Band: PoiL Ueda | Album: Yoshitsune | Genre: Progressive rock, RIO, Japanese folk | Year: 2023 From: Lyon, France & Tokyo Japan | Label: Dur et Doux For fans of: Osamu Kitajima, Frank Zappa, Mike Oldfield Bandcamp PoiL is back for a second round of collaboration with Japanese musician Junko Ueda. I thought their last album–PoiL Ueda, from March of this year–would simply be a quirky, one-off thing. I was certainly hoping for more, as my one real gripe about PoiL Ueda was that, at only 31 minutes, it felt kind of short. I really liked the madcap fusion of PoiL’s avant-garde RIO stylings wit ..read more

Band: black midi | Album:Hellfire | Genre: Avant-prog | Bandcamp From: London, UK | Label: Rough Trade For fans of: Frank Zappa, Magma, Cardiacs Bandcamp Last year, black midi made a fairly big shift in their sound. They moved away from the post-punk sounds of their debut and instead  dove headlong into progressive and avant-garde rock. Cavalcade is a fantastic record that brims with anxious energy, and Hellfire feels like a natural evolution.  The music on this record is powerful and befits its title perfectly. The band has described their new album as an “action film,” and the son ..read more

Band: An Isolated Mind | Album:A Place We Cannot Go | Genre: Post-rock, Drone, Avant-garde metal | Year: 2022 From: San Francisco, USA | Label: Independent For fans of: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Boris’s droney stuff Bandcamp An Isolated Mind is a one-man project based out of San Francisco. This act plays a chilling, lonely-sounding variety of experimental rock and metal. At one moment, the music may be a screaming wall of Arctic-cold guitars; and the next, it may be a gentle acoustic passage with alluringly warm keys and woodwinds.  I covered their debut album, I’m Losing Myself, in 2 ..read more

Band: Creature | Album:Eloge de l’Ombre | Genre: Progressive metal, Avant-garde metal | Year: 2021 From: Bretagne, France | Label: I, Voidhanger Records For fans of: Arcturus, Cynic, Öxxö Xööx Bandcamp France has long embraced a distinct weirdness and experimentalism in their rock music. Magma are probably the most germane example for this site, though there was a whole microcosm of uniquely French prog acts in the ‘70s, such as Ange, Memoriance, and Mona Lisa. This spirit can be seen today in numerous extreme metal acts, like the bizarre symphonics of Öxxö Xööx or blackgaze pioneers Alcest ..read more

Band: Papngu | Album:Holoceno | Genre: Progressive metal, Zeuhl | Year: 2021 From: João Pessoa, Brazil | Label: Independent For fans of: Mastodon, Magma, ‘70s King Crimson, Oranssi Pazuzu Bandcamp Zeuhl and metal are two genres which I’ve long felt would make fantastic bedfellows, but almost every instance of an attempted fusion I’ve found has been lackluster. Magma’s Šlag Tanz EP bills itself as jazz-metal, and that’s not too far off the mark; and the bands ni and PoiL frequently have moments where these two styles merge. Most other attempts at blending zeuhl and metal have come off as muddl ..read more

Band: Neptunian Maximalism | Album: Solar Drone Ceremony | Genre: Drone, Krautrock, Experimental metal | Year: 2021 From: Brussels, Belgium | Label: I, Voidhanger Records For fans of: Om, Sunn O))), Ash Ra Tempel, Van der Graaf Generator’s weirder stuff Bandcamp I briefly covered Neptunian Maximalism’s (NNMM) last album, Éons, in an Odds & Ends last year. I said that I liked the idea of that album—an abrasive, sax-forward assault of drone, psychedelia, zeuhl, and more—more than its realization. I’m not a big fan of drone, but I sensed that NNMM could put forward something a bit more palat ..read more

Welcome to the first installment of my 2020 best-of lists, TheEliteExtremophile’s Top 5 Prog EPs of 2020. Expect the two-part Top 50 Prog Albums list next week. Prog is a pretty long-winded genre, so the number of EPs I listened to was low, somewhere in the 12-15 range. However, there were some absolutely killer releases, and trimming this list down to 5 was tough. As I stated last year, I’m sure there are some excellent releases not included. This site is my personal pet project, and I simply cannot listen to everything that gets released. I also have my personal biases against some rather po ..read more

Band: Abstracción | Album: Abstracción | Genre: Progressive rock, Psychedelic rock | Bandcamp The debut EP from this Spanish septet draws heavily from the sound of Jethro Tull’s early material, and the liberal inclusion of sitar adds a late-‘60s psychedelic folk feel to the mix. Swirling Hammond organ and echoing electric guitar lines keep the atmosphere lush, while vocalist Catalina Requena’s willowy delivery occasionally bleeds into the instrumental elements. Each song is distinct, but the tonal continuity between the pieces keeps this recording cohesive and coherent. Score: 81/100 Band: Ars ..read more

Band: Chaos Over Cosmos | Album: The Ultimate Multiverse | Genre: Progressive metal | Bandcamp This album is packed to the brim with tight, technical riffage and lush synth pads. Chaos Over Cosmos draw heavily from melodic death metal and classic prog metal, and they blend it into something exciting and complex. It’s perhaps not the most inventive or original bit of prog metal you’ll hear this year, but it’s engaging, fun, and shockingly accessible for a genre like death metal. Score: 73/100 Band: Inter Arma | Album: Garber Days Revisited | Genre: Sludge metal, Progressive metal | Bandcamp Thi ..read more

Artists: JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland | Alubum: Oscillospira | Genre: Avant-prog, Zeuhl | Year: 2020 From: Melbourne, Australia (Thirlwell) & Sweden (Steensland) | Label: Ipecac Recordings For fans of: Magma, Univers Zero Bandcamp | Spotify JG Thirlwell is an Australian-born, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist best known as the man behind the industrial act Foetus. He also acts the composer for the TV shows Archer and The Venture Bros, the latter of which is one of my absolute favorite shows. (It also made progressive rock a central plot element in one episode.) Simon Steensland i ..read more