by Jodi Michael
9/10
British/Hungarian progressive metal group To-Mera, formed in 2004 by Julie Kiss (ex-Without Face) and Lee Barrett (ex-Extreme Noise Terror), has put together a hell of a masterpiece with Transcendental. After releasing a demo in July 2005 to rave reviews, the band was quickly snatched up by Candlelight Records early this year and began writing for their first full-length album soon after. Combining angelic vocals, melancholic goth passages, jazzy interludes and thrashy tech metal, this album is literally a melting pot of progressive sounds that will appeal to any forward-thinking fans of Dream Theater, Opeth, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil and Ayreon. While certainly not the most avant-garde band to dwell in the prog genre, their sound stays fresh and crisp (emphasis on the word crisp) with epic keyboard landscapes and heavy, crunching guitars.
Kiss's voice contains a light, breathy quality which makes her sound much like Amy Lee (Evanescence) at times. On the same token, the deep and brooding quality to her voice makes comparisons to Tarja Turunen (ex-Nightwish) fitting, especially in tracks like Blood and Phantoms. Her soaring vocals glide smoothly above the flexible, nearly tribal drumming of Akos Pirisi (who has since been replaced by Paul Westwood), and thick, proggy soundscapes laid by Tom MacLean's guitar, which manages to hold great weight and jagged technicality simultaneously, as if meant to fill some massive void in the space-time continuum. His fretwork is varied, and while one riff may sound like Andromeda, the next could very well sound more like The Haunted. An excellent example of this lies just beyond the halfway point of Blood, where MacLean comes out of the song's power metal chorus and flies directly into a spacey, Liquid Tension Experiment-sounding section.
Musically, Transcendental is a vacation into another dimension. Dense riffing layered with creepy, Child's Play-like keyboard tinkering and haunting vocals lend an atmosphere of the weird and melancholy. And in true prog fashion, the rhythyms and tempos of many songs, as well as the overall styles of the songs themselves, often change at the drop of a dime. For example, Obscure Oblivion opens with ghostly guitar and piano parts topped with the softly sung, chilling lyrics, "Loving arms crushed me softly/As she whispered tears into the air," much in the fashion of Opeth. Within the following two minutes of the song, however, musical themes touch on power and black metal, and then the song settles into smooth elevator jazz - but only for a moment. From there, listeners are taken on a brief foray into dissonant prog grooving before being subjected to something like industrial metal. And the strangest thing about this is not that all of these styles are found together within one six-minute song, but that each part flows together flawlessly.
To-Mera may have a difficult time writing a follow-up to Transcendental. It's epic, well-written, and absolutely nothing is lacking from the production. And while it may not appeal to everyone, there is some sort of treasure to be found within each of its songs. All fans of female-fronted metal bands should check this release out.
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Online at livingformetal.com!
9/10
British/Hungarian progressive metal group To-Mera, formed in 2004 by Julie Kiss (ex-Without Face) and Lee Barrett (ex-Extreme Noise Terror), has put together a hell of a masterpiece with Transcendental. After releasing a demo in July 2005 to rave reviews, the band was quickly snatched up by Candlelight Records early this year and began writing for their first full-length album soon after. Combining angelic vocals, melancholic goth passages, jazzy interludes and thrashy tech metal, this album is literally a melting pot of progressive sounds that will appeal to any forward-thinking fans of Dream Theater, Opeth, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil and Ayreon. While certainly not the most avant-garde band to dwell in the prog genre, their sound stays fresh and crisp (emphasis on the word crisp) with epic keyboard landscapes and heavy, crunching guitars.
Kiss's voice contains a light, breathy quality which makes her sound much like Amy Lee (Evanescence) at times. On the same token, the deep and brooding quality to her voice makes comparisons to Tarja Turunen (ex-Nightwish) fitting, especially in tracks like Blood and Phantoms. Her soaring vocals glide smoothly above the flexible, nearly tribal drumming of Akos Pirisi (who has since been replaced by Paul Westwood), and thick, proggy soundscapes laid by Tom MacLean's guitar, which manages to hold great weight and jagged technicality simultaneously, as if meant to fill some massive void in the space-time continuum. His fretwork is varied, and while one riff may sound like Andromeda, the next could very well sound more like The Haunted. An excellent example of this lies just beyond the halfway point of Blood, where MacLean comes out of the song's power metal chorus and flies directly into a spacey, Liquid Tension Experiment-sounding section.
Musically, Transcendental is a vacation into another dimension. Dense riffing layered with creepy, Child's Play-like keyboard tinkering and haunting vocals lend an atmosphere of the weird and melancholy. And in true prog fashion, the rhythyms and tempos of many songs, as well as the overall styles of the songs themselves, often change at the drop of a dime. For example, Obscure Oblivion opens with ghostly guitar and piano parts topped with the softly sung, chilling lyrics, "Loving arms crushed me softly/As she whispered tears into the air," much in the fashion of Opeth. Within the following two minutes of the song, however, musical themes touch on power and black metal, and then the song settles into smooth elevator jazz - but only for a moment. From there, listeners are taken on a brief foray into dissonant prog grooving before being subjected to something like industrial metal. And the strangest thing about this is not that all of these styles are found together within one six-minute song, but that each part flows together flawlessly.
To-Mera may have a difficult time writing a follow-up to Transcendental. It's epic, well-written, and absolutely nothing is lacking from the production. And while it may not appeal to everyone, there is some sort of treasure to be found within each of its songs. All fans of female-fronted metal bands should check this release out.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Online at livingformetal.com!
