Album Review: Levant- Beneath Rubble, Run Rivers Red
Levant are a new band (made up of a collective of musicians) from the U.K. Their debut album, Beneath Rubble, Run Rivers Red, which is available for pre-order on August 6th, 2018 from their website, comes out officially worldwide on September 3rd.
From the first song, "Nowhere to Hide", I found that they definitely had some obvious modern influences, but with a cool gnawing guitar sound that cuts through a lot of what you would expect.
The vocals also alternate between metalcore influenced screams and a more gritty clean vocal style that is definitely to my liking. Nothing bothers me more than when there is heavy music with an almost "boyband" sounding clean vocal style (like sometimes is found in modern metalcore and djent bands) so I found this refreshing as hell. This first track has a maelstrom of riffs and melodies.
The second track, Carry Me Home, opens with a Helmet-esque odd timed riff and some more screams, before going into a more groove influenced progression and then back again with the stop start styled riffs.
The guitar solos aren't exactly shredtastic but
sound suited for the song instead of being the second coming of the
Viking warlord himself (that being Yngwie of course). I personally could do with a few more solos, but I'm a massive shred fan so that's me.
Silenced, the third track, is where
things pick up, alternating an almost death metalish hammering riff
with clean vocals. It's here when the contrasts become something
substantially good, and the oblique harmonic vocals don't hurt
either, easily the best track so far. Great guitar tone as well.
The song works better in part because
there are no scream vocals and it actually fits BETTER with the extremely heavy riffs.
A Perfect Picture is a strange pop
interlude featuring female vocals alternating between male that
almost reminds me of something Coldplay or U2 would come up with if
they played heavier. Not a terrible song per se, but it does feel a bit
out of place.
Say Whatever You Like is a return to
the bludgeoning and it's somewhat similar to the first few tracks on
the album.
Fall Away features a bit more of an
eighties influence, but as previously said, I'm glad the gravelly
clean vocals are prominent on this song as well, it really ups the ante as
far as the catchiness goes.
A few songs later and the next
highlight, The Darkness In Me is with us. A heavy as hell almost
gothic metal sounding droning riff drives the song, definitely the
best song since Silenced for the novelty and the way the melodies and
riffs go together – a clean interlude helps with the song as well
that is followed by some groove metal influenced riffs with cool drum
and cymbal work.
Time to Shine closes the record, with film samples and piano.
It's certainly better than the other
lighter track on the album, because of the more melancholy note that
it ends it on, and the samples and subtle electronics help propel the
song forward.
Overall, I definitely found some things
in Levant I liked. The singing was good and at times there was
definitely a progressive feel to many of the riffs that I enjoyed. I
could do without some of the more overtly commercial moments
though I realize this is a balance many bands have to tread nowadays.
Stylewise, being a "Collective Supergroup" of sorts, Levant do have a lot of variety, though I would say that this is both a blessing and a curse. As with any project of this size and scope, you get musical variety but at the loss of some focus. I think future releases will definitely have more focus, and to me the best of the musical concept would be to congeal their more progressive/experimental inclinations with their more standard modern sounds, whilst also keeping some of the accessibility.
Levant is also a charity project, initially, five percent of all proceeds are to go to the War Child UK fund, and it's definitely admirable they're doing this for a good cause.
You can find out about Levant at the following links, and also make sure to check out the press release video about the project below:
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