label in the first place. But then again, even the first few minutes of their second album “Sight to Sound” might be a bit misleading with some kind of metalcore rap vocals, but soon the grooves kick in and so do the hooklines. Karnivool meets Monuments or something along those lines. Quality stuff and after listening to the album a couple of times I start to understand why one of the oldest and biggest metal labels picked them up. And deservedly so. Dario

After having discovered singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Max Morton last year thanks to his own band Morton, his Facebook feed became a wonderful source to find interesting bands he was working with (and btw, he’s also responsible for the sound of the recent Jinjer, Ignea and Anima Tempo releases). So it was an easy choice to give ATAN’s new EP “Abnormal Load” a spin, which was mixed and mastered by Max as well, and consists of four tracks best described as modern progmetal. Even though they have powerhouse Claudia Moscoso singing and growling, what she does expressively on ‘Amends’, the other 3 songs are mostly instrumental. Opener ‘Athanasy’ comes along very groovy due to its djent-driven rhythmic and great bass lines that get company by gloomy, dissonant guitars, so does the earlier mentioned ‘Amends’, just with vocals. The title track changes mood by starting dreamy, then takes us on a 16-minutes instrumental ride, alternating between soulful, beautifully melodious, and heavier parts, with the skillful playing of all musicians really shining through thanks to the huge, yet detailed sound. All-together, “Abnormal Load” is a short, but great listen, leaving me curious to also check out ATAN’s debut album “Ugly Monster”, which was released in September 2022. Katha

Just about one month after the mind-blowing Norwegian folk prog double feature with Lumsk and Marekvist, along come the wonderfully crazy sextet MÍO from Oslo, crank up the folk, the punk, the alternative rock and the diversity on their debut album “Ingen Tid å Miste”. An exuberant, colorful bouquet of varied tunes that are putting Dionisia Fjelldalen’s expressive lead-vocals front and center into focus as much as they’re celebrating the pure joy of music in the arrangements and individual instrumental performances. Go on, listen to “Inten Tid å Miste”, there’s no time to lose! Dario

Staying in folky territory, but the contrast couldn’t be bigger, even though we’re just crossing Europe’s northernmost border from Norway to Finland. “Valkamar” is Tenhi’s first album since 2011’s “Saivo” and it’s a celebration of the somber, slow, introspective and serene, far away from the exuberance of MÌO. The duality of life in two albums. Different occasions, different moods call for different sounds. Tenhi’s melancholy is most certainly providing the perfect soundtrack to one of them. Dario

Anniversary, part one, one year: it was the first birthday of “All In Good Time” on May 13, that banger of a debut album by UK modern alternative proggers of Giant Walker. And they were so kind to share a live recording of all those killer songs with us as a celebration. With a slightly altered setlist, “Live at Anarchy” gives a fresh and energetic drive to all the songs, not that they really needed it, but it sure ticks my itch to finally witness this powerhouse quartet live. And if you’re living in the UK, I urge you to do so in the coming weeks: https://www.giantwalker.co.uk/live. Or watch the full performance on YouTube. Or both. Dario

Anniversary, part two, 30 years: few albums have been as mind-blowingly genre-bending and genre-defining as Cynic’s “Focus” when it came out all the way back in 1993. For its 30th birthday, mastermind Paul Masvidal has given it a well-deserved treatment in the form of a complete remix by long-time collaborator Warren Riker (responsible for the mixes on most of Cynic’s material since their 2008 landmark comeback “Traced in Air”). What might seem like heresy for old-school fans works incredibly well to these ears and might just open up the original Cynic sound to younger ears who are used to a very different sound aesthetic nowadays. And serve once more as a memorial to the timeless performances of Sean Malone on bass and chapman stick and Sean Reinert on acoustic and electronic drums. Complete history article will follow shortly, so watch this space. While listening to “ReFocus”. Dario