The Pitch: UK progressive metal (djent) band Ihlo deliver their debut album. FFO: Tesseract, Devin Townsend, Leprous
What I Like: As Union opens, it's impossible to avoid certain comparisons. Think Periphery minus the harsh growls. In fact, the main guitar hook on "Reanimate" is VERY similar to one I recall from Periphery II. Definitely not an insult from this fan. And while I'm not generally one for this more traditional progressive metal style of vocals, the solid performance and great backing riffs help me to largely get past that. As the album forges on, the band expands well beyond initial metalcore parallels into even more epic prog territory; every musician doing their part to make it a layered, textured experience from the bass to the drumming. This reaches an impressive fever pitch on "Parhelion" and of course the 15 minute closer "Coalescence."
Critiques: I'm not particularly fond of the slower moments like "Hollow." While they remind me a little bit of Ihsahn's work on Arktis., they don't deliver the same level of engagement. And again, just in general, this genre's not EXACTLY my cup of tea so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
The Verdict: Union is a solid progressive album that even someone relatively indifferent to the genre like me can enjoy. I am interested to hear what the readers out there who are fans of more traditional progressive metal think, so feel free to hit us up on social media with your thoughts.
Flight's Fav's: Union, Reanimate, Parhelion
- Review by FlightOfIcarus
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