When I first saw Tiberius I was hooked, the Scottish band were thrilling with a boisterous stage show and a musical range that pours power metal into Djent. They were a joyous addition to any festival or show I saw them at never staying fully on the stage and getting the crowd involved as much as they could with their antics. Behind all the antics though were a five piece who were all skilled musicians and knew how best to approach songwriting and their stage show.
I didn't actually the know the band had been going for so long when I saw them but I immediately picked up their debut album Peaceful Annihilation and played the hell out of it, the way that they combined the technical prog metal style with D&D-like fantasy, melodies and chunky riffage melded together alongside only clean vocals (no growls here), made it one of my most played.
On the back of the debut album they have toured all over and played festivals such as ProgPower and Radar, it's in these shows that a lot of this material that appears on this album was workshopped, through all the breakdowns, Goblin pits and facial gurning, Tiberius became something fresher, something that will captivate a wider audience, streamlining their songs for maximum anthemic value.
So I was very excited to hear they were releasing a second album. Singing For Company is that album and from the title you can see that the whole point of these tracks is to get you moving, get you upbeat, even when things seem hopeless, or the world is getting worse, you can still escape with music. Tiberius have knack for putting often political, personal lyrics through fantasy world building and satirical, often snarky delivery.
So I was very excited to hear they were releasing a second album. Singing For Company is that album and from the title you can see that the whole point of these tracks is to get you moving, get you upbeat, even when things seem hopeless, or the world is getting worse, you can still escape with music. Tiberius have knack for putting often political, personal lyrics through fantasy world building and satirical, often snarky delivery.
A track such as Tip Of The Spear for instance has been in their set for a while now and the refrain of "Feed Me Please My Oracle" is there for call and response, a big chorus hook that will get stuck in your head. It's of course also a double entendre about how we are fed information right or wrong. Chunky start stop riffs give way to flowing melodies and technical arpeggios as guitarists Jahan Tabrizi and Chris Foster wield their weapons with mastery. Driven by the fat grooving basslines and moments of fingerstyle virtuosity from Ryan Anderson.
Tiberius is prog you can dance too and there's nothing wrong with that as you will get jiggy with Anderson and Nick Kelly controlling the rhythm on the propulsive Juggernaut, it's angular but funky, elements of dance cultures and the use of synth patterns that is so prevalent in djent today. With Grant Barclay, Tiberius have a vocalist who has all the gravitas of someone such as Paul Carrack or Myles Kennedy, Mosaic and Singing For Company both using them well with big melodic rock influences.
Tiberius is prog you can dance too and there's nothing wrong with that as you will get jiggy with Anderson and Nick Kelly controlling the rhythm on the propulsive Juggernaut, it's angular but funky, elements of dance cultures and the use of synth patterns that is so prevalent in djent today. With Grant Barclay, Tiberius have a vocalist who has all the gravitas of someone such as Paul Carrack or Myles Kennedy, Mosaic and Singing For Company both using them well with big melodic rock influences.
Though the former also showcases what I said in a recent Tesseract live review that Djent style riffs are now the acceptable face of prog and metal in general. The latter meanwhile is classic prog metal fused with Journey-like melodic rock choruses. Singing For Company advances Tiberius as a band be it the, the acoustic classical guitar middle section of Soul Saviour, more strings in Mosaic or those synth patterns that I talked about. The whole record feels fully formed, the band Tiberius have become through years of sweat and tears.
The orchestration in opener New Revelation and last track Touch The Past are the alpha and omega of this record, they share similarities but feel like a definitive beginning and end. The darker opening builds from their last album while the parp of bagpipes on the finale closes with guests female vocals and boisterous modern prog metal with shifting rhythms. Tiberius are Singing For Company and you definitely need to join this choir if you love thrilling modern prog. 10/10
The orchestration in opener New Revelation and last track Touch The Past are the alpha and omega of this record, they share similarities but feel like a definitive beginning and end. The darker opening builds from their last album while the parp of bagpipes on the finale closes with guests female vocals and boisterous modern prog metal with shifting rhythms. Tiberius are Singing For Company and you definitely need to join this choir if you love thrilling modern prog. 10/10
No comments:
Post a Comment