Antigama – Depressant Poland has been a hotbed of excellent extreme metal acts for over three decades now, perhaps owing to the country’s extremely high level of level of religious practice. That scene that has produced such greats as Vader and Behemoth has also spawned more niche, underground acts like…
Watching a band unfold is one of the greatest pleasures in this world. When a debut album, or even several initial albums, only act as setups for future growth, any enjoyment you’d usually get from a great is magnified. The band’s history and how far they’ve come acts as a kind of lens, magnifying already present excellence in the light of how far the band have come to get here. Abrams’ third release, Morning, has such a lens. While their debut full length album, Lust. Love. Loss., was definitely a good release, it also lacked a unique signature to set Abrams above the progressive stoner fold. With Morning however, they have catapulted their song writing and personal touch, making the album not only great within its own right but also a landmark in the band’s narrative.
Earthside remind us of what finesse in progressive metal looks like. Their 2015 A Dream in Static was a perfect exercise in sincerity and musical integrity, revolving on varied vocal guest spots, sprawling compositions and flawless execution. Needless to say, it’s truly a superb album. Thus, we’ll take any reminder we can get of it, especially if that reminder comes in the form of an astonishingly excellent video from the always excellent Erez Bader (Silent Flight Productions). In charge of excellent music videos for The Dear Hunter (“Gloria”), Thomas Giles (“Devotion”) and Wings Denied (“Catalyst”), Bader is a singular producer in the music video industry (and beyond). Together with Earthside’s powerful lyrics, assisted by one Daniel Tompkins (TesseracT), he has produced a convincing and striking music video, steeped in its own myth and symbolical meaning.
As is Christmas tradition, we at Heavy Blog Is Heavy have once again reached out to some friends and family in the online metal community to put together a small gift to our readers in the form of Heavy Comp Is Heavy. This year, we’ve collected nearly twenty tracks from…
After embarking on The Proggest August tour last year with homies Outrun the Sunlight and Native Construct, Wings Denied are back at it again with a full tour in The Traveler’s Curse Tour. Set to hit 20 dates all over the East Coast and Midwest, Wings Denied will be going…
For those who missed our last installment, We post biweekly updates covering what the staff at Heavy Blog have been spinning. Given the amount of time we spend on the site telling you about music that does not fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as…
When I reviewed Wings Denied’s debut album, Mirrors For a Prince, I was a bit underwhelmed. On the face of it, this was an album I should enjoyed much more. It had clean vocals with plenty of punch, interesting ideas and an overall pleasing vibe. However, something about it just didn’t click for me and I expounded on what that was in my review. However, I also closed it off by saying that we would keep our ears open for their next release, as the basic foundations of a great release were there, just unrealised. A month and a half ago, the band released Voyager and I was nowhere to be found. I could blame a few people but why waste time on such irrelevant things?
I’m here today to fix the mistake of my silence and tell you that Voyager is everything that I wanted the previous release to be.
Even a cursory glance of our biweekly “What Heavy Blog Is Really Listening To” posts (last week’s update here) will reveal that there is a great deal of variety among our staff’s musical tastes. Due to this, we brainstormed the idea of “Playlist Swap,” another biweekly segment that takes place between…
Our dear friend James Knoerl (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAME) recently went on tour as the live drummer for Heavy Blog favorite act Native Construct, who recently released the powerful Quiet World to great critical acclaim. With a stellar lineup of Wings Denied and Outrun the Sunlight at their backs, the rising…
Heavy Blog-sponsored tour The Proggest August Tour was sure to be one of the proggiest tours of the year, matching up against the Between the Buried and Me tour with Animals as Leaders and The Contortionist [photos] and even contesting the upcoming BTBAM tour with Enslaved, Intronaut, and Native Construct…
