Expansive and Soaring: Textures - Phenotype (2016)

Texture's are one of the bands that helped me make the leap from rock/grunge/whatever to extreme metal. It's an odd one, and I'm really not sure how I came across them. Perhaps it can  can be attributed to the intense marketing that Nuclear Blast seem to have for the band. I've noticed, in the build-up for Phenotype, seemingly endless, eternal, posts and links shared for the new album. Maybe it's also Texture's crossover appeal; there are certainly elements of djent, mathcore, and even hardcore littered among layers of progressive and technical extreme metal. 

2011's Dualism was an incredible album, it's a perfect mix of the aforementioned styles. It had a mix of Messhugah inspired polyrythmic riffing, Devin Townsend-esque production and vocal eclecticism, and an spurts of rather dramatic melody (think Soilwork). Phenotype's harsh vocals are more diverse compared to Dualism's: flat, almost toneless, modulated, gruff bellows - sometimes moving into hardcore territory - interplay with lengthier shrieks and gutturals. The cleans are powerful, often opposing the mechanical intensity of the harsh vocals; they soar and transition the songs from their polyrythmic riff threads into spurts of epic melody. This clash shouldn't work, but Texture's have great vocalists and, most importantly, technically proficient songwriters, who, after four full-lengths, seem to have honed their particular craft.  There is so much going on in this album, so many tonal shifts, key changes and quick transitions from dissonance to melody to ambiance and back again; Texture's do nothing half-hardheartedly, they seem to embrace the eclectic musical preferences of each band member. So many bands at this end of the extreme metal spectrum attempt to create a sort of symbiotic melodic-dissonant Frankenstein's monster, and where so many bands create grotesque monstrosities with ears for feat and toes for teeth, Texture's amalgamation seems to succeed: they've created a fully-functioning and rather harmonic entity, if at times slightly unstable.

The opening track 'Oceans Divide' is a flurried attack of precise and rapid drumming, rapid riffs and rapid harsh vocals before steadying as clean vocals crack and break in to Devin Towsend-esque shrieks and cries. 'New Horizons' is more catchy, with solos interweaving and vocal hooks aplenty. 'Shaping a Single Grain of Sand' is the heaviest track on the album with interesting riffs and much more anguished, deep gutturals. I'm really not a fan of the hardcore-inspired gang vocals that filter their way in at inappropriate times, and there are, at occasions, spurts of flat and uninspired metalcore riffing, but thankfully it's only brief. 

The longer songs are Phenotype's strong points' 'Illuminate The Trial' is an expansive seven-plus minute song that demonstrates the bands technical proficiency; the drums are outstanding, some of the guitar lines mesmeric, and the progression of the song on the whole is outstanding. Texture's thrive when they have space to play: 'The Fourth Prime' is a song of similar length switches and meanders with a rapid fluidity. The final two songs - the soft piano interlude 'Zmam' leading in to the dull ballad 'Timeless' - are needless extras glued on to the end of the album, and I really hoped that the album would continue with the expansive depth of the longer songs. 

Phenotype certainly won't be popular among elitist (wherever they roam); it's ultra clean sounding, it has soaring mid-range clean vocals and the occasional gang-chant: that gaggle at ANUS.com will be writhing with agony at it's sound, crying in to their Sammath LP's. This is an extremely dynamic and expansive metal album, there are some truly awe-inspiring moments, but also some moments of flatness. I'm not sure if it's better than Duality, there's maybe too much going on here, too much fragmentation, and I'm not sure if I'd like it as much if they hadn't had such an impact on me when I was initially getting in to extreme metal. It's near enough impossible to be completely impartial; at the same time, impartiality is rather flat and uninspiring.

Album Review: Borknagar - Winter Thrice (2016)

Not many bands do majestic and sweeping melodies as well as Borknagar; there's a real sense of grandeur, of mystical heroism and spiritual power, in many of the songs on Winter Thrice. It's a richly textured album with a lot going on. The first four tracks are exceptional; they're unpredictable and beautifully arranged, each song has its own fingerprint and own path to tread. It all falls under the theme of winter: groaning frost and eternal blizzards, the rhymes of mountains and ice draped rocks; it's a harsh yet harmonious landscape and, as in 'Panorama', 'Everything grows, Everything Dies.' Erosive black-metal collides with soaring folk-melodies, the best songs on this album are those that waltz between intense spurts of black-metal and melodious clean passages inlaid with tender keyboards, harmonious vocals and acoustic caressing. Occasionally, as in 'When Chaos Calls', the two worlds combine, one world flows in to the other, and this is when this album is at its best, when these tender melodies merge with abrasive shrieks and pounding drums.

The two pre-released tracks that open the album are incredible songs that lift the album to the summit of frost-topped Norwegian mountains from the get go, it's hard to top such a great opening and the rest of the album attempts to break free from its mountainous shadow. They may have been more powerful placed elsewhere in the album, as a centre piece perhaps, or as a mighty culmination at the end.

The clean vocals in 'Winter Thrice' are fantastic; the rotation of vocalists works perfectly, each singer has a certain tone that reacts with the others and the song so well: Lazare has a soft melodious voice that seems to long for something, Vortex has a powerful idiosyncratic whoop, more fierce, Garm - of Ulver - comes in with a more depressive drawl before Vintersorg's shrieks infiltrate from the external cold. I like clean vocals when done right, and Borknagar are masterful.

Some songs fall a bit flat in comparison, the intensity and the diversity isn't kept up, 'Noculent' is rather bland with its folk hard-rock conventionality, but it leads in to the pummeling snow-blast opening of 'Terminus', There is a strong progressive element to this album. 'Terminus' and 'Panorama' are prime examples of this with modulated keyboard sounds not far from something by Yes. 'Panorama' is different and playful, it reminds me of Ihsahn or Solefald, it does seem Lazare - founding member of Solefald - had a much greater role in this album. ICS Vortex isn't as prominent, which is a shame.

The second half of the album, in comparison to the first, isn't as instantly memorable, there were no sections that hooked me like 'Rhymes of the Mountain' and 'Winter Thrice' did. It's a solid record all together, but it could have been so much more. It's certainly on par with Urd, in my opinion. They're consistently great and because of this so much is expected of them. 

Rating: 7.5/10