A DREAM IN STATIC

You see, in the old days, prog metal was still rooted in the origins of hair metal. Queensryche, Fates Warning, Symphony X, Evergrey, even Dream Theater. All these bands evolved their sound from the 80's hair metal scene and New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands (or NYOBHM for you young hipsters out there) like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and the power metal genre that emerged from both of them. Most, but not all, based their sound on a wall of noise, usually playing fast as well, while incorporating progressive elements as they went. None of these things are bad, mind you. But these days things are changing.

Progressive metal bands nowadays are emerging from that little "djent" phase from a few years ago, remember that? When Meshuggah went full djent, death metal bands were like "so cool, let's do nothing but this" and turned out just awful crap. Even Meshuggah went too far off the deep end by just repeating themselves over and over again really loudly, like an angry girlfriend telling you what she wants to eat for the 1000th time even though you know what she wants because that's all she ever orders from her favorite restaurant.

But very quickly bands begin to emerge that incorporated djent sounds into their guitars, but sonically went exactly in the opposite direction, focusing more on atmosphere and sound that just straight walls of noise. Bands like Skyharbor, TesseracT, Disperse and Voices from the Fuselage balanced spacey and calm atmospheric and electronic textures with brutal djent chords and walls of distortion, but in a balanced way. They began to move away from screaming and instead allowed the guitars to blend in with the background, let the sound reverberate against itself and just transport you to the depths of space. It's music that balances loud and quiet and entrances you in ways metal never did before. It's a similar feeling with Earthside's debut "A Dream In Static", but different. Allow me to explain:

I first discovered these guys on their bandcamp page and when I saw them describe themselves as composers instead of musicians, immediately I was intrigued. Right away from their opener "The Closest I've Come", this is something completely different. Right away, the electronics in the background hiss and hum as the guitars kick in with a wall of noise. Instantly I'm picturing the vast emptiness of space, but it's not droning. It travels through loud and soft sections, playing off both loud and soft textures to enhance the flow of the music. It also doesn't hurt that guitarist Jamie van Dyck can make his guitar both shred and sing. It's not a huge solo fest, but for an eight minute-long track, it's soothing and settling, and apart from a heavy breakdown late in the song, it's entrancing, close your eyes and let the music take you on a journey through space.

But what amazes me most is the variety of each track. "Mob Mentality" is an absolute blockbuster, with a killer orchestration by the Moscow Studio Symphony Orchestra and some killer vocal work by Sevendust frontman Lajon Witherspoon. It twists and turns like a classical symphony. From soft vocal bridges to operatic passages and soaring strings, it sounds like it's straight from an anime action movie. It's totally different from the last track, it doesn't allow you to settle into one state of mind, it tells a story with ups and downs that ends with an outstanding wall of noise and Witherspoon crooning his way before a dissonant dramatic orchestral stop.

From the sublime to the ridiculous and back to sublime with "A Dream In Static", once again favoring minimal chord changes for an echoing soundscape of reverb and noise with some occasional breakdowns, featuring Daniel Tompkins of Skyharbor and TesseracT, one of my favorite singers today because of his subtle yet commanding and haunting presence, as well as his piercing falsettos. Following that is the soundtrack inspiring "Entering The Light", a mainly orchestral piece featuring Max ZT with a dulcimer feature (when's the last time you listened to a song with a hammered dulcimer solo?).

"Skyline" changes gears a bit by being active in the first half, while slowing down a bit for the second half and creating a 4 over 3 polyrhythm that creates a hypnotic sensation (which features another awesome van Dyck guitar solo as well). The changes between time signatures are fluid enough so as not to ruin the flow of the music and yet the guitars don't seem to overpower as much as you might expect. It's an almost otherworldly feeling as the piano lilts it's motif repeatedly while the guitars sit back on a wall of reverb and the drums just crash away.

It's a similar feeling with "Crater". The guitars just build a wall of noise as the drums build and the bassline moves all over the place before emerging into a silent backdrop for Soilwork frontman Bjorn Strid to come in. This is actually an interesting song for Strid because, even though he does sing quite a bit in Soilwork, his vocal range and abilities are shown more in force on this one song than half of Soilwork's catalog. Only about a minute before song's close does he scream a bit, at the ultimate climax, but his voice is sensitive enough to resonate with the reverb and dissipating guitars during the silent sections, the atmospheric breaks that amplify the main sections. The chorus, like previous tracks, is hypnotic. By maintaining an ever present, but not overpowering, wall of sound, the band just flows atop of it like water, with drummer Ben Shanbrom hammering away before the song fades into an electronic atmospheric haze.

"The Ungrounding" is the most technical song of the lot, right away beginning with the thematic guitar lick and featuring a guitar spot from Henrik Gennert. This is where the band's true instrumental prowess shines, alternating from fast spastic lurches to slower atmospheric catches of breath, it's another song that's hypnotic at times, yet is still busy enough to be interesting. Nothing of the song feels out of place, except for perhaps the dissonant crunches towards the end, but that can also be seen as a breath of fresh air after staying fairly conservative tonality wise throughout the entire album.

But if the previous songs were hypnotic enough, the closer, "Contemplation of the Beautiful" is entrancing enough to damn near put you in a coma. At 11:49, it's the longest on the album, and with plenty of time to set the stage, it's enthralling atmospheric sounds, with a middle eastern sounding violin and an absolutely transcendent performance from Eric Zirlinger of Face The King fame. It cycles between quite meditative buildups and loud, bombastic bursts of violence with Zirlinger screaming like a man possessed. The repeating ascending string melody entices you more and more as it drags on, increasingly getting louder as if beckoning you to lean in closer, like a snake being drawn to a charmer. These sections build for a few minutes before they overflow into bursts of sound and noise before fading as quickly as they build. It's a cycle that repeats for the length of the song, ending with a violin solo similar to the one that began the song, but it's a roller coaster ride regardless.

It's an amazing capstone to an album that, to me, redefined what progressive metal is, what it sill be and what it SHOULD be. This album opened the doors to Skyharbor, TesseracT, Disperse, Being, Voices in the Fuselage, David Maxim Micic, Sithu Aye and many more to me. As a Dream Theater junkie my whole life, the post Portnoy albums have started to underwhelm in recent years and I needed something new to captivate me, and this album came through in spades. Each track provides something new, each track is lively and full of energy, but soothing and docile enough to damn near bring me to tears (and it takes a lot for a song to make me cry, there's a special hall of fame for songs capable of doing that for me). It's another one of those albums that just has no equal. Other bands are imitating the song structures, the chords, the progressions, the wall of noise, the atmospheric interludes, but not in the same way that this band has that keeps each song interesting and fresh so much so that you keep coming back for more. A truly watershed moment that shows the capabilities of progressive metal once elevated from a hairspray and power metal influenced juggernaut to an enlightened classical display of performance art.

Share this EARTHSIDE review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Wicket
• Report this review (#2272707)
• Buy EARTHSIDE music online with PA partners
• Show all EARTHSIDE MP3/Stream
• Go to EARTHSIDE page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to A Dream In Static page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for EARTHSIDE related discussions