2023 was such a busy year for the Proglodytes team, but we wanted to end the year right with a Proglodytes Picks list. Even in the craziest times, we get through it all with the help of amazing bands and artists. We at Proglodytes sincerely hope you check out these album recommendations and support these artists. Click on the album name to listen to and buy these amazing records.
Cedric
Peter is the ultimate perfectionist, forcing us to wait years for new music. But once again, he makes it worth the wait.
Mike Keneally – The Thing That Knowledge Can’t Eat
The continued adventures of one of THE great underrated talents in music today. Touches on nearly all his influences from pop to prog.
Just when you thought Stephan Thelen’s mathematical formula had nowhere else to go, Sonar keeps David Torn’s atmospherics and adds the textures of J. Peter Schwalm for even more depth. Simply sublime.
District 97 – Stay for the Ending
Their strongest work to date, the band has found the way to make heavy music highly accessible and the highly accessible sound heavy.
Still fully driven, still ultra creative. The songs are personal and mature with just the right amount of snark. Everyone will find something to relate to.
Iris
North Atlantic Oscillation – United Wire
I was waiting a long time for a new release by this band, and after five years they have finally released their fifth studio album called United Wire. The lack of guitar riffs and sounds might be a surprise for some, and this might throw off some of the fans, but I think that this album is one of their best works so far. United Wire still has all the progressive musical elements and quirky electronic bits that you can expect from this band. If you’ve never heard of this band you should give it at least a couple of spins because it might be a refreshing new experience.
DeadBlondeStars – Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is only the second full album by these grunge rockers, but it sounds like this band has been making music for decades. All songs are solid headbangers. Don’t expect any breathers, this is a non stop train of heavy guitar riffs and massive drums. A friend of mine said that this band sounds like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden blended together, and they are not wrong!
Max
Frog Concert- Slumbering Sounds of the Frog Fellowship
I’d be surprised if this was not the album I listened to most this year.
I happened upon this amphibious ambient romp while I was perusing YouTube for something to take a quick nap to, and this cheerful army of frogs graced my eyes and stole my heart for the first time right then and there.
Clocking in at no more than twenty minutes, “Slumbering Sounds” is a wonderland of soothing synthesizer textures with an atmosphere more akin to video game soundtracks and nods to classical music than anything traditionally associated with rock or progressive music. It’s a calming, even wholesome experience that puts you right in the swamp from those first few croaks. You’ve always got twenty minutes for a little happy frog music, or at least I do.
Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter – Saved!
Hallelujah! The artist formerly known as Lingua Ignota (who made my year-end list for Proglodytes in 2021), Kristin Hayter took this past year to re-brand and return to the faithful anew with “Saved!”
While stylistically a logical progression for those following her previous solo work, the specificity of the explorations of religion and abuse so devastatingly captured on her earlier albums has been this time channeled through a concept album that, from its opening moments, asks its audience to reflect on our final judgment and to ultimately choose where you stand. Appropriately donning the title of “Reverend,” the project is presented as some lost or obscure record of worship or spiritual music, with at least half of the album consisting of disarming arrangements of traditional hymns and folk songs complete with the crackling and warping of aged vinyl.
“Saved!” doesn’t need to indulge the harsh noise and dark ambience that defined the Lingua Ignota releases to succeed in being effectively terrifying (her cover of “How Can I Keep from Singing” is a contender for one of her most unnerving tracks to date); and yet, to summarize this or any of her other work as an evocation of “terror” sells short the lived experiences of Kristin herself, and too all the souls passed that have perpetuated this kind of music and message as a cultural force with a lengthy and extremely complicated history.
Indeed, often with simply a prepared piano and her classically trained, distinctly pained proclamations, Kristin achieves her creative aims while brilliantly utilizing the album’s format to leave you pondering whether there truly is any redemption to be found for any of us.
“Saved!” is not here to offer you salvation, nor serve as condemnation to a humanity damned; it is here to make you think.
I hope wherever Kristin is right now, she’s doing okay. Still one of my favourite artists out there making things these days.
Isolation Tank Ensemble – Heliography
The only debut release on my list this year comes from the avant-jazz musings of my friends in Isolation Tank Ensemble.
This formidable mostly-instrumental sextet was on the bill at one of my very first shows in the band FLUMMOX and boasting violin, electric mandolin, keyboards, and more, their electrifying jams made us fast friends. They would go on to join us for my first album release show in the band, and we would return the favor this year when they finally unleashed “Heliography”: We even shared the stage to perform the title track together.
The sheer size of the music the ensemble pulls off remains an unyielding constant, from my first show to my first time finally hearing this record a long time in the making. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum fans, take note (and listen to SGM if you haven’t already… Talk about innovators!)…
Big music by good people.
Melted Bodies – The Inevitable Fork, Vol. II
One of heavy music’s most engaging and innovative acts on the scene has to be Melted Bodies.
Sonically the California-based quartet has developed a truly original sound over the past several years, harnessing the intensity of metal in tandem with the social awareness and ethos of punk, while unabashedly embracing the absurdity and unpredictability of experimental acts such as Mr. Bungle and System of a Down: easily-earned comparisons that aren’t to be taken lightly.
The coming together of their style and subject matter is where this stuff really becomes brilliant for me. This second volume in “The Inevitable Fork” series adds to the palate with some mammoth tracks further analyzing, lamenting, and challenging the human condition. “The Hot Dog Contract” continues their tradition of pounding opening numbers, while “State of Mind” and “Relax, You Are Lazy” embody the earworm grooves and mission statements the group has had at their core for some time now. My personal favorite has been “The Avalanche,” a seething critique on misogyny in the entertainment industry that was a highlight when I finally caught up with the band on their first Midwestern tour this year.
A final installment of “The Inevitable Fork” has been acknowledged and I’m very curious what these folks will do next; Their debut record “Enjoy Yourself” was low-key my favorite album back in 2020, and I continue to observe their artistic evolution with great interest.
Thomas
Advent Horizon – A Cell To Call Home
I have been a huge fan of Advent Horizon since I first heard “Invasion Theorem” from their 2015 album, Stagehound. I liked it so much, in fact, that we made it the theme song for the Proglodytes Podcast. I’ve been looking forward to a new release since then, and was blown away by their latest, A Cell to Call Home. The album feels fresh and modern, while still pulling from iconic prog rock, prog metal, and pop influences. The result is catchy, thoughtful, and powerfully moving at times, with relatable themes such as love, loss, addiction, and community. I would recommend this album to anyone, prog fan or no, due to the incredible hooks. Yes, it features some amazing guest performances by incredible prog musicians Randy McStine, Jordan Rudess, Dave Meros, and Jared Hill, but the real stars of this album are the band members, for creating a truly deep and profound album that has been making Best Of lists all over the Progosphere. Oh, and kudos to guest star Kristen McDonald for providing excellent guest vocals as well.
Everyone has really strong opinions about Haken. Some folks are huge fans of their earliest stuff (Visions, Aquarius, etc). Some came on board when The Mountain was released and fell off the bus when Affinity came out. And then there are folks that are finding treasures on their latest releases. I am one of those- I feel like Haken keeps progressing sonically with each new release, with catchier choruses and more anthemic parts. Fauna delivered on this part with an incredibly diverse but cohesive album. Fauna had several songs that haven’t really left my head since the first time I’ve heard them- opener “Taurus”, the incredibly catchy “The Alphabet of Me”, and the anthemic “Lovebite”. The album’s anthemic closer, “Eyes of Ebony”, might be one of my favorite Haken songs of all time.
How do you write an honest, meaningful album about losing a parent? Like Bent Knee alum Jessica Kion’s 2023 release, my dad died, you let your grief take you where it will, and you don’t shy away from the less talked-about parts of losing a parent or loved one; the anger, the awkward memories, the regrets, the frustration, the sadness, the loose ends. This album is gorgeous in parts, and absolutely painful to listen to in other parts. The final product is an incredible template for processing grief through music. Justice Cow’s my dad died stands as a testament to the power and potential of honest writing.
Wyatt
Avenged Sevenfold – Life is But a Dream…
Having consumed everything classic rock and metal by the time 5th grade hit (for context, I’m turning 25 next month), I knew of virtually no modern bands. Avenged Sevenfold was introduced to me by my cousin around 2008 or 2009, and pretty soon I developed an obsession with their brand of melodic metal. Since then, I had a love/hate (well, not necessarily “hate”) relationship with their music, and at one point in 2021 or so I even Googled if they were still a band; but the obsession resurrected after I put on their latest release, Life is But a Dream… From start-to-finish, there was one thing going through my head: “Man, these guys sound like they are having fun!” What a refreshing listen, nothing like anything they had done before. Open about their experimentations with psychedelics, vocalist M. Shadows and the rest of the band created a collection of music that seems so different from what they have produced prior, constantly bending and morphing genres they seemingly never touched on any of their previous albums; yet conceptually, the themes of existentialism and absurdism are not far from what Avenged Sevenfold have been known to tackle.
The first single, “Nobody,” was a great track to introduce listeners to the album, combining a style of metal familiar to the band, yet sprinkling in bits of psycheledic rock and jazz-fusion. Personally, I think “Cosmic” is one of their best songs, with Synyster Gates laying down one of his best solos, and the band orhestrating an immense, synth-laden build toward the end that makes me forget about time they had Neil deGrasse Tyson do a spoken-word bit at the end of “Exist” (from 2016’s The Stage). And you can’t really talk about the album without mentioning the three-song suite that rounds out the album before the closing title track: “G” being the band’s most blatant (and well-executed) attempt to write a wacky prog-rock song a-la King Crimson, Frank Zappa, and Mr. Bungle; going into “(O)rdinary,” a head-bobbing EDM homage with an autotune vocal melody that lives in your head for days; and rounding out with “(D)eath,” which is just a chilling, sensory-heightening ending to the trilogy. I highly recommend going in with an open mind when you listen to this album, if you haven’t yet. It might be their best work.
Exploring Birdsong – Dancing in the Face of Danger
I am fairly certain Thomas Hatton helped introduce this band to me, writing a review of this very EP. From the first notes of “Pyre,” I was hooked. And then I saw there were just three people in the band, and no guitar player?! What a huge sound for just keyboards, bass, and drums! As a fan of VOLA and The Pineapple Thief, this band made an immediate impression on me; melodically catchy and unpredicatble, with those melodies resting seamlessly on top of well-crafted syncopated rhtyhms. The sound of bassist Jonny Knight and drummer Matt Harrison reminds me of the crisp synyergy of Amos Williams and Jay Postones of TesseracT. Mixed with Lynsey Ward’s ethereal vocals and purposeful piano-playing (seriously, this piano sounds big), I haven’t been this excited about a “newer” band since I got turned on to MEER a couple years ago. Clocking in at just under 25 minutes, there is absolutely no fluff in this sophomore EP. Every song rips and breathes on its own. Its honestly hard to pick a favorite, because each song is a treat to listen to; but if I had to pick one, the closer, “No Longer We Lie,” builds into an incredible outro to this album. I can not recommend this band enough!
Ok Goodnight – The Fox and the Bird
This was recommended to me moments before a six-hour flight, and I probably listened to it six times that flight… and then six more on the way back! This album has everything a progressive rock and metal fan would adore. Fans of Haken, Steven Wilson and Devin Townsend, do check this out! In 2020, a band by the name Black Painted Moon released an album called Personæ, and this release from the Boston-based Ok Goodnight sounds like a more adventurous, polished version of that album. At times, it can be hard to follow; I mean, it goes from folk-inspired snippets on acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments, to metal of every subgenre, in seconds–and man, is it glorious. There are some more digetsible tracks though, like “The Falcon,” which is like a David Maxim Miccic song, yet with a great sing-along chorus. Yet, even that song goes on its own little journey in its six-minute span! This album goes from zero to sixty, then up to ninety, then puts it in reverse going forty; I absolutely love it. Every song is different, and some are massively different than others (“The Bird” being sandwiched between “The Crocodile” and “The Mountain”–what a trip!). Heck, even the five-minute tracks are their own little epics! Give the whole thing a darn listen.
Periphery – Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre
Yeah, I slept on these guys for a long time–way too long. In the beginning, it was the same thing that turned me off, which was Spencer Sotelo’s nasally, fry-ridden vocals that seemed more suited for heavy emo or pop-punk music to me. I always appreciated the way the band has been able to riff, and of course I have aired my praises for their production; but it was years of skipping for me. I grew fonder of some of their stuff in 2020, slowly getting used to Spencer’s voice, and then this album dropped in the spring of this year. I’m not sure what clicked–it was almost like when Between the Buried and Me clicked for me–but it clicked. The riffs are intricate like BTBAM and groovy and syncopated like Meshuggah, with the vocal melodies soaring over top; just the overall songwriting is on its own level.
I think the reason why I loved this album so much was because before it I was listening to a lot of their stuff from the Juggernaut series, Alpha and Omega. The hooks on this album were fantastic, like on Juggernaut, and even the callbacks to Juggernaut tracks in PV were cool to hear. Being somewhat new to Periphery lore, I did not realize this was a thing they had been doing their whole career, the callbacks between albums. Now going back through their entire discography dozens of times over since falling in love with Djent Is Not a Genre, I have a newfound appreciation for this band. But I digress; their 2023 release is, to me, their most complete release yet. It takes the catchiness and bite-size hooks of Juggernaut, while bringing the edge, intensity, and sporadic nature of Periphery II: This Time Its Personal. And all of this is brought to listeners with a similar crisp production that we hear from Periphery IV: HAIL STAN. As a sucker for Mark Holcomb-penned parts, songs like “Wax Wings” and Thanks Nobuo” take the cake for me, song-wise; Mark’s slippery riffing style bodes so well with the heaviness the rest of the guys can bring. And there is just something about Spencer’s singing on those tracks that really lift me up. But it doesn’t stop there: the three singles, “Wildfire, ” “Atropos,” and “Zagreus” are all jam-packed with prototypical Periphery riffage, great hooks, and callbacks from previous works. If you’re new to Periphery, this might actually be a great place to start. If you’re not, I hope you dug it as much as I did!
What are some of your favorites from 2023? Leave a comment below.
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