Progressive Metal Reviews
Although I have a somewhat conflicted relationship with the progressive metal genre, the bands that tackle the style well tend to do so exceptionally well. If you like your time signatures odd and often changing, your song structures unpredictable, your chords and harmonies sophisticated, and your songs long, make sure to check up on Kevy Metal’s progressive metal reviews from time to time. You can find all my progressive metal Album of the Week reviews right here.
However, I did not start properly tagging my reviews until a couple of years in. If you are looking for something that doesn’t show up, it might still be there. I recommend using the search bar at the bottom of the page if you are looking for something specific.
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Album of the Week 50-2017: Adagio – Life
Adagio has always been a band I should love, but didn’t. Kevin Codfert’s orchestrations are amazing, Stéphan Forté is one of the few highly skilled guitarists that found a middle ground between virtuosity and melodicism and none of their past singers was worse than good. Yet, something was missing for…
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Album of the Week 49-2017: Fates Warning – Theories Of Flight
Initially, Fates Warning’s twelfth studio album ‘Theories Of Flight’ failed to excite me the way its predecessor ‘Darkness In A Different Light’ did. I dismissed it as the prog metal giants trying to repeat the same formula. Then suddenly, it clicked. And I realized that ‘Theories Of Flight’ is one…
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Album of the Week 48-2017: Dream Theater – Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory
Dream Theater is often accused of favoring a display of musical virtuosity over songwriting and lacking in the quality control department. All true, but when they are good, they are really good, which is what makes them one of the flagships of progressive metal. Despite experimenting with conceptual pieces since…
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Album of the Week 41-2017: Saber Tiger – Timystery
Before Saber Tiger was fronted by the passionate howls of Takenori Shimoyama, they made a couple of excellent albums with Yoko Kubota, an impressive singer in her own right, at the helm. This was the time when the Japanese quintet started incorporating progressive elements into their music, slowly morphing from…
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Album of the Week 39-2017: Galneryus – Ultimate Sacrifice
A new Galneryus album is always something to look forward to, even though it seemed highly unlikely that they would exceed the quality of ‘Under The Force Of Courage’. Unlikely, but not impossible, as ‘Ultimate Sacrifice’ proves. The record is a continuation of the concept on its predecessor, but it…
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Album of the Week 30-2017: Fatima Hill – Aion
Progressive metal is at its best when it is not a vehicle for virtuosity. The bands who favor atomosphere and interesting compositions instead of showing off their instrumental skills are relatively limited in number, but they exist. Fatima Hill from Japan was one of those bands. Compared to other prog…
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Album of the Week 26-2017: Ningen Isu – Kaidan Soshite Shi To Eros
Ningen Isu is the best seventies power trio that is not actually from the seventies. Despite starting out in 1987, their brand of heavily Black Sabbath-inspired, yet progressively tinged metal would have fit the same bill as Rush and Budgie in the mid-seventies. While the band has recorded some excellent…
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Album of the Week 25-2017: Mastodon – Emperor Of Sand
Out of all popular contemporary metal bands, Mastodon is the only one I can get behind. I respect how little they care about genre boundaries or belonging to a certain scene. From day one, they have chosen their own path and there is always a possibility that a new album…
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Album of the Week 22-2017: Onmyo-za – Karyo-Binga
Released hot on the heels of the impressive diptych of ‘Fuujin Kaikou‘ and ‘Raijin Sousei’, it is something of a miracle that Onmyo-za still had enough inspiration left to write another excellent album. In fact, it is even better than the latter. ‘Karyo-Binga’ sounds manages to sound familiar and fresh…
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