Back in the innocent days of September 2019, Raleigh, North Carolina-based progressive metal group Anamorph released their soaring, kaleidoscopic full-length Lucid. At just under an hour long, the album — which was recorded by renowned prog producer Jamie King (Between the Buried and Me, the Contortionist) — amalgamates elements of rock, tech-death, math-rock, post-rock and more. That being the case, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the band — guitarists Sean Parkinson and Cole Lohmann, bassist Griffin Daniels and drummer James Agusta — have very wide-ranging musical influences. As fans of all sorts of sounds, they were happy to reveal five albums they love that might surprise their own fans.
Anderson .Paak — Malibu
JAMES AGUSTA I’ve got so many good ones with my taste being all over the place, but let’s go with Malibu by Anderson .Paak. Obviously, this has very little to do with the style of music we play in this band, so it’s a great choice. The songwriting is extremely tasteful and unique. There is always an overarching feeling of real, honest musicality … that just puts it in a league of its own when it comes to music that is more accessible to the mainstream. Anderson & the Free Nationals are incredible musicians and are a truly generational group.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — Nonagon Infinity
COLE LOHMANN This album gives me the impression of a classic-rock act like Led Zeppelin with a modern progressive twist while still retaining the timbre of a band from generations ago. That’s what keeps bringing me back to this album.
Pokémon — Red & Blue (Original Soundtrack)
SEAN PARKINSON A lot of my early musical inspiration came from old video games, and it’s fun to revisit tunes from them!
Tyler, the Creator — Flower Boy
GRIFFIN DANIELS This album is just chockfull of widespread feelings, emotions, and moods. It brings a lot to the table and the songs cover a lot of ground within one album.
This Town Needs Guns — Animals
This one might be a little more obvious, but it’s definitely not prog metal. We all love this album, and the interplay and syncopation between the guitar and drums on this were very influential when crafting the sound of our band. This is about as math rock as math rock gets and is pretty much a perfect album.
