AFM Records [Release date: 07.10.22]
Four years after The Offering, underrated and often overlooked Canadian metal soundscape supremos, Borealis, step up a gear with new album, Illusion.
This is a metal band impossible to categorise. Anyone who thought they were getting close will be totally blown off course by the breadth and width of the band’s ambition on Illusion.
By merging the band’s heavy metal sound with the spine tingling orchestrations created by American guest composer, Vikram Shankar, the band have, in reality, forged a de facto new style of heavy metal.
Students of the Metal genre and all its wrinkles will know that Shankar teamed up with Evergrey’s Tom Englund earlier this year to create the well received Silent Skies album, Nectar. That recording’s far reaching, yet compact musical ambition, made many sit up and take notice.
Like Silent Skies, Borealis … Matt Marinelli, vocals; Ken Fobert, guitar; Aiden Watkinson, bass and Sean Dowell, drums … seem liberated here, having apparently broken through the limiting structures of the sound previously known as Progmetal. (or even Power/Progmetal).
It allows for several outstanding musical moments.
Shankar’s charismatic synthesiser provides otherworldly soundscaping on several tracks, particularly ‘Pray For Water’ and ‘Believer’, vividly recalling King Crimson’s layered approach to studio recording, where the texture and substance of heavyweight musical assault ultimately led to an orchestral knock out punch.
Opener ‘Ashes Turn To Rain’s epic, slow moving intro is soon fired up by Fobert’s razoring axework, clearing the decks for soaring voices and spine tingling orchestration to join together in powerful harmony. It’s the album’s calling card, no question.
The music is almost classical/cinematic in places and yet the rumbling, tumbling, earthmoving metal of ‘My Fortress’ and ‘Light Of The Sun’ sounds right at home here too. And that’s down to vocalist, Marinello’s way with a lyric and indeed the lyrics themselves.
Like so many metal albums, this one has an overarching theme. A thread that binds the songs together. A Concept. But where many a Concept Album is likely to make even the diehard fan want to curl up in the foetal position in a corner for its duration, this one keeps it simple. Less is more. ***1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
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