Style: Melodic death metal with a tinge of technicality
Primary Emotions/Themes: Self reflection, improvement through suffering
Thoughts: Silence. A distant sound echoes closer. An unknown woman whispers in my ear "...This is not a dream..."
Conjuring the Thoughts is a hell of an opener. I hadn't heard it in forever before I dropped the needle and I forgot how quiet it starts. After the lady speaks the band explodes in with a guitar/keyboard combo that would make most prog bands jealous.
Not only is this music technical, it sounds damn good. Very few bands can do both of those at the same time. Skyfire accomplishes this by incorporating a lot of call and response between the keyboard and the lead guitar. One will play a riff and the second will do something similar that plays off the original melody. These two instruments will engage in a duet throughout these songs and it's incredible to listen to.
Let's take a look at the third song Shivering Shade for a few moments here. The song starts out with a simple drum beat, keyboards and the bass pulling up the bottom end. The song then transitions into an arpeggio driven riff on both the guitars and keys, this again is backed by the bass and rhythm guitar. It's just a scale played at a fast pace but damn it sounds good.
The song continues to evolve. The arpeggio driven riffs mold and grow on both the guitar and the keys - the lead being traded back and fourth between them. By the time the chorus comes in the band is blasting away with melodies swirling around me at every point. It can be overwhelming with everything that's going on, but that's why I love this album.
That's just one song, there are nine more that follow the same mold but never duplicate themselves. Skyfire have mastered... no perfected the art of songs that belong together in an album yet sound unique in and of themselves. Do all of them slap as hard as the opener and the third song? No, but they don't need to. There needs to be some ebb and flow to these albums. Even though they all aren't equally as strong none of them ever get the skip.
Spectral is the album where I think... no I know where Skyfire became a force to be reckoned with. This is the album where they transitioned from a cool melodic death metal band to an incredible one. These songs are greater than the sum of their parts. It's a damn crime that this hasn't been on wax before this past year, but all is now forgiven. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go solve Tranquility's Maze.
Written February 1st 2024
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