The sun is out, the sun is shining, but we’re not slumming it in parks listening to terrible summer music just yet. Oh no. Some of us are making sure the beard-stroking, mind-expanding sphere that is Prog isn’t going unattended – step forward David Keevill, who returns with his latest column examining what the big stories and events in the world of Prog have been over the last few weeks…
After their brief but well-deserved Winter hibernation, we’ve finally gotten round to poking our columnists back to consciousness and then to their keyboards so they can bang out some more monthly missives for us on their respective corners of the rock and metal pantheon. First up is David Keevill, who returns with to take a long hard look at what’s been going on in Prog so far this year…
December is an empty month, filled with too many cash-in re-releases and tedious album-of-the-year content to make our monthly genre-columns thing really work. That’s why we asked David Keevill to give us a retrospective of the Big Things that happened in Prog in 2014, before getting back to the serious business of 2015 next month…
We’re starting something new here at Thrash Hits. We’ve asked some of our favourite writers to put together some monthly columns, focussing in on the genres they’re most passionate about. We’re kicking off this new series with David Keevill taking on what’s been going on in Prog over the last month or so. Take it away, David….
Soen
Tellurian
Spinefarm Records
03 November 2014
The old adage about difficult second albums usually applies to bands whose debuts were heaped with a barrage of saccharine praise. Soen, a supergroup made up of members of Willowtree and Opeth, are now are in a similarly difficult juncture but for opposite reasons. Their debut, Cognitive, was universally criticised for its borrowings from Tool, from its sleek, subversive delivery and socio-enviro-eco-political parables, right on through to its Lateralus-like artwork.
Anathema
distant satellites
Kscope
09 June 2014
Anathema’s rise as one of England’s premier rock bands has been a long time in its inception with the Liverpudlian group shifting their initial doomed, death metal sound into one that is completely at odds with their first forays into music. The Anathema of today is a band that creates uplifting, soulful landscapes of sound – sounds that bare pure emotion in their presentation and effect. 2012’s Weather Systems was a journey of bittersweet sentiment and this year distant satellites moves even further into the realms of discovery.
Roadburn Festival describe themselves as “Europe’s leading underground festival for psychedelic, avant-garde, doom or any other variation of leftfield sonic pleasures that push the boundaries of music.” It’s that offering that brought Rob McAuslan over the sea and back to the festival for his third consecutive visit – this year featuring line-up choices and a day of curation from one Mikael Åkerfeldt.
Six Things We Learned At Roadburn 2014:
Matt Stevens is a nice guy. Over our two-and-a-half hour stint in a pub just off Denmark Street, he uses a variant of the phrase, “Good on them,” about seven times, regularly wishing well of people he might fundamentally disagree with. Even talking about Scientology – which we agree is “ridiculously bonkers” – after three pints of paint stripper-like lager, Stevens isn’t prepared to stick the boot in: “It’s obviously not real but if it makes people happy, then that’s good.”
Slough Feg
Digital Resistance
Metal Blade
17 February 2014
by Rob McAuslan
As long-time leader of Slough Feg and a founding member of Hammers Of Misfortune, Mike Scalzi’s credentials are well and truly established – nine records with this outfit since 1990 speaks volumes to his tenacity, if nothing else. After two decades of relative obscurity, Metal Blade picked them up last year, which should hopefully ensure that one of metal’s best-kept secrets at least get a fair shot with their latest release.
Intronaut
Habitual Levitations
Century Media
18 March 2013
by Tom Doyle
Let me tell you a little story. I was heading home from work the other week on the tube, it had been a long day and the London winter was persisting in the way London winters tend to. As I sank into my seat on the Northern Line my headphones filled with the sound of Intronaut’s fourth full length, Habitual Levitations. As the sound of eight minute opener, ‘Killing Birds With Stones’, washed over me and it’s subtle, sumptuous groove soothed my weary mind I couldn’t help but be reminded of how heroin addicts describe their hits, like a warm cocoon enveloping you. Intronaut are a band possessed of a skag-like power to trance you away from your present reality, and FUCK, it is wonderful.