Horizons

Quality records have been the law for Anubis Gate. Silently and without much to-do they have coughed up a number of enjoyable releases without dropping the ball over singer swaps and the general grind of time. To make their exports a prime product within the sphere of progressive metal, they write great songs—keeping it simple, stupid. Can’t fault the group for sticking to what they know throughout “Horizons.” While it offers similar themes of the band’s self-titled release, the songwriting dynamics and instrumental performances are immaculate as expected, maybe pieces of the group reaching its apex. Anubis Gate is bending the rules of progressive metal to make its own chapter in the sub-genre’s encyclopedia; I can’t think of another band that has been this successful in making its own trek.

“Horizons” has many dimensions. Perhaps the most noticeable component of the album, other than the riffs and the stylistic elements typically found in progressive metal, is its accessibility. The ease of the musical style (big on poppy choruses, clean guitars, user-friendly vocal patterns, etc.), rather than hindering the band’s approach, greatly enriches the grace of the performances. Henrik Fevre, in particular, brings an ample amount of convenience to the fold, but his unique tone and style, again, enhance the texture. As the riffs and patterns are not deeply original or irreplaceable to this kind of thing, the primary strength to “Horizons” is Anubis Gate’s ability to create outstanding music by arranging their guitar parts and structures into songs that are incredibly poignant and striking.

They are a versatile bunch, and certainly no one-trick pony. Big prog numbers like “Airways” and “Destined to Remember” flow naturally with myriads of riffing sections and rhythms that bite and refuse to let go. The brazen whipping of “Revolution Come Undone” is an uncharacteristically heavy number for Anubis Gate, but a great changeup nonetheless. Excellent leads and melodies on the title track and “Never Like This (A Dream)” never stop, with motifs of the latter reappearing on “A Dream Within A Dream,” which is easily the climax of the record. “Erasure,” the album’s final note, is a fairly useless ballad ending the whole affair after fourteen minutes of brilliance on the aforementioned epic; it sounds like a bonus track exclusive to Cambodian versions at best. But hey, Anubis Gate rules, and so does “Horizons.” They stick to what they know, and boy, don’t they do what they do well or what?

This review was written for: www.Thrashpit.com

Anubis Gate is stuck in a rut. They made such a huge leap in songwriting on Andromeda Unchained that now they’re basically stuck in that style so far as writing goes; after all, what else are they going to do if they want to keep any fans? They can’t deviate from it too much now that they’ve established themselves in the scene, as that wouldn’t be a good move from a business standpoint. So they just remake their best work without the same kind of innovative spark.

I don’t know. I enjoy this album in a minor way. It’s the kind of thing I appreciate in a vague, general kind of manner - I can appreciate, in an intellectual way, the technical tightness and rhythmic complexity of songs like “Never Like This” and the smooth “Airways,” sure - but where is the fire; where is the urgency? I do kind of like vocalist Henrik Fevre’s silky, mellow vocal tricks on some songs, but he doesn’t really play with it as much as he could. Likewise, the keyboards can sometimes be very somber and add some drama to the constant conveyor belt of clinical prog-metal riffing, in a rather Beyond Twilightish way, but they don’t really do much with that either. They certainly don’t make you sit up and pay attention like they did with the best songs on the old stuff.

I mean yeah, of course they can play their instruments; I think that’s kind of a given with prog bands - it’s not like these guys just finish a sloppy guitar take and go “oh shit, we have to get this out to the studio immediately!” No. These guys are professionals - I think we can stop lauding albums like this for having impeccable musicianship and playing technically competent material. The songs on this thing are loaded up like a college frat party with chugging riffs, clean sounding atmospheric parts and vocal sections where Fevre speeds his pitch up and harmonizes with himself, but we’ve heard it all before. Tracks like “Revolution Come Undone” listen like pastiches of their entire career, and the 14-minute epic near the end is just way, way too long for its own good.

There’s a certain charm to the misty, fog-covered atmosphere this album has, and Fevre’s vocals combined with the ringing guitars and pounding drums certainly sounds professional and tight, but this album has all the daring, cunning and badassery of a minivan used to pick up a horde of nine-year-olds from soccer practice. The old stuff, by comparison, was a slick, sexy looking new convertible with all the gadgets needed for a Batmobile impersonation. There’s just nothing cool about this - it’s a well done album that would score points on a graded exam for well written metal, and I'm sure lots of people feel smart for enjoying it, but the band is basically running on fumes at this point, or so it sounds to these ears. It’s cerebral to a fault and doesn’t engage you.

It's often the most difficult part of a review to write a compelling introduction, so I'll just cheat and summarize the extent of my feelings towards the band right away: Anubis Gate are the most criminally underrated working band in progressive metal today. It's a bold statement to be certain, but I'm sure many of the bands fans would tend to agree. Following the done-to-death prog-power trend, Anubis Gate have managed to accomplish what so many of their contemporaries have failed to do; that is, making melody sound interesting in prog metal. When so much attention is paid to a band's shredding ability or quasi-autistic technical prowess, it's painfully common for the melodic staple to get lost or discredited. Having been amazed by Anubis Gate's amazing ability to invert this trope on past albums (particularly their 2007 opus Andromeda Unchained), this year's Horizons has been among my most anticipated of 2014. By all means, the end result has not disappointed; lively musicianship, a mature execution and an exceptional integration of melody into a progressive metal framework makes for one of the first stand-out records I've heard this year.

"Destined to Remember" I heard on their free-for-download Sheep EP some months ago, and in spite of that engrained familiarity, I still find myself blown away by the song. Although the only noticeable change between the two songs is the extension of the song's bridge section, "Destined to Remember" feels like an essential demonstration of everything that makes Horizons so great. So many ideas are tossed into the structure, but it still manges to sound compelling and filled with hooks. The only shorter progressive metal song I can think of that managed to accomplish such a feeling of completion in so 'short' a time was Circus Maximus' "Abyss". If you've at some point shared doubts as to whether melodies could be successfully worked into prog metal without a cost to ambition, set aside what you're doing and take the five minutes to hear this song. The rest, as they say, is history.

"Airways" is built around some incredibly clever melody writing, and the chorus is a prime example of this; the chorus presents a simple melody, and reinvents it entirely right after by pairing it up with a different chord. Although the melody stays the same, it has a much darker atmosphere the second time around; I know it's a minor detail in context of the album, but it's an amazing demonstration of how Anubis Gate integrate melody into their music. Horizons' other highlights include "Never Like This" (an incredibly hooky tune with moments that recall Devin Townsend!), "Breach of Faith", and the concisely structured title track. Regardless which song is put under the knife and analyzed on Horizons, it's virtually guaranteed that Anubis Gate are doing something to impress me at the given time. The release of the album was delayed from 2013 to this year as a result of their perfectionism, and the attention to detail is apparent in the end result.

While Anubis Gate stand out as incredible songwriters, the craft and structure of the album itself is a lesser success. The flow doesn't stand out as good or bad for the most part, but there is rarely the sense that the song order compliments the enjoyment of the songs themselves. Many of these songs build up a fierce emotional momentum, only to have the momentum mostly washed off by the next song. This is most apparent in the album's closing segment, the part-epic/part-medley "A Dream Within A Dream" and its acoustic denouement "Erasure". "A Dream Within A Dream" takes the melodic hooks from songs prior ("Never Like This" and "Airways" in particular) and gives them a more mellowed, atmospheric overhaul. Although the ideas themselves are great, the track feels less like the epic it tries to make itself out to be, and more an attempt to bring the album together as a whole. The slight disappointment of it falling short of a true prog metal epic aside, "A Dream Within A Dream" would have been an effective closer to the album, and by all means is one, if you don't count the acoustic "Erasure" that comes after it. I get that "Erasure" is meant as a sort of 'exit music' to the album, but it bears no emotional connection or shared momentum with the fourteen minute track that precedes it. As a result, the album ends feeling a tad underwhelming, and the disregard for a momentous climax sadly robs Horizons of some of the overall impression it was set up to have.

Even having become very familiar with the album, the flow still stands as a problem for the album. Then again, when looking at the album as a whole, it's a small price to pay for an otherwise incredible product. Anubis Gate 's songwriting may be what make them so worthy of praise, but even their production and performance manage to stand out. Instrumentally, Anubis Gate are excellently professional and accent these songs with dynamic performances throughout; even if there are few sections here where it sounds like the band are playing to their limit, their chemistry and quality as musicians is never in question. As has been the case with my past experience with Anubis Gate however, vocalist Henrik Fevre remains the most impressive part of the band. The production style shares this enthusiasm for the vocals and melodies, upmixing Fevre's performance just a little bit more than is usual for metal. His high register and impressive range may come as second nature for the prog-power style, but his delivery seems to go that extra mile. There is passion and intensity in the performance, not just from Fevre, but the band as a whole. It's not the sort of dynamic presentation you would expect from a band that's so unashamedly melodic, but there you have it.

Writing about Anubis Gate and this latest album, I've come to realize something; whereas with most progressive metal bands I might tend to focus on the skill of the execution and other more 'objective' aspects of the product, I don't feel limited at all to discuss the softer elements of Anubis Gate. The songwriting and musical direction has been constructed with a clear sense of purpose and regard for feeling. They have taken memorable, cleverly delivered melodies and married them with the genre's infamous penchant for technique and skill. Although they're far from alone in this goal, Anubis Gate are among the few who can make the end result compelling and challenging. Horizons is no exception to the band's proud history; whatever weaknesses are here are far outweighed by their skill and thoughtfulness as musicians and songwriters. It's enough to dispel my suspicion of modern progressive metal trends, if only for a while, and it's my hope that this latest album will earn them a broader fanbase and heightened exposure they so justly deserve.

I have almost given up on progressive metal because these days it just means something so much different than I remember. It seems that the definition has changed to polyrhythm wankery like some djent bands or just unusual time changes for the sake of unusual time changes. Prog-metal, to me, is melodic metal that teeters on the brink of prog rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, Rush, etc mixed with power metal. Bands like Dream Theater, (old) Symphony X, Fates Warning, Circus Maximus, etc. And it seems that a lot these truly prog-metal bands have let me down lately, save Fates Warning's latest. Never fear prog-metal fans, your savior has arrived in the form of Horizons, the new release from Denmark's Anubis Gate.

Okay, I need to admit my n00bness here because, and I'm not sure how, this band has slid under my radar for years now. They formed in 2001 and has released six full lengths in a decade and this is my first exposure to them. Yeah, I know, what rock have I been hiding under? I'm not sure but I'm happy I crawled out from under it because this album is one of the finest prog-metal albums I've heard in a long time. They have a sound reminiscent to Dream Theater in places minus the extreme wankery. I love wankery, actually, but there's a time and a place for it. The songs on this album are complex without being pretentious, melodic without being cheesy, and heavy in the places where it fits. The time changes are subtle and not so overt that they interrupt the flow of the songs. The riffs are solid and catchy and the leads are well placed but not overdone. The vocalist reminds me of a cross between James LaBrie and Jon Anderson of Yes in his much younger days.

The melodies are infectious and the riffs are epic and somewhat down tuned but not to the point where it seems like they are trying to be too heavy. The use their keyboards so well because they do not drive the songs but give them depth. The album opener, "Destined to Remember," is a prime example of the melodies and catchy songwriting displayed on this album. The vocalist does sound like Labrie on this one but has so much more depth and tone to his voice. As I said, there is no shortage of huge riffs on this album as on songs like "Hear My Call" and "Revolution Come Undone" where these riffs drive the songs and the melodies just pull you in. "Airways" reminds me of 90125 era Yes where they keys are hypnotic with a psychedelic feel but also containing some decent riffs. The vocals mostly remind me of Yes on this one. These are just a few examples of the complex elements of these songs but at the same they time contain melodies that keep it from being obnoxious.

As typical with the genre you some epic songs on here that are just musically huge and that reek with pure talent. I call them goose bump songs. "Breach of Faith" is one of those songs. It starts off simple enough with some light piano that leads into an almost U2 like clean guitar riff that mixes with the main riff of the song. The verse is heavy and melodic with vocals that are simply incredible. The chorus is catchy and the hooks in this song are just amazing, not to mention a solo that fucking godly. This is my favorite on the album just based on the goose bump factor alone. "Dream Within a Dream" is the other truly epic song on this album, clocking in at fourteen minutes this song will make you love this band. The melodies on this song are infectious and go from soft to heavy then to hypnotic. The song builds up to massive riffs in the middle where the hooks just grab you an do not let go.

This band is, without a doubt, the savior of prog-metal. I was about to give up on the genre due to releases that seem to be lacking or were just pretentious wankery. I'm on a mission to procure their entire back catalog because I feel like such a dork for missing out on this band to begin with! Get this album...NOW!!

http://elitistmetalhead.blogspot.com/