Artist: Invisigoth
Label: Progrock Records
Release: year
Rating: 3.5/5
Here comes yet another wave of trendy rock invaders from the hallowed progressive galaxy: the Americans Invisigoth. It’s wildly ambitious stuff, actually a duo project made up of a multi-instrumentalist who goes by the stage name Cage and his sidekick, singer Viggo Domino, an Italian immigrant to the US.
The album opener “Narcotica” alone is a real shocker: an epic suite of over 40 minutes in four parts called Dark Highway. The first part is pompous and very deceptive, because you never know whether the thing will turn into a “power metal double foot pedal drive” in the next moment or into something else entirely. The vocals here, with their clarity and power in the high register, also strongly recall Damian Wilson (Threshold). What follows is a shocker, though: the guys calm right down and start producing a mix of collages and samples sitting on a gently swaying, mellow rhythm, with an almost transcendental overall effect. The atmosphere they paint here is very “Polish”. Moody Riverside make for an interesting parallel. But the variety doesn’t end there: the calm passages are followed by bouncier ones, where the change in climate is driven heavily by multi-part vocal harmonies. And those, especially thanks to the choice of melody in the chorus, pull the whole thing toward Ayreon territory.
Invisigoth deliver an exceptionally beautiful studio product. A complex, genre-hopping weave of everything. The pieces are glued together with a firm grip on building and maintaining a high level of melodicism. The common denominator of the album is its ethereal quality. Invisigoth are remarkably cunning builders of highly dramatic moods, special moods, moods that simply suck the listener into another dimension, toward a unique adventure. That’s exactly why the album is so appealing: this atmosphere completely smashes any similarities you might hear to the bands mentioned above.
For Americans, Invisigoth sound very European. Staying with the Dark Highway suite, its second part is noticeably steeped in oriental scales, and the guys back up that feeling with percussion. The melodically dynamic passages that follow keep pulling toward Ayreon. Energetically, Invisigoth are also close to the sun-drenched Swedish prog rock revivalists The Flower Kings or The Tangent (especially the song Scars And Dust). Touches of jazz are not missing from the album either, just as, on the other side, there’s some heavier (metal) riffing too, which is balanced in the sound picture with the other instruments and the vocal parts.
Viggo Domino can boast a true chameleon streak. He brings an exceptional amount of melody to the music. As mentioned, when he’s exposed and tense (in the higher register, that is) he pulls toward Wilson, when he shifts down a gear it’s The Flower Kings singer/guitarist Hasse Fröberg, and in the softer, more subtly oriented parts he even comes close to Russell Allen (Symphony X). An interesting mix, then.
Above all, along with the ethereal quality, Invisigoth’s music stresses unpredictability. Within all that complexity, the sense of fragmentation so often typical of progressive rock never comes to the surface this time, thanks to the superbly crafted motifs inside the songs. The interplay between the keyboards, the added samples and Viggo’s vocal harmonies is woven together optimally, filling out the sound picture to practically the fullest extent possible. In terms of musical composition, this album keeps surprising you, and so it’s quite a challenge for true prog rock and art rock gourmands, as Invisigoth toss them a hard but juicy bone to gnaw on.
Truth be told, Invisigoth aren’t reinventing anything with their second album. But they do offer a distinctive album that, despite its musical multidimensionality, stays exceptionally accessible to the listener throughout. The atmosphere is hypnotic and infectious. The ethereal quality is stressed across the full 80 minutes the record runs. “Narcotica” was made a good year after the release of the debut ”Alcoholocaust” (2006). The two musicians’ inspiration stays at a high level. This is an album for all fans of Ayreon and Scandinavian trendy prog rock revivalism, and it can even get under the skin of listeners who like the atmospheres strung together by bands such as Porcupine Tree, Riverside or even Opeth.
Lineup
Viggo Domino – vocals
Cage – guitar, bass guitar, drums, programming, samples
Production
Invisigoth
Track list
1. Dark Highway, Pt. 1: Transmission
2. Dark Highway, Pt. 2: Before First Light
3. Shine On
4. Scars and Dust
5. Pornocopia
6. Narcotica
7. Beautiful Disaster
8. Dark Highway, Pt. 3: New Rome
9. Dark Highway, Pt. 4: Take the Blood
Album length: 79.58
