In Mean Deviation, Jeff Wagner (2010) expresses the dual meanings the term “prog metal” has come to signify. Whereas the genre label itself stemmed from artists seeking to embrace progression in style, tone, and composition with subsequent releases, later generations of artists influenced by these initial endeavors were formulaically predictable and removed from the progressive origins the “prog” term also engages. In the spirit of this second meaning, the band Howling Sycamore has significant ties to both past and more contemporary progressive metal history given its band membership: Davide Tiso, Jason McMaster, and Hannes Grossman. With their album releases from 2018 and 2019, Howling Sycamore’s spirit of progressivity is forefront and very little sense of formulaic predictability is present.

 

Progression for the composing musician pushes boundaries and challenges previous aesthetic or familiar bases of reference. So too is this true for the listener. If and when the spirit of progression is to occur, there is no template for simple clarity or comprehension. Rather, the process of perceiving this newness might be viewed through two lenses. First, I argue an invocation of the Kantian sublime as immersion in the soundscape overwhelms the listener upon initial spins. Then, I adapt aspects of Robert Loss’ (2017) use of “the event” as applied to the listener’s need to accommodate new strategies for bringing sense to what at first seems incomprehensible. On this personal listener’s level, the jolt received from encountering the new and unconventional found in Howling Sycamore’s recordings stands as an extension of the listener’s immediate response, but also as an extension to the legacies of Ephel Duath, Watchtower, and Blotted Science and their respective spots in prog metal lineage.

​