Some albums have the ability of taking our heart little by little, piece by piece as they go on at our players letting us discover them. As the songs go by, a wondrous world of music reveals surprising the unadvised fan. This works both ways, or it is a matter of getting used to the band’s music, or it is a matter of the band’s music getting near your taste. Both ways are valid.
It is not the first time we have an album that works this way, but this is the first one that this idea came to my mind. Some ideas take some time to be revealed or developed. Our today’s review is a great example. It may be so because “Harbingers” is a very varied album, I would better say it is a hodgepodge of Metal music and other kinds of heavy music. Byzantine were able to put together some features that I would never believe that worked pretty well as some modern Metal features plus AOR. I have to agree the blend here works just fine. Another thing that conquered my heart was that the guitars’ parts and leads are in a constant progression in the album. With album opener “A Place We Cannot Go,” for instance, they are inexistent. Little by little they come to take a bigger part showing the guitar duo Brian Henderson’s and Tony Rohrbough’s dexterity. Chris Ojeda’s vocals are in the same page. “Kobayashi Maru,” – as a homage to is the fictional spacecraft training exercise in the Star Trek continuity. It was designed by Starfleet Academy to place Starfleet cadets in a no-win scenario. The Kobayashi Maru test was invented for the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and it has since been referred to and depicted in numerous other Star Trek media – thickens the musical plot of the album by having thicker guitars and a thrashy atmosphere. The track follows the vocals ups and downs modern track showcase. “Irene” closes the album with an initial delicate texture that thickens into some grunge atmosphere, but with cool guitars. Guitar work here is pretty amazing.
“Harbingers” is not the kind of monolythic album that keeps following a constant formula. It bounces lots of tempos, cadences, moods, and Metal features. It is not for many bands to do so because most of the times this ends up in a faceless mass. Here with the album, it is the other way around, the fan realizes this is band’s signature.
Byzantine “Harbingers” will be released on June 13th via Metal Blade Records.
Track Listing:
01. Consequentia
02. A Place We Cannot Go
03. Floating Chrysanthema
04. The Clockmaker’s Intention
05. Riddance
06. Harbinger
07. The Unobtainable Sleep
08. Kobayashi Maru
09. Irene
Watch “Floating Chrysanthema” official music video here:
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!