Anciients "Beyond the Reach of the Sun"

Country: Canada
Genre(s): Progressive Metal
Label: Season Of Mist
Format: CD, digital, vinyl
Release date:  August 30, 2024
Tracklist

1. Forbidden Sanctuary (8:16)

2. Despoiled (5:19)

3. Is It Your God (7:07)

4. Melt the Crown (7:08)

5. Cloak of the Vast and Black (6:20)

6. Celestial Tyrant (5:52)

7. Beyond Our Minds (4:12)

8. The Torch (4:13)

9. Candescence (4:10)

10. In the Absence of Wisom (6:35)

Credits

Kenny Cook - Guitar, Vocals

Brock MacInnes - Guitar

Rory O'Brien - Bass

Mike Hannay - Drums

   With

Justin Hagberg - Keyboards (1, 3, 4, 9, 10)

Jesse Gander - Synth (5, 9)

Recorded at Rain City Recorders

Produced, engineered and mixed by Jesse Gander, assisted by Szymon Wojciech

Mastered by Stu McKillop @ Rain City Mastering

Cover artwork by Adam Burke @ Nightjar Illustrations

Description/Reviews:

Beyond the Reach of the Sun ... was more streamlined and slithery, more chest-thumpingly direct, more epic and triumphant sounding. Riffs come in explosive layered packets. Leads, harmonies and melodies are more on par with wind-tussled mountain tops instead of sweaty bar shows and the band moves with finely honed, martial accuracy as conducted by Hannay’s rocket-in-the-pocket staccato swing and accents.  

Songs like “The Torch” blaze with the shirtless glisten of ‘70s stadium rock power. “Cloak of the Vast and Black” swirls and whirls with a combination of hardcore intensity, grunge groove and expansive six-string parries. “In the Absence of Wisdom” is a hurricane-sized maelstrom of classic and prog rock elevated to grandiosity by a return to their growling sludge/death early years as the song/album concludes. The album’s first single, “Melt the Crown” mixes cues from legendary fellow hosers Rush and Harlequin, turn-of-the-millennium post-metal and the most psychedelic corners of the Rise Above Records roster. 

Album opener “Forbidden Sanctuary” is the soundtrack to exploration, of new worlds and sonic arrangement as sine-wave guitars pull from vintage Mercyful Fate covens and Krautrock communes with synths opening up novel textural avenues, as they do on the ethereal wispiness and space rock/sci-fi soundscapes of the instrumental “Candescence.”

Media/Samples
Bandcamp

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