The Aggressive Progressive Tour Review

Sunday was Father’s day, and also a bleak, gloomy, rainy day full of thunderstorms and torrential rain. For these reasons, I almost skipped this concert, but I’m glad I didn’t. Despite living on the north side of Houston, and the venue (Scout Bar) being on the far south side, I often make the lengthy trek to see bands I love. I just hate to do it when it is raining. What normally is an hour and twenty minute drive ended up being nearly two and a half hours, and for that reason, I sadly missed the performance from Glacial Tomb. I’m told it was incredible though, so hopefully if you get to attend this tour, you won’t miss out.

INTER ARMA

First up for me was the difficult-to-define band, Inter Arma. They’re a mixture of Sludge, Black, Death, and Progressive metal, and they’re absolutely incredible live. Not only are they fun to watch, but they really exhibit their personalities while performing.

The night before this show in Houston, Metallica played a record-setting show in town. Inter Arma’s drummer T.J. Childers locked onto one of the front row headbangers who was wearing a brand new Metallica shirt, and kept pausing between songs to ask said headbanger questions about the Metallica show. “Did they play X Song?”, “Should we play X Song?”, and most hilariously “How was Lars?”. The response: “Lars was sloppy, but okay”… to which T.J. smiled and replied “Just like me!” before chugging a beer and blasting into the next song.

HOLY FAWN

Holy Fawn is a new band to me, and while they sell a lot of merch that looks like it belongs to a black metal band, they’re really much more of a progressive rock band. I did listen to their latest album prior to the concert, and went in expecting 100% clean vocals, so I was pleasantly surprised when they played their latest single, and it was an 80/20 mix of screams/cleans. They followed that up with a new song they’ve just written called “Fuck ICE, No One is Illegal”, which also featured a lot more screams.

While I’m not the biggest fan of most clean singing, theirs is pretty good. It seems like they’re trending towards including more harsh vocals in new music too, which I think would greatly benefit their sound. If you’ve never heard them before, check them out, especially if your tolerance for cleans in progressive rock is higher than mine.

RIVERS OF NIHIL

Rivers of Nihil is one of my favorite bands. “Where Owls Know my Name” and “The Work” both reside in my top10 albums of all-time list. They’re brimming with emotion and depth, and are two of the strongest concept albums I’ve ever heard. That’s why I drove through a monsoon to get to this show.

Their latest album, the self-titled “Rivers of Nihil” is very good but doesn’t resonate with me the same as their previous two. There’s a lot more clean singing, less emotionally driven songs, and the lack of a cohesive concept behind the album just wasn’t what I was expecting after they concluded their four seasons concept. That said, there’s still a lot of bangers, and it’s a fun album to rock out to.

They performed a great mix of songs from across the three albums, opening with The Sub-Orbital Blues and closing out with Where Owls Know my Name. Full setlist shown below:

The Sub‐Orbital Blues
The Silent Life
American Death
A Home
The Void From Which No Sound Escapes
Water & Time
House of Light
Death Is Real
Episode
Where Owls Know My Name

This was my third time seeing Rivers of Nihil, and my first time seeing them since Jake Dieffenbach was replaced by Andy Thomas. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Andy absolutely blew me away with his performance. He made all the songs his own, and it really felt like Rivers of Nihil never skipped a beat. The performance was top-tier all around, with super-tight guitarwork and bass, amazing drumwork, and incredibly fun and entertaining performances by their touring saxophonist, Patrick Corona.

Overall, it was a very fun night, and well worth getting soaked and missing part of the Father’s Day celebrations. If you get a chance to see one of the last remaining shows on the Aggressive Progressive Tour, take it!

I’ve posted videos of a few songs from the show on my instagram. @harshvocalssite if you’d like to check them out.

I also picked up some new shirts at the show: