Skewed Skies "A Seaman's Journey"

Country: Germany
Sub Genre: instrumental Progressive Metal
Release date: April 17, 2013
Tracklist: 
1. Set to the Sea (3:08)
2. The Island of Tortuga (7:15)
3. St. Elmo's Fire (6:40)
4. Mary Celeste (4:51)
5. The Kraken (4:38)
6. Leviathan (4:45)
7. A Glimpse of the Other Side (2:58)

Line-up: 
Andreas Mades - guitars, bass, synthesizers, drum programming

Description/Reviews: 

Just like Animals As Leaders or Cloudkicker, Skewed Skies from Mainz, Germany is a one-man operation which is dedicated to both modern and progressive metallic sounds, while continuously remaining instrumental. But that is where the similarities practically end, because where atmospheric-massive Djent sounds dominate the first two projects, Skewed Skies goes into a much more "traditional" direction.
The metallic side of the sound on this debut "A Seaman's Journey" has a quite delicate and technical style, which includes breakneck solos, intricate riffs and fast-paced blast beat sections. Good premise to see it rather in a row with prog-death veterans like Cynic or Atheist. To further delineate "A Seaman's Journey" from the Djent genre, it has to be noted that odd time signature passages avoid to occur in connection with massive walls of guitar. What is done pretty convincing, are the arrangements. So in the middle of "St. Elmo's Fire" there are passages where in fact, at least temporarily, it sounds as if a real band is playing.
So much for the metal part, because this is really just like a base camp for excursions into other directions. "The Island Of Tortuga" for example includes additionally passages with athmospheric clean guitars and ocean samples and later on uses a sequencer loop, which leads into some kind of samba. "St. Elmo's Fire" presents a gloomy piano motif very early that serves as fundament for a short post-rock outing. Also "Mary Celeste" has some relaxed alternative sounds in some of the parts. Only the rapid "The Kraken" is almost entirely metallic, although here the ultra melodic harmony guitars (just think of Baroness) are remarkably towards the end, and "Leviathan" is largely a "hard" matter.

(Gunnar Claußen at babyblaue-seiten.de, translated by Andreas Mades)

Media/Samples 
Bandcamp

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