Any prog head worth their salt will know of
Prog Sphere, a website that champions new and often unsigned (though not always) prog acts, as well as
Prognosis, which in concert with the magazine
Classic Rock Presents Prog gives away a CD of selected tracks every publication. From what I know, Prognosis is only available when you buy the magazines, (and over the years I’ve bought a few!) whereas the Prog Sphere compilations, which go under the umbrella title of
Progtronics are all available online from their bandcamp page,
http://www.prog-sphere.bandcamp.com. Here then I want to feature some of the bands on those discs, and taking a totally random shot for
Progtronics to start with I've ended up with this one:
Which as you can see, is number 21 in the series. So let’s see what’s on it.
(Videos where I can find them...)
Track 1: “Vacant Oceans” by The Sway of Mountains
This certainly kicks off with a real punch, not to mix metaphors, which I totally did, but it sounds like progressive metal - or even just metal! Driving powerful drums that sound like a bunch of octopi are playing them, hammering guitars in an almost black metal style, and I imagine this will be instrumental. Perhaps it’s post-rock (post-prog?) but I sort of don’t really see this as proper prog rock myself personally. Not that it’s bad or anything, just sounds definitely more in the post-metal side of things to me. Still, not a bad start.
Rating: 6/10
Track 2: “Salvation” by The Waves of Mercury
Very low-key guitar getting this one going by contrast to the previous track, almost acoustic before it ups the ante with a sharp guitar and heavy percussion, vocals this time against an almost power metal ballad I would have said. Good vocal harmonies, definitely built on the guitar riffs though. Like it when everything drops away to just the bass and a
sotto voce vocal, then the guitar kind of slips back in quietly as the vocals proper return. Ends as low-key as it began.
Rating: 7/10
Track 3: “Rapture” by Yvan Cluet
Opens on a sort of dramatic piano I think, with echoey guitar, gives the impression of the start of a horror film maybe; low, threatening in a laid back way, quiet, steady, could be building to something. A lot of staggered, almost
pizzicato work here then some funky guitar breaking in with what might be orchestral hits. The first track so far to even use keyboards, which I find odd in a prog artist, but there you go. The longest of the tracks at just over nine minutes, and even though it’s only four in I would imagine at this point there will be no vocals here. Guitar getting very rocky and aggressive now, rising into something of a shred. All stopping now for celesta or harp or something, very ethereal, before the guitar snarls back in and the percussion picks up.
Impressive stuff. Apparently this is from his first album, entitled
Tryouts and you can catch his music here
https://soundcloud.com/yvan-cluet-898845529/rapture
Rating: 9/10
Track 4: “Forsaken” by Channel the Animal
Again we’re looking at a guitar intro, this time with a sort of
vocalise in the background, then a growly death vocal bursts in, so I assume we’re talking, what, progressive death metal here? Heavy stuff certainly; the vocal harmonies are good, and there are clean vocals too, so maybe an Epica/Leaves Eyes kind of thing? From the album
Death of the Dream apparently. Not really my thing if I’m honest. Some rather good introspective guitar, breaks out into a fine solo and without the death vocals I can appreciate this more. But there they are again at the end.
Rating: 5/10
Track 5: “The Furry Traitor” by Hoarhound
Buzzy rocky guitar gets this underway - have none of these people heard of keys? - then it’s a slow marching kind of pagan metal idea with a hoarse, ragged vocal then it settles down into a decent slow guitar groove, but again this ain’t the sort of prog I would be listening to myself. Perhaps, with a vocalist like that, they should have named themselves Hoarsehound? Sorry, sorry...
Rating: 5/10
Track 6: “Perseveration” by Datara
Apart from the fact that the title is not a word, it’s yet another hard metally guitar opening, machine-gun guitar and battering percussion, rising into a sort of Thin Lizzy-style guitar mixed with Iron Maiden, as far as I can see about as far removed from prog as you could be. From the album
The Climb, it says here. Keyboards continue to be conspicuous by their absence. Guess we have yet another instrumental on our hands here.
Rating: 6/10
Track 7: “North” by Pindle
No chance of tracking down a video by these guys, as Pindle is apparently something to do with the computer game
Diablo, so we’ll have to do without a video representation of the song. It is, unsurprisingly at this point, another snarling guitar intro with a very heavy tilt towards metal, decent for what it is but where are my keyboards?? Funky guitar runs here, bit bluesy too at times. Good solo in the closing minute.
Rating: 7/10
Track 8: “Flood” by Hallowing
And for this one the best YouTube could give me was “Halloween floodlights.” Right. Well, at least this sounds vaguely progressive, or what I consider progressive anyway, with a kind of cinematic opening and then - oh well here we go again - another blasting guitar punch, kind of in a doomy vein here I think. Very stately and morose, I imagine there’ll be a growly - no, wait: it’s a
screechy vocal. Well I knew something would be coming. This is more like black metal really than anything else. With a name like Hallowing, and the way this disc has been headed, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Oh look! There’s a growly vocal too: two for the price of one. That is, two vocals, neither of which I wanted. Introspective guitar section is nice, then himself screeches and growls all over it. Is it the one vocalist or two different guys? Do I care? I do not.
Rating: 3/10
Track 9: “Wake Up” by Sky Factory
Can I dare to hope, with a name like Sky Factory, that these guys will be more the prog I’m used to? The final track, the last chance to get a song even vaguely resembling standard prog rock? No? No video anyway - Gucci Mane and Minecraft are the results I get, thanks a lot - but at least there’s a nice soaring guitar solo to open proceedings, goes through a sort of chunky boogie and again is an instrumental, and again no keyboards to be found.
Rating: 4/10
Overall average rating for this disc: 6/10
One issue I always had with the few of these that I tried was that the music thereon was seldom if ever what I would call prog rock. I look at the bottom of the page and I see such tags as “djent”, “Doom metal”, “hardcore”, “metalcore” and “experimental”, and I would have to say this disc at least continues the trend - and the disappointment for me - of focussing much more on metal and such, guitars rather than keys, instrumentals rather than sung vocal tracks. Overall, not very impressed, which is usually the impression I’m left with after listening to one of these.
Not, as they say, my kind of prog.
This, though, might be.