TRIANGULATE

Terrific new disc from Bolus. These guys have a great energy and have further developed their own sound with "Triangulate". They never stray too far in one direction, always conscious of grounding themselves in the song itself and maintaining the flow, which provides a good, full-album listen. Well-crafted songs with foot-tapping playing and - as always - a real likeable, singalong quality to the lead and harmony vocals. At the time of writing this review, the band are booked to play RoSfest 2013, and that appearance is sure to gain them more fans and exposure. "Triangulate" is a worthy addition to your collection - it's so refreshing to hear young guys like these producing original music of such high quality.... this bodes well for the future of prog and prog-related acts. Recommended!

You got to check these guys out!

I had the pleasure of seeing them live at ROSFest 2013. They completely blew the crowd and I away. So after the show I bought this album and met with them. Incredibly nice guys, they even signed it for me.

The album its self is a mix of many things. This isn't the pretentious type of prog. It is very down to earth, like the band themselves. Tracks range from heavy to soft with the playing being top notch the whole way through. So if you got the itch to find new music, check these guys out. In short, it is a beautiful mix of genres that will definitely satisfy your ears

I gotta say, I'm not really a fan of this band or album. I love neo-prog, but I don't think this band really falls into that sub-genre. There are moments on this album that sound exactly like moments on Porcupine Tree's "In Absentia" and also "Deadwing". That should give you an idea of what sound this band uses.

There was a band a few years back named Abigail's Ghost that pulled a similar stunt. They were basically a mix of Porcupine Tree and Genesis, but at least they had some original ideas and blew my mind with some of the arrangements. Bolus, on the other hand, just sounds like PT and any alternative group you could name (maybe Radiohead?). I don't normally like to fault bands for having influences, but many of the melodies and arrangements seem to be straight from PT. It gets bad enough that I was able to name some of the songs that were copied, and I don't even like PT that much.

All in all, this is a good album. It's not great. It's not essential. It's just good, and I guess that's okay. Neo-prog, this is not. Heavy prog or crossover prog, maybe.

Canadian trio BOLUS was formed ten years ago. They have three albums to their name so far, as well as a remastered and reissued version of their 2005 debut album as part of their discography. "Triangulate" is their most recent studio production, and was self-released by Bolus in 2013.

Canadian trio Bolus explores a melodic and accessible variety of progressive rock on their third album "Triangulate", managing to blend harmonic and dramatic details in a fine balance and flavoring the proceedings quite nicely and liberally with atmospheric sounds and textures. Fans of late 80's Rush and Porcupine Tree strike me as a key audience on this occasion, and especially those among them also fond of occasional mainstream oriented exploits of bands like Coldplay as well as the somewhat more intense and dramatic excursions of bands like The Mars Volta.

When Porcupine Tree found a much larger audience due to their signing with Lava records (a subsidiary of Atlantic) one of the consequences seemed to be a lot of younger musicians starting bands influenced by them. The new found fame of Porcupine Tree was good in the sense that it meant prog could finally reach a larger audience (the band The Mars Volta was at least partially responsible for this also) but it also meant that the alternative influences could be more prominent than the prog influences. Since Porcupine Tree had already added an alternative element in their music it meant that some of these bands just wound up sounding not very original in their approach.

The Canadian band Bolus is in my view one of these bands who would either not exist at all or sound very different if it wasn't for Porcupine Tree. Although they do sound at times very much like a less heavy version of later Porcupine Tree that's not to say that Bolus don't have any original bones in their body. However, it's quite obvious (to me at least) who the musical template for their music is. Specifically much of this could be outtakes from In Absentia minus the metal elements of that classic album. While there is some acoustic guitar on that PT album there is much more on this one but it's mostly of the strummy variety and is more or less just part of the background. Also, this album is more similar to modern alternative than "traditonal" progressive rock. There really isn't much on here that would make me want to categorize this as a progressive rock album or even an art rock album. That by itself of course doesn't make it weak but the music itself just doesn't do much for me regardless of genre. That being said the opening track "forward facing" which features a rather jangly guitar riff is quite good and a few other tracks are decent enough but over all this release is far from top notch.

Also, it's worth mentioning that the lead singer, at least to me, sounds a bit like David Pack from Ambrosia. That's interesting because it's very likely no members in this band were even alive when Ambrosia were at their peak. It's also quite possible that the band members have no clue who Ambrosia are. It doesn't matter much though because other than the vocalist this band sound nothing like them.

While there are some good moments on this album (which apparently is their last), few stand out and the ones that do are few and far between. A few good moments is not enough to make an album stand up to repeated listenings let alone be something that one could say is an important part of their collection. Also, there are very few (if any) truly memorable songs on this album. If a band is going to focus on songs and songwriting like Bolus seem to do then they should at least have melodies that keep the listener engaged. I don't feel that is the case here. I contemplated giving this release three stars but in the end I decided to go for two stars. Maybe 2.5 would be more accurate. If you are into the more alternative and modern rock side of prog then this might be your thing but there are better bands in that category in my opinion.