The 2013 Arsies: January 16, 2013

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January 16, 2013

2012 was a very competitive year in the prog metal field, as several established acts came out with interesting and imaginative albums. With their third album Le Stelle: A Voyage Adrift, Incoming Cerebral Overdrive set a high bar in terms of creativity and weirdness. A flowing suite of songs named after a collection of stars, this is ICO at their most Voivodlike. Sirius B is about as accessible as the album gets, which isn't saying much. Le Stelle is ceaselessly captivating and entertaining, and an excellent evolution for the band.
However: the other major factor in 2012's climate of competitive prog metal comes from one source: Between The Buried And Me's highly anticipated The Parallax II: Future Sequence. It is a juggernaut, an ultra-ambitious album that is easily the band's most mature, emotive, and insane effort to date. If this album has a flaw, it's that there's just too damned much of it. (Seriously, I've been listening to it for months now, and I don't think I've ever listened to it all the way through in one sitting, without passing out or needing a snack.) You want a track? I'll give you Extremeophile Elite. Anyone trying to take top prog honors away from BTBAM this year is gonna have a bad time. Sorry, Incoming Cerebral Overdrive.
Tomorrow, Revocation meets Mnemic, which isn't even a real word.

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