In Search of Metal sequence IV: Anthem of the Mind
You are summoned forthwith to pay homage to the one true king
If there's a genre that seems to be more abject to Best Album voters than metal, it is prog. The very idea of listening to prog causes consternation. Metal's poor performance in these brackets is an anomaly—metal has been pretty firmly incorporated into the orthodox canon by this point, considered a reasonable part of any music fan's diet—but prog's is to be expected. There's an ideological/cultural bent to metal's poor performance; some people are always going to perceive it as meathead music, if not outright reactionary music, however hard it goes—because of how hard it goes. Prog's is, I think, entirely musical. I don't think many people get all Lester Bangs about it anymore, but they do find it very annoying. Which has always puzzled me, as prog done well is in my opinion about as stimulating as music gets. Sometimes I wonder if you need a neurological disorder or two before you can really GET prog or metal. If you're not easily bored all those notes might seem a tad overstimulating, no? Before I dive into the year's prog releases, which I will touch on in both metal and nonmetal forms, some old business. I intended to cover another album last installment, but forgot. That album is The Chasm's Procession to the Infraworld, which is, at least, a bit proggy. Most people categorize this as a death metal album but it doesn't sound like one to me. Death metal elements, surely, but it hits my ears I think "black metal". It's a strong work, and relatively brief at LP length. I award it 4 stars.
Now, the year's prog (non-metal)
The View from This Tower by Faraquet: Math rock is not a real genre.
My score: ☆☆☆
V by Spock's Beard: Prog is still a byword for annoying/bad music in many circles, but buy stock in it now—anecdotally, the kids seem to like it, more than the sort of tasteful alt rock that has been these brackets' bread and butter. But not all prog rock is built the same, for the same audience. To paraphrase an amusing Twitter post, you really have two kinds of prog: King Crimson, and Dream Theater. The kids still aren't overfond of Dream Theater. But there are worse things than Dream Theater. By the year 2000 few things were deader than prog rock, largely because most of the bands inclined towards that kind of thing played metal if they knew where their bread was buttered, or because stuff that might have once been called prog rock was now called "post-rock" or "experimental rock" or "math rock"—because prog rock means ELP, and no Gen Xer wants to be ELP. There are exceptions, of course. Certain brave bands perversely went against the spirit of PROGRESSIVE rock by endeavoring to sound as much like the stadium-filling legends of the early 70s as possible, and chief among them were Spock's Beard, led by cloying Christian-rocker-in-disguise Neal Morse, who sounds like Bryan Adams and Michael W. Smith got entangled in the Fly teleporter. I'm gonna level with you, you ain't gonna like this, it's dork shit. I barely like it and I only do so because I'm a dork. I can't resist prog noodling, I'm sorry.
My score: ☆☆☆½
SMPTe by Transatlantic: This is Neal Morse again. And some other guys, it's a supergroup. But it's the same shit.
My score: 7/10
Universal Migrator Part I: The Dream Sequencer by Ayreon—Ayreon is the project of Arjen Lucassen, a multi-instrumentalist who hires vocalists to flesh out his elaborate prog operas. In 2000, he released 2 albums, a rock album and a metal album, which make one gigantic story of galactic transcendence. It is overwhelmingly dorky, in a much more impressive and likable way than that Neal Morse shit. I strongly prefer the metal one, but both albums are good, this one is just much less....approachable. Not proggier, just, less rockin'. Feels much more like a ~rock opera~ with character parts and songs that mostly exist to relay info, set a vibe. Lot of synth woobling. It's more in the Pink Floyd/Moody Blues vein of prog.
My score: ☆☆☆½
Kid A by Radiohead: Here's one for the oldheads, see if you remember these guys. Radiohead were flying high on their instant classic first album, Pablo Honey, and released artier followups The Bends and OK Computer to positive reviews, though critics expressed some worry at the increasing prog rock influence, deeply unfashionable at the time. Then with their fourth LP, Kid A, Radiohead committed themselves fully to a krautrock-revivalist sound—and were in for the drubbing of their lives. Like Urge Overkill before them, Radiohead were chewed out for being cynical recyclers of music's past glories, the influence of Popol Vuh, Kraftwerk, Ash Ra Tempel and Cluster unavoidably evident. They've not been heard from since. But I think there are modest pleasures to be found in Kid A. If Ghost can be forgiven their derivativeness, why not Radiohead? Though candidly, I won't be nominating them—let the cutting edge of music speak for this year, the Limp Bizkits, the Mudvaynes.
My score: ☆☆☆½
Half the World is Watching Me by Mew: Mew blend prog with indie pop and emo elements. They sound rather cloying but I like them.
My score: ☆☆☆☆
My Favourite Headache by Geddy Lee: If you enjoy post-80s Rush, you're liable to enjoy this album. I daresay it might hold some appeal even if you don't. This isn't really a prog album, more like an alt rock record with a lot of chops. It still sounds like a less technical Rush, but mostly because it's impossible for Geddy Lee not to sound like Geddy Lee
My score: ☆☆☆☆
Lightbulb Sun by Porcupine Tree: This album is sort of a prog spin on Britpop, which puts it in the ballpark of a more honest OK Computer. Works for me!
My score: ☆☆☆☆
American Don by Don Caballero: Again, math rock *is not a real genre*, just a way for prog bands to launder their reputation to snobs. Listen to this. It's just Yes. It sounds exactly like Yes. So it's *awesome*, yes, but functionally no different from Starcastle
My score: ☆☆☆☆
But if you only listen to one...
The Rising Tide by Sunny Day Real Estate: At first glance this would seem an oil and water mix, but emo/post-hardcore has quite an extensive history of incorporating proggy chords and time-signature showoffery, to the point that there are multiple subgenres dedicated to the mixture: djent, "swancore", "mathcore". What makes The Rising Tide stand out is that it sounds like a specific and especially unfashionable form of prog: the arena-ready variety from the 80s performed by the likes of Saga, Asia, and of course Rush. I've never heard anything else that combined that with an alternative sensibility—closest that comes to mind is King's X, maybe? Very good record
My score: ☆☆☆☆
And now for the prog metal:
Dead Heart in a Dead World by Nevermore: These guys are quite popular among metal heads, but I confess I don't hear the hype. They're very drab and boilerplate, hardly any more progressive than Iron Maiden around this time, perhaps less so. They sound so po-faced and unremarkable. Queensrÿche without hooks or panache.
My score: ☆☆☆
Disconnected by Fates Warning: Fates Warning were one of the first bands to take a step beyond Rush and truly solidify progressive metal. But they're well past their prime here. This is a fine recording, but nothing special.
My score: ☆☆☆
Quintessence by Borknagar: A progressive black metal band, Borknagar have a spacey, extravagant sound. I would refer to their timbre, inscrutably, as "zonky". Lot of synths and weird vocal textures, oddball melodies. I dig em but the individual tracks don't stand out much on here
☆☆☆½
Salival by Tool: A live album, so dubiously eligible, though I will note it is largely made up of material either not recorded by Tool in the studio or heavily reworked; it's not a de facto greatest hits album and might be considered an essential part of Tool's discography—is, in fact, by fans, as far as I can tell. It's pretty solid. Was bored by it the first time I gave it a try, but I've come around. It's Tool, after all.
My score: ☆☆☆½
V: The New Mythology Suite by Symphony X: Very much Dream Theatercore, I don't like Symphony X as much as them but they're solid.
My score: ☆☆☆½
Physicist by Devin Townsend: This is such a bright, shiny record, has an almost transcendental quality, reminds me a bit of Liturgy in that way. Hooky and huge.
My score: ☆☆☆☆
The Perfect Element pt 1 by Pain of Salvation: This is a band I've always bounced off of—in fact, until now this was the only album for this tournament that I'd begun but not finished. I'd blame this on two things: one, this band always seems to have exceptionally chintzy production, which takes a bit of getting used to—if you do listen to this, I recommend the 2020 remixed version, which mitigates this some. And two, the frontman is not exactly a charisma powerhouse....even for a prog singer. But giving this thing a chance, I realized something: it sounds quite a bit like Dream Theater! And it sounds like the feathery, effeminate Dream Theater of Images and Words, which never quite resurfaced, at that! I know how much y'all love Dream Theater so check this out 🔥🔥🔥
My score: ☆☆☆☆
A Sceptic's Universe by Spiral Architect: This is prog prog, guys playing so hard they get in the ballpark of jazz fusion. Sounds a lot like Cynic, yet another metal band with a humdinger classic that did not qualify when it ought have. I imagine many would find this unlistenable, but I love it.
My score: ☆☆☆☆
Elvenefris by Lykathea Aflame: I listened to this for the death metal installment and decided it was more suited to this one—it's very much death metal but it's so lengthy, with such complex song structures and focus on atmospherics and technicality, it feels more like prog-metal to me. A pretty-damn-masterful example of it, too. Rich, tasteful record, heavy but serene.
My score: ☆☆☆☆½
The ConstruKction of Light by King Crimson: I am very much alone in thinking this to be an incredible album, most people find it to be an impenetrable wall of dated, mechanized noodling, and I will admit the lyrics get to be embarrassingly bad at times. But with the possible exception of Lou Reed's Ecstasy, this remains my favorite album from this year, I have just never elsewhere heard guitar like this, including other King Crimson albums (though admittedly I haven't explored between Red and THRAK). It's so dense, the guitar solos burrowing into your ears and finding new places to go in a manner more satisfying than anything similar I've heard. This isn't gonna be an "if you only listen to one" pick because Kent has already spotlighted this album and anyone who might be inclined to check it out probably already has. But I will say, if you find the production to be exceptionally unpleasant, there has been a reworking of this album, fittingly titled The ReconstruKction of Light, that rerecords some of the parts, including the somewhat infamous drum sound.
My score: ☆☆☆☆☆
But if you only listen to one...
Universal Migrator Part II: Flight of the Migrator by Ayreon—I love the glorious redundancy of the title, best album name of the year. The second half of Ayreon's two-disc project is a hoot. As far as I'm concerned the first is optional, but this one, it's got all the hookiness of great power metal combined with the pleasurable friction of prog. And he's pulling from influences you don't hear enough of anymore—quite a lot of Deep Purple DNA in this. Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson guests on a track, and this album is a lot better than his from this year imo. This is primo panel van music, so I am asking once again that you nominate Universal Migrator pt II: Flight of the Migrator
My score: ☆☆☆☆½
Dismissed