Review Summary: All you'll ever know is my sweet Stockholm
It truly is amazing just how far people you may have known for another thing can go when they finally decide to put their dreams in action, and it manages to work out. Such is the case for guitarist Andrew Stout and his project he's finally seen through in the past few years, Apeiron Bound. Stout had a somewhat lesser-known past life as a content creator, much of which has been expunged from the internet, and even back then, his love for progressive metal and music in general shone through like a light in the darkness.
Multiplicity is the product of years of hard work and dedication paying off, and the results are fairly positive, depending on how much love you have for the genre the band operates in.
This is definitely the same brand of progressive metal that's brought us names like Between the Buried in Me, with intricate guitar passages intertwined with intense heavier sections. Stout definitely channels his inner Paul Waggoner instrumentally, but you can hear elements of other influences shine through just as brightly, such as Devin Townsend or Tosin Abasi of Animals as Leaders.
Multiplicity even includes some instrumentalist features that are well done, such as Angel Vivaldi on "Eleutheromania", and Aeon Zen's Rich Gray on the closer "Era in Fenim // Novis Initiis". Other writing credits include another former creator in Steven Mundinger composing the entirety of the interlude "Precocious Tribalism", then taking synthesizer duties on "Emotive Servitude". I'd be taking all day if I listed every single one, but these are the main ones that are important enough to point out.
Apart from Stout, there are a ton of other immensely talented musicians bearing the weight here, including but not limited to drummer Kristopher Huffman and vocalist Michael Calza. The drums on this album are massive and carry Stout's guitar writing to the next level. While some tracks like "Firmament" rely a little too deeply on the typical excesses of progressive metal (beware, Hawks!) that have often been described by some as "wankery" or self-indulgent, most of this album feels like it has a greater purpose than just showing off how good they are at their instruments, and good they
are at their instruments indeed. Not every song hits on all cylinders, and "Eleutheromania" is an example of a song that one could say does a little too much in a guitar exercise type of way, it's obvious this is a passion project through and through. One of the best instrumental performances on
Multiplicity is one of its lead singles, that being "My Sweet Stockholm", with one of the best and most significant guitar solos on the album coming at around the four-and-a-half minute mark and lasting close to a full minute.
Speaking of which, "My Sweet Stockholm" is among the longest of the songs on this, and easily one of the highlights, as not only is it instrumentally and vocally sound, it also includes one of the most important lyrical themes on the entire record, painting an uncomfortable picture of what it means to suffer from Stockholm syndrome and feel trapped in the throes of an abusive relationship. Many other songs' lyrics aren't directly written out and posted online, but that song is one of the exceptions to the rule there, likely due to Stout and co. understanding fully how important tackling themes of abuse in this way truly is. Lines like "by grace I gave you a home / a home you’ve stained with your selfish ways / all you'll ever know is my sweet Stockholm" come from the perspective of the abusive partner, locking their victim down and blaming them for ever wanting to leave. The side of the victim is also shown in detail around the seven-minute mark, with them saying things like "you’d be proud of me if you could know the loyalty that I can show / My feeble spirit crumbles down but you keep me on the ground", clearly showing that despite the abuse, they've become subservient to the perpetrator, much like what happens often in Stockholm cases.
It cannot be overstated just how amazing technology has gotten, because this band was not signed to a major label or given a massive budget for this album, yet on a production level, you'd be hard-pressed to notice without looking for it on
Multiplicity. The instrumentation shines clearly and is given room to breathe, the vocals are clear enough to where you can sort of get the picture of what is being said without the lyric sheets which Apeiron Bound have decided to mostly forgo, and most importantly, it doesn't feel like a major loudness war loss on the level of, say,
The Flesh Prevails by Fallujah. If this is the kind of music for you, this should be a valuable piece in your collection, even through its imperfections and slight self-indulgences.
