BECAUSE WITTY YEAR-END LIST TITLES ABOUT RUINING THE HOLIDAYS ARE FOR SUCKERS — THE DGR YEAR ENDSTAVAGANZA PART TWO: 40-31

 LISTMANIA 2024  3 Responses »
Dec 172024
 

(Here we have the second installment of DGR‘s year-end Top 50 list, counting down the second group of 10, with the next three groups slated for the next three days ahead.)

While we have not achieved critical mass yet in terms of writing for the year-end list, we’re definitely making progress down the line. This is still an area of the list where I often tell people that rankings – useless as they may be since this could be best viewed as ’50 albums DGR liked’ – don’t really start to crystalize in any sense until you start reaching the mid-30’s. So you’re reading the last vestiges of the albums I felt must be spoken about just so I can feel good about saying something about them and also starting to see the ones that I really sunk my teeth into.

They’re not a perfect representation by any means and I guarantee that come January 1st I’ll likely be kicking myself for leaving something off – especially with a late December drop of Frontierer‘s new EP looking like a contender to really fuck things up for me – but at least there’s some confidence in the ten collected before you today.

Tomorrow’s genre-spread will likely be just as silly but you’ll definitely start to see some old favorites popping up there since, much like one of the groups that appears in this collection, I too am a hallmark of consistency. I’m just not nearly as attractive. Continue reading »

PERSEFONE: “LINGUA IGNOTA: PART I”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 132024
 

(We present DGR‘s review of a new EP by the Andorran band Persefone, which was released not long ago by Napalm Records.)

A guarantee with Andorra’s Persefone is that you are going to get a lot of music. Persefone have made a career out of albums hybridizing progressive metal, melodeath, and as wide a smattering of other genres as they could into a form of tightly controlled chaos with multiple vocal approaches serving as the icings on the cake.

They’re a full-album band and very rarely, throughout a surprisingly long career, have done any sort of single or EP as part of their discography. Persefone have always dealt in releasing densely packed albums, and as of 2022’s Metanoia were up to a grand total of six.

With all of those elements making up Persefone‘s career it is surprising that the band have seen relatively little change on the lineup front – especially since they really found their groove with 2013’s Spiritual Migration. Since then, other than a re-recording of their first album Truth Inside The Shades in 2020, the band have refined upon the eastern sprituality subject matter and massive keyboard-wall approach to their writing style.

Which is why it is both fitting and very interesting that the group’s newest release is just an EP but also has a ‘Part I’ tacked onto its name. Continue reading »

PERSEFONE: “METANOIA”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 092022
 

 

(This is DGR‘s review of the new album by the Andorran extreme progressive metal band Persefone, which was released on February 4th by Napalm Records.)

We’ve been following the progressive metal group Persefone for a very long time now. If you’re curious just how long, we dedicated time for both a Synn Report and a review of their album Aathma, which has resulted in us covering nearly everything the band have done up to this point.

There’s been almost a five-year gap between Aathma and the group’s newest release Metanoia, which hit last Friday via Napalm Records, yet it seems as if there’s been no time at all between them; Metanoia picks up right where Aathma let off, which was itself an album that continued walking down the same path that 2013’s Spiritual Migration took. That specific path, in a roundabout way, brings us back to Metanoia. Continue reading »

OVERFLOWING STREAMS (PART 2)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  3 Responses »
Jan 172022
 

 

As explained yesterday in Part 1 of this immense round-up, I made an initial cull of 23 songs and videos, most of which surfaced during the last week. I had intended to sift through those more carefully to reach a more manageable number, but due to lack of time I decided to just throw the whole boiling mass at your face. And I actually added another track last night to make the total an even two dozen.

I alphabetized the list by band name and then cut the mass in half, which might have made it a little easier on your senses and your time; we begin today with the letter “I”. Unlike most of my round-ups I also didn’t have time to include the usual links, artwork, or much commentary — mainly just small bits of info about the releases. Continue reading »

UNSUNG HEROES OF 2020:  CONSTRUCT OF LETHE / EYE OF SOLITUDE / PERSEFONE

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

(In this post Andy Synn reviews three 2020 album “reissues” that in different ways gave the original releases a new lease on life.)

“Out with the old, in with the new!”

That has, traditionally, been the mantra that accompanies the end of one year and the beginning of another.

And so, in that spirit, I’ve decided to bit adieu to 2020 with a look back at three albums which originally reared their ugly heads in 2016, 2011, and 2004, respectively, but which were all given a new lease on life last year.

So I guess that opening mantra should have been “everything old is new again…”, shouldn’t it? Continue reading »

PERSEFONE: “AATHMA”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 282017
 

 

(DGR prepared this detailed review of the new album by Andorra’s Persefone, and we have a full music stream for you at the end.)

If there is one thing that I’ve come to admire in music over the past few years, it is a sense of ambition. As music has become democratized and we’ve found bedroom and studio projects achieving just as much as groups with label backing, I’ve found bands who seem to have decided that since there is no more ‘living within their means’ any more, they can just go for it every time they step up to the plate. Persefone are one of those bands.

Now a handful of albums deep into their career, each disc has seemingly grown in size and scope compared to the last one. They come off as a group that has overdosed on just as many Dream Theater and Symphony X keyboard-laden discs as they have the late ’90s and early 2000s melodeath scene. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT: AN UPDATE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, THE SYNN REPORT  7 Responses »
Nov 192013
 

(In this post, Andy Synn provides updates about five bands who have been the subject of past SYNN REPORTS (and one “proto Synn Report”): Martriden, Astarte, Anata, V.A.S.T., and Persefone.)

Wow, it’s been almost two months since the last edition of The Synn Report! Where does the time go?

In the intervening time I’ve been very busy, both with work, band stuff, and my personal life (yes, I do have one outside the site… erm, kind of…), and simply haven’t had chance to settle down and get to work on things in the more in-depth way that The Synn Report requires of me!

Don’t worry though, a new edition, with an all-new band, is on its way. In the meantime, I thought we might as well check in with a few updates from those bands we’ve featured here in the past. Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 38 — PERSEFONE

 Album Reviews, THE SYNN REPORT  8 Responses »
Jul 122013
 

(In this 38th edition of THE SYNN REPORT, Andy reviews the discography of Persefone from the small nation of Andorra, including the band’s new 2013 release, Spiritual Migration.)

Recommended for fans of: Wintersun, Into Eternity, Edge of Sanity

It’s funny how things work out. Persefone had been on my list as a potential Synn Report for some time, and what with them recently releasing their fourth album it was pretty clear that I could kill two birds with one stone and link a short appraisal of it in with the usual Synn Report format. I decided pretty much straight away after finishing Part 37 that the Andorran prog-metallers were going to have to feature in the next edition, and then by coincidence a good number of our readers started mentioning Spiritual Migration as one of their albums of the year so far. It’s crazy how these things line up.

Persefone are the first Andorran artist to feature in The Synn Report, but their sound has worldwide appeal – indeed, their progressive proclivities, ostentatious keyboards, and epic song structures have a fair bit in common with In Vain, who were the subject of the previous edition of this column.

To put you in the right state of mind, a flurry of other names which have been thrown out in response to the band’s music are Dream Theater, Edge of Sanity, Symphony X, Opeth, Into Eternity, Borknagar… all prog-metal behemoths, ranging from the Power Metally inclined to the Death Metally devoted. The fact that these acts are so frequently referenced when talking about the Andorran sextet should (hopefully) give you some indication of just how highly regarded their albums – and their musical abilities – are by those in the know.

After the jump – four albums’ worth of technical skill, creative flair, grandiose ambition, and magnificent storytelling (and keyboards)… Continue reading »

HIT AND RUN

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Mar 282010
 

Not long ago, we confessed on this site the reason why we so rarely post negative reviews about new music. It’s not because we like everything we hear (though undoubtedly some readers think we’re too easily impressed). It’s because we’re devoted to extreme metal and we’d rather sing its praises than spend our time slagging hard-working bands whose music doesn’t happen to zap the right chords in our addled brains.

The problem is that sometimes we hit a stretch of listening where, by sheer chance, we go through several albums in a row that don’t strike those chords — and then we’re out of time. We’re under self-imposed pressure to get something new up on this site, but we just don’t have any new music we can honestly praise at that moment. So then what the fuck do we do? We post pictures of catz. Or woodpeckers.

We hit one of those stretches the last couple of days. So, what to do? We were thinking about pictures of toads (don’t breathe sighs of relief too quickly — we might still do that eventually). But this time, with apologies to all our toad lovers, we’re trying something new. Just for a change, we’ll say a few brief words about those albums we heard recently that, by random chance, just didn’t get us all hot and bothered. They’re not bad. In fact, the musicians are extremely talented, and there’s parts of them we think are pretty fucking cool. But on the whole? Not music we’re likely to listen to a second time, given our tastes.

So, after the jump, hit-and-run comments about Triptykon (pictured above), Ne Obliviscaris, and Persefone.  And just so you can form your own conclusions, we’ll give you a song to hear from each album — because this really comes down to a matter of personal preference.  (continue reading after the jump . . .) Continue reading »