the Top 10 Experimental / Prog Metal Albums of 2015

The emphasis here is sometimes on the experimentation and sometimes on the more progressive side of things. Some of these bands have pushed the bounds of what they do so far it's hard for any label to confine them much less metal. They are all in their own way heavy. Heavier emotionally than most of the more conventional metal that came out this year. There are jazz artists throwing up their horns, and New York hipster who want to burn the traditions of metal like a church in Norway. Some shred , others show a more difficult level of mastery in connecting their instruments to their bared hearts. Here is the albums that gave their middle finger to what you though heavy was supposed to be. They are ranked according to what Last FM told me I listened to the most. 10- John Zorn :"Simulacrum" This slab of wonderful weirdness, is more accessible than his classic "Naked City" album. He has put John Medeski together with the guitarist from Cleric, who I had no clue could shred like this. Yes thats right it's the dude from Medeski, Martin and Wood, playing with a dude from a metal band. There is more Crimson and Zappa influence on this one than what you normally hear from Zorn. This is not the first time Zorn has touched upon metal, he just commits a little more to it hear very deliberate intention rather than just giving you spastic bursts.

  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/04/john-zorn-simulacrum.html


9-Ahab : "The Boats of the Glen Carrig"

 You might remember these guys as a doom band. I certainly did when I went into this album hoping my hunger for funeral doom was going to be sated. Instead the band threw my expectations into the vast ocean of their creative aspirations. This is not to say these changes were not growth, they were just different. The album opens with something more like the kind of 70s prog rock that Opeth once gave ample nods to. The metal comes crashing in at the three minute mark. The production on this album is very lush, the low growled vocals carrying a bigger 90s Morbid Angel roar. The album ebbs and flows with the crunch dissolving into clean guitar and the vocals taking on an "Islands" era King Crimson croon.While part of me mourns for the doom band I once knew, they have created something pretty breathtaking here.

  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/08/ahab-boats-of-glen-carrig-like-red-foam.html
8-Sigh: "Graveward"

 Once upon a time one of my favorite black metal bands put out an album called "Scenes From Hell" and they transformed from one of my favorite black metal bands into one of my favorite prog metal bands. Their new album finds them getting some of the aggression back as they study the various aspects of death.this album is much heavier than any thing they have done since "Hangman's Hymn". So fans of the bands older work will not feel like they are listening to a Mr. Bungle album despite the weird electronics attacking a few songs. Some of the riffs on here grind into you more like death metal. I am glad they are embracing the heavier side of what they do here, I think the song writing as a whole was better on a few of the previous albums. http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/04/sigh-graveward.html

7-the Black Heart Rebellion : "People, when you see the smoke, do not think it is the fields they’re burning"

 Here is one of the bands on this list that is very heavy both emotionally and sonically, but eschews drenching their guitars in such thick distortion that is falls into the typical metal chugga chugga. This gives their guitars a more anxiously organic tone. After the stunning "Har Nevo" expectations were high. The vocals are more refined, having grown by leaps and bounds this time around. Dynamically the intensity level has more muscle to it . Synths play a larger role and when the drugs kick in they give things a 60s like psychedelia. They sometimes crawl of into a similar place in the shadows as "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". The vocals are a more dominate element here than they were for Floyd's darker early days, though on some songs manage to creep into more post-punk slither that almost touches upon death-rock. A perfect soundtrack for the days I forget to take my meds.
  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-black-heart-rebellion-people-when.html




6-A Forest of Stars :" Beware the Sword You Can Not See"

  At one point in time these guys presented themselves as steam punk black metal, but now this album encompasses a much more traditional prog metal sound, if you were to run it through a filter of folky black metal, which are this band's roots that they re-embrace on this album.They frequently throw so much at you all at once that sonically it feels like you are running into a wall. Female vocals play a larger role on this album, though some of their more tried and true vocal colors such as the harsher growls and maniacal ranting also makes appearances here. They fill the songs with many twists and turns , but it all flows rather elegantly. http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-forest-of-stars-beware-sword-you-can.html

5-Pyramids - "A Northern Meadow"

 Here is an album that received a fair amount of hype upon it's release and once I sat down to really listen to it with headphones it won me over. It glides over you like a dreamy hybrid of Cynic mixed with Enslaved. The guitarists get points for the unorthodox guitar tone they chose to play metal with.They do use sounds loosely connected with black metal, but I would not say they are a black metal band.The drummer seems to be counting these songs with fractal mathematics as the drums wander beneath the guitars. The thing I like most about this album is it's ability to give me them same jarring feeling one might get from not being able to distinguish dream from waking life.
  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/pyramids-northern-meadow.html

4-Liturgy - the Ark Work

 Hunter and the boys catch a lot shit for some of their overt hipster pre-tense, but I've remained a fan and have ignored some of Hunter's thesis papers on black metal. Ben Fox is an amazing drummer who compliments the band as they blister into songs that split the difference between Sun Ra like jazz and the black metal of old. Here is where you must be warned the band's take on rap-metal is Hunter chanting in a sing song voice intervals similar to those Bone Thugs N Harmony uses. The chanting is more of a drone than anything resembling nu-metal. The lyrics are like something from Allen Ginsberg's "Howl as interpreted by Layzie Bone. The so called Bone Thugs elements are more toned down that what the buzz on this album might have suggested upon it's release and more often than not the mood blasts you, into a shimmering sunrise rather than the grim winter's dusk most black metal travels to.

  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/liturgy-ark-work.html

3-Dodheimsgard - "A Umbra Omega"

 Rather than just write songs, These guys have constructed dark chaotic passages of an aural labyrinth. If you like post-rock but haven't given black metal much of a chance this might be the album for you. The guitar playing is consistently mouth watering as it layers the disjointed groove that some how manage to stand on their own two feet. They morph form a Current 93 like ambiance to folk metal jazz in the span of a song and that is only the tip of the frost covered mountains on this one. They might not be black metal any more, but that is only because the genre could no longer contain them.
  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/dodheimsgard-umbra-omega.html

2- Strangeweather: "S/T"

 Another album that forsakes metallic overdrive and instead employs a more organic yet dark hearted Neo-folk with an Appalachian breeze blowing through it. The members switch off vocals resulting in a wide range of moodiness to the dirge like mourning allowing each instrument and voice embraces while adding another swathe of gray to the sonic tapestry. hey have really created something unique here. The lyrics carry the indignant unease of post- punk, while they set upon a soundtrack with the elegance that is the x-factor many a wanna-be goth bands just doesn't get . This brings the emotional weight making it heavy in feeling rather than metal.When I played this for my wife just dismissed it as more of the droning drug music I like, so you have to listen to this as a whole work to really get the full effect or have to have been involved with heavy narcotic use for a period of more than five years. Do not play while operating heavy machinery. http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/strangeweather-st.html

1- Eye of NIX : "Moros"

 This is more experimental than prog, though it is progressive in the sense the songs go somewhere. That is more can be said for many so called prog bands that remain stagnant in favor of wanking on the fret board. The album starts off as a more post-rock version of Dead Can Dance. Lead singer Joy Von Spain lets it all out in an operatic soprano as things get blasty beneath her. Male growls add a grit to their shifts into crustier paces. While Mykur gave us similar dynamics earlier this year, each end of the dynamic range here is pushed a little further. Joy is dynamic range extends into the not afraid to shred her vocals chords a little with some screams. Sometimes they play by the more typical metal rules and the veer off into slow-core. They sometimes build into the type of chaos that can be found in some of Swans' freak out moments but with a more metallic command.They incorporate every element of music that love into this one album in a cohesive fashion.
  http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/10/eye-of-nix-moros.html

The Black Heart Rebellion: "People, when you see the smoke, do not think it is the fields they’re burning"

Well that has to be the most obnoxious album title of the year, song titles aside  the bar is raised pretty for for these guys as " Har Nevo" was impressive as hell. The vocals are more refined and the intensity the hit the opening song with has a more muscle to it . The guitar back off and shimmer around everything. Similar in the sonic sphere they dominate to Wovenhand, the land of this is as heavy as you can get without becoming metal. Things drop back and get darker  on "Flower Bone Ornaments" as synths become more dominate and the drugs begin to kick with a 60s like psychedelia. The vocals have grown by leaps and bounds this time around. "Om Benza Satto Hung" starts with droning noise. Taking cues from Swans there is some vocal rambling but the entire thing is more of a noise ridden interlude rather than an actual song. At over seven minutes it's a little excessive.

The vocals that come in at the beginning of "Bow and Silk Arrow" made me think iTunes switched over to Christian Death. They do use rather exotic eastern chord progression not unlike some of the post- "Only Theater of Pain" stuff. These melodies dance like serpents around the tribal pound of drums to create a ritualistic space. The song "Near to Fire for Bricks" finds the band returning to  the chain gang stomp they visited on the last album. Female vocals grace this one giving the melody more dynamic depth and a touch of something bittersweet. The drift into beautiful darkness continues on "Dorsem". The vocals have more of a Nick Cave like urgency to their narrative, building into a desperate prayer but never finding release.

They tend to stay in a similar sonic place on this album. There is a greater intensity to "Rust" than many of the previous songs. It goes manage to get even dark here as the song finds itself in a vibrating of churning strings. "Violent Love" starts off from a similar place in the shadows as "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". The vocals are a more dominate element here than they were for Floyd's darker early days. The female vocals return and wail around the more dirge march the song carries. I'll round this one up to a 9.5, for now and see how it sits on me. It deserves a curve due to the improvements as far as the vocals go, but I am reluctant to proclaim its perfection as many of the songs sound the same, so it could drop to a 9.

The Black Heart Rebellion : Har Nevo

My expectations of this band going into listening to "Har Nevo" were wildly off from what this Belgian band put to record and to be honest its a pleasant surprise as everything I had read led me to believe at best this going to be a hardcore version of Isis.

There is a Neurosis like rumble which builds its tension over the songs like a storm cloud particularlly the opening song "Avraham" which takes most of its time building for the release and for some reason this might bug me as a general rule in this instance it's pulled of. The vocals are the first unexpected surprised I figured they would go the way of most post rock either screamed or the unaffected monotone, but here they have a very Nick Cave quality.

"the Woods I run From" falls in a similar gray area which more often than not gets the post rock tag, granted their is a cinematic quality to the sonic scape being crafted here which it's closest neighbor until the vocals set in you be Godspeedyoublackemperor, but in equal portions I hear Swans and the Birthday Party. Psychedelic could also apply as it does carry like a early Pink Floyd vibe perhaps if the were covering the End by the Doors. Dynamically it gets heavy without being metal, it's a very dark and beautiful thing.

The albums dips into a lazy dirge on "Circe" which isn't the albums strongest song but I think they succeeded at the sound they were going for it just doesn't happen to resonate with me, though when Swans do this sort of thing the vocals are a more prominent component. However it picks back up in a big way on "Animalesque" which build into a tribal Neurosis like thing and th vocals get more aggressive tauntly almost a growl. This has th Hungarian minor scale feel I really latch onto. The keep tense without the release where you expect it, it's the unresolved
Builds that work really well when just letting the album play all the way through.

The percussion carries many unique experimental qualities these are highlighted on the beginning of " Crawling Low and Eating Dust". Another long building intro which doesn't go where assume it will I think the vocals on this song are the most powerful performance on the album. they go to show you can deliver a highly emotional performance with out falling into being Emo... Or rather what the general publics associates with the term , which is a more emasculated teenage whine. The vocals are still very Nick Cave, though if you can imagine even darker in tone. The guitar one this song compliments the vocals well, when the howl comes they don't take the easy way out by having to stomp on their distortion pedals. The line " sinner man , I've gone cold to you" is an obvious wink to their influences.

The chain gang swing of "Ein Avadat" establishes this as another Murder ballad. Normally I wouldn't like something paced this way, but the blues mixed with the drone is unique. The vocals begin to steal the show again at the midway point. Oddly I can hear some of the hardcore influence in this one , I know they were a hardcore band for their first album and this is a major forward atop I their evolution.

"Gold and Myrrh" is a weird mix of eastern influence with maybe that Syd Barrett era Floyd again, think"Set the control for the heart of the sun." the percussion veers off into more experimental territories, this is a song that will grow on me as it comes so far out of left field form the songs on the album side for the angular post- rock drift it takes on.

The album closer "Into the land of another" Has a morose Swans type feel, though it could also be the Nick Cave coming back, this song has a banjo and a lot space in the verse, the chorus is more of a build up rather than what adhere to a typical format. This is another that doesn't have to punch to grab me at first but I can tell its a grower not a show-er. In fact theirs no a riff on here trying to be phallic compensation. The heavy ending to this still floats under the aggression of the vocals, which once again don't take on the typical , modern metal screaming.

The one weak song was balance out by the rest of the albums strong points so I don't have a problem giving this a 10 in hopes it continues to grow on me. I hope this album doesn't turn into the years best kept secret as it deserves a larger audience. They have a bit of a buzz from the corners of the underground experimental metal scene ...but they are better than most of the bands Brooklyn Vegan pimps and slay the Metal Sucks type fare with a dark beauty that in its honesty of bleakness is heavier than you lowest tuned djent.