Frownland

Only at number five? I should quit stalling.

Merkabah does the avant-prog/metal/jazz/brutal prog thing to great effect. As a record it's borderline cinematic given how cohesive it is despite all of the dynamic and disparate elements pulled together on the individual tracks and songs. While it maintains a lot of elements of what you'll find in this sort of Zu-inspired (very sad that Jhator was so dull and that the David Tibet collab never seems to have come through) metal jazz heavy thing. Excellent musicianship and a great sense of melody and songwriting on this record. It's got hypnotism, it's got the heavy, it's got the melody, it's got the saxy, it's got the drony, it's got the groove. Weasel Walter came up with the term brutal prog for this kind of thing, but I kind of see it as the new wave of jazz fusion. Check it out y'all. The honourable mentions aren't in order but if they were, this would be close to the top of it.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.