Yeah, I'm going to see Gorguts in April. The tour is fucking retarded, Psycroptic, Dysrythmia, Nero Di Marte.
I liked the Elder album, really nice music to chill too, I've really cooled off on stoner stuff though over the last few years.
Leprous have been one of my favorite bands for a minute. I even booked them three times, great guys.
I was a big prog metal nerd growing up, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Queensryche, etc, so that's where my taste usually are. Even when I listen to brutal stuff, I need it to be proggy or at least weird to be super enjoyable.
2015 was a great year where there are finally new prog metal bands that are traditional in the sense that there's no death/black cross-pollination, it's all clean singing, but they sound fresh and not like some shitty Dream Theater clones we've heard a billion times.
Leprous lead that pack, but I also like
Agent Fresco - which is a cool, slightly gay band from Iceland that sounds super unique. Complex playing, but really short songs, unique high pitched vocals with really outside the box melodies. Basically they don't sound like any other band and I have a feeling that most of them don't even listen to metal or any type of traditional prog rock.
Caligula's Horse - Australian band that has a little bit of everything, great singer, complex song structures, nice solos, nice variety of riffing and lots of mellowness. They been my most listened to band this year, just really dig their sound.
Vola - The only "djent" band I'll probably ever like. Heavy, detuned Meshuggah like riffs, but that's about where the djent comparisons stop. Danish guys, huge keyboards, really nice vocals with a pop sensibility, dude reminds me at times of guys like the dude from Dredg, Adrian Belew and even that dude from Mr. Mister. Great songwriting. Every time it sounds like they are going into some boring Meshuggah-lite territory I've heard a billion times, they hit you with some sweet keyboards, interesting vocals, electronica. They also have a few tunes that basically sound like metal versions of the band Mew.
Wild Throne - These guys basically sound like The Mars Volta jamming with Converge or early Cave In. Really high energy unique prog metal.
I made a mixtape of all my favorite stuff from this year.
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Here's the tracklist:
1. Cattle Decapitation – Circo Inhumanitas
2. Theory in Practice – The Amendment of Germplasm
3. Satyrasis – Dead Peasants
4. Gorod – Celestial Nature
5. WatchTower – Technology Inaction
6. Sacral Rage – Waltz in Madness
7. Satan – Ruination
8. Crypt Sermon – Will of the Ancient Call
9. Enslaved – Daylight
10. Wild Throne – The Wrecking Ball Unchained
11. Native Construct – Your Familiar Face
12. SikTh – Walking Shadows
13. Agent Fresco – See Hell
14. Leprous – Moon
15. Ghost Ship Octavius – Mills of the Gods
16. Teramaze – Out of Subconscious
17. Caligula's Horse – Dragonfly
18. Failure – Counterfeit Sky
19. Chelsea Wolfe – Carrion Flowers
20. Torche – Barrier Hammer
21. Öxxö Xööx – Dälëïth
22. Lychgate – The Illness Named Imagination
23. VHÖL – Lightless Sun
24. Baroness – Chlorine & Wine
25. Vola – Inmazes
Here's my 2014 mixtape that was significantly heavier and had a lot of weird dissonant death metal.
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Track 1 - “Triumph and Power”
Grand Magus - Triumph and Power
Thunderous heavy metal with balls the size of Joey DiMaio’s ego.
Track 2 -“Magic Hooligan”
Slough Feg - Digital Resistance
Defiant traditional heavy metal with a huge analog heart and an even bigger hard-on for Thin Lizzy.
Track 3 -“The Motherload”
Mastodon - Once More ‘Round the Sun
Even though it’s the first time you can say that Mastodon - arguably the best metal band of the last 10 years - are truly repeating themselves, it’s still better than most other things.
Track 4 -“Whatever Makes You Feel Superior”
Toehider - What Kind of Creature Am I?
Tongue-in-cheek progressive metal that combines the melodic sensibilities of bands like 3 and Coheed and Cambria with the complexity and lightheartedness of Freak Kitchen.
Track 5 - “Last Train Victoria Line”
Voices - London
A truly genre-bending conceptual metal album that amazingly manages to be cohesive while letting every song tell a story of its own.
Track 6 - “Let the Serpent Follow Me”
Sanctuary - The Year the Sun Died
Not even close to as good as their 1990 masterpiece, but still way better than the last Nevermore album.
Track 7 - “Punishment By Design”
Teramaze - Esoteric Symbolism
A perfect example of how to make traditional progressive metal in 2014 without sounding dated or like a shitty Dream Theater clone.
Track 8 - “Mutant Messiah”
Mekong Delta - Into a Mirror Darkly
This album is as great as it is uncool to play this type of progressive thrash metal in 2014.
Track 9 - “Unique Path”
Serdce - Timelessness
Mid-90s Cynic and Atheist jamming with Liquid Tension Experiment while my 17-year-old self fervently masturbates in the corner.
Track 10 - “Eater of Gods”
At the Gates - At War With Reality
The Swedes return to show all of the bands that have been ripping them off over the last two decades how it’s done.
Track 11 - “Scorched Earth Policy”
Revocation - Deathless
If you like progressive death and thrash metal, these are the best riffs, solos, and songs you’ll hear in 2014.
Track 12 - “Carved in Stone”
Fallujah - The Flesh Prevails
Technical death metal with enough atmosphere and personality to avoid sounding as sterile as most technical death metal sounds in 2014.
Track 13 - “Basilisk”
Torrential Downpour - Truth Knowledge Wisdom
This sounds like Mike Patton recording a new album after locking himself in a room and listening to nothing but Strapping Young Lad’s “Alien” for a year.
Track 14 - “L’Eclisse”
Nero di Marte - Derivae
The Italian lovechild of Gorguts and Gojira.
Track 15 - “Balkanized”
Pyrrhon - The Mother of Virtues
Chaotic death metal with very little regard for what’s “true” and “proper” death metal.
Track 16 - “Absorbing Black Ignition”
Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation
Dissonant and disturbing technical death metal with Demilich-esque bullfrog vocals.
Track 17 - “The Bright White Nothing At the End of the Tunnel”
Thantifaxath - Sacred White Noise
Proof that you can play complex and forward-thinking black metal in 2014 without trying to sound like Deathspell Omega.
Track 18 - “Cult of One”
Noneuclid - Metatheosis
Futuristic cyber tech-thrash that manages to sounds as smart as Voivod and as violent as Slayer at the same time.
Track 19 - “Dying Foretold”
Dimesland - Psychogenic Atrophy
A formidable technical death metal force that sounds like Voivod meets Martyr meets Atheist and then some.
Track 20 - “Lament”
Geryon - s/t
Guitar-less technical death metal that manages to sound heavier and more imposing than most death metal bands that have two guitar players.
Track 21 - “Dripping Sun”
Baring Teeth - Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins
Death metal Dysrhythmia.
Track 22 - “Serpentskin”
Dead Congregation - Promulgation of the Fall
About as good as it gets when it comes to old school death metal worship in the vein of classic Immolation and Incantation.
Track 23 - “Church of Vastitas”
Bloodbath - Grand Morbid Funeral
Better than every Entombed-core band you like.
Track 24 - “The Alchemist’s Head”
Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Track 25 - “Behind the Curtain”
Emptiness - Nothing But the Whole
What Nachtmystium should have tried to sound like after “Assassins” and “Addicts.”
Track 26 - “Al-Malik”
Murmur - s/t
King Crimson trying to play black metal.
Track 27 - “The King”
Merkabah - Moloch
Noise rock with a healthy dose of King Crimson worship as well.
Track 28 - “The Assassination of Adam”
Kayo Dot - Coffins on Io
Prog nerds trying to play sexy music has never sounded sexier (or proggier).
Track 29 - “Cinnamomom Parthenoxylon”
Botanist - VI: Flora
If black metal is all about non-conformity and treading your own path, then playing eco-friendly black metal with hammered dulcimers instead of guitars is the most black metal thing ever.
Track 30 - “Island Sun”
Gridlink - Longhena
A fitting exclamation point on the career of a band that pushed the limits of grindcore with each release.
Track 31 - “Desert Shadows”
Wild Throne - Blood Maker
Sludgy progressive metal that sounds like early Mastodon and Baroness duking it out with Cave In.
Track 32 - “If There Is Room To Move, Things Move”
Every Time I Die - From Parts Unknown
The only metalcore band that doesn’t suck in 2014.
Track 33 - “Are You Kidding Me? No”
Destrage - Are You Kidding Me? No
Modern and quirky progressive metal that proves you can be technical and complex while still having a good time.