Label: Hostile Media
Release date: 5/28/2021
Production: Graham Keane
Album length: 60.58 min
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rating: 10/10
The Vicious Head Society is the brainchild of an Irish musical genius: first and foremost a top-tier guitar virtuoso, but also a composer, arranger, producer and D.I.Y. wizard, Graham Keane. The debut “Abject Tomorrow” already proved there’s no messing around with this guy. With his talent and ideas, Graham pulled in none other than Derek Sherinian (Sons of Apollo, ex-Dream Theater), and the album also featured Wilmer Waarbroek of Computer Mind, plus a fresh discovery on keys, Nauhel Ramos. And the intro isn’t over yet. Already on the debut, a key role was played by none other than Slovenia’s own drum ace and master of his craft, Klemen Markelj, who laid down the drums for two tracks.
After more than four years, Graham Keane returns with the follow-up, “Extinction Level Event”, and the cast of guest musicians is a bit slimmer than on the debut. Once again, Keane handled guitar, bass and keyboards himself. Still, he called in a few “helpers” for those last two instruments too. The virtuoso built a kind of instrumental core around the triangle of guitar, keys and drums. Whatever he couldn’t pull off himself, keyboardist Nahuel Ramos did for him. Keane put together a great lineup. For the new album he kept Markelj and Ramos (for the keyboard solos) by his side, entrusting them with the whole record. Two musicians contributed additional bass: Pat Byrne and Matheus Manente. And if you also go for vocal parts, you need serious versatility there as well. So Keane brought in two vocalists. Andy Ennis (Overoth) delivered the growls, while Nathan Maxx handled the clean singing. It’s worth stressing once more that Keane is an out-of-the-ordinary musician who, on top of his unbelievable technical polish, approaches composing in a very layered and very adventurous way. He loves trying out different ideas and fusing them into sprawling, intricately designed musical conglomerates. The album also radiates top-level perfectionism and obsessive polishing of every detail, in both sound and arrangements. An average musician can’t keep up with that, so a truly top-notch crew is required. And Keane found one.
There’s more than an hour of music here, and it boasts exceptional craftsmanship. A huge amount of effort went into the composing, the arranging and, last but not least, the production polish of the sound. It’s important to note that an apocalyptic concept stands behind the music. At its center is an individual describing, through their own eyes and experiences, the collapse of the system and of life as we knew it. The choice of concept doesn’t really bring anything new, but it arrives as if made to order. Right on time. We really are on the brink of the collapse of the order we knew, and a new world is being born. Meanwhile, the lyrics don’t hold back on bitterness over the complete ruin and devastation of the planet, caused by humankind with its vanity and madness. The album carries an exceptionally strong message and delivers a wake-up call, a kind of alarm bell.
The songs on the album are built in an extremely complex way and are decidedly loose, yet they never slip into avant-garde weirdness. Throughout the record there’s a noticeable red thread of incredible commitment, dedication and enormous enthusiasm that accompanied the material through its creation. The album has the desired effect of unpredictable twists and turns, surprising and occupying the listener at every step. The opening title track is an almost ten-minute instrumental that immediately creates a dark, apocalyptic mood and at the same time unfolds as a progressive symphonic epic, in which new and newer leading motifs keep linking up with one another. It’s the loosest track on the album, and right from the start it shows off the musicians’ exceptional virtues and acrobatic skills.
The album also contains a hugely appealing and ever-present blend of epic bombast, backed by a dramatic and darkly theatrical atmosphere. There’s a pile of neo-classical arranging elements, nicely balanced against a highly vibrant apocalyptic atmosphere.
The harmonizing of the lead melodies can at times (not necessarily) pull the vibe toward the Dutch Ayreon, as you can trace in, for example, On A Silver Thread, the deeply melancholic Throes of Despair, and/or Absolution. The comparison with Ayreon also fits when we talk about how the songs are outfitted with keyboards (arrangement-wise). In places Keane backed the arrangements with additional sonic loops and programming, as you can hear in The Signal, which has a strikingly singable chorus. A special treat on the album is the song Judgement. The neo-classical arranging elements are cut through in the middle by a longer passage with an Arabic interlude and Arabic rhythms (percussion), signaling what feels like a final showdown between a crumbling Western empire and an impoverished but incredibly angry East. YP 138 is a particularly apocalyptic-sounding instrumental that opens with a guitar phrase akin to the phrases of Karl Groom (Threshold), and its development also picks up an element of villainy and doom. Especially thanks to the integration of selected motifs and the sound of the keyboards. These often lean on the beefy sound of organs, and otherwise Keane astonishes with an inventive use of all sorts of sounds and palettes to dress up the songs. Needless to say, Keane and Ramos meet repeatedly in crafting harmonies and, of course, the crossfire of supersonic guitar-versus-keyboard duels. Across the whole album.
The soundscape of the album is masterfully exploited and filled out. As said. A dark, gloomy mood and melancholic longing follow the album at every step. The arrangements are superbly calibrated with musical parts that go straight to the ears, and the tightrope walk between the complex, technically demanding and the musical is downright fascinating in how well it strikes its balance. As far as arranging goes, Keane has passed his maturity exam here with top marks.
The album would never have such an effectively gripping format without the fantastic performance of Klemen Markelj, who really shows off, all in one place over 61 minutes, what a master of his trade he is. With The Vicious Head Society he has finally landed among musicians as well-trained and talented as he is, operating at an equal level of musical polish, so his drumming talents can sparkle in full glory. It’s incredible how much flexibility of ideas, wit and insight Klemen Markelj brings to the placement of fills, as well as the fascinating breaks in the rhythm itself and in the time signatures. It’s hard to single out highlights, but perhaps the most representative display of the drumming’s pronounced flexibility and layering is in the mid-tempo Absolution, where it’s especially fascinating how Klemen skillfully fills the space with a series of varied fills, ornaments and colorful transitional escapades, which give not only this song but the entire album a special stamp and character. Alongside the sonic adventures of guitar and keys, Markelj is one of the main pillars of this boundlessly thrilling progressive metal album. His contribution is also a new triumph for the Slovenian music scene itself. We all know how hard it is for Slovenian musicians to break through on the international stage. Next to Tilen Hudrap (U.D.O.), Klemen Markelj is only the second such lone rider from Slovenia to pull it off. Markelj is always in the right place at the right moment. Nothing gets past him. Whether it’s time to be gentle or to blow up and let loose full-bloodedly. We’re talking about a very demanding album that requires great flexibility and breadth from the musicians in grasping the vision Graham Keane stands behind. For the many who don’t know Markelj yet (I’m aiming mostly at listeners abroad), our drummer will be a real discovery on this album. Let’s hope his contribution to “Extinction Level Event” helps him build a name.
“Extinction Level Event” is an excellent progressive metal record. This is a release where no review essay can do justice to an objective assessment of the album’s substance. With the new album, Keane has widened the expressive reach of the debut even further. The point of his musical endeavor is that he managed to find a homegrown, distinctive musical direction already with the debut, and that the energetic vibe, the moods, the arrangements and above all the reach of the instrumental and vocal expression have leapt to a new level of quality with this one. With a pronounced leap in artistic maturity. The album is a true musical treat that cunningly doles out the best artistic turns at fusing progressive technical complexity with musical definition (compactness). The music on it is a homegrown one-of-a-kind that’s hard to compare to anything. It’s a work that will reveal something new to the listener with every spin and confront them with a fresh listening experience. As such, the album will fully occupy even the most demanding music gourmets. On this album, The Vicious Head Society come across almost like a team, a band, rather than just a one-man project. The expressive reach and format are exceptional and make for a consistently thrilling adventure, one that will surely deliver a pile of brilliant musical escapades in the future.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Extinction Level Event
2. Solipsism
3. The Signal
4. Judgement
5. Throes of Despair
6. YP138
7. On a Silver Thread
8. Absolution
9. Hymn of Creation
Lineup:
Graham Keane – guitar, keyboards, bass
Guest musicians:
Andy Ennis – growl vocals
Nathan Maxx – vocals (clean singing)
Nahuel Ramos – keyboards (solos)
Shelley Weiss – violin on track #4
Pat Byrne – bass
Matheus Manente – bass on tracks #3 and #7
Klemen Markelj – drums
