I've seen Klone a number of times in the last but the last time I watched them play will stay with me for a while. Supporting Riverside, the French band played an acoustic set, the lighting set to the tonal changes, the sound crystalline perfection of a band stripped back but mesmeric.
For me they were better than Riverside on the night, the acoustic show deliberate so they didn't blow the headliners off the stage with their ever impressive art-rock. This acoustic expression has come to influence Klone over their past few albums, and here with the percussive Magnetic. The atmospheres and tones of electronic/alternative and progressive music brought into a fusion similarly to the way Leprous have shifted their sound away from djenty heaviness into lighter melodies and emotive warmth.
Klone have taken a similar route for all of the dreamscapes such as Slow Down, there's the heavy thump of grunge and alternative rock. Soundgarden-like metallic sheen to their music on Interlaced but much more reminiscent of Porcupine Tree playing Alice In Chains, much of their music floats in a spectral landscape of undulating colours and textures. Emotive and conceptual, Klone have once again broken new sonic ground and built further on their signature expansive sound. It's a concoction they have been refining since 2019's Le Grand Voyage, gaining them a bigger audience, one worthy of a band on their tenth studio album.
Yes 25 years into their career and they have an album where every member shows what they can do, be it the meticulous, fluid playing of guitarists Guillaume Bernard and Aldrick Guadagnino, the open chords on the epic Spring feeling like Leprous or Steven Wilson via Opeth. In the powerhouse of the rhythm section Jean Etienne Maillard's bass spindly as it takes on a life of it's own set against the dexterous drumming of Florent Marcadet, who brings jazz to interlaced and After The Sun, the influence of jazz also felt by the use of saxophone.
Klone have taken a similar route for all of the dreamscapes such as Slow Down, there's the heavy thump of grunge and alternative rock. Soundgarden-like metallic sheen to their music on Interlaced but much more reminiscent of Porcupine Tree playing Alice In Chains, much of their music floats in a spectral landscape of undulating colours and textures. Emotive and conceptual, Klone have once again broken new sonic ground and built further on their signature expansive sound. It's a concoction they have been refining since 2019's Le Grand Voyage, gaining them a bigger audience, one worthy of a band on their tenth studio album.
Yes 25 years into their career and they have an album where every member shows what they can do, be it the meticulous, fluid playing of guitarists Guillaume Bernard and Aldrick Guadagnino, the open chords on the epic Spring feeling like Leprous or Steven Wilson via Opeth. In the powerhouse of the rhythm section Jean Etienne Maillard's bass spindly as it takes on a life of it's own set against the dexterous drumming of Florent Marcadet, who brings jazz to interlaced and After The Sun, the influence of jazz also felt by the use of saxophone.
With tracks such as The Unseen and Desire Line it's Yann Ligner's voice that heals a d soothes you, the vocal guides through these journeys, he's one of my favourite vocalists around and his emotion and fragility on this record is hair-raising. I've played The Unseen countless times and each listen unveils something more, a stunning album from a special band. 10/10
Neal Morse & The Resonance - No Hill For A Climber (Radiant Records)
Whatever you think about rock music that has a strong religious message, the commitment Neal Morse has to his faith is something that must be commended. Since he left Spock's Beard, the band he co-founded, he has dedicated quite a significant amount of his solo material to celebrating his faith going as far as full blown concept records based around passages of The Bible.
What Morse has also stuck to is the sound he pioneered with Spock's Beard, inspired by the prog rock gats such as Yes, Genesis and Emerson Lake And Palmer, Neal Morse albums and those with Transatlantic, are always grandiose affairs with epic run times, cinematic shifts and plenty of virtuoso musicianship invariably from a who's who of prog rock/metal players.
However his new project Neal Morse & The Resonance tries to add a freshness and shake up the formula. It's a record based on Barbara Kingsolver's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, a stark and dark retelling of the Dickens classic David Copperfield but unlike previous projects Morse chose a talented group of local musicians to make up his band here, on the urging of his wife.
Joing Morse on keys/guitars/bass/percussion/vocals is Chris Riley with Andre Madatian on guitars/orchestrations and drummer Philip Martin behind the kit. He also has a dedicated vocalist in Johnny Bisaha, another drummer in Joe Ganzelli, backing singers, string player and horn section. A massive band then for a massive album. Three 5-6 minute numbers wedged between two 20+ epics, the title track nearly 30 minutes long.
It's these middle songs that are the ones where this injection of youth comes in, adding new ideas, but some familiar lyrical content, while the two epics are classic Morse. Sat somewhere between his Spock's Beard latter period and the second Transatlantic release, No Hill For A Climber is another great Neal Morse record. 9/10
Sólstafir - Hin Helga Kvöl (Century Media Records)
Are Sólstafir Iceland’s most successful metal band? Well they’re certainly the most recognised by those outside of their native Scandinavia. As with so many bands who compose and live within the Arctic Circle in the constant darkness or eternal twilight, surrounded by the barren, beautiful, volcanic landscape of their native country, the music the band produce defies a lot of genre tropes. At times it shimmers with crystalline post rock, the next dives into the molten darkness of extreme metal, performing in their native language somehow making it more emotive, relying on how you interpret it (as an English speaker) an not whether you can understand.
Whatever you think about rock music that has a strong religious message, the commitment Neal Morse has to his faith is something that must be commended. Since he left Spock's Beard, the band he co-founded, he has dedicated quite a significant amount of his solo material to celebrating his faith going as far as full blown concept records based around passages of The Bible.
What Morse has also stuck to is the sound he pioneered with Spock's Beard, inspired by the prog rock gats such as Yes, Genesis and Emerson Lake And Palmer, Neal Morse albums and those with Transatlantic, are always grandiose affairs with epic run times, cinematic shifts and plenty of virtuoso musicianship invariably from a who's who of prog rock/metal players.
However his new project Neal Morse & The Resonance tries to add a freshness and shake up the formula. It's a record based on Barbara Kingsolver's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, a stark and dark retelling of the Dickens classic David Copperfield but unlike previous projects Morse chose a talented group of local musicians to make up his band here, on the urging of his wife.
Joing Morse on keys/guitars/bass/percussion/vocals is Chris Riley with Andre Madatian on guitars/orchestrations and drummer Philip Martin behind the kit. He also has a dedicated vocalist in Johnny Bisaha, another drummer in Joe Ganzelli, backing singers, string player and horn section. A massive band then for a massive album. Three 5-6 minute numbers wedged between two 20+ epics, the title track nearly 30 minutes long.
It's these middle songs that are the ones where this injection of youth comes in, adding new ideas, but some familiar lyrical content, while the two epics are classic Morse. Sat somewhere between his Spock's Beard latter period and the second Transatlantic release, No Hill For A Climber is another great Neal Morse record. 9/10
Sólstafir - Hin Helga Kvöl (Century Media Records)
Are Sólstafir Iceland’s most successful metal band? Well they’re certainly the most recognised by those outside of their native Scandinavia. As with so many bands who compose and live within the Arctic Circle in the constant darkness or eternal twilight, surrounded by the barren, beautiful, volcanic landscape of their native country, the music the band produce defies a lot of genre tropes. At times it shimmers with crystalline post rock, the next dives into the molten darkness of extreme metal, performing in their native language somehow making it more emotive, relying on how you interpret it (as an English speaker) an not whether you can understand.
Aðalbjörn Tryggvason’s vocals carry a power to bewitch, there’s an angst, a longing that comes through with the driving numbers such as Hún andar, the stripped back beauty of Freygátan and when they slow to doomy percussive blows that so often evolve into full bore elemental black metal, such as the title track. As the band shifted focus towards more anthemic tones in their music, they have embraced a type of open chord post punk that incorporates the swagger of a Morricone western.
I suppose it reflects their country being one of the last few truly wild frontiers. Tryggvason and Sæþór Maríus Sæþórsson’s guitars are a full widescreen experience, the clean open melodies layered for full effect, but then distorted and raw for the aggressive parts, both coming with Vor ás. Svavar Austmann’s bass used to full effect on the wailing post rock of Sálumessa, the steady, studious drumming of Hallgrímur Jón Hallgrímsson a solid backbone here an on the raging Nú mun ljósið deyja.
Haunting and atmospheric due to stripped back production and the influence of their countries co-existence in both dark and light, Hin Helga Kvöl (The Holy Suffering) encourages you to lose yourself in Sólstafir’s beautiful gloom. 8/10
Sol Invicto - Loosely Aware (Omyac Records)
Loosely Aware are the first three 'official' tracks released by underground metal band Sol Invito. Formed by producer/guitarist Richie Londres, Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter and Cypress Hill percussionist Eric Bobo. Originally based in the D&B/Industrial sound, they formed the Sol Invicto Comiti, an experimental members only club that resulted in a double album of demos and experiments. So Loosely Aware then is as I've said the first official release for the band outside of their own comiti.
A track such as Lost In Translation is testament to what Sol Invicto do as a band, Latin rhythms, crushing modern heavy metal, industrial desolation, it's almost like a combination of the members other bands but with a take no prisoners style of composition. With Bobo now off with London Symphony Orchestra's Londres tapped Dan Foord of Sikth to sit behind the drums so they could think about playing live. Every moment of these three tracks is aggressive, the percussion plays a major part of their style as you'd expect but Carpenter and Londres' riffs are choppy and techy with that thump of industrial metal in the background adding dissonance.
With a full length in the works as Sol Invicto and remixes under the Comiti banner there's a lot of music that's left to be explored by this collaboration. 7/10
Sol Invicto - Loosely Aware (Omyac Records)
Loosely Aware are the first three 'official' tracks released by underground metal band Sol Invito. Formed by producer/guitarist Richie Londres, Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter and Cypress Hill percussionist Eric Bobo. Originally based in the D&B/Industrial sound, they formed the Sol Invicto Comiti, an experimental members only club that resulted in a double album of demos and experiments. So Loosely Aware then is as I've said the first official release for the band outside of their own comiti.
A track such as Lost In Translation is testament to what Sol Invicto do as a band, Latin rhythms, crushing modern heavy metal, industrial desolation, it's almost like a combination of the members other bands but with a take no prisoners style of composition. With Bobo now off with London Symphony Orchestra's Londres tapped Dan Foord of Sikth to sit behind the drums so they could think about playing live. Every moment of these three tracks is aggressive, the percussion plays a major part of their style as you'd expect but Carpenter and Londres' riffs are choppy and techy with that thump of industrial metal in the background adding dissonance.
With a full length in the works as Sol Invicto and remixes under the Comiti banner there's a lot of music that's left to be explored by this collaboration. 7/10
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