A DREAM IN STATIC

Earthside

Progressive Metal

4.01 | 126 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

I've been trying to find new music this year, and so far I've found surprisingly lot good stuff, this certainly belongs to that category, whilst not being my thing per se.

Earthside's debut is a form of cinematic modern progressive metal, whose closest rival I'd say is the French Hypno5e. The music is very grandiose and very well structured while keeping a meditative approach. The production is quite fantastic, as every detail in the instrument can be distinguished. The instruments work very well with each other and their timbre fill the audio spectrum perfectly. It is produced by David Castillo so that's not surprising.

The album opens very strongly with 'The Closest I've Come' which goes through many fantastic sounding modern prog metal riffs and letting the listener to really sink in to the athmosphere. The pauses/breakdowns are filled with interesting keyboard sounds that remind me of some newer sci-fi movie soundtracks.

'Mob Mentality' features some nicely sung vocals. Not the greatest vocalist in terms of range but there is some nice power present. The keyboard/string arrangement is quite fantastic here. I suggest you listen how they move with the guitar riffs. Fantastic.

The title track is quite weak unfortunately. It continues with much of the same ingredients than the previous song but the riffs are much weaker, the vocals are high pitched and rather too 'american' if you will. This one ends quite nicely with some heavier stuff however.

As far as I know, all the band members are music grads and the next instrumental song 'Entering the Light' features some great synth arrangements that go with the marching rhythm. This song builds into the next one, which again goes to this modern type of progressive metal riffing right from the start. Nothing special in this song, but certainly enjoyable in all aspects.

'Crater' is one of my favourites. It's quite simple actually but it follows a nice formula with excellent lead guitar arrangement with the vocals. A lot of chug-chug but it's not overdone fortunately.

'The Ungrounding' goes into some djenty stuff (which I hate ofc) but the annoying palm mutes are thankfully eased quickly and the song builds into quite fantastic jamming where the keyboard arrangement once again is superb. People who enjoy these modern chug-chug riffs are in for a treat , because this song is also very well written as it keeps the focus throughout the song.

The last track starts very slowly with some Radiohead type of aesthetic. This one alternates a lot between heavy sections and softer sections until reaching a climax. The end is filled with some horn type of sounds that are very nicely done. I enjoy this last track quite a lot since it reminds me of an old 007 film song somehow.

This is a very strong debut in this genre but somehow I felt there was too much repetition in the guitar work to make it superb. I wish they would consider the guitars more for the next record. Vocals need to be better as well to reach a stellar level. Otherwise, highly recommended.

RuntimeError | 4/5 | 2016-6-18

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