THE BODY POLITIC

The Body Politic manage to sum up the feeling of being raised in a suburb in the modern age. With a combination of heavy progressive riffing, emo-tional and soaring vocals and a general sense of angst and malice their debut offering All Too Human gives an uncompromising audio assault that any fan of the heavier end of the progressive spectrum will enjoy. At times their guitar will give off an almost Between the Buried & Me feeling that is at points matched with a growl to offset otherwise lovely and melodic vocal parts. Jumping between moods is what the band does well and they do it at all the right times.

While the entire album is solid from start to finish it does certainly have it's high-points. Split the Ground offers catchiness rarely found in the progressive genre without needing to compromise its musical merits while The Citadel is able to leave blisters on your ears just from a sheer pummeling of sonic goodness. The to part suite The Madman/The Prophet shows how to weave an interconnected piece of music gently and without interruption to the flow of the album and clocking at nearly 9-minutes is sure to please even the prog-elitest among us. It's Wait For Sunrise however that steals the show. A gentle opening is blasted away by a storm of synths and guitar, sometimes in harmony, sometimes competing in a fury that By-Tor and the Snowdog would be proud of. It's got the catchy hooks that make the band accessible and showcases the peak of their musicianship with an impressive array of audio tricks that will force you to put this album on repeat.

It's refreshing to see the artists trying to mix things that could have by now been old into an eclectic trip of pure sweet progressive goodness as displayed on this album. At 40 minutes long there is not a boring moment, although there are some more quiet ones to give you a further appreciation of the hell that the band can raise. If you fall into the category of progressive music listeners listed above or consider yourself looking for something new I urge you to give this one a spin, you won't be disappointed.