Siddharth Kota is a young guitar player from Pune who seems to have grown up (like many of us) loving the progressive metal of the late 2000s or early 2010s. Tesseract, Animals As Leaders, Periphery and so on (apologies for missing out on approximately 900 other bands that were making music like this). This was a truly interesting little period before it grew stale. The music was technical but still emotional; sterile but still memorable. This wasn’t only about showing off on a bunch of instrument (of course, all these bands have insane players) but about writing nice songs again. The sound still generated a lot of pretentiousness, but Siddharth avoids that on ‘Flow’, thankfully.

To be very fair, the only thing particularly ‘progressive’ here is the sound. Listeners will find familiar the compressed guitars, punchy drums and almost mechanically precise chugging (thank djent for that). Besides that, there’s actually much more to do with rock from a few decades earlier. There’s really simple, melodic riffing. There’s a big ol’ solo with some shredding that sounds very much from a more classic era. The middle of the tune (that basically two big solo sections) is by far the most interesting bit, with its quiet grooves, really fun bass elements and clean tones. When the track wants to open up, it goes into a big lead section. That isn’t particularly something you would see in prog, which would use a hook or a breakdown to achieve the same goal. This is possibly why Siddharth’s early attempt at making a big instrumental with ‘Flow’ actually benefits from being in a simpler space. It’s less technically focused and more just a bit of fun. That’s a good thing.