The band recently
employed new vocalist, Ashe O' Hara. They've done away with cookie
monster death growls, sticking instead to clean vocals. Ashe is
definitely the right pick. His high register voice perfectly
compliments the low, bassy guitars and there is so much
spine-tingling raw emotion in his delivery that I nearly slipped a
disc just listening to it.
Instrumentally, the
album is well balanced. Groovy, heavily distorted, djent riffs merge
with ambient, sustain-driven guitar passages, all played to odd time
signatures. Transitions between riffs and rhythms are smooth and
barely noticeable due to excellent song structuring. Everything on
this album feels as if its in the right place. Even the two saxophone
solos feel appropriate.
Last year, fellow djent band, Periphery, endeavoured to achieve a sound like this with their album Periphery
II: This Time It's Personal and although I loved that album, this
record is on another level. It wouldn't surprise me if this was the
future of progressive metal. Their style of gentle djent, that soon
may be grossly labelled djentle, is both extremely accessible
and technically impressive, making it good all round.
★★★★★
TRACK TASTER:
TRACK TASTER: