Anciients “Beyond The Reach of The Sun”
Beyond The Reach of The Sun will be released August 30th on Season of Mist
Anciients are an extreme progressive metal band that truly captures the trademark of the genre. Tackling the inner struggles lyrically, while also embarking on complex and creative musicianship. From their debut Heart of Oak in 2013, the band would perfect their sound even further with the follow up with 2016’s Voice of The Void. With the band’s new album Beyond The Reach of The Sun, the band becomes storytellers as the album tells a story of a society that’s enslaved by forces from another dimension. With that premise, and the band infusing more elements of progressive metal, sludge and hard rock, does this concept album deliver on this dark and unique premise?
“Forbidden Sanctuary” opens the album with clean guitar and drum strikes. The guitars create a cinematic-like build in the opening moments. Like a classic western with two gunslingers staring down each other. Mike Hannay’s tom strikes have so much boom and weight with every strike, while Rory O'Brien’s bass gurgles underneath. Then, distortion enters the party with a rockin’ straightforward metal riff as the guitars of Kenny Cook & Brock MacInnes pick up the pacing of the song. Cook’s clean vocals have a Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth/Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters combination and fits perfectly with just the right mix of reverb and layered vocals. Double bass comes in hard during the chorus of the song as soaring guitars transform into a progressive, technical hybrid of progressive metal and new wave of British heavy metal. Cook’s growls hit hard after the halfway mark, with such guttural delivery. O'Brien’s bass segues into a calm reprieve into a beautiful combination of a subtle electric guitar solo and ambient acoustic guitar beneath it. The vocal harmonies sound so well-mixed and really creates an amazing harmony. The harmony turns to darkness as the growls and double bass come roaring back as the band brings the heaviness for the closing of the song. On the next track, “Despoiled”, we get a distorted/acoustic guitar combo into a nice building drum roll. I love the bounce of the bass, adding to the driving drums as the riff complexity ignites. Growls and unrelenting drums segue into an impressive guitar solo at the minute and a half mark. With the combination of distorted and half-clean guitars, it forms a beautiful, but haunting aesthetic of unease and anxiousness. The almost Middle-Eastern sounding reprieve at the bridge, creates a doom metal tone and sonic heaviness with the pacing of the song slowing to a crawl. A return to a technical death metal sound comes back flying in speed and intensity, especially in the double bass and riff speed. “Is It Your God” opens with ringing guitars and Cook’s clean vocals. His vocal harmonies sound so good in the production, especially when the high parts kick in. The song is slower paced and I dig the vibe and energy of the track. Really reminding me of the later era of Katatonia. Heavy on the emotional weight of the lyrics and vocals, atmospheric shoegaze/post rock guitars, with subtle but heavy drumming. Coinciding with a chugging riff and more complex and sped-up drumming.
“Melt The Crown” leads with amazing acoustic guitar harmonies. The addition of synth-like effects adds depth to the opening. A nice lead guitar over drum fills forms a subtle but anticipated build. Electric guitar peaks through the clean acoustic, before officially taking over the song as Cook’s vocals kick in. I like the little double bass flurries during the palm-muted riffing at certain points. The riff intensifies and leans more towards the old-school death metal sound when combined with Cook’s deep guttural growls. Before switching into a progressive, complex and impressive guitar riff combination. I love the closing two minutes of the song, really teasing and playing with pacing and anticipation of will there be growls? will it get heavier? will it be a clean, quiet close? Another acoustic guitar section opens “Cloak of The Vast and Black”. The teasing of a build with drums amongst the acoustic guitars is a nice touch, and shows that the band has the listener in the palm of their hand. Then WHAM! a very tight, up-tempo and aggressive sounding riff into Cook’s vocals, granting the listener the feeling of the drop hitting. I was headbanging along with Cook & MacInnes’ playing throughout the entire song. The song is more direct compared to the rest of the album so far, just straightforward riffing and a constant groove and pacing through the six-plus minute runtime. A punk-like drum groove opens “Celestial Tyrant”. Similar vibes to the previous track in that there isn’t a lot of progressive elements nor randomness. Just another solid, heart-pounding and heavy track. “Beyond Our Minds” leans more towards a progressive rock sound with the riff and vocals, but the band still makes it heavy with the playing and the high-impact drumming of Hannay. A nice shred-tastic solo appears before the halfway mark, segueing into the chorus with technical riffing and double bass.
“The Torch” has ringing drum strikes and guitars in the opening moments. I was bobbing my head along to every snare hit as the riff and growl vocals just added so much power. Drums really shine on the track, really commanding your attention throughout the whole song and add such ferocity to the already heavy as hell riff by Cook & MacInnes. There was also a great guitar solo near the closing minute of the song, which as a guitar nerd just hit so good. “Candescence” opens with a very quiet, low in the mix drum build with thumping bass joining in. The beat begins to rise and intensify as guitars ring out amidst synth-effects hopping from speaker to speaker. Guitars have so much scale added to them with reverb and chorus, amplifying their sound just as the distortion kicks in and the drums create a nice groove with the guitar strumming. A nice, almost simplistic instrumental track that sets the stage for the album’s closing track “In The Absence of Wisdom”. With bluesy sounding guitar, and nice acoustic guitars behind it, with some nice synths below that. Definitely getting really prog rock vibes you would get off of Opeth or Porcupine Tree. Guitars come thundering in, along with Cook’s harmonies over them as the drums lead the song to a more upbeat pace. I love the band’s deviation between rock and metal at certain points of the song. With elements leaning towards rock with the straightforward guitar, but then leaning back towards metal with the fast-paced drumming and technical soloing. The song closes out a wonderful, heavy, technical and overall complex record from the band.
With Beyond The Reach of The Sun, Anciients delivered a truly unique progressive death metal record. The guitars, hopping both from electric and acoustic, were so complex and really showed the talented musicianship. I think my only critique with the album is, in my opinion, some of the songs had something “missing” from them. Like if a piano was on this particular part, or strings section here. I think that would have nailed some of the songs. Giving them that little final touch to truly nail the song. Overall, Beyond The Reach of The Sun is a strong record and truly does deliver an audio journey that the band takes the listener through and it is one hell of a ride.
SCORE: 4.5 / 5
You can stream the album on the band's Spotify page HERE.
