TECH/EXTREME PROG METAL

Echoes?the second release from Houston-based quartet Wills Dissolve?consists of solely the 32-minute title track. The swirling, psychedelic black hole cover art is fitting for this record. The music is huge and intergalactic, yet immensely heavy and crushing.

Ominous synth drone and staticky radio transmissions set the scene in the first two minutes. A clean syncopated guitar line slowly builds as bass and light percussion join in. It gives a feeling of ascending to some astral realm. Things remain airy, but there's a sense of impending doom permeating this passage.

Sludgy waves of death-doom metal burst out suddenly, and deep, guttural growls contrast against cleanly-sung passages. As if bursting through a sudden barrier, the music slows down and incorporates acoustic instruments. An optimistic-sounding guitar line that feels right out of Liquid Tension Experiment takes the lead, and the bassist gets in plenty of inventive licks and fills. There's another rapid oscillation back to death metal (this time accented with Cynic-style vocoded vocals), but the transitions on Echoes never feel jarring or disjointed.

Wills Dissolve incorporate inventive, unusual timbres and textures with both their guitars and vocals. Everything operates in degrees of distortion: guitars can be acoustic, clean electric, or evil-sounding; and vocals similarly are sung cleanly, growled, or put through a synthesizer. The band experiments with layering these sounds, to great success.

As the song progresses, the slower, more plodding death-doom of early on gives way to a furious tempest of blackened death metal, though doom metal tinges remain. Gentle reprieves are smartly dispersed, so as to avoid overloading the listener with a never-ending torrent of musical brutality.

The album's closing minutes combine thick walls of distortion with majestic clean vocals and another impressive solo. Echoes draws to a close on a calmer, more somber note from the preceding pummeling, but it fits beautifully.

Echoes is a tour-de-force of progressive death metal. The cosmic interludes help both to add gravity to the heavier moments, as well as act as palette cleansers, to keep everything fresh. Though not a long album, this one behemoth song flies by in what feels like under 10 minutes.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2020/10/06/album-review-wills-dissolve-echoes/

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/10/21/odds-ends-october-21-2019/

Moving past the artwork, though, The Voyage stands on its own as a strong, enjoyable album. Many riffs are rooted in sludge metal, but the band incorporate other influences, including jazz and folk, to create smart contrasts and interesting textures.

"'Welcome Reality'" opens the album with riffs which are equal measures Mastodon and Opeth, stampeding under snaking scale runs. Overdubbed acoustic arpeggios are an unexpected element here as well. The vocal melody, while not the most original, is strong, and the vocals (to a degree) remind me of James LaBrie in his prime.

"The Kraken" moves at a slower pace and has a less-enveloping atmosphere than the opener. This song's roots feel closer to traditional doom metal, though the verses are presented with a sludgier edge. The instrumental moments in the song's second half have some fun with time signatures. It's nothing particularly technical, but the rhythm is off-kilter and always shifting. "Beyond the Cape" is the most overtly proggy track on the album. The chorus is big and melodic, and the moments in between riffs are engaging and complex. Keyboard flourishes are used to great effect.

The Voyage closes on its title track, a strange amalgam of classic prog metal tropes and jazzy flourishes. It's an enjoyable song, but the different elements can feel a bit disjointed, which does detract. Similar weaknesses can be heard on "Peleliu", where it sounds like there were a lot of ideas but not a particularly coherent way of stringing them together.

This is a good debut album. Halcyon Reign have laid down six tracks of pretty solid progressive metal, but there is room for improvement. Some of the songs felt like they lacked direction or were otherwise unfocused, and the deployment of jazz touches felt especially scattershot. The DNA for more great music is there. They've got the chops and no shortage of ideas. They just need to figure out how to better harness those elements.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/11/11/album-review-halcyon-reign-the-voyage/

In Mourning have been around for nearly two decades, giving them plenty of time to develop their own unique flourishes within the framework of progressive melodic death metal. Garden of Storms is their fifth full-length release and a noticeable step up in quality over 2016's Afterglow. The songwriting is strong, and there is a smart degree of interplay between distorted and clean sections.

The opening track, "Black Storm", demonstrates both In Mourning's similarities to and differences from Opeth. The main riff is a dark bit of melodic death metal that injects creepy atmospheric elements. Vocalist Tobias Netzell shows impressive range and versatility in both his growls and his clean singing. Among such typical traits of prog-melo-death, there are shoegaze-tinted passages that remind me of something Agalloch might have done.

"Yields of Sand" follows in a starkly different manner. Opening with clean everything, it is evocative of new wave or post-punk. The sound soon shifts to more familiar fare: harsh vocals, distorted guitars, and crashing drums. The melodies are strong, and the song evolves in a way that always keeps the listener engaged.

With this being a melodic death metal album, there needs to be at least one (mostly) slow and gentle song. "Magenta Ritual" is pretty strong as far as death metal ballads go. The song is inventive structurally, with a very harsh midsection contrasting with the gentle opening and heavy-yet-melodic closing. "Tribunal of Suns" showcases similar contrasts of gentle and aggressive, albeit in an inverted order.

As good as the music on this album is, though, some of it does begin to feel same-y after a while. Much of the middle of this album lacks sonic variation, and the songs can be difficult to tell apart. Perhaps cutting a song or rearranging the order would have helped. But as it stands, some of it is a bit of a slog.

Garden of Storms closes on its longest and most engaging song, "The Lost Outpost". The opening guitar line is fluid and languid, but it soon shifts to something sharper and more biting. Bassist Sebastian Svalland gets a chance to show off in some of the song's more atmospheric moments, providing some great, distorted fills. Creepy keyboard tones augment the song's finale, which ends on a haunting note.

In Mourning have released one of the better progressive death metal albums I've heard this year. Garden of Storms has inventive melodies, top-notch instrumental work, and masterful vocal performances. The middle of this album feels a bit of bloated, but it isn't anything too egregious. I'm hopeful that future releases will be more focused and that the band will continue evolving and exploring.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/11/18/album-review-in-mourning-garden-of-storms/

Seven Pathways to Annihilation is, in many ways, a series of contrasts to Howling Sycamore. Where the band's debut was a lean, 37-minute assault, this record sprawls. Not just in its 50-minute runtime, but the individual songs feature more internal tempo and dynamic variation. Even the album cover is an inversion from the debut. The blue, multi-pronged bolt of lightning contrasts against the bare, orange sycamore tree of the first album. One place the two albums do not clash is in the quality of the music. Seven Pathways to Annihilation is a fitting successor to the band's fantastic first album.

"Mastering Fire", the opening track, feels more restrained than most of Howling Sycamore's previous output. The drums are masterfully played, with the work on the toms providing just as much textural backing as the guitars. "Departure" continues in a similar vein. The moderate tempo is used to great effect, allowing McMaster's vocals to pierce through the guitar. No one would ever describe his voice as delicate, but his bombastic delivery is still rich in subtlety and nuance.

"Initiation" is one of the highlights on this album. It's the most intense song yet, and the dynamism only serves to increase the drama. The guitars' sparseness makes the soaring lines they cut that much more impactful.

I don't have many gripes about this album, but they arise in the second half. A curse of bands with distinct sounds is that their songs can have a tendency to run together. They might be good compositions, but they can be indistinct. "Second Sight" and "Tempest's Chant" suffer from a mild form of this. They're good songs, but they don't do much to stand out.

The second half is still quite good, overall. "Raw Bones" ups the band's intensity to new heights. The passion of each member of this trio is evident, whether it's McMaster's shrieks, the typhoon of drums from Hannes Grossmann, or Davide Tiso's guitars which both pummel and slice as needed. "Sorcerer", the 10-minute closer, is the strongest track on the album. It features the finest distillation of the band's ability to construct a song which keeps building and building, reaching a soaring apex. (Otrebor of the band Botanist also makes an appearance on this song, providing hammered dulcimer for the epilog.)

I'm glad Howling Sycamore are back. The contrasts drawn with their first album are clear, yet not overbearing. Seven Pathways to Annihilation has a distinct mood and sound, but there was no radical overhaul of the band's sound. I could see Howling Sycamore being an acquired taste, but I'd recommend fans of progressive thrash and progressive black metal give these guys a try.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/07/21/album-review-howling-sycamore-seven-pathways-to-annihilation/

After the brief, idyllic opener, growls and aggressive, chugging death metal riffs take the spotlight and drive "Solace in Oblivion" forward. As is to be expected of a band so heavily drawing from Opeth's sound, these extended pieces have frequent breaks of quiet jazz guitar and moments of soaring clean vocals. Many of the softer moments would not feel out of place on a Camel album. The narration on this song is pretty corny, but it's a minor issue overall.

This pattern of snarling riffage gets a reprieve on "The Sky Is Our Shelter". This song is one area where Piah Mater actually exceed Opeth. The latter's ballads often feel tepid and uninspired, but this song slinks along with fluid guitar lines and warbling keys to create a calm yet tense piece of music. The eventual entrance of distorted instrumentation is impactful in a way rarely achieved in many metal ballads.

The closing epic "The Meek's Inheritance" is another highpoint. Clean and growled vocals frequently swap the spotlight. The music rarely lets up in intensity, serving to augment the lyrical condemnation of human greed and its impact upon the world. After a brief jazz interlude, the song's finale kicks into high gear. Haunting, echoing clean guitar arpeggios soar over the distorted foundation.

Not everything on this album is amazing, though. While the comparison to Opeth is mostly positive, it is also unavoidable. Piah Mater ape Opeth hard. The similarity at times is so uncanny it's distracting, and it's particularly egregious in the opening minutes of "Earthbound Ruins". "Sprung from Weakness" doesn't do much to stand out either, and all the longer tracks are undermined by poorly-developed moments, blurring together into an indistinct blob.

I'm looking forward to this band's future output, but I also really hope they diversify their sound or do something to differentiate themselves. I like Opeth, and it's fine to draw inspiration from them. But hearing a band that sound almost exactly the same sucks some of the fun out of discovering new music.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/02/11/album-review-piah-mater-the-wandering-daughter/

Little did i realize a few months ago that NE OBLIVISCARIS was close to releasing the newest installment of their canon in the form of the fourth album EXUL arriving six years after the band's last full-length "Urn" which seemed to find the band waning in its creative mojo and dipping in fan appreciation. Well EXUL seems to be rocketing the band back into the spotlight as prog metal's most creative modern day band and it's not really difficult to understand why this is the case. After all this extreme metal band that started out somewhere between black and death metal with progressive excursions has slowly shapeshfited itself into a tighter unit and while the black metal aspects have been primarily extinguished, these Aussies have veered into the world of classical to craft some mighty symphonic backings for their aggressive rampages bathed in thematic prose.

One of the key elements that has always allowed NE OBLIVISCARIS to stand out in the world of extreme metal is the use of the violin provided by Tim Charles and although strings have also helped carve out careers for doom metal bands such as My Dying Bride and Evoken, violins have not become a common staple in death metal but then again NE OBLIVISCARIS can hardly be considered a death metal band with its genre bending antics that have resulted in a sound that is unlike any other. With lush pastoral backings and excursions into true symphonic splendor, NE OBLIVISCARIS has tamed things down considerably since its raucous debut and steered things into a more focused easier-on-the-ears endeavor. A boon for those not acclimated to the extremes of harsh metal brashness and a bane to those who thrive on the most of extreme music of all.

One of the main differences between EXUL and the first two albums (somehow i missed "Urn") is a much more pronounced addition of clean vocals that often act as the sole lyrical delivery as well as providing an all male beauty and beast effect of clean vs guttural growls. This is particularly dominant on the two part "Misericorde" which adds up to over 17 minutes of the album's near 52-minute playing time. Unlike the debut the music is much more streamlined and less chaotic that meaning fewer hairpin turns and the experimental unorthodoxies have been tamped down big time. The focus on extended composiitons in the sense of classic symphonic prog is more the modus operandi. In many ways EXUL is a more polished and sanitized stylistic approach with a clear aim for some crossover success but hardcore metalheads need not worry. Although tamped down a few notches, the extreme metal effect is still rife with ferocious guitar riffs and growly growls as fertile as an alley cat in heat.

While personally i prefer the band's first two releases i cannot say that this newest shift in stylistic approach is an unpleasant one at all. Sure it seems there are more clean vocals than anyone thought possible but lead vocalist Xenoyr proves to be quite competent as a metal crooner as he is hacking his lungs out. Overall not a bad update to the NE OBLIVISCARIS even if EXUL fails to match the wow factor of the band's unbeatable classic debut "Portal Of I." The best part about EXUL is that it excels on the progressive side of the band's equation with thoughtful compositional fortitude trumping the lack of extreme metal dominance. Looks like this is going to be another huge hit for the band.

EPs often give artists freedom to explore more diverse and adventurous landscapes that may be instead sacrificed in full-length releases, where sonic coherence is often a priority. Neither Moth Nor Rust is no exception in this sense, and finds Hanging Garden gently experimenting with new influences, while at the same time retaining their identity as melodic doom/death band. The title-track branches out towards sonorities that remind me of Amorphis in the late 1990s, rich in folk and psychedelic undertones and with big, ear-worming melodies at the heart of the song. The interplay between growls, male cleans, and female cleans is very entertaining, each vocal style adding its own different shade to the composition. The next two tracks are even more interesting. "The Last Dance" is based on huge dynamics, swinging majestically between pop-tinged verses with tastefully autotuned vocals, an ultra-heavy and dissonant bridge with double-tracked growls, and a melancholic chorus where Riikka Hatakka's subdued vocals truly shine. "And Leave All Love Behind" opens with gentle piano arpeggios and acoustic guitars, before developing into a quasi-ambient tune that again draws on folk and psychedelia as its core influences.

The second-half of the EP is somewhat less interesting. "The Raven Portrait" is a short piano interlude, while "On the Shore of Eternity" is perhaps the most conventional track on the EP in the sense that is closest to the material from Skeleton Lake, with marked doom / dark metal influences that may delight fans of bands like Katatonia or Anathema. The EP closes with "Field of Reed", which is actually the biggest surprise here. The song is a remake of the homonymous track from the band's 2021 LP, completely rearranged as electronic pop, with beats, keyboards and samples dominating over the rest of the instrumentation. It's not a terribly successful experiment, in my opinion, partly because the song relies on somewhat weak melodies that do not really have the strength to transform it in an electro-pop hit single. Moreover, in 2022 this type of remakes come as no surprise to metal fans, as goth/doom metal bands have engaged in electro-pop experimentation since the late 1990s. As such "Field of Reed" does not really seem to add much, neither to the band's catalogue nor to the genre as a whole.

Despite the slightly weaker second half, Neither Moth Nor Rust is an interesting EP that fans of the band may want to grab (the physical CD is limited to 200 copies, so hurry up if you are interested in this release). Although there is no revolution in the band's sound here, the EP brings to the fore influences that may have been slightly buried on the recent LP, which is always interesting to hear. In fact, I would have liked Hanging Garden to spend more time developing these influences across more songs, ideally in the context of a more organic, full-length release. But perhaps this is what EPs' main function actually is: leaving you wanting to hear more from the band and curious to see what they will do on their next full-length album. And this cannot possibly be a bad thing, can it?

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]

The dualism between male (both growls and cleans) and female clean vocals is indeed one of the main strengths of the record, making for a varied and interesting vocal performance. You may think "beauty and the beast" and that that genre has been done to the death ? but Hanging Garden's approach to the male/female duets is actually quite different from that of bands like Theatre of Tragedy or Tristania, mainly because Riikka Hatakka stays clear from the ethereal, soprano-like singing that is typical of the genre. Her voice is instead much warmer and fuller, reminding me of Stefanie Duchêne (Flowing Tears, another great melodic doom/gothic act from the early 2000s) or Anathema's Lee Douglas. Riikka's performance is spellbinding and is perfectly complemented by Toni's blackened growls and croony cleans ? pushing the record into blackened gothic territories with songs like opener "Kuura" or the single "Winter's Kiss", which also features backing vocals by Jaani Peuhu (Swallow the Sun) and is probably the catchiest and most immediate song of the album.

The other strength of Skeleton Lake is its ability to strike a great balance between melody and heaviness. The sound is thick and full, with distorted guitars, keys and bass forming a formidable wall that transmits a sense of bleakness and dread to the listener. But the songs are also full of beautiful melodies, conveyed by the vocals but also by the guitar that often provides melodic lines and riffs in a style that reminds me a lot of Katatonia. Songs like "Nowhere Haven" and "Tunturi" feature those vaguely dissonant, minimally distorted melodic guitar riffs that scream "Anders Nyström". It's a great formula that is satisfying on multiple levels, whether you just want something to headbang to or whether you are looking for an album for quiet, dark evenings by the fireplace.

There are also a few surprises thrown in the mix ? showing a desire to push boundaries that may appeal to prog metal fans. "Kuura" suddenly descends into a Floydian, spacey mid-section with filtered vocals. It's an odd choice, but it works a charm. "When the Music Dies" explores folk territories with its gentle 3/4 tempo and dreamy melodies, while "Tunturi" features the domra, a folk string instrument similar to a lute. The song structure and arrangements are also quite varied, moving between calm acoustic sections and more frenetic heavy parts, continuously accelerating and slowing down ? which makes for an interesting and never boring listening experience.

The album flows away pleasantly, with a few moments of excellence ("Kuura", "Winter's Kiss", "Skeleton Lake"), albeit it loses a bit steam in the second half, where pieces like "Road of Bones" and "Field of Reeds" are melodically weaker and somewhat dull. The weaker second-half contributes to the impression I had that the album somewhat lacks a satisfying development: taken one by one, the songs are great but after the first 4/5 pieces one gets the sense that the album is "stuck on repeat", as the subsequent songs follow a similar structure and convey similar emotions as the earlier ones. I always wish albums would take me places, but that requires a sequencing of songs that develop a full emotional arc, something I somewhat missed here. I also missed a bit more nuance in the sound production. Music so varied and articulated as the one on Skeleton Lake would have deserved a more refined production to appreciate the songs in all their subtleties.

Despite these criticisms, Skeleton Lake is a very strong album, and one of the records I enjoyed the most in this first half of 2021. The album jacket contains a "FFO" line that mentions Katatonia, Anathema, Swallow the Sun and Ulver. It's a pretty accurate description of the influences that pervade the 9 songs of the record, especially for Katatonia and Swallow the Sun. If you are a fan of any of these bands, you should give Skeleton Lake a try ? I promise you won't be disappointed.

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]

Right from the start, the title-track sets the perfect ambience for the record that we have come to expect from Hanging Garden. The tempo is slow-paced, with the drums locked in a barren pattern of kick/snare and open/closed hi-hat notes that remains mostly constant throughout the track, emphasizing its plumbeous atmosphere. A slowly downpicked rhythm guitar adds to the gloomy vibe, while the lead guitar and keyboards provide contrast by weaving in slow, melancholic melodies and dreamy textures. The same interplay of light and dark is achieved through the layered vocal arrangements. Riikka Hatakka provides soothing, ethereal vocals, while her brother Toni Hatakka alternates between languid cleans and cavernous growls. The song structure is fluid, loosely based on recurring themes but without the predictable alternation between rigidly-defined verses and chorus. It's a complex, dynamic, multi-layered composition that envelopes the listener with a thick blanket of melancholy, while offering lingering rays of light and hope. This evokes the same type of mellow, soul-piercing atmosphere we may find in the music of bands like Swallow the Sun or (for those who remember them) early EverEve.

Hanging Garden maintain this delicate balance throughout the album, gradually incorporating additional influences into their artistic palette. Songs such as 'The Construct' and 'The Nightfall' pay homage to Type O Negative, with clean vocals reminiscent of Peter Steele, while 'The Song of Spring' and 'The Fire at First Dawn' delve further into gothic atmospheres with a touch of Paradise Lost and Anathema. In other tracks, the extreme metal influences become more prominent, nudging the music towards the territory of melodic death metal (Insomnium and Dark Tranquillity, in particular). Overall, compared to their previous record Skeleton Lake, Hanging Garden seem to have shed some of the catchy gothic gimmicks in favor of a sound that is both heavier and more atmospheric.

Although The Garden's 11 songs create pleasant soundscapes, the album still falls short of escaping the same pitfalls found in the band's previous work. At 48 minutes of length, the lack of variation in pace, structure and ambience can be a drag. This is particularly noticeable in the mellower mid-section of the LP, where tracks between 'The Fire at First Dawn' and 'The Journey' tend to blur together, lacking strongly distinctive elements that differentiate them. Partly, this also reflects the band's tendency to frontload their albums, which was also the case with the previous LP. The opening four songs contain the most inspired material, and listeners have to wait until the closing track 'The Resolute' to experience the same strong response triggered in the first 20 minutes of the LP. However, even at its best, it's hard to ignore the feeling that The Garden stays always too close to its influences, particularly Swallow the Sun. With around 50/60 new metal albums released each week, creative personality and originality are crucial to stand out from the crowd, and Hanging Garden fall somewhat short in this respect.

Overall, The Garden is an album that simmers rather than erupts, relying on its overall cinematic atmosphere to convey its beauty instead of catchy tunes that immediately grab you. While it may not reach the magnum opus status the band intended, it remains a strong example of melodic gothic doom/death metal that will no doubt please fans of Hanging Garden as well as other bands mentioned in this review.

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]