Hello metal heads!  This is John back with another look back on one of my favorite albums from earlier this year.  Do you like the heavier side of progressive metal?  Then this is the album for you!  This is the first full progressive album this year that has a true Between the Buried and Me influence on it that I heard this year, which makes me very excited.  

This “band” is a one man show.  Evan Van Dyne does everything including the vocals! Josh McKenny does all of the clean/sung vocals on this entire album as a guest.  Their previous works are based on the video game franchise “Borderlands” which my personal favorite video game series!  I found this album on Reddit of all places(I think it was Evan posting) and knew I had to give them a listen if not only for their previous work

The album goes through a ton of different passages and feels of genres throughout the wild ride.  I always say on albums like these “just sit back and enjoy the magical ride they take you on.”  It almost has a theatrical feel because of the orchestral sounds going on behind driving guitar, bass and drums.  The whole album keeps a very solid groove and really plays with metalcore sound that the previous works had, but really embraces the progressive label and leans way into it.  

I reached out to Evan the mastermind behind this album and why the massive genre shift took place between albums.  He said “This project was always meant to be progressive, but it started out as deathcore and metalcore because that’s what my skill set was at the time.  I was listening to a lot of Native Construct at the time I was writing this is just what came out.” 

This album is a concept album, this means that all of the music is some way or another telling an over arching story.  A lot of metal is all individual songs, so this type of music is really awesome to me!  The album is only 5 songs long but clocks in at roughly 46 minutes!  The longest being the closing track “Reclamation”.    This album takes a much more serious tone an and examines Humanity’s ever desire for power, wealth and technological advancement.  Evan says that the concept was inspired by his “frustration with the current global political climate.”  

My favorite track on the album is the title track “Immortality Complex.”  The song starts out very calm with some arpeggiated guitar, but slowly builds with some double bass drum.  This builds into a chorus section, then it turns into a groovy heavy section.  Next comes a quick melodic guitar solo again over a calm section.  The whole track just has a very calm demeanor about it, but has brief glimpses into chaos and heaviness.  The track also features a feature from Max Mobarry who is the vocalist for a band that I love called Others by No One!  She always does a fantastic job on her features and this is no exception.  It’s short and sweet but great.  

The other track that I really enjoy a lot is “Radiating the Disease.”  The whole track has this waltz feeling to it being in 6/8 time.  It has some really melodic prog passages like the one starting at 1:50.  This is something I would expect to hear from Native Construct like Evan mentioned to me.  Very bouncy, with lots of space.  Then it goes into chorus sounding section that’s very short.  But this does return and is expanded on.  The one breakdown in the song had a fantastic build that concludes with a sound bite from the game “Team Fortress 2” which is another one of my favorite games of all time.  The sound bite is “ Three, Two, One” like the beginning of matches in the game.  The breakdown itself is short and crushing.  

This album really captivated me since my first listen through!  Even going back and giving this a proper listen for this review I am still picking out details and things that make me like it even more.  I will definitively have “Immortality Complex” by Resuscitate in my top ten at the end of the year.  I would give this album a 10/10 and is the best piece of Progressive music I’ve heard this year so far! 

https://resuscitate.bandcamp.com/album/immortality-complex

https://www.facebook.com/ResuscitateMetal?mibextid=LQQJ4d