With influences to its breeding ranging from “70’s/80’s Rush and Genesis to more modern prog like Dream Theatre and Between the Buried and Me” it was hard to exactly imagine what the debut album from UK metallers Redshift was going to offer. It was an intrigue though rewarded with a release which was as unpredictable as it was fascinating and only increasingly enjoyable by the listen.
Their sound is tagged as progressive metal but that only gives one aspect of the Bath trio’s sound. It embraces extreme metal textures as easily and readily as melodic and classic hues, the band’s technical prowess just as ripe and open within the creative tapestry. For personal appetites there are moments which simply enthral and other times where the record merely held keen intrigue yet from start to finish Cataclysm held court on ears and attention and as mentioned with increasing success.
A concept album depicting the story of an invasion like no other around an engrossing lyrical thread based around honour, love, and a devastating apocalyptic event, the Ben Turner produced and Jamie King (Between the Buried and Me, The Contortionist) mastered Cataclysm easily lured attention with its opener, Overture: Something In The Sky. Immediately the technical craft of the band engaged; the guitar of Joshua Boniface casting a lure of intimation before showing its feral side alongside the driving rhythmic incitement of drummer Jack Camp and the rich lines of bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Liam Fear. The instrumental with its progressive suggestiveness effortlessly had the imagination weaving before the full force of Invasion descends.
The second track rises up from the formers portentous calm, almost hunting the senses and conjuring thoughts before rushing their barricades with vocal causticity amidst guitar spun wiring. The unpredictability and imagination of the band’s sound is soon properly unveiled, the song an aural kaleidoscope of flavours and sonic grains all designed to spread the tale and entice firm attention. Extreme and seductive textures continue to fluidly collude across the compelling proposition, the band’s progressive instincts seemingly honing the attributes of everything unveiled before Call to Arms stirred things up further with defiance and aggression. Yet it too brings an infectious melodic essence to its eruption, the mellower calms in between like the verbal and sonic narrator to the blossoming conflict. As the album itself both are tracks which reveal a little more by the listen, the richness of their narrative and bodies only thickened over time.
Promises provides a melodic amnesty to the friction, its unsettled piano crafted repose the calm before the storm, a tempest announced by church bell chimes and unleashed by the outstanding Fire, Smoke and Thunder. It devours the senses instantly, every angle of its attack carnivorous but equally voraciously virulent, ferocity and barbarous intent in league with dextrous progressively hued enterprise throughout. Easily our favourite track within Cataclysm, it tips a great potent release over into rousingly impressive if leaving the final pair of tracks the unenviable challenge of following its triumph.
Both May Fate Rest Upon You and The Last Stand may miss out rivalling their predecessor but both escalate the album’s appeal, the first with its classic hues over appetite nagging technical prowess and the closing track through its evocative atmosphere and expressive melodic radiance, a redolent beauty across a mercurial landscape which is never far from erupting and at times does so with rapacious agility and expectations defeating invention.
The final song also epitomises the unpredictable nature of album and sound, a core reason of its perpetual fascination and temptation and even after numerous plays we are discovering fresh things to chew on and enjoy within Cataclysm. Suggested as an album for fans of bands such as Opeth, Between the Buried and Me, and Dream Theater, Redshift has provided something well worth checking out for anyone with a taste for adventure.
Cataclysm is available now digitally and on CD @ https://redshiftband.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.facebook.com/RedshiftBandUK/ https://twitter.com/RedshiftBandUK https://www.instagram.com/redshiftbanduk/?hl=en
Pete RingMaster 01/05/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
Drive follows and it too simply seizes ears from its first wiry throes before opening up its kaleidoscopic landscape, one tempestuous and as unsettled as it is creatively magnetic but a maelstrom of enterprise fluidly consuming and exciting ears. Classic hues join modern and progressive essences as the song blossoms by the twist and turn, Pickin’s vocals a strong and emotionally disturbed match for the cauldron of sounds around him. Both the opening pair of tracks has an inherent catchiness to them which is just as instinctive within next up Call Of The Judderman. Initially there is a common wiring between the third song and its predecessor, a core asylum of sonic endeavour but it soon unveils its own unique character and presence across three minutes of compelling confrontation.
Mother Nature Is a Serial Killer followed with a gentle coaxing of the senses, the melodic beckoning of guitar a quickly captivating intimation within which a surge of riffs brews, coming closer by the half breath before leading in another entangled incitement of texture, sound, and discontent; the latter a fire of vocal enmity. Of course as the song evolves cleaner and harsher elements become involved as that unpredictability already invigorating the first pair infests song and imagination to magnetic effect; it’s still discontent soaked calms as poignant and striking as its hostile ravishes of ears. Obzerv’s sound is wonderfully hard to pin down in a few words and the multi-flavoured roar of this song just epitomises that inescapable lure.
It is a stirring rousing start easily backed by the sonic tapestry that is Akardos. Classic metal lined progressive wiring initiates the temptation, a great slim but rich prowling gait emerging before those early hues inflame the melodic enterprise of Schramm and lead guitarist Aaron Vogelsberg. Darker, heavier shadows soon infest the contagion, the esurient beats of Sam Baw uniting with the magnetic pulsation and lure of Jules RoCkwell’s bass. New threads of sound and styles continue to be keenly woven into the magnetic web before Dark Valley takes over the enslaving of ears and appetite. There is a bedlamic edge to Schramm’s vocals which quickly captured the imagination, one which only escalates across the song as musically too it nurtures an anarchic pandemonium within its skilfully bred infestation; the result which is maybe something akin to Dog Fashion Disco and Mudvayne meets The New Jacobin Club but is truly unique to Sober Truth.
One of the album’s early singles is next up, Generation Z a fiery fusion of rock and metal with a snarl in its breath and irritability in its body yet equally a song sharing a reflective calm and spirited animation in its respective tempting and rousing roar. Maybe not as immediately gripping as its predecessors, the track only needed one round of its chorus to banish doubts, that carousing bred on the ever alluring presence of Joakem’s voice and keys before Illusory stepped forward to share its own intrigue lined exploits. It too has a dark edge and tone to its bold exploration of a shady world in sound and word but as potently a melodic radiance which only adds to the thick intimation.
There is something of a TesseracT meets Karnivool spicing to the Malum Sky sound but indeed just a flavouring in something solitary to the band as confirmed just as easily by next up Borrower. Its gentle bordering teasing entrance comes with melodic intimation as keys add a melancholic yet radiant air. From the inescapable seductive caress warm vocals dawn but it is only the calm before a tempest of sound and enterprise. That though is equally the step to another twist and shade of emotional and physical dynamics, the track never afraid to revolve and evolve into another aspect of bold invention and initiative. As the first it is also an imposingly infectious affair in every way, its bite addictive and melodic lures delicious; a combination just as resourcefully exploited by next up The Coil. In fact from its first breath, the song has a catchy virulence which had body and spirit dancing like a puppet as ears and imagination succumbed to its brooding breath and increasingly rabid contagion. Després and Evans cast another riveting web of enterprise and technical prowess which alone compels attention but with fine vocals and a rhythmic manipulation to song and ears which directs reactions, the track is another major incitement within Diatribe.
Now with everything firmly in place Penumbra has been unveiled and we for one can only suggest it is the first leap in a massive and surely certain ascent for the band into the broadest spotlights. The album opens with Pearls Before Swine and immediately had ears pricked and appetite keenly intrigued as sonic and electronic enticement colluded with already stirring rhythmic lures. Just as swiftly the equally potent and enticing vocals of Hutton step forward; his clean, calm yet emotive tones an alluring bridge between the band’s sides of physical trespass and suggestive melody, their indeed their technical hunger and electronic intimation. The track continues to stomp and dance with the senses, a mix of the familiar and boldly fresh creating a whole new vehicle for ears and imagination to ride with.