The Best Progressive Rock Album of the Decade

In this post I'm reviewing an album that I seriously consider to be the greatest progressive rock album of this past decade (2000 - 2009), I don't claim to know every single prog rock album released in this past 10 years, but I have listen to many and I think this the one.

Progressive Rock emerge in the end of the 60's and beginnings and first half of the 70's, since then Prog went pretty much underground and that's how we like it. Over the years, since its "Fall" Prog Rock has been adapted to a lot of other genres, such as Jazz, Fusion, Experimental and especially Metal. I consider Progressive Metal to be the greatest gateway to future generations to get in to Progressive Rock.

I love Progressive Rock, because is such an adaptable style of music, you can mix it everything Symphonic Music, Jazz, Techno, Metal (every subgenre of it), Pop, Experimental, Canterbury, Avant RIO, Latin Music, EVERYTHING. Is such and adaptable and experimental style. And makes it more powerful because the more it grows the more genres it has and the more experimental it gets. It just absorbs and grows and grows and grows, its crazy and beautiful.

In this last decade Prog Rock really emerge once again since its hiatus in the 80's (well Neo-Prog took its place, but Neo-Porg just wasn't the same). Progressive Metal emerged in the 90's with such bands as Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Queensryche, Pain Of Salvation and more. And I think that helped Prog Rock to emerge once again in the 2000's.

Now lets talk about this New Wave of Progressive Rock (2000's and forward) what I like the most of the new bands is that they all know and respect the classic 70's feel of Prog Rock and convine it with their own style or other styles making their music and the genre evolve at the same time.

The main bands of the NWOPR (yea that's right NWOPR!!!!) would be Phideux, Beardfish, Spock's Bread, The Mars Volta, Pendragon and Ayreon. But ironically this album that I gonna present to you is not from any of those bands. This is what I consider to be the greatest prog album of the last decade.

Birds and Buildings - Bantham To Behemoth (2008)



Whaaaaaaaaaaa... who the hell are these guys? Birds and Building are a pretty unknown band from Washington and in 2008 they release their debut album name Bantam to Behemoth which, the best way to describe it is... A Progressive Jazz Metal Fusion Symphonic Masterpiece, yea these guys are pretty big. And this album is even bigger.

I consider this the best modern prog rock album, because it combines so many genres so well, it shifts between Skillfully Jazz to Kick ass Metal to Progressive streaming passages to sentimental symphonic moments and to odd imaginative scenarios, everything I could ask for, and its also conceptual, well at least musically, lyrically aaaaaa I'm not sure.

Now a brief description of the Album tracks

1.- Birds Flying Into Buildings (9:12)

This is a fast pace, balls to the wall symphony, when I listened to this song for the first time I couldn't believe how well Jazz and Metal could go together. The Sax in this song is on fire, really is brutal, is even more brutal than the guitar, and the keyboards are skillfully perfect, an excellent introduction to this masterpiece.

2.- Terra Fire (3:33)

It stars like a calm reflexive ballad and turns in to a Hard Rock Progressive rush, it would have been an excellent single.

3.- Tunguska (6:33)

This one, as the last one stars really calm, some keyboards patters repeat from the first song, after that it turns in to a well structure progressive allegory with a lot of King Crimson influences.

4.- Caution Congregates and Forms a Storm (10:51)

Ok these three next songs, are just the greatest composed paces of music that I have heard in this lasts years, these three are definitely the highlight of the album.

Caution Congregates... stars as this beautiful melancholic symphony that stars to cheer up in a more reflexive note and suddenly jumps into this Eclectic Prog scenario but without leaving the symphonic fell behind, the songs stars to get a little bit darker and darker in to transforming in to this Progressive Jazz Metal passage, culminating in a redeeming guitar solo and piano passage. After that, a really nice acoustic moment and the song ends with a really reflexive passage created by the Bass, Piano, Flute and Synthesizer.

5.- Chronicle of The Invisible River of Stone (9:17)

Following up, almost starting with the same notes, begins Chronicle... it quickly creates a  peaceful and mysterious atmosphere followed up by a beautiful female singing, after that, a brief Eclectic jump and the singing returns. And when the singing is over, then reflexion materialized into music, that's it, there's not other way I could describe it.

6.- Yucatan 65: The Agitation of The Mass (10:38)

Yucatan stars with this awesome acoustic introduction jumping to a dark arabic movement very well written jumping into acoustic, eclectic and symphonic it's just beautiful, all the pieces fit perfectly, the feelings to: Reflexive into Anger into happiness into more Reflexion. The song, then constructs this wonderful unison between the guitar and the keyboards culminating in an awesome kick ass riff accompanied with a keyboard solo.

7.- Chakra Khan (5:57)

Very aggressive and dark, an angry metal eclectic jazzy adrenaline party.

8.- Batallion (9:57)

You can call it the climax of the album, stars with a really fast paced bizarre singing, jumps quickly in a Jazz movement with a lot of parts from the first song and chronicles. The quick singing returns and then everything culminates in this large passage jumping in to eclectic, melancholic, symphonic, heavy metal, orchestral, reflexive, progressive, everything just goes crazy.

9.- Sunken City, Sunny Day (3:23)

A calm atmospheric acoustic epilogue for this album.

If you wanna know more about them here, you should really check them out:

MySpace

ProgArchives

So, please check this album and comment what was your favourite prog album of this past decade.

This is the opening track of the album



well that's all, see ya.