The Top 10 Progressive Albums of 2024

When it comes to prog, few bands actually progress. Most that claim to be a part of this genre just wank around with an overabundance of guitar solos that the songs are merely bookends for, rather than serving songs that go somewhere.  The bands that made this year's top 10 list are taking you places with their songs. There are some guitar solos here and there, but shredding is not the emphasis, nor is using odd time signatures for the sake of just doing so. Some of these bands are more metallic, and a few albums even flirt with pop at times. These are not the coolest prog albums, but the best, fuck what other blogs say,  

After sorting through the top 10 albums of all the respective genres, I use those lists to compile the top 10 albums of 2024. The fact that these bands made it on the list speaks to how great these albums are, so it's not a slight that the number 8 album is above the 9th album; there is something that just gives it an edge that makes me want to listen to it more. After all, we can try to look cool and pick the hippest bands for a list, but at the end of the day, what makes an album the best is that it makes you want more, and you look forward to listening to it again. You might find your next favorite on this list, and I have included links to reviews of these albums if you want to check out the audio on these guys. Anyway, here are the top 10 Progressive albums of 2024.

10- Blood Incantation- "Absolute Elsewhere" 

Sure combining Pink Floyd with Morbid Angel is a great idea. This album seems to have gotten enough hype due to it, and it certainly deserves an honorable mention here. But The rest of this list feels more original to me, and wears their influences less on their sleeves .

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/10/blood-incantation-absolute-elsewhere.html

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9-Trelldom- "...By the Shadows..." 

 It can be hard to keep up with all of Gaahl's varied project's over the years, despite him being one of my favorite Black Metal vocalists. This project is more diverse than Gorgoroth, and I think makes excellent use of his voice. The members of this band have also played in God Seed, with the drummer Kenneth Kapstad having covered the most ground. I would  not call this band black metal, though they are dark, but a flowing progressive sense flows through them. The shadowy drone they sweep you away in is very cool. This is the perfect mood for me. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/12/trelldom-by-shadows.html

8 Julie Christmas -""Ridiculous and Full of Blood" 

If you do not know Ms. Christmas from Made out of Babies then I am going to just go ahead and assume you know her from the album she did with Cult of Luna. The musicians she recruited to help her with this album provide a reasonable expectation of what sonic zip codes it's going take us in, as they include the guitarist from Cult of Luna, the drummer from Spotlights, KEN Mode's bassist, and John from Candiria adding guitars as well. So pretty every genre with post in front of it. Julie adds a playfully unhinged enthusiasm to her vocal performance, that reminds me a little of Rasputina. But with less baroque wistfulness. 

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/06/julie-christmas-ridiculous-and-full-of.html

7- Chapel of Disease- "Echoes of Light" 

The German band is a fairly interesting progressive death metal band, that wacky time changes aside and a penchant for rock n roll riffs are not too far out in left field. They are at times like a less gothy Tribulation. The guitarists are calling the shots here are the guitar is the centerpiece of the songs, often wandering f pocket very tastefully until things explode with the climax. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/03/chapel-of-disease-echoes-of-light.html

6-Xiu Xiu - " 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips"

My thoughts on Jamie Stewarts' experimental art vehicle range from respect to love to wishing he would stop fucking around and write songs as great as what was on "Dear God I Hate Myself". Here the band proves that they do not have to abandon their weird to write songs and launch into some genuine prog, enough to earn this a space on this list and not the post-punk list or the electronic list which both sub-genres the share common ground with. 

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/08/xiu-xiu-13-frank-beltrame-italian.htm

 

5 -Mamaleek - "Vida Blue" 

These guys are going further down the Tom Waits rabbit hole. The guitar is carried with a jazzier tone. There is a jammy abstract element that gets broken up by their heavier tendencies. As far as musicianship goes their game has really been stepped up. It's a weird collision of prog with punk. In fact, this album leans toward jazz more often than not with the gruff vocals the only thing anchoring it to the sound you are used to, which is progress, thus their place here. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/mamaleek-vida-blue.html

4-Crippled Black Pheonix - "'The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature"

I gained a new appreciation for this band since the darker turn their past few albums have taken.  This time around they sprawl out from a creeping post-rock, into a more grandiose throb. Not as dark as what I expected after the last album but it works. Excellent production brings all the sounds into focus for this sonic adventure.  

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/crippled-black-phoenix-wolf-changes-its.html

3-David Gilmour - "Luck and Strange" 

You might not know that Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands,  which created a high bar for this album,. At 78  guitarist David Gilmour, is not fading away. The title track of his new album rivals almost any Pink Floyd song that is not on "Animals". It's some of Gilmour's best guitar work. Even his voice sounds great, he's not afraid to reach up into his head register for a few notes here and there. This is the last recording keyboardist Richard Wright appears on before his death. This album is almost as much Pink Floyd as the 'Division Bell' is

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/11/david-gilmour-luck-and-strange.html

 

2-Opeth - "The Last Will and Testament"

14 Albums later Akerfeldt is the only original member but I am willing to count anyone who has been playing since "Deliverance" so that makes two. The return of the growl, is not the best part as that feels like they are dialing it in, they are never going to be a death metal band again, and this album is not on the level of  "Blackwater Park", but it works thanks do some strong jamming grooves. Plenty of prog chaos, but more focused songwriting. , 

 https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/11/opeth-last-will-testament.html

1-Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - "Of the Last Human Being" 

When I place one of my favorite bands on the pedestal of what other bands should aspire to, said band must then meet these exalted expectations. If they are one of the best bands I have ever seen live then expectations are even higher. If they are coming back 17 years later, after you lived thinking their last album was the final chapter, then you can only hope for the best album ever. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum reopened in an attempt to make their best album yet. 2007's "In Glorious Times" is a perfect album, so they were wise not to take it head on but in a more mature step forward with the emphasis on more of the chamber music side, while employing all the creepy dissonance they are known for. It's not just the best prog album of the year, but perhaps the best album of the year. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/02/sleepytime-gorilla-museum-of-last-human.html

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September's Top 10 Albums

It's time for September's top 10 albums. Staying abreast of the month's highlights might help casual readers see what they missed and check these artists out. I am not writing little blurbs on them and just linking the reviews. I am using this to organize my lists for the end of the year, by listing the genre of music the album falls under. Inclusion here does not mean that these albums have been released this month, but it is a list of new or upcoming albums I have enjoyed the most, I have albums in my in-box that are not coming out til  November so I am normally way ahead of the curve in this regard. They are ranked in order of what I have listened to the most. This month there is a wide variety from Pop to Black Metal so you may find your new favorite among them. Here are the Top 10 albums for  September of 2024.

10-Ellende - "Todbringerin" 

Black Metal 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/ellende-todbringerin.html

9-FANGE- "Perdition"

Industrial 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/fange-perdition.html

8-Mamaleek - "Vida Blue"

Prog- Fusion

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/mamaleek-vida-blue.html

7- Crippled Black Phoenix - " 'The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature"

Prog Rock 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/crippled-black-phoenix-wolf-changes-its.html

6-Brume - "Marten" 

Post Rock 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/brume-marten.html

5-trauma ray- "Chameleon" 

Shoe-gaze 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/trauma-ray-chameleon.html

4-Mothica- "Kissing Death"

Alt Pop

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/mothica-kissing-death.html

3- DEADFORM -"Entrenched in Hell' 

Crust

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/deadform-entrenched-in-hell.html

2-Maul -" In The Jaws Of Bereavement"

Death Metal 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/maul-in-jaws-of-bereavement.html

1-Nails - "Every Bridge Burning"

Hardcore

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/nails-every-bridge-burning.html

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Mamaleek : "Vida Blue"

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These guys are going further down the Tom Waits rabbit hole. The guitar is carried with a jazzier tone. There is a jammy abstract element that gets broken up by their heavier tendencies. As far as musicianship goes their game has really been stepped up. It's a weird collision of prog with punk. The groove slows down for "Vileness Slim". The bass steps up and holds it down. The drummer is also really on point now. Guitar-wise some of the zaniness in motion makes me think of Frank Zappa.  The only unnerving element is the coarse moan of the vocals. However, this does help them retain their identity. 

The title track finds their brand of weird digging deeper. Sadly it does not groove like the first two songs. There is a more dissonant element to it. There is a minimalist ambiance that pervades the middle of this song. The vocals take on a drunken scowl. The groove returns for "Ancient Souls.." They maintain their surly demeanor. Noise haunts the drone as the vocals chant along. Of course, a sonic oddity has to hi-jack the song but it still works pretty well. 

Black Pudding Served at the Horn of the Altar" has a very noir feel it, which is a stark contrast against the song's title which sounds like a Dungeons & Dragons module. This would also work on the soundtrack of a David Lynch Project. The vocals rant with desperation. "Hatful of Rain" oddly might be one of the more melodic songs, despite the growls that drip with effects the music works well as a counterpoint to this. It builds into what might be the album's most metallic moment. "Legion of Bottom Deck Dealers" wanders a bit before going into a darker metal middle section, and comes out of this in a more free-form jam. There is a more flowing jazz that emerges from this. The growled mutter of the vocals prowls around this. 

The instruments embrace melody on the last song as the vocals continue to mutter in a growled manner,this is a lighter more hopeful mood, with the howl of the vocals the only thing anchoring it to ugliness. I will give this album a 9.5, and see how it grows on me the metal elements have been reduced to a more marginalized frequency, as the jazz-influenced progressed leaning have taken over but it works really well. 

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Mamaleek : "Diner Coffee"

 

A metal band with an album dedicated to small town diner coffee. Yes, please. After an odd intro, we get into something that owes as much to Tom Waits as it does metal. It carries with it once the song gains momentum the huge sludge lumber with the angular awkwardness of noise rock. Not far removed from what we have heard from this band before, perhaps the grooves might owe a little more to Sabbath this time around and are dressed up like a drunken clown with toy pianos and horns blaring at from its frayed edges. Not the first metal album to flirt with jazz this year. Nor is it the first time this band toyed with this brand of weird, in fact that is why I showed up. After reviewing somewhere around 200 metal albums so far this year I want t something that has little in common with those. What will be interesting here is to see how much of it owes its distinction to metal, by the time this album is said and done .

The second actual song carries  a smoky groove that is possessed by an unhinged darkness. If Clutch got drunk and did different drugs then the results might be similar though this music seem to be made by people with underlying issue that their art serves as a reflection for. The jazz like undertones, undermine the punk DNA needed to think of this as sludge. It is downtrodden, yet not with the kind of longing needed to think of this as doom. It is however progressive. This shows you can have progressive metal that owes not in the slightest to Dream Theater. Now Captain Beefheart might be another story here.  "Grief and a Headhunter's Rage" has a dark pulse that sounds like it could be from a David Lynch film. When it comes together into a more rock oriented song it sounds like Tom Waits jamming with  Tomahawk.

The dark bizarre droning jazz of "Wharf Rats in the Moonlight" goes awry, granted they pull everything back together, but the noise the song devolves into is one of the albums hard to listen to moments as it holds little musical value, though I do like where they end up taking the song. They close the album with the title track. There is some great guitar playing on it , where they show how cleanly they can play actual jazz when they are not fucking around and getting crazy. The vocals build into more of a howl. I will give this album a 9.5, they do prog their own way whether they mean to or not.  

Mamaleek : "Come and See"

This album was recorded live with no overdubs. This contributes to it's raw feel. I hear the words black metal being thrown around with this project and I do not hear that. Noise rock with metal intentions and math rock execution? Yes. There are blast beats, but that alone does not make black metal. Three minutes into the song it does seem they would like to go in that direction, but black metal is all about feel rather than just playing the notes. Metal is like funk you can not fake it. Do they have some intellectual frustration they are venting in their music? Yes, but that does not equate darkness which is the prime ingredient when it comes to black metal. That is not to say the live presentation they are offering here is not impressive. It marries many dissonant and interesting sounds together with aggression these parts my not have on their own. Six minutes in the vocals have a more punk howl to them. I think going with punk would put you closer to who they truly are.

Sometimes musicians are the last to know who they are . There is some great guitar playing here. I think if they had a more honest look at what they are doing and put their intention behind it then the sound would become even more focused. This however is their 7th album so if they do not know by now they intention is hide this fact from themselves. The second song leans even more toward jazz with these sludge punk outbursts raping it. I was just listening to the new compilation by Street Sects that showcased their more spastic exploits. I think the pre meditated chaos these guys are creating works better due to the very organic way they are jamming out these songs. I would like to hear Street Sects do something similar, though I do not need for them to be jazz in any way. They are both label mates on the Flenser. This project lines up with the Flenser's mission statement. They bring music that is out of the box. In fact they might have never tried to put it in a box to think out of.

The songs are not short, but even then they take them to many different places. Not much in the way of droning going on. If anything it is ADD. 'Elsewhere' kind of runs out of the previous song. It is more deliberate in it's pacing. It dawned on me during this song that the singer's voice at times reminds me of the guy from the Murder City Devils, if he was covering GG Allin. Any medication they might have taken before this session began is clearly worn off by now. Whatever they take meds for I am sure that since they are brothers it's genetic and seems to have stricken the singer worse. 'Whites of the Eyes " is yet another song that seems to emerge from this jam. Jam is certainly a better term for what they do than conventional song writing. I can hear a touch of Captain Beefheart in the way the vocals rant. 'Street Nurse ' breaks the jamming trend and comes across more like a song that stands on it's own two feet. There is a still a very feral quality to the way they brood with the groove here. If Tom Waits totally lost his mind I could hear him doing something like this on an angry drunk. The guitar builds into more of a rock swagger here. The last song takes the Neanderthal anger and sets it against simmering jazz. There is the surly anti-rock sentiment of early Swans also casting a shadow here. I will give this album an 8.5, I enjoy it, but I also enjoy all of the other influences or artists of a similar midset I mentioned throughout this review so that might make me more tolerant of some of the madness here.