STAFF PLAYLISTS: November 2009
Find out what HELLBOUND’s contributors are listening to going into the month of November. Each writer has submitted their Top 5 list and have an option to list a book and a film they are into right now too.
progressive metal
Porcupine Tree: The Incident
Porcupine Tree’s tenth studio album, The Incident once again has proven to be another powerful performance by this veteran UK based quartet.
3: Revisions
It’s hard to think of any other contemporary progressive rock band that combines complexity, discipline, and catchiness better than 3. The upstate New York band has been steadily improving with each record, but it was their fifth album, 2007’s The End is Begun, that established them as one of the more promising prog acts today, the kind of band that could easily make the jump from King Crimson-esque dexterity to the kind of sweeping melodic hooks and economical beats that Rush excelled at back in the mid-’80s. Led by the smooth tenor voice of guitarist/singer Joey Eppard, 3 brings an element that bands like Coheed and Cambria, Porcupine Tree, and the gawd-awful Dream Theater (‘scuse the blasphemy, prog geeks) never quite had: enormous crossover appeal.
Adrien Begrand reviews the new, upcoming 3 album set for release on Metal Blade on October 27th.
Augury: Fragmentary Evidence
Montreal’s Augury is describable as Canadian Progressive Death Metal. This band manages to keep the listener’s interest throughout the whole album delivering fresh melodic tunes on their second full length cd Fragmentary Evidence.
Dysrhythmia: Psychic Maps
Dysrhythmia is an instrumental, technical progressive rock/metal trio from Philadelphia that takes complex instrumental, heavy music to new and interesting heights.
Amorphis: Skyforger
The new album from Finnish band Amorphis fits in perfectly with their recent sound and albums. In fact, Skyforger sounds like it could easily be the third entry in a trilogy that would begin with 2006’s Eclipse and continue on with 2007’s Silent Waters.
Spheric Universe Experience: Unreal
Here is a another fantastic slab of progressive metal via the fine folks over at Sensory. Actually, more accurately, this is a perfectly tuned mixture of both prog and power metal.
Persona Non Grata: Shade In The Light
It appears that Greece is quickly becoming a new breeding ground of quality original progressive metal thanks to the likes of Mindflow, Fragile Vastness, etc. And now with Persona Non Grata now signed on with the great prog label Sensory, this quintet has created a succint blend of heavy prog metal…