There is perhaps no better slogan in rock music than ‘Strings Are Voices,’ the maxim adopted by Texas-based instrumental prog outfit Scale The Summit, because it’s not easy to make it as an instrumental rock band. It is an extra special challenge to create concise and emotive rock songs…

One of the greatest thrash metal bands of all-time, Testament blew the music industry away with the reunion of their original lineup and the subsequent release of their 2008 opus, The Formation Of Damnation. That was 25 years into their career.

After that amount of time, most bands either…

There are few metal bands these days that aren’t looking up at Lamb Of God. The Richmond, VA-based band that long branded their style as “Pure American Metal” hasn’t lost a step in an increasingly competitive scene; they remain on top thanks to a stream of great albums and…

If Dave Matthews Band and Dream Theater had a child, they would have named it Umphrey’s McGee. If Iron Maiden started jamming with Frank Zappa, the result might very well have been Umphrey’s McGee. If Radiohead was bitten by a radioactive King Crimson, they would have donned masks and…

It’s common practice on live albums to edit out mistakes or wrong notes, and on the tapes from this Dec. 1, 2009 performance (featuring no new songs) Yes—perhaps admirably—didn’t retouch their performance. As a result, the band shows their age on this three-disc (two CDs, one DVD) set.

Though…

In a genre most often characterized by sparse, down-tempo orchestrations, San Francisco-based doom metal two-piece Black Cobra channel the gods of the riff with thrash-paced incantations of detuned, hardcore-affected anguish. Theirs is a sound of thorough desolation, and their most recent studio album, Invernal, their third full-length, is undoubtedly…

With their inimitable brand of funky, dynamic and chaotic progressive metal, TesseracT are in the midst of setting themselves apart from their ‘djent’ contemporaries. The U.K.’s answer to Washington, D.C.-based trendsetters Periphery, the band insists on uniting soul and emotion with a polyrhythmic approach to all that is heavy.…

Long before their rise from underground acclaim to near-mainstream stardom since leaving Relapse Records in favor of Warner Bros. in 2006, Grammy-nominated Atlanta, GA-based progressive sludge metal road dogs Mastodon have built up and obliterated niche after cozy niche.

With their final Relapse release, 2004’s nautical thrash milestone Leviathan,…

Cynic is used to hard times. After forming in 1987, it took them until 1993 to release their debut album, the now legendary Focus. They’ve had their gear confiscated by foreign authorities, they’ve had their practice space destroyed by a hurricane and then, before anyone could take notice of…

There may be no band more important to the development of modern, virtuosic progressive music than Yes. And, to that end, there is no person more important to the development of that band than their legendary (now former) singer and visionary Jon Anderson.

After being kicked to the curb…