SEVEN IMPALE - CITY OF THE SUN - ALBUM REVIEW
Seven Impale is a progressive rock band with unique flavour appealing to a wide variety of listeners. Their digital EP ‘Beginning/Relieve’ was released in 2013. ‘City of the Sun’ will mark their debut album.
With a broad mix of jazz influences and rock blended in, the striking melodies of the first track on the album “Oh My Gravity!” brandishes the band’s unique abilities in the best way. Painting musical textures throughout the song, Seven Impale, strikes a balance between the opening and the ending, the transitions between subtle and strong are seamless. A bold choice for an opening song, paying off in spades.
Subtle dreamlike beginning of “Wind Shears” pulls the listener in. The jazz melodies still present, combining with dream pop as the song unfolds. The starting acoustic feel has the listener lean in even as the drum and vocals chime in. This song’s dreamy-ness swells around the mind, creating color patterns that emerge as the listener leans back, closes their eyes and lets the music take them into its embrace. The minimal vocal approach in this track really sets the lyrics apart, letting them ride the wave of melody as the music takes over being the vocalist as well as the narrator of the scene unfolding.
“Eschaton Horo” starts as a juxtaposition between three elements – rock, jazz and electronic. Is it a snake charmer? A jam? A mixture of musical elements to set the song in motion before the vocals even pour into the mix. It’s really refreshing that the vocals aren’t over-running the music, they are locked together as a cascade flowing through the veins.
The most powerful start comes through in “Extraction”. The burning force of guitar pulling forth the band as if through a tunnel in time-space, coming out just over a minute in. The power continuing throughout this song, even with the texturing epic going on behind and around the vocals.
Rounding out this 5 song album is “God Left Us for a Black Dressed Woman”. The narrative starts right out of the gate by the instrumentation. This band really has it down, this lush vibrant texturization that makes each song so diverse. This song out of all 5 contains the maximum range of options for styles the band could have fit in and still it’s seamless between the transitions from beginning to end.
The band’s ability to interweave layers within each song show how diverse they are and the dexterity with which they play. I could imagine being anywhere from a jazz bar, an outdoor concert, to a coffeehouse listening live. All the songs are well over the 6 minute mark, which is twice or more as long as most tracks coming out these days. This isn’t in any way bad as each track is packed to the hilt with substance in each note, even by the end of the longest track, which is 14:12, I was fascinated with the album and ready to listen again.
Review by Tracy Perry
SOCIAL MEDIA