Solaris - s/t [1990]

Artist: Solaris

Title: Solaris 1990

Genre: Progressive Rock

Country: Hungary

Release date: 1990

Track List:

Disc 1

1. A Viking Visszatér
2. Ellenpont
3. Óz
4. Mickey Mouse
5. Éden
6. Hullámok (Bonus Track)
7. Egészséges Optimizmus (Bonus Track)
8. Los Angeles 2026 (Live)

Disc 2

1. Éjszakai Tárlat
2. Közjáték A
3. Szabadjáték
4. Közjáték B
5. Éjféli Valcer
6. Közjáték C
7. Józsi Mátészalkára Megy
8. Közjáték D
9. Éjszakai Tárlat V. (1990)
10. Közjáték E
11. Ünnepi Koncert: E-Moll Concerto (Allegro Con Molto)
12. Paella
13. A Kígyó Szive
14. Ez Nem Kán-Kán
15. Magyar Tánc
16. Duo
17. Solaris 1990 

I always loved Hungarian rock for its unique cosmic sound, already present in early classic rock bands like Omega, Lord, or Edda, and developed by later progressive rock collectives like Kolinda, VHK, and of course Solaris. Sadly they have released not too many albums beyond their "Martian Chronicles I & II" (the 1st part is certainly my favourite progressive rock album of all times), "Nostradamus: Book of Prophecies", and this self-titled album, re-released in 1996 as a 2xCD edition with a couple of bonus tracks and a lengthy live recording.

The first part of this album features instrumental progressive rock (with some spoken word parts in "Egészséges Optimizmus") played in the way we expect it from Solaris. A very decent follow-up to ""Martian Chronicles I" (especially the opening track, "A Viking Visszatér"). The second part is more experimental, significantly influenced by classical music (especially the best composition on the whole album, "Éjféli Valcer") and, at times, Hungarian folk music. The track "A Kígyó Szive" is apparently inspired by the short story "Cor Serpentis" by Ivan Efremov (nice to see another rock band taking influence from the works of my favourite sci-fi writer, the first one being Erg Noor). Overall, all albums by Solaris are fantastic and definitely deserve to be checked out by anyone who loves quality melodic progressive rock with sci-fi themes. And thanks to this great blog for posting this one!

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Amon Düül II - "Wolf City" [1973]

Artist: Amon Düül II

Title: Wolf City

Genre: Krautrock

Country: Germany

Release date: 1973

Track List:

1. Surrounded By The Stars
2. Green-Bubble-Raincoated-Man
3. Jail-House-Frog
4. Wolf City
5. Wie Der Wind Am Ende Einer Strasse
6. Deutsch Nepal
7. Sleepwalker's Timeless Bridge
8. Kindermörderlied
9. Mystic Blutsturz
10. Düülirium

Yes, it's that band whose song Deutsch Nepal took the name from, and that has influenced quite a lot of other industrial artists. That said, Amon Düül emerged from the hippie rock scene of the late 60s (that was so disliked by most early industrial musicians, and not without reason), but eventually became one of the seminal bands in the Krautrock genre, starting from their highly innovative debut album "Phallus Dei" (1969):

"Amon Düül was initially an anarchist commune, but it split into two factions, Amon Düül (sometimes called Amon Düül I for disambiguation) and Amon Düül II. ADI was more politically inclined, but ADII preferred making music. Their anarchist tendencies are clearly seen in their music, especially on the albums Yeti, Tanz Der Lemminge, and Wolf City.

The band can be seen as having two distinct periods in their glory days, the improvisational period and the compositional period. The improvisational period consisted of albums such as Phallus Dei and Yeti, and, to a lesser extent, Tanz Der Lemminge. These albums all featured long, improvisational tracks (Phallus Dei was entirely improvised, and disc two of Yeti was as well, but Tanz Der Lemminge only featured one improvisation). Their compositional period starts with Carnival in Babylon and is highlighted by Wolf City. In this period, the band moved to more structured composed pieces. Many fans saw this as a poor move, but some believed that Amon Duul II proved that they were just as good at composing as they were at improvising"

I personally consider "Wolf City" their best album from their "glory days", and that's the album I would recommend to start listening to ADII discography from. Renate Knaup's vocals are certainly not for everyone's liking, and take some time to get used to them, but I think her voice sounds great in the opening track "Surrounded By The Stars" (my favourite song from ADII!). In general, the album sounds quite original and futuristic, and certainly not outdated even today. Check out one of the bonus track "Mystic Blutsturz", which might be considered one of the earliest examples of darkwave or dream pop. Not very familiar with the rest of their discography after "Wolf City", but as far a I know, there was a significant drop in quality of their music after 1975, so maybe I haven't missed much...

Tiamat - "Wildhoney" [1994]

Artist: Tiamat

Title: Wildhoney

Genre: Gothic/Doom Metal, Industrial/Psychedelic Rock

Country: Sweden
Year: 1994

Track List:

1. Wildhoney
2. Whatever That Hurts
3. The Ar
4. 25th Floor
5. Gaia
6. Visionaire
7. Kaleidoscope
8. Do You Dream of Me?
9. Planets
10. A Pocket Size Sun
    

Finally, we got to the key album that sparked my whole interest in experimental metal. "Wildhoney" caused a lot of stir when it was released since it was too different from the earlier releases by Tiamat, marking the shift in their style from death/doom metal to industrial rock and Pink Floyd-influenced psychedelic/progressive rock. However, unlike the subsequent "A Deeper Kind of Slumber", "Wildhoney" has enough "heavy" moments to be considered a metal release.

Now, after the dust has settled, I admit that "Wildhoney" isn't as much of a masterpice as I one thought it to be. "A Deeper Kind of Slumber" is more interesting album (despite being not metal at all); that said, I love all albums by Tiamat, even their objectively sub-par death metal debut "Sumerian Cry". The first half of "Wildhoney" is unquestionably great - all 3 songs that aren't interludes ("Whatever That Hurts", "The Ar" and "Gaia") are among my all-time favourites, and the interludes fit in quite well too. The second half, however, would be better without the long and weird closing track. "Do You Dream On Me" is an acoustic ballad which is far from any metal; however, it still sounds good, and Tiamat already had one more ballad of this type on "The Astral Sleep" (1991), which was also one of the best tracks on the whole album. Overall, it's the album that completely blew my mind at the time when I first heard it, but it doesn't have quite the same effect on me after years of listening to many metal and avant-garde music albums (including other albums by Tiamat). Still, Johan Edlund is a genius, and "Wildhoney" has a great historical value:

Lumsk - "Troll" [2005]

Artist: Lumsk

Title: Troll

Genre: Folk Metal/Rock

Country: Norway
Year: 2005

Track List:

1. Nøkken
2. Dunker
3. Åsgårdsreia
4. Trolltind
5. Allvis
6. Perpålsa
7. Blæster
8. Byttingen
9. Nidvisa (bonus)

Nowadays, the word "troll" is associated mostly with internet trolling, so it's about time to remind that legends about trolls are an important part of Scandiavian folklore, where a great lot of metal bands took their inspiration from. Lumsk aren't an exception, and they play an interesting mix of folk/viking metal in the vein of Storm and progressive rock, with beautiful female vocals by Stine-Mari Langstrand.

According to metal-archives.com: "Early in 2005, the band won the most by:Larm (a Norwegian music festival) prize money ever awarded, worth 500.000 NOK (about 62.500 €). That made their plans for the 2005 album "Troll" possible, including a high-quality video for the song "Trolltind"". While it may be quite different from most Nordic folk metal you're used to, and most of the songs aren't that catchy, it's a quite interesting release worth checking out:

Hạc San - "Sét Đánh Ngang Trời" [2015]

Artist: Hạc San

Title: Sét Đánh Ngang Trời

Genre: Progressive Metal

Country: Vietnam
Year: 2015

Track List:

1. Hỗn mang
2. Dưới đáy trần gian
3. Hoang tàn
4. Tiều phu
5. Kẻ phản bội
6. Mũi tên đen
7. Bí mật của người ra đi
8. Tái sinh
9. Ai oán
10. Tiếng đàn hàm oan
11. Sét đánh ngang trời

Metal is rare in Vietnam, let alone progressive metal, yet there was at least one band that have deserved the title of "Vietnamese Dream Theater". Unfortunately Hạc San seem to be defunct by now, yet they have left a very good concept album based on the story of Thạch Sanh. While the language barrier makes it hard to find more info about the band, and certainly is the reason why they're largely unknown outside Vietnam, this album has a couple of really great songs that seem to have received significant publicity at home:

Dai Kaht - s/t [2017]

Artist: Dai Kaht

Title: Dai Kaht

Genre: Avant-Prog, Zeuhl

Country: Finland
Year: 2017

Track List:

1. Karaouh
2. Wakü
3. Helvet Sttröi
4. Gnyynlaggör
5. Addurrenn
6. Kadett Mozamï 
7. Advent
8. Doover Üouh

This new avant-prog band from Kajaani, Finland, proves that not only French and Japanese bands can produce good Zeuhl. Unfortunately most of the info about Dai Kaht is in Finnish, but here you can find a very lengthy and interesting English-language interview with their vocalist/bassist Atte Kemppainen, and here you can find some reviews.

Syncopated Silence - "Idem" [2010]

Artist: Syncopated Silence

Title: Idem

Genre: Avant-Prog, Zeuhl

Country: Russia
Year: 2010

Track List:

1. Bytovaya
2. Gusi
3. I Yo Mave
4. Se-Tu-A!!
5. Silence

A trio from Moscow that's closer to Zeuhl than any other Russian prog-rock band I've heard so far. I found out about them thanks to this video (unfortunately, this song isn't included in the EP):

...Well, Christian Vander should be proud of such followers :) On RYM, they're being described as brutal Zeuhl in the vein of Runaway Totem (not familiar with this band, perhaps another one to check out) and Koenjihyakkei:

"When drummer Olga Nosova starts singing, This trio from Moskow sometimes sounds like a stripped down version of Koenjihyakkei. Along with the interesting Fedor Fokin on guitar and Anton Kolosov on bass and various effects, the pieces have a more experimental character, without improvising too much. A mostly noisy brew with a penchant for Zeuhl"

Koenjihyakkei - "Hundred Sights of Koenji" [1994]

Artist: Koenjihyakkei

Title: Hundred Sights of Koenji

Genre: Avant-Prog, Zeuhl

Country: Japan

Release date: 1994

Track List:

1. Ioss
2. Doi Doi
3. Molavena
4. Gepec
5. Yagonahh
6. Ozone Fall
7. Zhess
8. Zoltan
9. Avedumma
10. Sunna Zarioki

高円寺百景 aka Koenji Hyakkei were one of the few bands that can be safely called the worthy successors of Magma. The Zeuhl subgenre of avant-prog, started by Magma, gained any significant following only in France and Japan, most importantly such bands as Ruins and this band (which was started as a side project of a member of Ruins).

This album has everything we love this genre for, including (but not limited to): throbbing bass, complex rhythm patterns, and the lyrics sung in a made-up language. This album is their debut one, and it isn't as avant-garde as the subsequent ones, such as "Angherr Shisspa". Still I wonder how many people have bought it solely because of it's cover, expecting it to be some nice and easy-to-listen Asian music :)

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Сепсис - "Литургия безумия" [1991]

Artist: Сепсис

Title: Литургия безумия

Genre: Avant-Prog, Krautrock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1991

Track List: 

Side A:

1. Отчуждение
2. В Плену У Диких Собак
3. Размышляя О...
4. В Волнах Желания
5. Апогей

Side B:

1. Изгнание Бесов
2. Погружаясь В Сон
3. Плач Блуждающей Девы
4. Спазмы Рассудка
5. Оковы Славы
6. Прочь Из Этих Мест
7. Изгнание Бесов
8. Катарсис 

All I know about this band is that they were an instrumental avant-garde rock trio from Pushkin (which is in the vicinity of St.Petersburg). This album was recorded during March-April 1990 with the help of Yuri Morozov as sound engineer, and was released on vinyl by Andrei Tropillo's label AnTrop, when the band already has split up.

Although it was produced by such famous (at the time) people in the Russian rock scene, it failed to get much publicity, mostly because the music was too unaccessible for an average listener. There were very few Soviet rock bands whise music could be called "avant-prog", and Sepsis definitely were one of them. The album is titled "Liturgy of Madness", which is a pretty appropriate name for a piece of such scary music (maybe not on pair with the best works of Goblin, Univers Zero and Shub-Niggurath, but still). The only known mp3 rip of it consists of two long tracks corresponding to the A and B sides of the original release:

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Mars Everywhere - "Industrial Sabotage" [1980]

Artist: Mars Everywhere

Title: Industrial Sabotage

Genre: Avant-Prog, Space-Rock, Electronic

Country: USA

Release date: 1980

Track List:

1. The Enchanted Domain
2. Steady State Theory
3. Mare Chromium
4. Zone Of Twilight
5. Zöln
6. Attack Of The Giant Squid

A very strange album released on Random Radar Records (which, if I'm not mistaken, was a precursor to Cuneiform Records, which every avant-prog & RIO fan knows about). Some backstory on it can be found here. The author compares Mars Everywhere to Gong and Hawkwind on one side, and to Tangerine Dream or Conrad Schnitzler (and the Berlin school of electronic music in general) on the other. As for me, it sounds suprisingly alike some Yuri Morozov's early electronic works, especially considering that he was using pretty much the same sort of sci-fi/dystopian aesthetics.

It's certainly not for everyone's liking, but if you like both the avant-garde prog rock of the late 70s and early 80s, and the early industrial scene of the same time, give it a listen. Found it at the Ezhevika Fields blog (which has nothing to do with Ezhevika the lead vocalist of Oyme, yet it's still great):

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Николай Коперник - "Родина" [1986]

Artist: Николай Коперник

Title: Родина

Genre: Post-Punk, New Wave, Art Rock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1986

Track List:

1. Горцы
2. В небесах лазурных
3. Дымки
4. Музы
5. Юкагиры
6. Конники
7. Там, вдали
8. Руда
9. Родина

Named in honour of Nicholaus Copernicus, this band was formed in 1981 by Moscow-based composers Yuri Orlov and Igor Len. Their music has very little in common with what's usually called "Russian rock", and to be honest, that's a good thing. They released only one full-length album on tape in 1986, and one more 7'' officially released by Melodia in 1988-89, but these releases were good enough to earn them a cult status in the Moscow underground scene. The band reformed in 2005 and released a new album (which is very good as well) in 2012.

As far as I know, they had chances to work with such musicians was Peter Gabriel and Frank Zappa, but they never became a particularly well-known band - likely because their music was too experimental for an average Russian rock listener. This album isn't an exception, yet the level of songwriting on it is well above many much better known Soviet rock bands. Interestingly enough, there's even a song dedicated to one small tribe in the far Northeastern Siberia that not everyone knows about :)

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Dawnwatcher - studio recordings [1977-83]

Here's a video compilation dedicated to a quite unique NWOBHM band called Dawnwatcher, featuring their tracks "Hall of Mirrors", "Attitudes", "Spellbound", "Firing On All Eight", "Salvador's Dream", "Children of the Night" and "Backlash", all of which were recorded during 1977-83.

Their 1979 demo got a quite negative review on metal-archives.com, whose author has called them a poor clone of Deep Purple - but regardless of that, I can safely say that their later releases are awesome. Their sound isn't typical of NWOBHM, being full of 1970s progressive rock elements (especially the keyboard improvisations). My favourite songs of theirs are "Backlash" and "Hall of Mirrors".

Surprise - "Assault on Merryland" [1977]

Artist: Surprise

Title: Assault on Merryland

Genre: Symphonic Prog Rock

Country: USA

Release date: 1977

Track List:

1. Eve Of The Assault / Merryland
2. The Acrobat Between The Stars
3. Palace Of King Ferris
4. Tyrangatang
5. Dance Of The Tarantella
6. Tournament Of Love
7. March Of The Squatamaudars
8. A Day Without Light
9. The Wonderful Sunshiner / Grand Finale

Rick Bess - acoustic 12 string & electric guitars, bass
Blair Blake - hammond organ, grand piano, mini moog synthesizer, moog taurus bass pedals, arp string ensemble, celeste
Dave Kelly - drums, typani, orchestra bells, gongs, triangles, gyro
Mark Biehl - vocals, flute, trumpet, piccolo

Recorded at Technisonic Studios, St.Louis, Missouri.

Another interesting yet very obscure American prog rock band from the second half of 1970s that released only one full-length album and then disappeared. While it definitely isn't metal, it sounds quite heavy for its time, and the range of instruments used on this album is quite impressive. Some people who reviewed this album on Prog Archives have complained about the lyrics on this album and its overall concept, which they found ridiculous; however, I haven't read the lyrics, so I don't know much about its concept except that it's based on a fantasy story of some sort. Anyway, the music is pretty good. Enjoy:

Unit Wail - "Pangaea Proxima" [2012]

Artist: Unit Wail

Title: Pangaea Proxima

Genre: Progressive Rock, Avant-Prog

Country: France

Release date: 2012 (2016 remaster)

Track List:

1. Mesozoïc Cities
2. Ombos
3. Télété
4. Sargasso Sea
5. Outerspace
6. Humanoïd Fish From Encelade
7. Home of Nowhere
8. Magnétostriction
9. Holocene Extinction
10. Shambhala
11. Three Eyes
12. Subdeath 

Unit Wail is the latest up to date project of Frank W. Fromy of Shub-Niggurath fame. Initially I was sort of disappointed by this album because, judging from its concept, I expected something more in the vein of Solaris or Hidria Spacefolk, but heavy avant-prog rooted in the previous Fromy's project 000 (Triple Zero) is fine too. French prog-rock bands really know how to do this sort of dark and "cosmic" sound the right way! You can read a more detailed review of "Pangaea Proxima" here, and its remastered version (the original 2012 version was recorded and mixed under difficult conditions) is available on Bandcamp:

000 (Triple Zero) - "Crypto Sensus" [1985]

Artist: 000 (Triple Zero)

Title: Crypto Sensus

Genre: Progressive Rock, Avant-Prog

Country: France

Release date: 1985

Track List:

1. Part Three - Pour Produire Un Sentiment De Chaleur Sous La Tête Du Défunt
2. Irruption
3. Part Two - Pour Ne Pas Subir Le Châtiment
4. Les Succubes
5. Part One - Pour Que L'Ame Ne Soit Pas Capturée Dans L'Au-Delà
6. Le Balancement Cathartique
7. Part Four - Pour Ne Pas Etre Echaudé En Buvant De L'Eau
8. De Sales Lendemains

The one and only album of a very mysterious French avant-prog band with an ex-guitarist of Shub-Niggurath in their line-up. Even the release date is uncertain: most sources state it was recorded in 1985, but there's no evidence of it, and only one thing can be said for sure: it was released in 2000 on CD by Musea. Line-up (most likely incomplete):

- Frank-William Fromy / bass
- Edward Perraud / drums, percussions
- Vincent Sicot-Vantalon / electronics

Musically, it's "cosmic" avant-prog with a lot of electronic effects, more similar to F.W.Fromy's later project Unit Wail than to Shub-Niggurath. It wasn't easy to find this album in MP3 (it turned out to be even more  obscure than Nuclear Death's "Harmony Drinks Of Me"), yet I finally managed to do it. Enjoy:

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Gong - "Acid Motherhood" [2004]

Artist: Gong

Title: Acid Motherhood

Genre: Progressive Rock, Space Rock

Country: France

Release date: 2004

Track List:

1. Ocean Of Molasses
2. Supercotton
3. Olde Fooles Game
4. Zeroina
5. Brainwash Me
6. Monstah!
7. Bible Study
8. Bazuki Logix
9. Waving
10. Makototen
11. Schwitless In Molasses

Let me get one thing out of the way: this album has got a completely idiotic cover art. The inlay isn't much better, though:

Seriously, it'd be much more suitable for some comedy grindcore album, and it was deservedly included into the "Weirdest Ever Covers" list. Fortunately, the music on "Acid Motherhood" is pretty cool and not idiotic at all. Looks like someone has already reviewed it better than I ever could, so I can only add that I wish this album was purely instrumental - other than that, it's great. If the Wikipedia article is to be believed, the line-up on this album consists of a merger of latter-day Gong, University of Errors (guitarist Josh Pollock), and Acid Mothers Temple (Kawabata Makoto and Cotton Casino), and when it comes to the concept, it continues the usual Gong topics of aliens and alternate realities.

Nuclear Death - "Harmony Drinks Of Me" [2000]

Artist: Nuclear Death

Title: Harmony Drinks Of Me

Genre: Experimental, Progressive Rock

Country: USA

Release date: 2000

Track List:

1. Electric Spaceboy
2. Eyes Closed (The Sin)
3. Sunless
4. The Baths
5. Strident
6. Shoot
7. Haunted Man-Nimbus

Formed in 1986 by Phil Hampton, Lori Bravo and Joel Whitfield, Nuclear Death were one of the first deathgrind bands in history, and certainly the very first widely known one with a female vocalist. However, that wasn't what really set them apart from many other early death metal bands. They were famous because of their lyrics - which, just as expected from a death/grind band, described very disgusting things, but in a surrealistic horror manner not parallelled by any other band. Phil Hampton definitely has some literary talent, even if his lyrics surely are going to put off quite a lot of people...

This album, however, has nothing to do with ND's early works in terms of both sound and lyrical content, even if it's quite unusual as well. It was recorded by Lori Bravo alone during 1996-97 and released on her own label Cats Meow in 2000, after which Nuclear Death was declared officially split up. It was described as a sort of goth/industrial rock, but I think labels like "progressive" or "psychedelic" would fit it better. Either way, it isn't a metal album in the slightest.

It took me literally ages to find this album online, as it's turned out to be a really rare one - even in the age when nearly anything can be found on YouTube, blogs, or torrents. Yet I finally managed to find it, and I can only hope there wouldn't be any copyright problems with it being posted on here. Still searching for "The Planet Cachexial", an album released by Lori Bravo in 1996, which is rumored to be even more experimental than this one (and seems to have a really interesting concept as well).

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Goblin - "Suspiria" [1977]

Artist: Goblin

Title: Suspiria

Genre: Avant-Prog, Jazz-Rock

Country: Italy
Year: 1977

Track List:

1. Suspiria
2. Witch
3. Opening To The Sighs
4. Sighs
5. Markos
6. Black Forest
7. Blind Concert
8. Death Valzer
9. Suspiria (Narration)
10. Markos (Alternate Version)
11. Suspiria (Intro)
12. Suspiria (Daemonia Version)

There are several progressive rock/RIO releases from 80s and late 70s which were claimed to be "some of the scariest music ever recorded", i.e. "Heresie" by Univers Zero and "Les Morts Vont Vite" by Shub-Niggurath. Although Goblin never were a part of the RIO movement, many of their works deserve to be on that list too - especially this particular album, which is a soundtrack for Dario Argento's 1977 movie "Suspiria". Without the soundtrack and the unusual color scheme, "Suspiria" would be just an ordinary horror movie like many other, but the combination of vibrant colors and blaring music created a very intense atmosphere (because of which, "Suspiria" is often considered to be one of the scariest horror films of all time).

Kraftwerk - "Kraftwerk II" [1971]

Artist: Kraftwerk

Title: Kraftwerk 2

Genre: Krautrock, Ambient

Country: Germany

Release date: 1971

Track List: 

1. Klingklang
2. Atem
3. Strom
4. Spule 4
5. Wellenlänge
6. Harmonika

The follow-up to the debut album of Kraftwerk was released on Philips in 1971 (some sources say 1972), and, like in the case with its predecessor, the musicians didn't bother to give it a title - so, nowadays it's known just as "Kraftwerk 2". It's much more meditative and hypnotic than the debut album, akin to the "Berlin school" of mid-70s krautrock (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schultze). This album can be seen as something in between with Kraftwerk's krautrock debur and their later electronic stuff ("Autobahn" etc.).

Kraftwerk - "Kraftwerk I" [1970]

Artist: Kraftwerk

Title: Kraftwerk

Genre: Krautrock

Country: Germany

Release date: 1970

Track List: 

1. Ruckzuck
2. Stratovarius
3. Megaherz
4. Vom Himmel Hoch

While Kraftwerkare best known for their electronic works of the 80s & late 70s, let't not forget that they started their musical career from playing psychedelic prog-rock in the vein of Faust and Can. Their debut self-titled album, released in 1970, is a prime example of this. Sadly it's a very overlooked release compared to their later works, and it even wasn't officially re-released on CD (at least according to Discogs, there was only one unofficial CD reissue). I understand there aren't many krautrock fans nowadays, but I still think this album deserves more recognition.