1.
Cordyceps
2.
Providence
3.
Hourglass
4.
Filling the Void
5.
Inheritance
So, what would you think if I mentioned Dutch arthouse prog?
Nothing? Well, maybe this is
where it starts. Adeia are a 7 piece – yes, that’s right, seven – outfit from the port city of
Rotterdam. And this is their
self-produced, full length debut, out exclusively online, in mp3 format. It’s big, it’s bold, and it’s massively ambitious.
In many ways, Hourglass is a
typical progressive metal record.
Behind a suitably arty cover, there are five songs, with a total
playtime of nearly 45 minutes, jam-packed with page after page of descriptive
lyrics. But, rather than being just
another case of talented musicians getting together to show off to mere
mortals, this is a touching and sympathetic portrait of human emotions. Music and lyrics* combine to create a
highly-charged, three-quarters-of-an-hour long vortex of passion into which
every song is pulled (or, if you prefer, a big emotional pie). And it’s clear from the very beginning that
this is a project worth taking note of.
The sounds range from the spellbinding to the orgasmic: male vocals,
both clean and screaming; raw, crunching guitars; sweeping strings; deep,
powerful bass drum hits; and some of the clearest piano sounds you’ll ever be
treated to in the world of metal.
Beginning with ponderous,
interweaving violin and cello melodies, the album strikes an optimistic tone,
as ambient, glowing synth keys welcome in soft vocals. These give out an inquisitive but honest
tone, as the lyrics assess their surroundings with a childlike innocence: “New
breaking dawn, abundant in expectation.”
This initial calmness doesn’t last long, however, and rapidly gives way
to unsettled musical and lyrical themes.
Deep – and beautifully clear – pianos wander slowly up the keyboard,
chased lazily by the violin in imitation.
They are joined by the deep strokes of the cello, also providing its own
take on the original piano theme. And,
as the three distinct tones interweave and overlap one another, the music turns
acidic with discord. This disharmony is
a carefully constructed device, which reflects a turn in the lyrics towards a
tormented soul: “Fear sneaking under my skin/My deepest wish/Holding on for
final seconds/Then my eyes open/What are my odds today?”
This sets the tone for the rest
of the album, which continually returns to unsettled, discordant lyrical and
musical themes. From the very
beginning, this conjures feelings of darkness and fear. In track 1, Cordyceps, this is closely
linked to a sense of bodily destruction, painting a portrait of physical
personal in a big bad world. As the
music develops, smoother vocal melodies abruptly give way to piano keys
wriggling in discomfort, as a hoarse voice whispers: “A day of ceaseless
firing/I hope to resist their impact” (a reference then follows to a “final
bullet”). The vocal melodies return,
backed up by a female voice, as the music swells from anxiety to outright
panic: “My energy is flowing/Out of my punctured chest”. As the final stages of the song play out,
the extent of the wounds are revealed by a sinister, growled voice, which
snarls “You shall be no more”. The
sense of threat is mirrored by the high-pitched wailing of the violin, which
cuts gashes from the musical accompaniment with razor-blade strokes.
One of the most noticeable things
is that, having two dedicated string players as permanent band members, Adeia
have been able to construct far more interesting string parts than would have
been possible if they were played out on keyboards. Both cello and violin are free to wander as independent musical
elements, weaving complex and haunting textures with the help of the rest of
the band. And this only helps build the
highly-charged sense of fear and danger.
Track 2, Providence, enters to the classically menacing sound of deep,
bass piano keys – think Jaws on speed – while the violin again carves out
jittery patterns of its own. And,
towards the end of track 4, Filling the Void, the violin and piano return with
screaming, discordant runs. This is
something Adeia do really, really well.
In spite of the complexity of their musical layers and textures, the music
never feels overburdened, messy, or dense.
It’s dark, its sinister, and it’s
all executed brilliantly. But what does
it all mean, exactly? Despite the
allusions to bodily destruction in Codyceps, what really seems to provoke this
sense of fear and unease is the prospect of losing something even more
fundamental: the power of free will. In
fact, the first thing to be destroyed in the album is not the body, but dreams,
as the lyrics of Cordyceps explain: “My deepest wish/Shattered to pieces”. This seems to be what is threatened by the
“ceaseless firing”. The “bullet” which
follows is not a physical object, but rather an outside attack on the
individual’s own ambitions. This theme
is further developed throughout the album.
The title-track, Hourglass, paints a portrait of a spirit trapped by the
wishes of other: “Against your will you were transformed”. And, as the following song, Filling the
Void, explains, an inability to freely define the self seems to be the cause of
a sense of loss: “The cold hard shell/Try to find/My soul buried within”; later
in the same song, “Find myself trapped forever”. What this trap involves could possibly be explained in the final
track, Inheritance. Here, the lyrics
tell of another’s wish being forced upon the unwilling participant:
Since the
passing away of my granddad
Final wish
of his deathbed
That I
should have this instrument
My
inheritance and my torment
It is this arrangement that forces the unfortunate spirit
to abandon his own desires and fulfil those of his “heritage”. “How did this happen to me?” is the
despairing cry: “I know not what to do/With all these memories/That are not
mine”.
From this main themes, the music
and lyrics are able to pull in a number of different directions, building
various different emotions. Aside from
the sense of fear and instability created by the lingering discordance, one of
the most powerful of these is anger, which stems from the injustice of being
controlled by others. In track 2,
Providence, an irrepressible, anarchic will for freedom is expressed, revealing
a faith in the ability to independently shape the future. Over rippling pianos and sustained guitar
chords come words sung in quiet determination, “I am beyond a state of doubt/I
have replenished my own drought/I am the god to which I bow”. The last line is growled with steely grit:
“I will prevail”. In Filling the Void,
this struggle forces a painful self-examination. “Try to find/My soul buried within”, run the lyrics, accompanied
by twisted piano runs and deep strokes of the cello. And the anarchic spirit responds to the call, tearing itself
apart in an effort to do so: “Take away my flesh/To feel what’s inside”; and
later, “Break open my chest”. Drums
crash, power chords crunch, strings sweep, and the music swells with inner
fury. But it also portrays concerted
determination. As the raw anger ebbs
away, it is replaced by deep, striding piano notes and steady drums. At first growled, and then repeated in
strong, clean vocals, comes a determination to find the true self: “Under the
skin/Beneath the flesh/Inside the chest/Behind the emptiness”.
But the music always seems to
return to the realisation that whatever may have existed before has been
lost. These are the terms on which
Filling the Void end: “Find myself/Trapped for ever”. There is a sense of brutal inevitability to all this, which is
also highlighted by lyrics at the end of track 2, Providence (I had to look
this word up in the dictionary.
Apparently it means “fate”, or “destiny”. You’d never have guessed English was my first language…). Amid a storm of drums, guitars, and alarmed
strings, a voice growls with fury, “My providence/Has fallen down/Sinking into
the ground”. This feeling of
powerlessness in the face of a predetermined fate is repeated in the final
track, Inheritance: “I am terrified but I can’t resist”. And, as this final song progresses, the
tyrannical power comes to torment its victim directly, as demonic screams mock,
“There’s no way out of the prison in your mind/You’re mine for ever more”.
For all the anger and rage the
struggle for freedom creates, however, the knowledge that escape is impossible
is also a cause for quiet, sorrowful reflection. This is also a chance for Adeia to show off some of their very
best songwriting skills. The title
track, Hourglass, opens to the strains of sad voice, accompanied by a lone
church organ, playing muted chords.
Gradually, a mournful cello and violin enter, intertwining majestic
melodies, before slow but powerful drums and guitars enter to provide a sense
of growing grandeur. There’s powerful
imagery in the lyrics, also. On the one
hand, the hourglass symbolises the glass’s mirror-like reflection. The reflection shining back in the glass is
not that of the free soul the spirit yearns for. Instead, the lyrics see, “myself, a pale reflection/I barely
recognise/The empty gaze of strangers eyes”.
At the same time, the hourglass is the more conventional symbol of
time. What it seeks lies in the past,
and is slipping away like sand before the watcher’s eyes:
I
breathe and wipe the sallow glass
Free from grime, of ages past
In an attempt to catch a glimpse
Of days that cannot be returned
For all the wishes in the world,
it is a lost cause. The song closes to
the same music, and the lyrics show only despair: “Slowly I go down/To my
battered fate”. With the song’s final
word, the dream for freedom is waved sadly on its way: “Farewell”.
These themes – dark, unsettled,
fearful, and sombre – run throughout each song of the album, repeating but
never seeming to reach a resolution.
The tone of the music is constrained, and I get the impression that it
has been deliberately held back to signify the empty struggle. There are no bombastic chords, no soaring
melodies, and no wild, jubilant instrumental fills; the music feels artistically
unresolved. This is, perhaps, the ultimate
symbolisation of lost dreams.
But, just as the album has its
deliberate beginning, in the opening track, Cordyceps, so it has a clear and
final end in track 5, Inheritance. This
is the song which features the line, “You’re mine for ever more”. With these taunts, the tension which has
been present throughout the record comes to a head: brutal growls are replaced
by a complex mashup of musical themes, as chugging guitars rattle away behind
weaving strings; this, in turn, gives way to a frantic, dashing, jig-like
violin melody while cymbals splash away in the background. And panic turns to outright madness as the
music crescendos into a blur of sounds, moving in all directions at once. The violin and cello cut jagged lines, only
to be drowned out by the rapid strumming of guitars and wild battering of
drums. This is the first time in the
album that the band allow themselves to be carried away into chaos, and the
insanity is completed by the introduction of brash sound effects (including a
very angry-sounding cat). Just as the
music threatens to be consumed by its delirium, it succeeds in shaking off the
madness. For the first time in the
album, clean, harmonious, and conclusive chords boom out. The rhythms are straight, honest, and
simple, and the band finally play in powerful unison. In these last two minutes of music, the album’s despair is
resolved.
All this is reflected in the
lyrics, which portray a final release, and are sung, full pelt, by powerful
clean vocals: “For the last time/I can be alone again”. This is an ultimate state of liberation, in
which no outside interference can enter, as the spirit finds itself “Between
the walls/That keep the sane from their insanity”. The conclusion: “I have lost my mind”. Like Sonata Arctica did in their recent song, Losing my Insanity,
this escape into madness is portrayed as a release from the monstrous delusions
of an evil reality. And it spells an
end to the torment of the cursed heritage: “I know it will never/Consume my
soul again”. The final words conclude
the song, the album, and the epic struggle for freedom it portrays: “I am
free”. As the guitars slip away, a
single, childlike line of tinkly music rings out, slowly fading. I can almost see the released soul receding
into the distance.
Or, at least, that’s how I
interpreted it. There’s enough
ambiguity in the lyrics to keep a bona fide musical genius awake at night, let
alone an amateur blogger. And they reveal
a depth and precision to the music that is massively impressive. Even if all this conceptual shit isn’t your
cup of tea, the music alone is worth the listen. With so much expression and passion, the sounds tells their own
story, and the complexity and maturity of Adeia’s musical work is enough to
make you completely forget that this is a young, unsigned, self-produced
outfit. That, surely, can’t remain the
case for long. And, no matter how much
I try to write about this record, everything points to one, final conclusion: This
must be of the metal albums of the year.
Production: 5/5
Lyrics: 4/5
Album Coherence: 5/5
Music: 9/10
Percentage Score: 92/100
* Apart from the first song, I tried to write down and decipher the lyrics from listening to the
album. If I got any of them wrong, I
can only apologise and hope it hasn’t distorted their meaning too much!
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