Band:	Anciients
Album:	Beyond The Reach Of The Sun
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	August 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Forbidden Sanctuary
02. Despoiled
03. Is It Your God
04. Melt The Crown
05. Cloak Of The Vast And Black
06. Celestial Tyrant
07. Beyond Our Minds
08. The Torch
09. Candescence
10. In The Absence Of Wisdom

Anciients were a band that stuck around just long enough to leave people desperate for more from them before suddenly disappearing; at long last, they’re finally back.

Heart Of Oak was a commendable first effort from the Canadians, but they arguably exceeded that album with 2016’s Voice Of The Void, which won the band a Juno award, beating out fierce competition such as Archspire. Anciients were set to be a leading force in progressive metal, but only slithers of activity were detected until announcements in 2023 that a new album was being recorded, ultimately leading to the release of their long-awaiting record number three, Beyond The Reach Of The Sun, with two new faces in their line-up compared with the last time we heard from them.

Anciients’s style has typically lurked on the boundary between melodic and extreme progressive metal; while most would be hesitant to call them a progressive death metal band, comparisons to Opeth have been frequent, as well as acts such as Mastodon and Intronaut. Personally, while the resemblance between the growls of Mikael Åkerfeldt and Kenny Cook (who now handles all vocals following the departure of Chris Dyck) is uncanny, and songwriting elements reminiscent of that band can be detected in several moments (perhaps none more so than in the extreme parts of “The Torch”), I don’t find the similarities to Opeth to be too obvious or persistent. Conversely, Cook’s cleans at different times of the album have me thinking of Enslaved or Alice In Chains (such as in “Forbidden Sanctuary” and “Melt The Crown”), or especially Sunnata when harmonized on closing song “In The Absence Of Wisdom”.

Instrumentally, the music of Anciients has arguably owed as much or more to sludge or stoner metal as death metal up to this point, and that remains broadly the case this time around; Mastodon is a band that’s been used frequently to describe the group in the past, and while it’s not a comparison that’s constantly in my head when listening to the record (I felt it most strongly during the instrumental climax of “In The Absence Of Wisdom”), the elaborate lead guitar work across the album does lurk within a similar ballpark. Beyond The Reach Of The Sun is not a persistently hectic album, however; the beginning to opening track “Forbidden Sanctuary” focuses on atmospheric scene-setting, and the cleaner tones in the beginning riffs leave me thinking a tad of older Elder back in their heavier days.

This opening song is a strong opening to the album, one that balances lighter tones with crunching riffs, and while it’s generally on the more melodic, eerie side of the spectrum (particularly in a delectable instrumental passage in the track’s second half), there are tasty eruptions of intensity, culminating in a blast-heavy climax. “Despoiled” is brief and more extremity-oriented, launching regularly into bursts of heaviness that straddle the divide between sludge and Opeth’s classic prog-death style. The primal side of Anciients is very satisfying; I’ve seen some more mixed comments be voiced towards the melodic vocals on this album, but I personally find they largely stack up well too, aside from occasional moments with slightly rough execution, and the album’s melodicism in general is very enjoyable. The slow, melancholic sound of “Is It Your God” is already strong, but the instrumental bridge and lead guitar work found within is excellent, and the clean vocals work excellently alongside the acoustic guitars, eerie keyboard tones and sorrowful guitar leads on album highlight “Melt The Crown”.

Beyond The Reach Of The Sun is an album that starts strongly, and to be honest I’m not sure it ever really loses steam; while it might not have the peaks of Voice Of The Void, I’m hard pressed to identify anywhere on the record where my attention particularly wavers. The lively technicality during the lead guitar-heavy “Celestial Tyrant” is exhilarating, but I find myself similarly captivated by the calm late-album instrumental “Candescence” and its synth layers. I also find myself equally taken with the driving, hectic verses of “Cloak Of The Vast And Black” as I am with its trippy, mellow closing stages.

It's been a long journey for Anciients to reach this point, but their efforts have paid dividends on Beyond The Reach Of The Sun, a worthy successor to the pair of albums that left people pining so badly for more from the group.