A TOWER OF SILENCE

After a considerable wave of positive acclaim came to my attention, I decided to check out this new album by melodic proggers Anubis. This is a band that seems to have taken the prog scene by storm. Their debut record '230503' also met some positive attention, and while I am never one to take hype like this as fact, I am usually interested enough to check out what the big idea is. 'A Tower Of Silence' is the band's second album, and despite the relative youth of this band, there is certainly no lack of ambition to their music and the risks they are willing to take.

Commonly labelled as neo-prog, Anubis does tend to lean towards the more melodic side of the prog rock spectrum, which is why some of the more proggy moments here really surprised me. 'The Passing Bell' is the opening track, a seventeen minute epic that opens with a riff in such a strange time signature, it felt uncomfortable to listen to at first, as if the music was malfunctioning and skipping over a measure or two. By the time the vocals come in though, there is a nice resolution to the odd time, and things start to make more sense for the listener. 'A Tower Of Silence' opens with its most ambitious track, and as epics go, 'The Passing Bell' really works, balancing off the recurring themes with new ideas quite nicely. The epic also transitions seamlessly into the second track, the 'single' 'Archway Of Tears'. The strong musicianship carries on here, although as far as the melodies of Anubis go, there is not anything here that becomes instantly memorable or catchy. All the same, Anubis have some very melodic vocalists- yes, they all sing! While these melodies only sunk in for me on the second listen, I was instantly impressed by the vocal harmonies, which layer the choruses with warm beauty.

'A Tower Of Silence' is bookended by its two highlights, the latter of the two being 'All That Is', which cycles through a number of different moods and ends with a cinematic choral passage that reminds me of Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' and its gospel choirs. One more thing I would state about this album is the very interesting sense of production that 'A Tower Of Silence' has. It is not necessarily chaotic, but there are times here where the arrangement verges on being a wall of sound. Naturally, this is an album to listen to on the best set of speakers at your disposal. Anubis have made an excellent record here, although the album's length is overdrawn by an inch or two. Anubis are definitely on my radar now, and while only time will tell whether or not they take this mature style of theirs and do even better things, time will tell. Until then, 'A Tower Of Silence' is a very strong melodic album, with depth worth many listens.

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