Just time to wrap up the year with a few late submissions.
WIZRD (Norway) – Mesmerized (sample track from the album Elements)
WIZRD was formed at the Jazz Conservatoire in Trondheim, the source of so many top artists that appear in these pages, and is a compilation band, my name for one formed of members of other bands that include in this case Hallvard Gaardløs (Spidergawd, Draken) on bass and lead vocals, Karl Bjorå (Megalodon Collective) on guitar and vocals, Vegard Lien Bjerkan (Soft Ffog) on keyboards and vocals, and Axel Skalstad (Krokofant, Soft Ffog) on drums.
Eagle eyed readers will have noted that Krokofant were here just a week or so ago.
WIZRD are genre benders incorporating rock, indie, jazz and prog in their repertoire and nowhere is that more evident than in this sample track ‘Mesmerized’ from their second album, the nine-track ‘Elements’, which was released earlier in December.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve compared bands to Genesis this year and here is another one, the opening section being so reminiscent of the mazy keyboard runs of Tony Banks and intricate accompanying snare drum work of Phil Collins.
If you really want to you can hear the full panoply of 1970s prog bands in ‘Mesmerized’, in a track that shifts faster than a Bullet Train, in the ultra rapid-fire notes from all quarters, the progressions that end sections around the 1:40 to 1:45 and 2:55 to 3:00 marks, and in the robust vocal accompaniment.
But what they never offered was the more groovy jazz interludes that intertwine those prog motifs here and which help cement a sound that is clearly owned by WIZRD; one that is simultaneously formulaic yet musically capricious.
Oh and here’s a thing. Several musicians contributed backing vocals on the album including Rikke Normann, who featured heavily in NMC a couple of years ago but of whom we have heard little recently.
Release concerts are yet TBA.
Find them on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wizrdtheband/
Pressure Points (Finland) – Shapeless (single) +video
Pressure Points is a melodic metal band founded in Heinola in Finland in 2004. It seems to be one that attempts to reconcile prog with metal, and especially melodic prog (well it usually is).
There have been so many prog releases recently and some of them made their way into NMC’s Songs of 2024 list.
Not only that, the melding of prog with metal seems to be gaining pace and I’ve often put forward the theory that some metal bands these days are really prog bands incorporating metal riffs.
But an academic discussion on that subject is for another day. More to the point, what do Pressure Points bring to the table?
‘Shapeless’, one of two singles they released in December, is an unusual song.
It starts off as one of those prog-lite ballads that several bands specialised in during the 1970s and I would have been quite happy if it stayed that way.
But then it enters into a death metal-like segment, together with associated growls and a voice that sounds like its owner just gargled with drain unblocker, then swallowed half a dozen razor blades and washed them down with a bottle of paraquat.
Then it changes nature again into a quite melodic piece of rock, then the death metal returns to exchange places with that melody until the last couple of minutes or so when it plays out with an almighty piece of hard rock.
It’s exhausting listening to it, never mind playing it.
What we have here is three or four different songs, poured into a mixer and regurgitated as the finished product.
I’m not convinced it works but hats off to them for even trying.
And I love the rap-like lyrics around the 4:40 mark –
“Before you know it takes control
If you’re able to stop
Disable the drop
Unstable rot
Please just hold on.”
Bloody marvelous.
Lyric video by Juha Tretjakov.
BAND MEMBERS:
Juha Tretjakov-Lead vocals
Kari Olli-Guitars & vocals
Janne Parikka-Bass
Veli-Matti Kyllönen-Keyboards
Vili Auvinen-Drums.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PressurePointsBand
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pressurepointsofficial
