Review Summary: Altesia brings home another prog metal classic
In December of 2019, Altesia broke onto the prog metal scene with their debut Paragon Circus: an album that combined the epic songwriting of Haken with the ominous atmospheres of Opeth. This album would go on to win the hearts of many as it gathered critical acclaim, being featured on our 2019 "end of the year report", ranked #5 by the France Metal Awards, and #20 by coverkillernation’s best albums of 2019. It is likewise a very beloved album by yours truly which is why I am more than excited to be reviewing Altesia’s follow-up album: Embryo.
Paragon Circus was an album about humankind's impending destruction due to an unstoppable prophecy. We've opened Pandora's Box and have doomed ourselves to a circus-like fate full of smoke and mirrors, political corruption, wealth inequality, global pollution, etc. This grim album theme justified the darker musical composition of Paragon Circus, in contrast, Embryo is meant to be a foil to the band's debut and response to humanity's gloomy fate. To paraphrase Clément Darrieu: for every large majestic tree, it once began as a single seed. If society is going to change its ways, it is going to begin from the ground up. Every individual must look inward and reflect, undergoing substantial personal change, embracing love, and understanding that valuing frivolous material things is not what makes life fulfilling. Essentially, reaching clear states of mind.
It follows that the music of Embryo is going to be on the more upbeat side, even though the album is chock-full of minor-key. Altesia illustrates Embryo's thematic contrast in its overall sparkling clarity in terms of its pristine mixing and production. The synth keys in this album fall like shimmering stars in the night sky, and the backing symphonies in the album are so smooth like fluffy white clouds. Clément's vocal melodies hit a different way in this album as well, they are louder and more confident. This helps the fact that more of the vocal composition revolves around their hooks than in their debut. Even though a part of me misses the growls from the first album, I can understand the thematic purpose of their absence. The crystal clear, luminous sound of the album goes well with the album's theme.
With these changes in mind, I want to elaborate that Altesia has still stayed true to their previous compositional style of ultra-progressive songwriting. They continue to create music with close to everything that a reasonable prog metal fan would ask for: varying unpredictable song structures, instrumental and genre-bending interludes out the wazoo (many are in styles the band has not done before), a variety of technical and epic guitar solos, coherent and unified songs that now extend past the 20-minute mark, melodic vocal passages with backing choruses, tons of odd time signature stuff, honestly, I can go on all day.
In addition, Embryo displays areas where Altesia has grown. Their songwriting is more focused and precise. Their melodic songs like "A Liar's Oath" or "Mouth of the Sky" are tighter and to the point, in a similar way to how Haken has evolved as a band, however, without the downsides of making their closing epics less "epic", and losing their overall organic aesthetic in favor of something more mechanical. Altesia's musicianship has also improved across the board. Clément's vocals are honed to a wider range and can hold on notes longer. Their guitarists are more technical in their riffs and shreddy guitar solos. Their keys take on more sounds and styles than before. And their drummer is better at leading the album's momentum with his groovy fills.
I love every one of Altesia's proggy interludes in this album. They showcase a collection of djenty breakdowns, violin, accordion, and sax interludes as well as satisfyingly epic guitar, and keyboard solos. There are times where the band just transitions into areas of classic funk, jazz, and stuff that sound akin to 1800s parlor music. They create pristine soundscapes that range from silky smooth pianos and soft vocals, to other sections that are really loud and triumphant with blastbeats and all. The dynamics on this album are admirable, however, they never delve into much extreme metal territory which is somewhat of a disappointment, but as I've said: the album's theme justifies it. They also have a way of introducing a lot of symphonic elements into the clean sections without it sounding like a "symphonic metal" album. They have a clever way of providing as much stylistic variety as they do while maintaining a good standard of cohesion. Altesia never quite steps over the edge of self-indulgence, descending into prog-lala-land.
At this point in my reviewing career, I have noticed that I have a very common complaint about bands that try to write really long songs. I have said this on at least five different occasions: that the band does well writing their body songs, up until they attempt to write their longer closing songs. For me, it very often seems like the case that they fail to write a long and epic track that is not, 1: boring, or 2: a jumble of many disparate songs clumsily packed into one. At this point, the reader might just think I hate long songs, but this is far from the truth. Some of my favorite songs of all time are progressive metal epics, and it's probably the case that they are difficult to pull off properly. Most of the time only the really big bands are able to write them successfully. I'm talking about the "Octavariums", the "Visions", the "Singularities", the "Anesthetizes", the "東海道四谷怪談"?... You get my point. Us prog fans really only get a couple of these a year, and I want to include "Exit Initia" as amongst them. It has some of Altesia's most experimental and technically impressive material, there is more than enough content to justify its length, it's full of great hooks and emotional vocal melodies, and it has concluding lyrics and melodic reprisals that tie the rest of the album together in an epic way. But most importantly, because the song is written in a way where it constitutes a unified whole from its musical composition alone, rather than simply being labeled as one track. It can be considered Altesia's magnum opus, and crowning achievement at this point in time.
Of course, no band is perfect, and they still have a lot of room to improve; afterall this is only their second album. They should still strive to find their own sound in the world instead of remaining a refined amalgamation of all the big modern prog metal bands. I'm sure many listeners will bring this up as a criticism, however, I am confident that they will find their individuality in time. And I look optimistically toward a future where they release an album where it definitely sounds like no other band but "standard Altesia", and at that point, the band will know that they've made it big.
