Instrumental rock is a tricky business. Sure people like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have made a good living from it. They rely on showing off their technical prowess to do that. Nothing wrong with that. In the progressive metal realm, Scale The Summit are currently making waves but how prog are they really?
The debut album from Proud Peasant is a true progressive rock album. 3 epic tracks, none shorter than 12 and a half minutes. A very bold opener from this Texas band. "Flight" is not like other prog you may have heard. They do not rely on a billion notes to cover for the lack of vocals. Rather they set an atmosphere with each song. It sounds more like a movie soundtrack or even a video game than standard verse/chorus/verse structured songs.
The epic nature of the album is both is strength and "weakness" if you will. It can be daunting to tackle 3 massive instrumental pieces. This isn't "Tales
from Topographic Oceans" but it definitely has more in common with that than say 90125! The references I hear are Gryphon and Änglagård, both bands have done a similar orchestral take on progressive rock. Proud Peasant's "Flight" could be a modern version of "Red Queen To Gryphon Three" which works just fine with me!
As far as epic debut albums, Flight also reminds me a little of The Light by Spock's Beard which also had extremely long, dense tracks on it. Proud Peasant isn't afraid to "go for it" and throw everything they have at you. SB did the same thing with the Light way back when. It's a bold move and it MIGHT scare the faint of heart away but this is a FUN album!! That is why Proud Peasant succeeds when many bands would fail. It's an epic journey but a worthwhile one!
