"Deceptively complex while being almost immediately accessible."
Effloresce were one of the bands I had been especially keen to see at the second ‘Fused’ festival towards the end of May, having received this album just a few days before the show. Its cancellation sadly took that opportunity away. The band presents a fusion of diverse elements within the prog metal genre, and for a debut album manage to do so in a very assured and engaging way. I note they even managed to secure the services of the redoubtable Dan Swanö to mix and master the album, and it certainly sounds a million dollars!
The present band is to some extent the continuation of Falling Nature; this had included Effloresce guitarist/keyboardist Dave Mola and drummer Tobi Suss. When that band split up, the pair shared a “vision” for a new band and sought appropriate musicians to make it a reality. Vocalist/flautist Nicki Weber had joined for the band’s first recording, the EP ‘Shades of Fate in 2009, and subsequently Tim Ivanic (guitars) and Sebastian Ott (bass) have been enlisted.
There is no doubt that Nicki Weber's vocal prowess plays a central role in the music of Effloresce and she has an incredible range, although not quite to operatic levels. There is no place for “beauty and the beast” vocals here; instead we get “beauty and beautifully beastly” vocals, and I have to nail my colours to the wall and say they do work contextually, and never more so than in wonderfully melodic but aggressively intense ‘Spectre Pt. 1: Zorya’s Dawn’ (which concludes with the sound of an exploding bomb), during the alternate lines to the chorus in the technically thrilling ‘Pavement Canvas’ or where sparsely used, as in the amazing ‘Shuteye Wanderer’ – as good an advertisement for an epic prog metal track as you are ever likely to find. It’s over sixteen minutes of pure magic that I have found the necessity to play repeatedly.
Only one of the six tracks clock in at less than seven minutes: the beguiling instrumental ‘Undercoat’; elsewhere the listener is drawn into a complex prog metal paradigm that demands full attention and many listens to fully extract the musical nourishment served up by Effloresce. It is an extremely tasty prospect with varying sounds and approaches, including an underlying warmth from the keyboards that help to accentuate the well-crafted lead guitar, and is only really allowed to break free in the less technical and more fluid (sorry!) ‘Swimming Through Deserts’.
I have seen this album described as “deceptively complex while being almost immediately accessible.” I couldn’t agree more! It has crept over my musical sensibilities like ivy…
Paul Jerome Smith
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