- A Wake In Sacred Waves review
Band: | Dreadnought |
Album: | A Wake In Sacred Waves |
Style: | Avantgarde metal, Black metal, Progressive metal |
Release date: | October 2017 |
01. Vacant Sea
02. Within Chanting Waters
03. To Luminous Scale
04. A Drifting Reign
An enormous deli sandwich. A fine glass of wine. And now, a light steak dinner.
(If you don't get the above references, see my earlier Dreadnought reviews... we're keeping the food and drink metaphor train a'rollin).
Without question, Dreadnought have become one of my favorite bands within the frame of modern prog metal, which is saying a lot given my usual disincline to it. Something about this band's fusion of prog with a larger spectrum of folk and extreme metal influences makes their music more dynamic, multifaceted, and just overall interesting than the large majority of what else they're currently up against. 2013's impressive Lifewoven debut saw Dreadnought more or less blending all their influences together equally, while the follow up, 2015's Bridging Realms, hushed down the extreme metal influences a good bit and took a more mellow approach. Where to from there?
If you're familiar with the previously mentioned albums, it can be said that A Wake In Sacred Waves for the most part follows in the vein of Bridging Realms, focusing on more of a relaxed, progressive music type atmosphere before anything else. However, the one thing that's noticeably different here is that the transitions into the more extreme, heavier aspects of the music are much smoother than they were on Bridging Realms. While far from being "sloppy" or "terrible" on that album, said transitions did nonetheless feel a little sudden, leaving an impression of being pulled out of the dreamlike atmosphere of piano and Lauren Vieira's gorgeous vocals rather abruptly. This is far less of an issue with A Wake In Sacred Waves, where (much like with Dreadnought's debut), the transitions go over so smoothly that a lot of the time you don't even notice them. The superb opener that is "Vacant Sea" is as good an example as any, throwing in a wide variety of tricks including clean vocals, shrieks, organ, saxophone, black metal riffing, blast beats, and more that help the heavier and lighter moments dance around each other in magnificent ways.
Indeed, at many moments throughout A Wake In Sacred Waves, one may get the feeling of "wow, where did that come from?", which in itself is testament to the sonically diverse, well paced nature of the music. There is quite a lot going on here, but somehow the shifts from one territory to a considerably different one feel smooth, natural, and not forced at all. Further still, the blend of the band's more airy, atmospheric moments with their underlying extreme metal influences can at many points result in quite interesting, nontraditional techniques (shrieks over piano and drums, mandolin or organ underneath heavy guitar riffage, etc). And, once again, praise must really be given to Dreadnought's sense of production, because it could not be better considering the layered, intricate music they're playing. Everything is brought out in full audibility at exactly the right time, given the attention necessary for the moment while somehow not compromising any of the instruments either.
A Wake In Sacred Waves is ultimately a prog album before it's a black metal or a folk album, but the heavier, more crushing moments are now overall better mixed into the rest of the music, and most definitely get the job done. Thus, the "light steak dinner" metaphor stands: this album may not go as hard as some of the other succulent slices of cattle stomach out there, but it still carries enough weight with what it is working with to accomplish the mission and fill you up. Three albums in, it's pretty hard to deny that Dreadnought have emerged as a major force to be reckoned with in contemporary prog metal. The sky is the limit for them from here.
Sail the waves.
Rating breakdown
Performance: | 9 |
Songwriting: | 9 |
Originality: | 9 |
Production: | 10 |
| Written on 17.01.2018 by Metal Storm’s own Babalao. Comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable since 2013. |
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