CRUSHING TIME

"Nomadic Horizon" is a Heavy Prog band founded in 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. The band released an EP in 2016 (under the shortened name of Nomadic), and now have released their first full length studio album called "Crushing Time" in June of 2019. The original line up consists of Tom Heslin (vocals, bass, synths), Eric Gulbransen (guitars), Chuck Bontrager (violin) and Henry Jansen drums. The only new member is Greg Rapp who has replaced Jansen on drums, but Jansen appears on 4 of the tracks. This is because the 4 tracks from the EP are included on this album: namely "Carry On", "Nomads", "The Take", and "Confusion". The album consists of 11 tracks with a total run time of 55 minutes. Early on, the band decided it wanted a different sound and opted for a violin player instead of a keyboardist, so they brought on Bontrager.

"Above Ground" begins the album with some heavy guitar chords that brings in the vocals and a melodic guitar heavy style. After two verses, the music goes into a guitar and bass solo that will make you almost think you are listening to Rush. There are several guitar textures going on that change through the solo. The chorus returns, there is a short instrumental interlude, then a repeating vocal line while everything builds back up to another repeat of the chorus. "Gates" is an instrumental interlude with violin and guitar playing together with a melody note for note. This flows into "Carry On", the first of the songs from the debut EP. Churning guitars and violins carry the song into the vocal section. Two verses, bridges and choruses take it into an instrumental featuring interplay between the guitar and violin, both playing quite heavily with the rhythm pounding steadily along. Its great interplay between the two lead instruments. This is followed by a repeat of the bridge and chorus.

"The Journey" has a pensive beginning with soft guitars and the violin taking the lead. A slow beat is established as the violin continues pleading. After 3 minutes, the guitars become more intense and then win over the spotlight. Even though this is a straightforward rhythm, it is a beautiful and emotional instrumental track with a lot of power behind the violin and guitar. "On with the Show" returns to the basic verse/chorus pattern with a standard track. This is followed with "Nomads", another track from the EP. This is a more upbeat instrumental, led mostly by guitars and slightly more progressive. It also features a nice bass solo.

"Forty Years" is the longest track at over 7 minutes. It is another instrumental and quite accessible, but it flows through a lot of different tempos and moods and is mostly led by guitars but the violin gets a chance to shine a too. "The Take" is the 3rd EP track. The track is very heavy during the instrumental breaks and is where the song is the best, but the vocals and melody is a bit lackluster. "Coastline" is yet another instrumental which is very catchy and fast moving, again led by guitars mostly, but with a great heavy bass. Later, the violin and guitar play off each other quite nicely.

"Follow" has a nice moderate beat, and features dual vocals from both Tom and guest Michelle Cross. It's one of the better vocal tracks, but it is still quite standard. The vocals are accompanied by strummed guitar, a moderate beat and a flowing violin. "Confusion" ends the album with the last EP track. Again, you get great instrumental sections but uninteresting vocal melodies.

What I find on this album is that the vocals are good, there is nothing wrong with the lead singer's voice, but the melodies presented by the vocalist are not that interesting and they follow a pretty standard lyrical formula. With better melodies and less formulaic songwriting, it could have been better. On the instrumental side, things are much better. The songs are a bit more progressive, exciting and the use of violin and guitar and the heavy bass lines are the best thing about the album. So, we get 4 star instrumentals and instrumental sections, a decent vocalist, but vocal melodies that lack substance. Fortunately, there are several instrumental tracks here. The vocals would normally provide some variety to the instrumental tracks, so Im not saying they should get rid of the vocals or look for a different vocalist. The melodies just have to be better and less formulaic. Anyway, I recommend the album for the great instrumentals, but have to give it an overall rating of 3 stars.