Home Archive by category "Prog Rock" (Page 8)

Category: Prog Rock

The Safari revisits Finland and Explores the Music of Cardiant – Verge

Today the Safari returned to Finland and explored the music of Cardiant a power metal band that was formed in the city Hämeenlinna by Antti Hänninen and Dave Alberti in 2000. Today I listened to Verge the third album from the band. The line-up of the band has changed drastically from the first album when the band didn’t have a lead singer and was forced to use a session singer. This resulted in the album Midday Moon only being released on Japan!

Current band members bassist Mikko Mänttäri, keyboadist Marko Lindroos, and vocalist Erik Karhatsu joined Antti in a revamped by in 2008. Prior to being chosen as the bands lead vocalist, Karhatsu had appeared on Finnish Idol! read more

The Safari explores the Progressive Metal of America’s – Thought Chamber – Psykerion!

As I listened to Psykerion the second album from Thought Chamber, I came to the realization that maybe the best way to listen to Thought Chamber is with headphones on, because with headphones on you can catch all of the intricacies of their music!. I am listening to the track “Transcend” and the music is coming at me from each side,guitars in the left ear, drums in the center, it’s great!

Thought Chamber is a progressive metal group from the US founded by guitarist Michael Harris. I discovered the band last year prior to the release of Psykerion, so I listened to their first release Angular Perceptions, which was released in 2007. At that time, the band consisted of Harris on guitars, keyboards and vocals, Ted Leonard (Enchant and as my son Nick pointed out to me, the new lead singer of Spock’s Beard). Rob Stankiewicz – drums, Bobby Williamson – keyboards, and Derek Blakley – bass. Harris said this about his initial vision for Thought Chamber…. read more

XNA – When We Changed You – Symphonic Prog from the USA!!

XNA is a Symphonic prog/Progressive Rock band from the United States. For the last few days their debut album When We Changed You has been in my listening rotation. As I listened to the album, it was obvious that these guys were heavily influenced by Genesis and other early prog bands. On several tracks images of Jethro Tull popped into my head! My wife listened to a short portions of the album, didn’t really like the lyrics and thought that the singer was a little too theatrical. But how can music that is influenced by Genesis not be theatrical! read more

The Safari finds more Finnish Progressive Metal – Anthriel – The Pathway!!

The other day I was surfing MOG looking artists who are like ones that I like and I came across Anthriel and their 2010 release The Pathway. I gave it a 30 second test and I liked what I heard so it went on the iPhone. This morning it was part of the soundtrack playing while I did some work around the house.  What a fine progressive metal album this is, with a little bit of everything – there’s some hard-driving guitar work from Timo Niemsto, drumming from Jari Kuokkanen. which often flows into some melodic keyboard work from Antti Hakulinen.These guys are the trio that founded the band in 2004. In 2008 lead singer Simo Silvan joined the band and last but not least there’s the bass player Klaus Wirzenius  read more

Crossover Prog from Poland’s Iluzjon – Silent Andromeda!

One of the albums that I’ve listened to over the last week is Silent Andromeda from the Polish crossover prog band Iluzjon (yes, in Polish Illusion is the translation) From Wikipedia:

Grupa czynnie działała w latach 2000-2010. Założona przez wokalistę, klawiszowca, aranżera, kompozytora i autora tekstów – Michała Dziadosza. Od 2006 jako kwartet. Iluzjon w swojej konwencji, w której punktem wyjścia jest art rock, nawiązywał do jazzu, ambientu, popu, hard rocka, rocka psychodelicznego i poezji śpiewanej. W muzyce zespołu usłyszeć można echa takich wykonawców, jak King Crimson, David Sylvian, Peter Gabriel, Marillion. Wiosną 2005 zespół zadebiutował na oficjalnym rynku swoim pierwszym CD zatytułowanym City Zen. read more

The Safari Rediscovers Serenity from Austria and visits Death & Legacy!!

Back in October I came across the band Serenity, I listened to and really like their current release War of Ages. Yesterday I thought about the band and went back in time and listened to their 2011 release Death & Legacy and  I liked that album just as much as War of Ages, maybe more!! As I am writing this I just put on their 2008 release Fallen Angel.…. sounds just as good. Hard driving metal, good vocals, good guitar, etc… Like I do always when I’m listening to a band like this, I went to Prog Archives to see what they say about the band and  the albums. What i found is that the band is not included in the archives because their music is not prog enough! I’ve heard several bands that are included in the Archives and these guys don’t sound any different to this newbies ears!! Anyway here’s what I had written before about the band…..First from Wikipedia some background about Serenity: read more

The Safari finds Progressive Metal? in France from Spheric Universe Experience – Mental Torments!

One of the albums that has been on the iPhone for a while now is Spheric Universe Experience‘s 2005 debut album Mental Torments. I had started my explorations of the band’s music with their 2012 release New Ere  and after the fist listen I wasn’t quite sold on the band. So I went back and listened to Mental Torments, which was their highest rated album at the  Prog Archives. I liked that album a lot more. Now I need to explore the two albums released in between number one and number four to know if I’m completely sold on the band! read more

The Safari Re-Explores Re-explores Progressive Metal from the UK’s Maschine – Rubidium!

Tonight, I re-explored the album Rubidium from Maschine. I say re-explored because I had listened to the album for the first time several months ago and really enjoyed it. The band hails from the United Kingdom and is labeled at Prog Archives as progressive metal. Personally, I don’t think that they are as heavy as many of the progressive metal bands I’ve listened to. The band’s name seems to have been derived from the founder of the band vocalist and guitarist Luke Machin. Machin who had played with both Tangent and It Bits formed the band in  at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music in 2008. The line-up for the band includes: Elliot Fuller on guitar, Dan Mash on bass, James Stewart on drums and Georgia Lewis on keyboards. read more

The Safari finally finds the Progressive Metal of Agora in Mexico!!

So this evening I was searching for some new prog rock, and I went to New Prog Rock Releases and saw that an Italian Jazz-Rock, fusion band named Agora released their new album Ichinen on Monday of this week. So I traveled over to MOG to see if I could find it I found Agora and there was no Ichinen album. I did see however a 2011 release Regresa Al Vértigo. So I continued to search for some information on the band while I was listening. I went to the Prog Archives where I read about Agora…. read more

Life’s Soundtracks – And She Said Gold from Sweden’s Enbound leads me to a good run!

Well if you told me when I was in the fist half-mile of my run tonight that I would end up running faster and farther than I did on Tuesday night I ay you are nuts!! Obviously I did not feel real spry at the beginning of the run! Part of the reason for that it was a lot colder than i thought it was and I always have trouble breathing when the air is cold. But I had put on an album by what I thought was a progressive rock band Enbound and their 2011 release And She Said Gold and it sounded pretty good, so I tuned in and trudged on!! I clocked in at the first mile point at in 10:16 not bad.So I said let’s just keep moving listening to those guitars. keys and vocals that I could understand!! I asked my self over the course of the next mile, “how was I do” and the answer came back ok!! I really didn’t check my time at any other points. I just kept looking down at my pace and was constantly happily surprised that the pace was for the majority of the time hovering around that 10:30 minute per mile pace!! When I crossed the point where i started and had stopped on Monday night I was almost 2 minutes faster than Monday!! So I kept going and ended up running a full 3 miles compared to 2.8 miles on Monday and the final time was 31:30 for the three miles which coverts to a 10:30 minute per mile pace. I was very pleasantly surprised by both the run and the music! Now like I said the soundtrack for the run was And She Said Gold from Enbound. SAnds she said goldince I knew nothing about the band other than they have a great guitar player and vocalist, I went to their Facebook where I found that they are from Sweden!! I went to ProgArchives and found nothing!! Then I googled the Enbound and found them listed on several metal sites. They label their music on their Facebook page as Hard Rock/Melodic Metal. And when I went to a forum where they discuss what groups they put on the Prog Archives site I read that they liked their music but that tended more to metal than prog. I guess I agree but I thought there were several tempo changes within songs and between songs that they would make it to the Prog Archives!! Anyway the band hails from Boras, Sweden a town of about 66,000 people located in the southwest quadrant of the country. Enbound was formed in 2006 by Mike Cameron Force. His intention was to create something special with Enbound, and Enboundnot just be a normal rock/metal band. The pieces of the band came together over the next several years. bass player Swede was added to the line-up, as well as the extremely talented [then 17, now 20] year old guitar virtuoso Marvin Flowberg. In 2009 the band found their singer in Lee Hunter [Lars Säfsund] who is most famous for his work in the band Work of Art as well as performing in musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar, in the TV program “Singing Bee” on Swedish television and performing with Biondo in the Rumanian Eurovision song contest 2008. So in 2011 the albumAnd She Said Gold mastered by Björn Engelmann [Rammstein, Primal Fear, Sonata Arctica] was released. Ok so now my mind has given up on me ans all I’ll say is that in my opinion this is a great album. Full of hard charging metal that will rock you.. with some terrific guitar by Flowberg and then there are some slow ballads and throughout the whole album, Hunter’s vocals are perfect for band!! So as I say check them out!! Here’s the “official” video for the opening track “Combined The Souls” read more