Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual mp3s that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. This time around, we bring you some Americana via Australia, some huge electro-pop, a devastating piece of metal, the return of some yacht rock heroes, and more besides…
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When it comes to prog metal, there are few bands as consistent as Vanden Plas. Like many of their peers, the band are able to deliver the expected heaviness and complexity, but marking them out from others on the scene, these German musicians often display a strong sense of melody. That doesn’t necessarily make their work entirely accessible or commercial – prog metal is always a marginal subgenre on that front – but an on form VP feels so much more streamlined than most. Even when approaching massive concept works like ‘Chronicles of The Immortals’ or the excellent ‘Ghost Xperiment’, their decision to split these epic works into separate volumes made their bombastic traits far more digestible. The likes of the ego driven Dream Theater would’ve likely released each one as a double CD and added more material to create one of their preferred full three hour borefests each time.
Ukraine’s Cosmic Jaguar conjure some amazing riffs on their 2023 EP ‘The Order of The Jaguar Knights’. The four songs mix classic thrash – played at the high octane speeds set by bands like Exciter and Exodus in the early 80s – with lop-sided prog metal breakdowns, and the bulk of the music is joined by abrasive vocals that appear not to fit squarely with either genre. What this means, of course, is that Cosmic Jaguar are capable of summoning a hefty sound throughout.
Turbulence’s second album – 2021’s ‘Frontal’ – was a challenging but impressive showcase for some pin-sharp musicianship. The Lebanese prog metal band managed to create a very cerebral sound that took the typical heaviness associated with the genre, and contrast that with some rather grand melodic passages. Experiencing the tuneful guitar parts cutting through parts of ‘Ignite’, or the AOR tinged vocal melodies at the heart of ‘Faceless Man’ helped to give the material a very welcome sense of balance. Although unlikely to appeal to anyone not already well versed in progressive metal, the album offered a window into a work that would just as likely cite Arena and Lalu alongside the more obvious influences from Dream Theater (yawn) and Symphony X (rarrrgh).
Formerly known as Porshyne, Brighton’s Polar Son know their way around a riff. On Porshyne’s 2017 EP ‘Environmental Music’, those riffs took an arty, sometimes heavy path, taking in elements of Oceansize, Tool and bits of Godsticks, beneath a vocal that sometimes shared a love of Thom Yorke’s grander moments. It was the kind of release that deserved to place the band among up and coming prog/prog metal acts. Unfortunately, despite champions in a few high places, any massive traction the band deserved was cut short by a global pandemic.