Review Summary: Mycenaean Metal Melee at the Progthenon
I have haunted the tombs of the ages
I have flown on the pinions of fear
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages
The great offspring of Chaos appears
H.P. Lovecraft’s album-opening poetic incantation ‘Nemesis’ warns of a lurking mystic deity whose emergence heralds a coming dramatic cataclysm in a decalogue of age-old tales. The unfurling black wings of the son of Chaos cast no shadow on the mortal hale of progressive melodic-death metal trio Velaraas. With virile immanence they revitalize the sagas of ancient gods and cosmic conflicts, where the timeless and universal converge in virtuosic expressions of classic and modern metal music.
Within
Pantheon the gods of ancient Greek sagas and gods of the progressive genre clash, grapple, and feud - and occasionally summon demons in shamanic rituals to dismember late-album tyrants. Such ironic inversions and lyrics of Icarian hubris, narcissism, hope, the cost of knowledge and Promethean defiant freedom intertwine in a mythic musical tapestry. Each song a sonic amphitheater expounding evocative structural arrangements in dramaturgical dances that personify thematic narratives through transformative progressive metal voyages. Melodies organically manifested like threads of gossamer fate-spun from the aether that suffuses the harmony of the spheres.
This spirit loom(s) o’er the aural horizon, eclipsed as a cleansing tidal wave ushered from Poseidon’s deep crashes ashore. Elsewhere, the piercing dawn of Apollo’s chariot blazes across the sky and cthonic breakdowns of heaving earth in the mantle of the underworld. Divine intervention frequently cleaves these sonic battlegrounds in twain with lighting bolts of eclect(r)ic instrumentals from xylophone to organ to clean jazzy latin chord bridges. Disruptive though natural and not jarring, these catalysts destabilize a song’s trajectory and send them spiraling 'round the pocket-presence whirlpool Charybdis's drumming at the heart of the album while the six-string-headed sea-monster Scylla terrorize all sucked into it’s path.
A veritable pantheon of progressive metal and rock legends past find deep rooted nourishment in the fertile substratum's of this creative soil. With the mastery of fundamentals befitting of an experienced guitar instructor, the signature styles invoked gild verdant blossoms with pearled dew incomparably more organic and breathtaking than shallow plastic(he) homage. The dramatic evolution of song takes urprecedent, always prioritizing what’s needed at a given moment for holistic enthrallment while avoiding overstimulated riff salad. The progressive impulse coursing through these songs radiates a font of energetic renewal that fascinates and frustrates attempts at immediate anticipation. Contests for control of direction can be heard in the spacious stereo sound design afforded to each instrument decentralizing focus from a central spotlight. This is felt in the lack of constrictive verse/refrain/chorus segments that in lesser records exist just to occupy the chunks of temporal space that come before the exciting bits; Or chaining your melodies to riff salad and palm-mute idling so spotlight vocals can get through their line read as all too common in the average melo-death/core song.
Verses riff somewhere between Insomnium or Dark Tranquility into the proggy “choruses” and vox of recent Enslaved before a kaleidoscopic NeO-classical splash of sweeping Gothenberg melodies that shift and slide around the “exotic” harmonic minor scales familiar to Carcass era
Heartwork, the baroque ornamenting of CoB’s Alexi Laiho and the Phyrgian dominant playground of Chuck Schuldiner or Dan Swanö. Opeth-like acoustic interludes sustain diatonic suspense rather than mere soft-loud buffering and the coiling Lydian mode bridge transformation from ‘Drapery Falls is used to similar stunning effect here on ‘The Horn of Ages’. (Drink long your fill Åkerfeldt acolytes, this well runs deep and true.)
Alternating harsh growls and throaty shout sustains are given their own compartmentalized opportunities to shine in emotional climaxes not unlike the poignant but brusque Baroness brand of rock. Drama for most songs evolves from spectral slashing melodies buttressed by rhythms tightening around the reigns of minor ascending power. Power inevitably delayed but amplified by frenzied iterative tempo slides, modulating riffs through subtraction until they’ve shape-slip through your grasp, chromatic injunctions and tumultuous diminished half-step detours leading to solos of ecstasy and annihilation or epic climactic harmonies and cathartic resolves if they aren’t instead subsumed by texture enhancing catastrophic breakdowns that careen into the rubble of a martial Mastodon groove like in ‘Bring Forth the Dawn’.
Such dazzling feats do not suggest the presence of Power Metal here, that function is obviated by the fundamentals of Heavy Metal like Iron Maiden compounded with technical proficiency of prog. There is no dizzying dissonant labyrinth or black metal blasts or gothic doom undercurrents. Nor do the melo-core adjacent riffs capitulate to angsty vocal whinging. Composer and lead guitarist Colin Stroup never let’s the primary objective to entertain be eclipsed by superfluous wankery or diminish a songs impact under the strain of belabored prog pretensions. Understanding that less is more, with just three songs over 6 minutes, there’s no time for indulgent shredding or bloated intros before songs begin in earnest. Compositions invigorated by this streamlined urgency are bursting at the seams with intricate melodic articulations coloring every nook and cranny while leaving room for piano outros to breathe.
Personal pleasures abound, like hearing riffs akin to DSO ‘Scorpions & Drought’ that opens the third track placed just a stones toss from the other swinging DSO’s ballroom boogie on ‘Reflections’, a testament to Colin Stroup’s ability to artfully conjoin his sonic structures into a seamless alluring phono-fabric that frays and unfurls in a fashion just as fantastic as it’s construction.
A near unrecognizable metamorphosis eight years since their debut sees Velaraas effortlessly executing at a high level. Bands spend whole careers honing their sound to something this tight and impactful. Diverse guitar instrumentation and effective pacing dynamics smartly ordered make for a smooth enthralling listen and enticing replayability without a weak track in the well individuated bunch. The scarce space remaining for evolution would be a telescopic expansion of their techniques and approach for characterizing single songs scaled to multi-movement suites or a full album sized scope of epic proportions to breathe the same rarefied air of magnum opus works like Edge of Sanity's
Crimson or Ayreon's
The Human Equation.
Pantheon , in a few short listens, cannot fail to impress Velaraas is more than capable of crafting such a gem - illuminated by the shining liberty of their fire-stolen spark.
https://velaraas.bandcamp.com/track/the-horn-of-ages
