8 Highlights for August 18: a full spread of prog and metal subgenres!

Starting off this week’s highlights with the proggiest of them all: New York City’s Fall of the Albatross offers us “Rite”, their second album after their 2014 debut “Enormous Cloud”, taking us on a wild 32 minute ride full of progressive technical jazz mathcore craziness. The math and core influences certainly sets them apart from most instrumental prog metal, bringing in a high, almost exhausting level of energy. Closing with the fun-tastic ‘Labrakadadabrador’ (song-title of the week!), the four-piece from Queens, NY has released a slap-tastic banger with “Rite” and probably one that will rank among the best instrumental releases of the year. Dario

Canadian metal is incredibly strong at the moment, and here we go with another amazing representative: The God Particle, which started as a solo project of multi-instrumentalist and composer Jeff Sanna, but also features Chris Clancy (Mutiny Within) on vocals, as well as several, international guests like Dan Sugarman (Ice Nine Kills), Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth) and Fred Riverin (I Legion) among others. “Postcards from a Fallen Empire” is their debut album, dealing with humanity’s own brutal history and the cyclical nature of how empires eventually collapse, of which the stunning cover artwork already gives a first glimpse. Musically speaking, they wander in the wide fields of progressive melodeath and metalcore with marvelous, heavy guitar work, a pushing yet varied playing rhythm section, and powerful growled and clean vocals, often supported by a cinematic orchestration, but there are also calmer, sometimes even pop influenced parts. Thanks to the creativity and flow in the song-writing, the musical story-telling works well, and the great production adds its part to a mighty, yet entertaining listening experience. Recommended to give it a spin! Katha

Impressive Canadian metal Part 2, proudly presented by powerhouse Atria, who just unleashed their sophomore EP, “Ground Zero”. The band was formed by Tom Emmans (vocals) and Tim Ross (guitar), and named after a venue the two played their first gig together. Having seen some line-up changes apart from the founding duo since then, the current setting feels really strong for me considering the five tracks they throw into the ring right now. Four of them are mind blowing and aggressive, coming along incredibly groovy yet pushing with often djent-driven rhythm patterns. While the riffs are dark and mighty, the lead guitar adds brighter, melodic parts. Tom’s growls are brutal, expressing the frustration in life and the anger towards the world we live in, but he also manages to switch effortlessly into clean singing during the often catchy choruses. Besides those prominent elements, there’s a lot happening in the background that gives their music an anthemic sound, brought to bear by the well-balanced mixing. Closing with ‘The Brightest Lights’ they change pace and mood in a wonderful way, as it’s performed only with keys and clean vocals, and shows a different emotional side of their versatile work. Clearly a band to keep an eye (and ear) on! Katha

It’s been 5 years since the last release by American prog death legends Horrendous, which got them reasonable acclaim fusing old school death metal with progressive metal and techy melodeath influences. Now with their newest full-length album, “Ontological Mysterium”, they push even further into prog territories, and also take a step into the realms of technical thrash metal. Gotta love seeing more bands doing this lately, it’s a fine return of what was pushing boundaries back in the late 80’s in metal. Bands like Cryptic Shift, Atvm, Demoniac, Autonoesis, and Miscreance have turned heads in the metal/prog communities throughout the 2020’s decade, and this new Horrendous effort is no exception. Whether you’re looking for more in these styles, or you’re already familiar and enjoy this band, I can’t recommend this new album enough. Another fine addition to their catalogue, and arguably one of their best yet! Colin

In a fantastic triple representing three of metal’s most important subgenres, we move on from the Horrendous’ onslaught of death metal to purveyors of an especially atmospheric type of black metal: German/Finnish trio The Circle tells us tales “Of Awakening” on their new album. And I must say, the whole thing is drenched in such a wonderful atmosphere of yearning melancholy, seeping through every pore and note, that it’s very hard to withstand it. Just drowning myself in the tales told by the spell-binding, versatile vocals of Asim Searah (who’s also dropping another album with his other band Damnation Plan by the way), topped of by an exquisity violin guest solo from Ne Obliviscaris Mastermind Tim Charles. So, despite not being very ‘proggy’ per se (at least in the traditional sense or compared to bands like The Fall of Albatross), The Circle’s new album “Of Awakening” definitely deserves a spot among The Progspace’s highlights of this release week. When Asim suddenly graces us with wonderful clear vocals in ‘Reign of the Black Sun’, I’m reminded of the epicness of bands like Iotunn. “Of Awakening” should thus appeal to all fans of all sorts of epic and atmospheric extreme metal. Dario

Continuing on our epic path, crossing into deep traditional, melodic doom metal waters, Yorkshire quartet Godthrymm has penned an album that’s working its way slowly into my subconscious like a blueprint of the genre with each listen. Like something of  a more atmospheric and melodic version of a band like Solitude Aeturnus, Godthrymm give way to extended gloomy undistorted passages, before the slowly-but-steadily crushing riffs return on “Distortions”. Hamish and Catherine Glencross share their lead vocal duties in service of the songs to great effect. If you’re looking for faster tempos and speed though, this might not be for you, as Godthrymm celebrate the slow heaviness of classic doom metal to perfection. Dario

Continuing their series of EP releases, connected through the beautiful artwork, Finnish quartet Sargassus bring us a special kind of post-y finnish melancholy with “King of the Sun” (not to forget the ‘Queen of the Moon’ and the single ‘Breed of the Exodus’). Based on jams between drummer and guitarist, the three songs plus intro were carefully crafted into their final state, touches of black and prog influences complete the sound of these finns, presented with a convincing quality, all in all earning them a little spot among the highlights this week. Dario

Even more jam-based, Canadian trio Ashbreather (yes, that’s the band featuring our very own King of the Releases of the Week research, Colin MacAndrew on drums) returns with the surprise release “Primordial Bong Soup”, 10 months after their conceptual monster record “Hivemind” they had unleashed last November. It’s a sludgy, psychedelic affair, as was to be expected, recorded mostly live, and it takes us on a deep dive into the “Primordial Bong Soup”. Life hack: search for the next best documentary about the deep sea abyss, press play, leave it playing on mute, dim the lights around, put on “Primordial Bong Soup” and plunge right into it! Dario