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Rating:
8.8 |
Textures - Dualism
23 September 2011
01. Arms Of The Sea
02. Black Horses Stampede
03. Reaching Home
04. Sanguine Draws The Oath
05. Consonant Hemispheres
06. Burning The Midnight Oil
07. Singularity
08. Minor Earth, Major Skies
09. Stoic Resignation
10. Foreclosure
11. Sketches From A Motionless Statue
2011 has indeed been a wonderful year for progressive and djent. And this album has to be in the Top 10 up there with the great releases of the year. Being loosely acquainted with Textures' previous release Silhouettes, I did have high expectations of this work, and I wasn't proven wrong. Not at all.
The first thing you notice as you listen through the first minute of the opening track "Arms of the Sea", is the wonderfully improved production. Guitar, drums and vocals are harmoniously balanced, and the bass is very audible, instead of being muffled out by the low frequencies of the 7-string guitar. Crystal clean, it lets you observe each and every instrument's role individually and admire the musical value of each part.
Music-wise, the Dutch band will please even the most demanding listener. New vocalist Daniel de Jongh delivers the lines with power and ease. With an aggressive harsh vocal style obviously influenced by Meshuggah's Jens Kidman (as opposed to their previous vocalist's more metalcore-ish approach) and breathtaking spot-on cleans, he certainly gives the band's music justice. The rest of the band is generally what you expect of a really good modern progressive metal group. You have your heavy, seven-string riffing, the odd time signatures and unconventional song structures and the interesting changes, it's all there. There is great balance between groovy hardcore riffs and stony, although powerful cleans giving a nice contrast throughout the album's length.
To give a drawback, Textures do tend to copy themselves, if only a little. Even though we are talking about extremely talented musicians, you can observe slight repetition among some tracks, the more striking example being the opening of "Sanguine Draws the Oath" and the main riff off of "Singularity".
Other than that, the album is pretty much a refreshing listen with powerful delivery, balanced production and a display of professional compositions and musical maturity, with each track giving a memorable listen individually, while the album still has great consistency as a whole. Fully recommended.
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Performance:
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9 |
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Songwriting:
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9 |
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Originality:
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8 |
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Production:
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10 |
written by RavenousBeast | 26.01.2012 |
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
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