Label Cynic as a metal band it’s at least ignorance. They grew out of that box pretty quickly and although they merged technical death metal and influences with jazz and progressive rock elements, their music was always something special and different. “Kindly Bent to Free Us”, their third full-length album, it’s a flawless mixture of modern sound and classic, progressive rock flavor with some jazzy reflections. Have some sort of King Crimson and Pink Floyd type of timeless and shiny (brilliant 🙂 ) feel.
The current line-up consist of veterans Paul Masvidal – vocals & guitars, Sean Reinert – drums & percussion and longtime, mainly studio collaborator Sean Malone – fretless bass, chapman stick.
Engineering by Jason Donaghy (Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe 2), mixed by R. Walt Vincent (Pete Yorn, Liz Phair, Tommy Keene and Jonathan Elias’ The Prayer Cycle), mastered by Maor Appelbaum (Adrenaline Mob, Sepultura, Halford, Armored Saint, Cathedral , etc), featuring the art work of Robert Venosa (among other works, the pre-sketches and conceptual design for the movie Dune), “Kindly Bent to Free Us” it’s a psychedelic sci-fi trip. Read more Cynic – Kindly Bent to Free Us (2014)
Progressive metal became pretty much synonymous with Dream Theater. It’s probably not fair, but it’s a fact. EtHERSENS it’s a French progressive metal project and “Your wandering ghost” it’s their second album after considerable a six year gap.
Belzebass it’s a clubcore duo from Italy, and they delivering some extreme, aggressive s*it, be precocious, it can seriously harm your speakers and through them your ears and finally your brain may get fried. While the mainstream EDM scene is pretty boring, the underground definitively have its revenge! Hardcore take no prisoners!
“Angel Guts: Red Classroom” is the ninth studio album by Xiu Xiu, it’s scheduled for release on February 4, 2014, only two month away from the Nina Simone tribute album and entitled simply “Nina”. I still try to figure out if I like or I don’t like the music of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart. There is a strong, charming, 70’s and 80’s rooted David Bowie flavor which is awesome. On the other hand, sometimes the sonic trips are going over the edge of bizarre and I’m not sure I’m always capable to follow them anywhere unconditionally. But at least I’m honest to admit it. Then again, I hate the snobs who pretend they understand everything and praise anything which it’s “out of the box”, just because it’s… odd. I’m a weirdo, but I have the decency to admit my limitations! 😆
I just saw a few days back 
I tried to dig out some background info about this French band, but I didn’t find too much and the few things I found were in French, not a language I know. Guitarist/singer Fred Lefranc sent me a link to their teaser last December, meanwhile the 5 track EP was officially released. Unfortunately they don’t have a video yet, but fortunately, they put it on-line on the Bandcamp. (While Spotify in some countries it’s not available, on Deezer if you don’t have account, can only listen 30 seconds of each song and not everybody it’s iPhone addicted and have the iTunes applications instaled… So, for promotional purposes YouTube, SoundCloud and Bandcamp are still the best free options available. MySpace it’s a… dead space. 😆 )
Benji Webbe and his comando (Daniel Pugsley – bass; Mikey Demus – guitar, backing vocals; and Arya Goggin – drums) of reggae-metal from Welsh are back with their fifth studio album entitled “Kill the Power”. He stated about the titled and the upcoming album: “We are more than excited to unleash this Skindred bomb on the world! Kill The Power is for all them that are sick of being the underdog, and wanna step up and destroy all those who oppress and hold them down! Use this album as a backdrop to overcome and take your life back! We ain’t fighting the power no more – we are definitely killing it!!” And they delivered probably their best album so far.
Pure, furious, edgy and old-school hardcore. There is nothing fancy, nothing meaningless, nothing just to fill in or fill up, but brutal riff, energy and honest, reasonable anger. And while honesty and being not a clown of the media and a dumb trend follower it’s quite rare, almost exceptional nowadays, Backtrack is an exceptional band with roots both back to punk and metal.
