SUMMIT

With their first album City Of The Sun from 2014, the fantastic Norwegians presented themselves as one of the strongest pillars that hold prog rock and brought various music styles, such as 1970s jazz, Scandinavian metal, and eclectic/avant-garde progressive sounds, with touch of classical influences. From the first seconds of their debut it was noticeable that Seven Impale have their own sound, which can be called quite unique. With "Contrapasso" from 2016, the band continues to fascinate and brings another fantastic release presented with a hypnotic and pounding flow of music, a capturing rhythm on which the vocal moves in a psychedelic style. A delirium or a sound nightmare capable of suddenly changing its skin towards a more wait-and-see phase, dramatic, theatrical, powerful, colorful and varied pieces with corners and edges, casual twists, surprises and vital, aggressive outbursts, the work that cemented the band's place as one of the best prog bands today.

As "monolithic" as the legendary debut, "Summit" actually crowns a revolution heralded by the records that preceded it. On this album, the band (perhaps more than ever) confirms that they are multi-faceted geniuses: on the one hand the cultured avant-garde pursues an "artistic" perspective, on the other the rock band that definitely knows how to hit the listener in the stomach with swirling sound, overloaded with energy. Add to all of this jazz-fusion heritage as one of the main aspects that give way to the real spearhead of this album, then psychedelia and moments where the band launches into improvisation at full speed and presents perfectly formed excursions followed by a shower of dissonances and ventures into tortuous pattern changes, and then you will understand why I said that they are geniuses.

The musical narration is trivial to follow, however, the numerous plays help to put together many different and seemingly unrelated ideas in some situations. The shifts between the various musical moods are connected by a thread of perennial musical tension, which lays its foundations in several dark breaks and in some borderline tonal choices. What is implemented in this work is boundless creativity, supreme ductility, superfine technique and, of course, incredible coordination, swinging instrumental and vocal presentation - without any or almost no snagging - rhythmic patterns of superior complexity, difficult even just to transcribe in black and white. A certain progressive aesthetic has not faded, although the band keeps its primary compositional structure, on this work they dig a little deeper and they are re-emerging in their own way: elegantly dressed in a jacket of their original vision, but this time presented in an even more fantastic and exciting sonic labyrinth.

Powerful organ tones, a penchant for majestic bombast and wild overturning guitar runs, controlled, and lively, leave plenty of room for instrumental spectacle in the style of classic Hammond-inspired rock, this is brilliantly presented in Hydra. Here we have two genres converge: heavy and progressive rock. In particular, the first is noted for the harshness of some passages and the always distorted guitars, and the other is noted in the experimentations, in the intense and prolonged instrumental parts with important organ and guitar parts, vocal and sound experiments. Open and suspended sound creates a perfect background with which compositions simply let your imagination go to distant worlds; a thin line between atmospheric spheres and explosive moments, which from time to time recall sounds and riffs that create a haunting mood. Seven Impale have perfect control of their instrumentation, effects, and atmospheres. Basically, the structures, even if varied, remain in the same light, moving more than anything else along crescendos of absolute bombast, which drag on in a sustained playing time that is enriched with every second that passes by further counterpoints and effects. What is particularly impressive is the fact that you can always make out a well-thought-out structure in the supposed chaos that has arisen in the meantime. They don't care about conventions and consistently live out their idea of music and through that, they have created an album that wants to be explored with concentration and devotion. Bass and drums provide a powerful rocking foundation over which guitar, keyboard and saxophone let off steam, creating densely interwoven, twisted, and slanted sound networks. This is an energetic and exciting mix of jazz fusion and angular avant-prog. Deep, menacing sounds in combination with the dissonant sax offer a wonderful counterbalance to the busy and frisky prog dances that form the basis of the music.

Almost hypnotically, the album captivates the listener and invites to listen intensively. Norwegians make prog that is not designed for euphony, but likes to tread avant-garde paths and is often designed with an uncanny force that will knock you off your stool. This is a true masterpiece of modern prog.

Seven Impale is a Norwegian sextet that plays a fairly dark, heavy, jazz-inspired version of progressive rock. In many ways, they bear a lot of similarity to Van der Graaf Generator, albeit with more maximal arrangements. It's been seven years since their last release, so when they announced this, I was very excited to hear what they had been working on.

City of the Sun, their 2014 debut, is a stellar record and one of my favorite albums from that year. 2016's Contrapasso, though, never quite landed with me. It isn't bad, by any means, but it just lacked that certain something that would have allowed it to click. I think a lot of it had to do with the sheer length of that release. At 67 minutes, that's a lot of jazzy, sax-forward prog to listen to, and it became a bit exhausting. Compare that to their debut, which clocks in at 45 minutes. Summit, their new release, sees them staying in their usual vein, but consists of just four songs. So I went into this hopeful I'd like it.

Summit opens on "Hunter". After a quiet piano intro, sax, organ, and guitar storm forth in a pounding, blustery wall. The verse's arrangement is minimal and haunting, and the slow, simple guitar pattern manages to convey a lot of menace and tension. Overlapping, nigh-incomprehensible vocals are used to generate a sense of confusion quite effectively around this song's midpoint. The guitar line from the verse acts as an anchor for the band to repeatedly return to, and as the song nears its end, it turns into a full-on doom metal line.

"Hydra" has contrasting lines of clean guitar, sax, organ, and distorted guitar dancing around each other in its opening. The verse is tight and bouncy with an undercurrent of anxiety. The guitarwork channels many a post-punk act, but the organ flourishes add a lot of depth. As guitars insistently chug along in the background, synth, sax, and banjo (I think) pluck out a quirky pattern over the top. This eventually evolves into a heavier, lurching riff. Much like "Hunter", this song features explicit metal influence in its final few minutes. The organ, in particular, lends a sense of doom to everything.

A weird, distorted synthesizer, buzzy guitars, and powerful drums kick off "Ikaros". This is the most immediate of the songs so far, plunging into a weird, discordant verse quite quickly. The loose, group vocals and eerie organ tone lend this passage a creepy air. Some of the moments in this song remind me of a less-metallic version of Between the Buried and Me, particularly their more recent stuff. There's a ton of great instrumental interplay on this song, and the vocals are distinctive throughout.

This album ends on its longest song, "Sisyphus". After bouncing around between a few musical ideas in its opening moments, this song eventually settles on a tense, lightly-jazzy backing for the verse. Sax and guitar effectively build tension, and the occasional blast of harsh static keeps the listener on their toes. After building tension for several minutes, this piece erupts into a Van der Graaf-inspired flurry of sax and organ, beefed up with some hard-hitting guitar backing. Following a particularly powerful passage, things calm down for a little while. Still, the odd meter and jazz touches lend a sense of anxiety against a relatively bright piano lead. It culminates with a hopeful-sounding conclusion, and it's a strong finish to this record.

Summit is a great return to form for Seven Impale. The music on this record is powerful and dynamic. The playing is top-notch, and these four songs all grow and evolve in compelling ways. If you're a fan of Van der Graaf Generator or 1970s King Crimson, this ought to be right up your alley.

Review originally published here: theeliteextremophile.com/2023/05/29/album-review-seven-impale-summit/

SUMMIT SEVEN IMPALE I find it difficult to grasp how an album should approach the listener. In a way I always insist in the notion of a narrative, in the case of this particular album four cohesive pieces revolve around heavy prog pandemically infected by jazzier strikes. A hunter and three mythological creatures coerced to live with another.

Hunter starts with soft and slow piano notes and similar to the pandemic, in a blink of an eye all gets violent, loud and heavy, using all the instruments the band is familiar for. But there is no growling whatsoever in Stian Økland's voice. Syncopation of saxes, piano, flute, cello guitars constitute a sound so incredible. The reminiscence to VDGG is not uncanny, tribute or no, it makes sense. 10/10

Hydra is a masterpiece of counter-infections: Sometimes is the jazz in the band turning a heavy, almost metal, piece into something else. At times the experimentation takes the main role, almost licking the tongues of Avant Garde movement (RIO). Then suddenly as in most prog music, it all goes quiet for a little bit, before pugging the audience back into this chaotic milestone. And then! Keyboards at 7 minutes! 10/10

Ikarus: The sun burns him down before even flying to close to the sun. It starts so violent, almost feels like Opeth openings! The flow changes abruptly into noise (saxes burning) and from that glow it transcends into (drumming evolves) the chorus (reminds me of Haken). And as it came it disintegrates into a marvelous section with an almost big band feel to it. 8/10

Sisyphus: It starts mysterious enough, cutting and developing. It's by far the jazziest of the four. The vocals though really provoke mourning (Cardiacs meet Thank You Scientist). And suddenly it's really heavy/soft as if Tool was infected by chromosomes of VDGG. The Chorus, higher and higher, reflects the mission. It becomes heavy enough so that at around 5:30 there's space (foretold) for a soft jazzy interlude. They just continue making progressions on the theme until it's mature enough (after some vocals and chorus). And at around 9:30 the thing really kicks in with a wonderful piece of jazz approached prog. I think of Jagga Jazzist at their proggiest. Just sublime. Guitar and piano in the back and the winds on the front, really amazing, and this consisting in itself in the closure of the album. Sysyphus all around in the repetitions but not in the futility of the doing. 10/10

What a wonderful album!

Tops Seven Impale's historic debut. I like it when jazz kisses metal. Opera singer- Stian �kland could feature his pipes, hitting perfect, pure high sea-blue, deep c-sharps. Instead, Stian �kland varies his voice with each composition as he chisels his pipes to serve the concept carved out of each song. It's a Greek mythological concept... Michelangelo'ed. A spoonful of jazz sugar helps the metal go down. The band uses Benjamin Mekki Widerøe' tenor saxophone joyrides, and flute flights to fortify surreal solos. Erlend Vottvik Olsen / guitar delivers addictive riffs and tasty licks. Like the vocalist, Erlend's guitars serve the song.

Enslave's Keyboardist-HÃ¥kon Vinje lets his hair down, exploring classical, proggy, and jazz gardens blooming like a wall of jasmine in summer. The rhythm section rocks my world. It's gold, it's sapphire, it pumps and throbs. It's a dense, deep album. I like it more than their debut. My husband likes it too. He praised Impale observing, " It's a blend between KC, Tool, ELP, jazz fusion... mixed with dark 20th-century avant-garde classical composers. I felt like I was driving through four exotic locations. A revelation in between headphones."

Easy masterpiece. Something special is brewing in Noway's water.

Bergen's finest young band presenting its third album since 2013, their first since 2016. Have they finally realized their potential?

1. "Hunter" (10:33) delicate chromatic piano play opens this (as the hunter patiently hides from his prey). As the music and story progress, we are find ourself fully in the realm of the music of VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR; comparison to the familiarity of the great epics of City of the Sun are equally unavoidable. The chaotic, multi-voice cacophony of the frenetic motif in the fifth and sixth minutes is a bit off-putting. And then there is the VDGG syncopated, oddly-time- signatured passage beyond that--before the weird Hawai'ian guitar and Santana-like "Oye Como Va" organ notes break open the even darker, heavier, thicker motif to follow. Man! The harsh Norse/Viking life-threads are still very much alive and ... proliferating (if not well). And they end on this note! What doom and gloom! And, I'm sure, they LOVE this! Powerful and masterfully complex--which I appreciate intellectually (and respectfully)--but it's just not my cup of tea. (17.5/20)

2. "Hydra" (10:34) this scaled-down Änglagård treatment seems so tame and accessible when compared to the previous spectacle. The choral almost-monastic vocals are quite interesting when paired and contrasted against the rather tame music below chugging away in a very straightforward 1980s lower tier metal (which reminds me of Peter Schilling's international hit, "Major Tom [Coming Home]" from 1983). As the saxophones and keyboard arpeggi take over the drivership we're enjoying the easy ride, but then, suddenly, at the seven-minute mark the band switches lanes and turns off onto a dirt road to speed through the countryside. The thick organ chords at the end of the ninth minute seem to connote the intrusion or competition of another entity--perhaps another vehicle on the same road-- but then the music seems to flow and drift off into a dreamy finish, so perhaps the organ power chords denote the accident--the end of the road, and the successive loss of consciousness and, presumably, life. Interesting and, by and large ... likable! (18/20)

3. "Ikaros" (9:26) rhythmically quite sophisticated, this song seems quite difficult to sing over as the vocals have a hard time enmeshing within the dense, often angular music. The rather wild and often-chaotic journey this song takes the listener on may, in fact, reflect the storyline of the famous tragic hero of the Greek myth. That does not, however, make it great. (17.5/20)

4. "Sisyphus" (13:22) more melodic and sensitive straight off the starting blocks, the pseudo-baritone singing voice that enters at the end of the first minute truly takes one by surprise--almost makes one laugh. But the vocalist remains committed and serious, so I am bound to give him a chance. The staccato and smooth instrumental passages between the vocal sections provide quite an interesting contrast with one another. The second foray into a vocal section is smooth, spacious, and jazzy while the vocalist now sings in a more familiar upper register before a pause that unleashes the full kinetic force of all band members--even the multiple voices singing the "higher" lyric. The chaotic Crimsonian release that occurs again as the protagonist has lost his boulder and it tumbles and rolls to the bottom of the mountain is intense and amazingly evocative of the frustration Sisyphus must feel. But he recoups, comes to terms with his sentence, and returns to the base of the mountain to take up his task once again. I can sense the resignation and futility in his spirit through the music--and then his utter resolve as he puts his shoulder to the boulder and begins pushing with his legs once again. As always, there is always a glimmer of hope: "Will this be the time? Will the gods finally have mercy?" In the ninth minute this all comes to a head as he approaches the summit with newfound hope and optimism (even an attempt at staying hidden--maybe sneaking in "under the radar" of the gods' notice). Excellent music. Excellent job of conveying the emotions and of this tragic "hero's" repetitious, circuitous existence. Full marks, Seven Impale! You've finally achieved/realized the potential we all saw in that astonishing debut album of yours! (30/30)

Total Time 43:55

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of truly modern progressive rock music with at least one song that would indicate the start of the fulfillment of the promise that City of the Sun seemed to announce ten years ago. Definitely highly recommended for the true prog lover--but only if you're ready to hear/see the progression of progressive rock music, not if you're looking for repetition, glorification, and tribute of and to the past.

Since there isn't much variation in sound from song to song, I'm going to talk about this album as a whole: It's incredible!

Now, eclectic prog has always been known for being one of the finest, most consistent subgenres within the progressive rock genre, and even on recent years fantastic records from unknown (and relatively underappreciated) bands have emerged from the darkness thanks to the curiosity of us Prog Listeners and, most importantly, because of their elevated quality.

Summit essentially enters that group. It's an album from a band that isn't necessarily very active that manages to surprise the listener (who, being used to prog pyrotechnics, is harder to leave speechless) with flawless musicianship and creative musical arrangements. Wailing saxophones, distorted guitars, ethereal vocals, erratic drums, and prowling bass are all common in the subgenre, but it's hard to grow tired of them.

This albums features heavy influence from King Crimson, Meshuggah and Jazz acts such as Coltrane. It blends these artists into a delightful, sporadic, spontaneous soup of modern eclectic progressive rock that will surely leave most listeners impressed.

Five stars for I can't find any reasonable flaws in this album.

I confess I never heard of SEVEN IMPALE before, but as SUMMIT shot up the ProgArchives 2023 rankings they became impossible to ignore. Yet another successful act from Norway, but as the first listen revealed, they do not live off of creating the familiar seventies sound. In fact the most surprising about SUMMIT is how fresh it sounds. Granted, the influences from VAN DE GRAFF GENERATOR or MAGMA are pretty obvious, but there is something here I feel I never heard before. A tight record, that consistently takes the listener through many soundscapes, including some one would not expect in a progressive rock album.

HUNTER - Starts somewhat mildly but always building up the tension. It draws you in and you guess something serious is about to happen. But nothing could prepare you for what is about to hit, a doomish wall of sound steamrolls over you, at the screams of "Hunter!". Now, that is something one wouldn't expect to hear in a progressive rock album, but it surely fits like a glove. As the song winds down it feels that wall of sound didn't actually solve anything, the tension is still all there.

HYDRA - Here the Zehul influences become more evident, with short melodic lines repeated ad infinitum. This track builds its particular kind of tension, however, instead of leading into a wall of sound it slowly morphs into a smooth song at the end. Whereas not obviously overwhelming as HUNTER, this track keeps the listener engaged throughout, there is no "let go" thus far.

IKAROS - This is perhaps the most straightforward (or rather, less intricate) track, and possibly the most Zehul influenced. It pretty much picks up where BIRDS & BUILDINGS left, with those familiar choruses interspersing different musical ideas. For a while a clear direction seems lacking, but as in HUNTER, something bigger is definitely afoot. The song culminates into another epic doomish finale, immersive, monumental, breathtaking. Something you need to experience again and again.

SISYPHUS - A proper roller-coaster unfolds at the close of this LP. It is one musical idea after another, in what is easily the most intricate track in the record. A Jazzy moods sets in the second half, but there is no obvious definition for a track that is more like a summary of the entire album. However, the track does not flow into a climax, rather to a smooth exit, slightly underwhelming after the preceding monumental summits. Even at the end the album had to surprise the listener.

As folk became more and more dependent on headphones to listen to music, the electronics industry became acutely aware of the predilection of human beings for the comfort in the bottom end of the spectrum. Devices increasingly boost artificially those longer wavelengths to appeal to consumers. That predilection has certainly influence popular music in recent years, with artists purposefully exploring that spectrum of warmth, made much easier by modern technologies. Somehow, SEVEN IMPALE manage to do exactly that, but in subtle way, combining the deep sounds found in Death Metal with the Jazz of a much opportune tenor saxophone and the Zehul and Eclectic aesthetics of the past.

SUMMIT is the finest album I listened to this side of Covid. Easily within the top 10 of the past decade or so. And above all, it shows there are still soundscapes out there to explore.

The album cover looks like something out of Lord Of The Rings. I still remember the buzz over their debut back in 2014 an album that ended up in third place on the collaborator's end of year list. Two years later came "Contrapasso" and this is my favourite. I feel like this 6 piece let their hair down here and while trying new things doesn't work out most of the time, here it does. A long seven year wait for "Summit" their third studio record which will no doubt be placed high on many year end lists. That VDGG/KC("Islands") sound continues. This band can be very powerful and they have a vocalist who graduated as an opera singer from one of the musical academies in Norway during that hiatus. The keyboardist is still here thankfully but became part of ENSLAVED during the break.

Only four tracks worth around 44 minutes and that opener "Hunter" is my favourite. In fact I could pick one song off of each of their three albums that would be my three favourite songs by them. "God Left Us For A Black Dressed Woman" from "City Of The Sun", "Lemma" from "Contrapasso" and "Hunter" from "Summit". "Hunter" is powerful and intense and that's just the lyrics. Hey the music too and man this guy can sing, so theatrical and would be a great Goth singer. You want to hear how heavy this band can get checkout this song after 8 minutes where we get to doom-like heaviness. Interesting quick riffs follow around 9 1/2 minutes in with organ over top. The words though, it's a gripping piece.

"Hydra" like the opener is 10 1/2 minutes long. Nice bass early and some fast riffs, sax too. There's a strange KING GIZZARD sound to this early on within the first five minutes that I cant ignore. Piano only before 6 minutes then it explodes with sax and more. Fast riffs are back. I like the final minute, quite uplifting. "Ikaros" was the single they released first and ironically my least favourite of the four tunes. Still a very good track that can get fairly dense. Some distorted guitar late, lots of sax.

The closer "Sisyphus" is the longest at 13 1/2 minutes. Man those deep vocals have character don't they as he almost speaks the words early on. Turns heavy with organ around 2 1/2 minutes before it all becomes smooth with vocals. Not into this or the similar vibe after 8 minutes. More heaviness and calms as this plays out. Another very good studio album from these guys. So impressed with the whole package here. A solid 4 stars.