The Overview is a concept album about the overview effect, a strong response to visual stimuli that causes a cognitive shift in a person. With a runtime short of 42 minutes, and two long songs trying to bring influences like Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, and Vangelis into “a modern context”, The Overview looks promising on paper. Stare deeply into Wilson’s colored balls to find enlightenment in his proggy delights.
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Savage Master – Dark and Dangerous Review
Savage Master has a female vocalist, Stacey Savage. Stacey Savage sits front and center more and more with every album that they release. Stacey Savage wears a snow white cosplay on the cover. The Goat is not sure that Stacey Savage has quite earned all this attention, though.
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Lunar – Tempora Mutantur Review
As a patchwork ensemble centered around a few fixed members, Lunar have always seemed to be chasing a cohesive vision. Where sleights of hand have given way to frosted and fixed landscapes, has Tempora Mutantur crystallized the Lunar sound in proggy bliss?
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Marrowomb – Phiesnomie Review
Phisenomie is a collection of tracks that roughly deal in the same kind of sound as Vredehammer — blackened death metal focused on furious riffs that trade blows across the songs. Where Marrowomb manage to stand out is in some odd rhythms and use of dissonant chords that is a clear heritage from its creators time in Polyptych. As it stand, tough, our Gator may have a few bones to pick with its dedication to the mighty riff.
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Shrieking Demons – The Festering Dwellers Review
Shrieking Demons namecheck Death and Autopsy as their comparables. In terms of style, that’s pretty accurate as long as we’re talking about those bands in their earlier, rawer eras. The Festering Dwellers is all malevolently melodic riffs and pounding rhythms. Is somebody gonna match their shriek?
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Pentagram – Lightning in a Bottle Review
What about Pentagram has ever been “Lightning in a Bottle”? Pentagram are, fundamentally, the first all-American Sabbath rip-off. Given, Pentagram were early adopters, releasing singles all throughout the ’70s even if the first full-length only materialized in the mid-’80s. Being early is not always a good thing. Good thing lightning in a bottle strikes exactly when it needs to. Like a wizard. That’s how that works, right?
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Ulver – Liminal Animals Review
The opener on Liminal Animals sounds like a statement of fatigue in its lyrics: repeated words from previous songs, the nature of sound as “Moving objects / The music they make” all the while distinct eras of Ulver clash in intuitively written songs.
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Carnosus – Wormtales Review
In the spirit of broadening my horizons I decided to dip my toes into melodeath waters. While I am not a huge fan of the genre, there are some standout albums I like. Unfortunately, Bobo found out the melo waters were a lot less worm than expected the hard way.
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Swallow the Sun – Shining Review
The deathly doom metal of Swallow the Sun used to be offset with moments of cold beauty and increasingly pop oriented vocal lines, that still managed to feel like a fresh breath visible in the chill air. This has been turned on its head on Shining, a move that in hindsight was well telegraphed over the last two albums the band put out.
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Crypts of the Unknown: Bergraven – Det Framlidna Minnet
