By Jase Walker
Artificial Language are a band very close to my heart following on from their pretty spectacular album full of busy riffs, epic choruses and stuff that generally really scratches that brain itch I have for intense melody in my metal. So finding out that there’s an EP due soon and I have the privilege of getting an early peek at it wasn’t something I could pass off when I’m hoping they return back to this side of the Atlantic every day after seeing them at TechFest back in 2022.
I’ll settle for getting my ears around this EP though (for now), and on first listen I’m brought back to the fantastic singing that’s reminiscent of Leprous’s Einar Solberg and guitar work that reminds me a lot of Caligula’s Horse style tight riffs that eventually build up into soaring choruses. This sort of style is my bread and butter when it comes to prog, there’s nothing I appreciate more than music that has a lot going on all the time while also sounding like it’s painting a canvas and moving through frantic motions to build up the final picture and although it’s just an EP, Artificial Language serves to do just that.
Five tracks, doesn’t outstay its welcome, and stays strong throughout the whole journey. From Two-Faced Star to the epic finale of Skinwalker, this EP has got more meat on it than a lot of albums. Nothing is wasted, there’s no cutting room floor feeling or anything, no clutter – just five real strong and memorable tracks.
‘Two-Faced Star’ with it’s copious amounts of slides and use of piano and guitar work that sounds like a mix of Unprocessed and Leprous is a fantastic introduction to the ride through this EP, super quick palm muted grooves.’Rain Follows’ ramps up the aggression and intensity with rapid fire rhythm changes and a chorus riff that’s properly dirty and the bass loudly getting involved with noodling around in support of the wild guitar playing.
‘Stranded’ evokes some feelings of Periphery with it’s loud melodic lead over the top of riffing that alternates between palm mutes and aggressive down picking before leading into a euphoric break. The very end of the song feels very much like it’s set to be an ‘end of live show’ song to play things out and could imagine this being the ‘last hurrah’ sort of thing.
‘House of Hoarded Sands’ really dials up the rhythmic focus up to 100 per cent, tasteful licks interspersed with extremely quick palm muting, almost like a pleasant breather that sets a bit more of a playful break in the EP. And finally, all leading into the finale of ‘Skinwalker’ which in contrast to the rest of the EP, errs towards a strong focus on the vocals and it’s melodies, I can see this one definitely being a strong choice for getting live crowds to sing along, that song peak is incredible too.
EPs sometimes are often difficult to really expand on as they’re short to the point where it’s hard to really build a proper thematic feeling in the listening experience but I think Artificial Language have managed pulling this off and added another five fantastic songs to their armoury and I fully expect these will connect with their audience fantastically well.
FFO: Leprous, Haken, Caligula’s Horse.
- ‘Distant Glow’ is released on 22 March.
facebook.com/ArtificialLanguageOfficial
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.