Everygrey – Hymns for the Broken (2014)
‘Hymns for the Broken’ is the ninth album from Sweden’s Everygrey and it may very well be their best. As with all Evergrey records, it isn’t a chirpy affair – this is a band which bleeds melancholy, misanthropy and ennui – but it is a stunning one. Injecting gothic elements into their expansive brand of progressive metal, these songs are sweeping displays of how much more powerful tone and soundscapes can be than absolute bluster. This is a slow burn, but music which is so beautifully tragic and poetically dark deserves the time it takes to truly appreciate.
‘The Fire’ and ‘A New Dawn’ is straight out of the Dream Theater school of prog metal, meaty riffs and taut rhythms meshed with stunning dynamics. What staggers most is the control which this band displays over its compositions – ‘Barricades’ and ‘Wake A Change’ display a mastery of intensity and melody, with songs rising and falling and breathing and pulsating to feel truly alive. Yet this band appreciates that complexity for its own sake is fruitless: ‘Missing You’, for example, is a simple and affecting piano-ballad. Henrik Danhage’s guitar does far more than shred, adding slashes and stabs of power and delicate lines as the songs required. And, as ever, Tom Englund’s wounded vocals are truly affecting. Sincere, honest and truly emotive, Englund’s vocals avoid the pitfalls of melodrama which so often taint the power of the more avant garde end of metal’s spectrum.
The past three Everygrey records – ‘Monday Morning Apocalypse’ (2006), ‘Torn’ (2008) and ‘Glorious Collison’ (2011) – have been solid rather than spectacular. ‘Hymns for the Broken’, however, is stunning from start to finish. ‘Thinking man’s metal’ is often evoked as a buzzkill, but this band demonstrates that for all its pretentiousness, the search for truth and perspective through music can be hugely award and affecting.
‘Hymns for the Broken’ is the ninth album from Sweden’s Everygrey and it may very well be their best. As with all Evergrey records, it isn’t a chirpy affair – this is a band which bleeds melancholy, misanthropy and ennui – but it is a stunning one. Injecting gothic elements into their expansive brand of progressive metal, these songs are sweeping displays of how much more powerful tone and soundscapes can be than absolute bluster. This is a slow burn, but music which is so beautifully tragic and poetically dark deserves the time it takes to truly appreciate.
‘The Fire’ and ‘A New Dawn’ is straight out of the Dream Theater school of prog metal, meaty riffs and taut rhythms meshed with stunning dynamics. What staggers most is the control which this band displays over its compositions – ‘Barricades’ and ‘Wake A Change’ display a mastery of intensity and melody, with songs rising and falling and breathing and pulsating to feel truly alive. Yet this band appreciates that complexity for its own sake is fruitless: ‘Missing You’, for example, is a simple and affecting piano-ballad. Henrik Danhage’s guitar does far more than shred, adding slashes and stabs of power and delicate lines as the songs required. And, as ever, Tom Englund’s wounded vocals are truly affecting. Sincere, honest and truly emotive, Englund’s vocals avoid the pitfalls of melodrama which so often taint the power of the more avant garde end of metal’s spectrum.
The past three Everygrey records – ‘Monday Morning Apocalypse’ (2006), ‘Torn’ (2008) and ‘Glorious Collison’ (2011) – have been solid rather than spectacular. ‘Hymns for the Broken’, however, is stunning from start to finish. ‘Thinking man’s metal’ is often evoked as a buzzkill, but this band demonstrates that for all its pretentiousness, the search for truth and perspective through music can be hugely award and affecting.
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