AN ENDLESS SPORADIC

An Endless Sporadic had previously made a good EP ("Ameliorate", 2008). It consisted of just 4 tracks, but not a bad one in the bunch. For An Endless Sporadic's proper debut they decided to call on the help of fellow prog musicians. Roine Stolt and Jonas Reingold were up for the task of helping Zach Kamins and Andy Gentile for this album. Reingold contributed bass on all tracks (lightening the load for Zach, who previously had to play bass on "Ameliorate") and also engineered the album while famous prog guitarist Roine Stolt produced the album. In case you don't know, Stolt and Reingold are members of popular Swedish prog band The Flower Kings.

The album plays as a suite with no pauses between tracks (except for those few seconds between Tracks 6 and 7) and recurring themes.

1. "Waking Hours": This song serves as a good opener to the album. It is just an acoustic guitar piece that states the main theme of the album. It is a great piece but can't be listened to without the following songs.

2. "From The Blue": A strange thing for An Endless Sporadic (until this album) was the keyboard driven track. "From The Blue" is abundant in organ and synthesizer melodies from Kamins. It is a fantastic song that is the most popular on the album.

3. "Point Of No Return": This is the heaviest track AES has ever done. It delivers punishing riffs and killer guitar hooks. The lightning-speed guitar solo is the center of this track. This is actually the weakest song on the album, however, but it is very short.

4. "Shell": Following the heaviest track is the softest one. "Shell" is a piano driven tune which features jazzy arrangements. It repeats it's main riff over and over again, but that isn't a problem since the melody is so good.

5. "Treading Water": this is one of the best songs on the album. It starts off as another piano driven song before erupting into a fierce, melodic guitar solo. The last 30 seconds of the song is atmospheric noises which segue into the next track.

6. "The Triangular Race Through Space": This one follows in the footsteps of "Point Of No Return", though not as heavy. It is another metal piece, though not as good as the other songs on the album.

7. "Eternal Bloom": This is the best song on the album. Beginning with a long acoustic guitar solo (with muffled guitar and drums in the background) it then changes into a great jazz/metal/prog guitar driven song.

8. "Subliminal Effect": Another keyboard song, it delivers the main theme of the album with different instruments such as organ, mellotron, and synthesizers.

9. "Beyond The Horizon": One of the best tracks, it closes the album in epic fashion.

And that's that, An Endless Sporadic delivers once again with another spellbinding album. Not really progressive metal, but maybe symphonic prog. It is certainly the best release of 2009: blowing "Black Clouds And Silver Linings" out of the water, and beating "The Whirlwind" and "The Incident" by a hair. Actually, this is one of the best albums ever and maybe the best instrumental album ever. It is a great experience to listen to and they will certainly follow this one up with another fantastic effort.

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