RISE RADIANT

Caligula's Horse' Rise Radiant is The progressive metal album. The elements of djent, heavy and odd chord structures, and vocals of high quality. The album art is absolutely stunning, the oil texture of the painting with a dear in the middle. The dear looking into a mountain landscape, soft streams, and a warm colour scheme.

The Tempest is a bit of a djent driven piece, the lyrics are well written. "There's No Saints, Only the thunder in skin, the frailty", the poetic content of these lyrics is amazing. The songwriting of this song is unbelievable, the instrumentation is great and the odd patterns make the song sound polyrhythmic. Harmonies, odd times, and there are some polyrhythms between the drums and guitars.

Slow Violence is the single that was released about a month ago. The guitar intro is a bit like modern hard rock, the chorus is a bit heavy and then it goes to a bit of a djent rock approach. I do like the lyrics here but they aren't as poetic and meaningful.

What is with the polyrhythmic sound? This is absolutely incredible, the vocals, guitars, keyboards, and drums are all in some very interesting sounding patterns. Salt has some interesting patterns, great lyrical themes, intense keys and some of the best vocals I've heard.

Resonate actually has some John Mitchell era It Bites in it. It's a short interlude with amazing vocals as well, Jim Grey has a bit more rasp in his voice here. I really do enjoy this interlude, its keyboard heavy, and the electric drum track is very fitting to this soft interlude.

Oceanrise is another song with interesting patterns, harmonies, heavy bass, and yet again ... strong lyrics. It seems like a typical song but in all honesty, this song just fits very well on this amazing album.

Valkyrie is a bit of a heavier tune, the djent is tuned up a bit more on this track. The vocals are a bit harsher, a bunch of great harmonies, the guitars are a bit louder, and the lyrics fit the song. This was another single released before the album, and well... this is great so enough said.

Autumn opens with a soft acoustic guitar, very It Bites at the beginning, sounds like something off Map Of The Past. This song ends up being the softest full piece on the album, it's got delicate lyrics and beautiful vocal melodies. This could be the best song on the entire album.

Intense drum fill, heavy bass and electric guitars right off the bat with the final song on this album, titled 'The Ascent'. Its a hard hitter right from the get go, and it continues with this heavy path until about the minute and a half mark. The song slows and the vocals are soft and melodic, it's got a nice jazz feel. The guitars kick into gear and we have the heavy content we all love from this band. The amount of chord changes in this song is enough to keep some jazz guitarists busy. The rest of the song has djent, large and broad harmonies, and just Caligula's Horse goodness. This song ended up being the perfect way to end this album, it had all the right elements to be a heavy end, just like The Tempest was just great enough to be the opener.

Conclusion: Give this album a shot, it has a bunch to offer and frankly this is what modern prog sounds like. Haken and Caligula's Horse are the bands to beat when it comes to the modern prog sound.

So... was Rise Radiant the album I expected? No, it was more, it has complex playing, complex patterns and song structures, along with diverse and intricate chord progressions. Is this what I was expecting from the new prog band to beat? Not at all, but am I happy I listened to this album? Absolutely.

This album really is deserving of 5 stars, it has all the right elements to be a fantastic album. I actually believe that this album could find a place in the top 100 somehow. Bottom line is, this album blew me away and I hope future listeners will find this album just as amazing as I do.