As guitarist and vocalist with progressive metal band Obsidian Tide, Oz Avneya is no stranger to crushing riffs and complex time signatures, but on his solo debut ‘Road To I’, the Israeli musician stretches his musical boundaries just a little further. The occasional nods to melodic death metal within his band’s work sometimes take a bigger role here, but to balance out any pure aggression, this album also explores a couple of far more interesting musical avenues. When not cranking the riffs, Avneya can be found teasing the listener with elements of world music, and there’s also a much bigger concession to melodic prog.
Tag Archives: prog metal
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #68
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. We offer a great selection this time around, taking in power pop, something synth based, some retro sounds leaning towards the goth-esque, a massively talented singer songwriter…and more besides. Hopefully, as usual, something new will catch your ear and encourage you to dig a little deeper!
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THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #64
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. This selection offers some of the usual SB variety, as we share a couple of newer singles with an electronica backbone, a couple of light and melodic indie themed tunes, and some very inclusive punk. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy…
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THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #54
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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VANDEN PLAS – The Empyrean Equation of Long Lost Things
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.