Band: Burnt LogAlbum: Time Is a Heron Waiting for PreyGenre: Progressive rock, Dream popBandcamp Burnt Log is a one-man project based out of Scotland. The songs skillfully combine intelligent, progressive song structures with floating, dreamy atmospheres. Melodies are smart but accessible, and there’s a vague sense of nostalgia to ..read more

Band: April 1830 | Album: The Adventures of Space Pig | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp This Philadelphian band claims to write songs about “pig failure,” and that alone grabbed my attention enough to give this record a spin. (For what it’s worth, the vocals are relatively low in the mix and somewhat willowy, so actual themes of pig failure can be hard to discern.) The music is energetic, often drawing from pop and punk. Certain passages remind me of Cardiacs, if Cardiacs were a very synth-forward, female-fronted band. It’s fun and inventive, and I had a good time listening to this. Score ..read more

Band: Dvne | Album: Voidkind | Genre: Progressive metal | Year: 2024 From: Edinburgh, UK | Label: Metal Blade  For fans of: The Ocean, metallic Porcupine Tree, Inter Arma Bandcamp Dvne (presumably pronounced like “dune,” though Google Translate also tells me it’s Bosnian for “days ago”) is a Scottish quintet, and they’re one of the more talked-about bands on the parts of the Internet where I spend my time. Voidkind is their third full-length album, coming three years after their last release. Dvne is a band I’ve listened to and contemplated covering before, but for whatever reason Etemen ..read more

Band: Caligula’s Horse | Album: Charcoal Grace | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp My view of what is actually popular and successful is probably skewed by where I spend my time online. A lot of that time is on Reddit, and a not-insignificant portion of that time in turn is spent perusing r/progmetal. One of the most beloved bands on that subreddit is Caligula’s Horse, and if you’ve paid attention to my comments on other darlings of that subreddit (Nospūn, recent Leprous, and recent Haken) or compared my year-end list to theirs, it should come as little surprise that this is a band that’s n ..read more

Band: Sgàile | Album: Traverse the Bealach | Genre: Progressive metal, Post-metal | Year: 2024 From: Glasgow, UK | Label: Independent For fans of: Devin Townsend, Avandra, Elder Bandcamp I pride myself on generally being pretty good at pronouncing non-English words reasonably closely to how they would be by a native speaker. (I make no claims about my ability to string together a coherent sentence, mind you.) However, the spelling systems of Irish and Scottish Gaelic truly baffle me. I’ve been told that they actually make a lot of sense and are fairly consistent, if you sit down and learn the ..read more

Welcome to the fifth annual installment of The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Releases. 2023 was an exceptional year for prog and prog-adjacent genres, and I was left with a glut of good music that wasn’t going to make my year-end lists. Even in less-stellar years, there are often records that I’m overall unimpressed with, which just so happen to have a great song or two on them. Thus, from a desire to not give such releases the short shrift, I’ve decided to highlight ten Cool Songs from this year. This segment is meant to show off great tracks that otherwise do not appear on my year-end lists ..read more

Band: Hashshashin | Album: Śaraṇaṃ | Genre: Post-rock, Afghan folk | Bandcamp The latest release from this Australian act draws upon the Central Asian folk-meets-progressive metal flavors of their last release and hones them even more. Here, much of the focus is on an Afghan instrument, the rubab. It lends a distinct folky and esoteric character to these three songs. This EP is both meditative and impactful, drawing from Afghan folk traditions and modern progressive and post-rock scenes. Score: 74/100 Band: Mellow Beast | Album: Reactor | Genre: Space rock, Progressive rock | Bandcamp Mellow ..read more

Band: Antisoph | Album: non satis | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp This German band’s latest release is a pretty neat 3-song EP. The riffs are inventive, weird, and abstract, and the vocal performance is pretty strong as well. I like the bits of jazz and post-metal influence they included in this release. The one downside is that not all of these songs needed to exceed seven minutes.  Score: 72/100 Band: The Flood | Album: Tail of the Whale | Genre: Progressive rock | Bandcamp I like this album a lot; probably more than most folks, and for pretty specific-to-me reasons. The music h ..read more

Band: Agusa | Album: Prima Materia | Genre: Progressive rock, Psychedelic rock | Bandcamp The newest release from this (mostly) instrumental Swedish act sees them push in a more overtly psychedelic direction. In the opening track, blues flavors are prominent alongside jazzy flourishes. “Under bar himmel” has a dreamier feel to it; it strongly channels Camel’s gentlest moments. This cut features a great slow build, and it’s probably my favorite on the album. “Ur askan” is bouncy and organ-forward, and the closing “Så ock på jorden” has some fun, funky wah-wahed guitar that complements the band ..read more

Band: Grant the Sun | Album: Voyage | Genre: Post-metal | Bandcamp I liked this band’s 2019 EP, Sylvain, so when I saw they were putting out a full-length release, I made sure to put it on my docket. The music here is heavy and moody, occasionally with vocals. Guitar lines are both gritty and expansive, and there are a lot of wonderful textural contrasts. I’m not sure there are enough ideas here to warrant a full album, but this would have made a pretty decent long EP if they trimmed off a couple songs. The playing is great, and I’m especially fond of the guitar tones they chose. But post-met ..read more