Author: UberAdmin

ÜR boss Monk has a problem with a lot of what he sees as being passed off as “progressive” music, and especially as “progressive metal”, these days. And that is the fact that, to his ears anyway, it’s not in the slightest bit “progressive”. It just seems to follow what has now become a staid formula:  take a load of hardcore riffs, speed them up by placing a brick on the accelerator pedal, add in a shit load of arpeggios and solo slots played at a bazillion notes per second, a few touches of keyboards to lend “atmosphere”, a vocalist who covers up the fact that he can’t actually sing a note by pretending he’s auditioning for an Eighties Scandinavian black metal outfit and, hey presto, you’re a “progressive metal” band who sound just like every other “progressive metal” band out there… Where is the actual innovation? Where is the progression? Where is the pushing the musical boundaries that the very adjective “progressive” would infer? Yes, the genre has had its innovators, but they are few and far between.  Which is where Redshift’s debut album makes an interesting proposition, as it veers between the mistake of falling into the copycat trap while also injecting a freshness and a vibrancy into what has become an otherwise staid and meaningless mien.