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Review Summary: Their debut album has its fair share of flaws to deal with, but Breaching the Sound happens to be nonetheless ripe with potential and hope for the future. The list of problems that independent bands have to deal with nowadays proves to be significantly higher than those already well into the music industry. In addition to the financial costs, bands have to deal with first time listeners thinking that their music gives off cheesiness and a complete lack of originality. Unfortunately, this is a cold, hard fact and while the latter sometimes proves to be hard to avoid at first, the newcomers known as Vestascension possess the flawss of overlong songs, cheesiness and occasionally awkward song writing choices. Despite an undeniable amount of passion seen in their music, some of the songs definitely overstay their welcome to an unwarranted degree and the overwhelming “feel good” atmosphere of the album will certainly turn people away as other bands have dealt with the vibe a bit better. However, despite all of the gripes called into question, the band without a doubt delivers a promising debut extremely reminiscent of Anathema, boasting a well-executed combination of melodic progressive rock and post rock. In fact, there are quite a few songs on here to happen to be quite an emotional ride with many of them displaying often fantastic lyrics.
Take “An Endless Voyage” and “A Source of Reflection” for example. Even though “An Endless Voyage” could have easily been cut down to six minutes because of the strange shift to death metal growls, the behemoth exists as one of the most compelling tracks on Breaching the Sound due to exceptional drumming, memorable guitar work and emotional lyrics. “A Source of Reflection” is no exception to these qualities, but it’s delivered in a much lighter fashion as opposed to “An Endless Voyage.” The harmonies in the track really give the listener chills with them being aided by lyrics that truly displays what their lyricist is capable of. In addition to the song being moving as all hell, its chorus proves to be the catchiest one of the entire album. Yet another moving track known as “L’Arrivee” incorporates an even slower vibe while completely centering on the harmonies of both singers and it also displays some more dynamics here with electronic rhythms as opposed to normal sounding drums.
Despite this praise, from here on the dynamics and feelings come to a bit of a standstill with some of the emotional vibes coming off as cheesy. For example, “Wishes in Awakenings” proves to be an exceptionally recorded song, but the slower vibe of the song comes off as nothing more than a pleasant, radio friendly ballad with lyrical phrases like “No pill for this heartache” or “alas” really bringing home the cheese. Meanwhile, “Our Midnight Canvas” showcases more of these qualities, but the song uses an overwhelming amount of overdone whispers and features Breaching the Sound’s worst lyrics without a doubt. The middle section of the album also proves to be the least engaging section.
In addition to an underwhelming middle section, the first two tracks often make the listener question whether or not the song is actually still going. “Evolutory” proves to be the biggest offender of this with it providing an engaging first half, but never really changing things up to warrant its six minute length with the exception of a well done guitar solo. “Lifoliage” also shouldn't be nearly as long with it sounding a bit too much like “Evolutory.” There's absolutely nothing wrong with long songs, but the song has to offer some much more than what these songs try to accomplish. They mean well and they aren't terrible songs by any means, but listening to them grows tiresome after a while. However, the record thankfully ends on a stronger note with “Burn your Garden Down” and “The Heart Machine” delivering an engaging final section despite the boring “Of One’s Passing” laying in between the former and the closing track. While “Burn your Garden Down” is showcasing an inspiring atmosphere exhibiting an awesome post rock esque build, “The Heart Machine” is busy making the listener crave more due to fantastic and memorable guitar work. Despite the gripes mentioned above, Vestascension showcases a flawed yet well done album ripe with potential and hope for the future. Sure their songwriting needs a bit of work and they need to find a way to add more dynamics to their music, but these are qualities that could easily be improved with time and effort. The band happened to be currently in the process of recording their second studio album and hopefully more of the passion will carry over and these flaws will be improved.
| other reviews of this album |
Rowan5215 STAFF (4.5)
If it's a dream you wish to live/Then go back to sleep/And chase it to the wake....
CamWJohnson (3)
An album three years in the making is finally released, worth the wait....
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Album Rating: 3.0
After many further listens this is my verdict. Good debut, but flawed like I said. Hope you guys enjoy the read.
Also sorry I bumped down even more Rowbro 
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
I quite like the build-up to the death growls in "An Endless Voyage", imo.
After letting the album sink in a little more, I kind of wish it was a little heavier/hard rock, but I stand by my 4.5 because
its emotional output resonates with me. Can be a little cheesy at times yeah, but I've heard cheesier.
Supposedly the original vocalist left near the end of making the album but they kept his recordings and layered the
new vocalist over them. Is that true?
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Yea I believe that's true. Those growls are just kinda weird though. They sound fine but they're nowhere else to be found on that album so it comes off as silly haha
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mongi stealing the flag smh
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I'm hungry for power what can I say?
| | | Album Rating: 1.5
damn a 4.5 to a 3?
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Rowan will be very disappoint with you, Mongi.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Got caught up in the moment for the first couple listens and started to notice the flaws as I listened more and more, it happens guys.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
4.5 to 3? I hate you mongi
"Vestascension possess the qualities of overlong songs, cheesiness and occasionally awkward song writing choices."
I'm not sure qualities is a good word for this, maybe flaws would be better
"“Lifoliage” also shouldn't be nearly as long with it sounding a bit too much like “Lifoliage.”"
wat?
also you called Our Midnight Canvas boring - I am disowning you as a friend
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Oh I meant the first track, typo there and I'll change that to flaws.
And hey it's not like something like that hasn't ever happened before, you listen more and more and you notice more things and it grows off sometimes. It's the benefit of not reviewing an album the day it comes out honestly.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Not saying its never happened before but damn 4.5 to 3 in like, a little over a week, that's a pretty big jump
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Nah I had at a 4 for quite a bit. I told you the other day I may bump it down even more, but I jammed this a lot more today and figured 3 was about right.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
rip mongi :/
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
I still like it lol I feel I've explained myself very well. A little too much I might add.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Nah its cool dude your opinion is your opinion and I see the parts where you're finding flaws
I'm gonna be gone from Sputnik for a while for exams so I'll catch you on the flip side dude, have fun without me
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Haha alright dude peace out good luck
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
Heyo!
This is a fair review, I definitely agree with parts of what you've pointed out, and honestly feel the same way about a few of them.
The best way to explain this album is that it's a starting point for what we want to do. Some of these songs are so old and the album took so long to wrap up, that by the time we were coming down the home stretch we were already feeling like there were things we wanted to change, but at that point it was basically like ok, we've worked on this long enough, it is what it is, it marks a point in time where we were at when these were written, let's just get it out there, use it as a foundation, and build our future from there (most commas in a sentence EVER!).
Evolutory to me suffers the most in that sense. I wrote that entire song (music/structure wise) about 8-9 years ago, and it just never changed a bit since then. When I listen to it now, I feel like it could be way shorter and it could have a more interesting/shorter/exciting bridge section. It is what it is though.
| | | Album Rating: 5.0
(cont)
Another thing that I think weakened the album overall was members that came and went during the recording process. We started with 1 singer on the first 4 songs (which were never released), then they were completely redone by another singer (Mike Semesky), then Josh Clark was added and he further refined/rewrote those songs (including an entire brand new version of Lifoliage making it the 3rd version at this point), and lastly Brian Wade came in to replace Mike and redid/rewrote/refined all of those parts once again. I also contributed a few vocals to the tracks here and there as well, as more of an accent thing. In addition to that, we had 2 different drummers work on the album. Add to that all the different locations/studios/engineers that we used over time, there were just so many cooks in the kitchen and this all made for a bit of a "musical stew" if you will lol.
So yeah, I agree with this review. To me it's a strong debut that has it's flaws and we've studied that and are working very hard to refine our "recipe" for this next album (which I'm currently sitting in the studio working on). This next batch is all fresh material from the last year that all 5 current members have had their say in creating. It's a solidified band sound representing what the 5 of us sound like, and we're so stoked to release it solely for that reason.
The only thing I want to clarify that is wrong is that ALL of the vocals on the album (save for my random accent parts) were redone completely by Josh Clark and Brian Wade. While we did keep lyrics and melodies written by Mike, the parts themselves were all retracked 100%.
Thanks for your honest take on things, very interested to see what you think of this next batch of songs!
-Justin
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Glad to see someone who takes critiques so well! Honestly it's quite refreshing man. Thanks for reading what I thought though. I'm honestly really looking forward to what you guys do next because my favorite moments on here I REALLY love.
"Another thing that I think weakened the album overall was members that came and went during the recording process. We started with 1 singer on the first 4 songs (which were never released), then they were completely redone by another singer (Mike Semesky), then Josh Clark was added and he further refined/rewrote those songs (including an entire brand new version of Lifoliage making it the 3rd version at this point), and lastly Brian Wade came in to replace Mike and redid/rewrote/refined all of those parts once again."
You know who had a recording process like this once? DEFTONES!! Lol, this type of dysfunction can work sometimes. Hell it worked so fucking well for White Pony and Saturday Night Wrist, but it doesn't always work obviously. Fun fact for ya.
"The only thing I want to clarify that is wrong is that ALL of the vocals on the album (save for my random accent parts) were redone completely by Josh Clark and Brian Wade. While we did keep lyrics and melodies written by Mike, the parts themselves were all retracked 100%"
Oh I know man, I just reviewed it as a regular album and didn't bother going into the back story considering how Rowan already went quite in depth for that sorry haha
| | | Album Rating: 3.4
I like this. It's kind of alt prog meets post hardcore. I personally didn't like the growling vocals, though. It didn't fit at all.
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