Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another album review. Today I am writing about a totally unknown band called Coma Control. Their album “Perennial” is a great death metal inspired prog piece which came out on November 8th 2024. They almost sound like Between the Buried and Me(BTBAM) if they were more death metal with black metal vocals and threw in some Haken moments too.
This is one that totally caught me off guard when I heard it almost a month ago. I first heard about it when i was scrolling in one of the many death metal focused Facebook groups that I am in. This band is from Finland and I can’t find a thing about any of the members, even name! I will be tagging them in posts and putting links at the bottom of this article as we always do on this site.
While the whole album is really good, the first track that truly caught my ear was Reunion:Regression and its second part Reunion:Concession. Regression starts off with what sounds like an odd meter with guitar playing that slowly builds and ends on a flourish before going into a tremolo riff. This has a lot of blast beats in the drums and fast picking in the guitars. This then turns into a meandering riff that morphs a whole bushel of times before settling into a wall of sound and huge chords in the guitars. The next section is a “Chorus” of sorts that has a melodic minor feeling to it. I put quotes around chorus because it only doesn’t even come back in this twisting and turning composition. Then there is this uneasy sounding transition that mutates into a guitar solo over more blast beats. Before returning to the previous wall of sound section while the solo is still going.
Reunion:Concession starts off with a guitar lead passage that has another uneasy feeling with sung vocals to match. This section reminds of something Haken would incorporate into their music. A couple of passages later a huge open chord, wall of sound comes back again with a lead guitar arrpegiating over top. Abruptly this spastically moves into a spastic hard to count section. This then moves into a swinging riff with an organ sound over top that is in a blues format. This then changes into a melodic minor guitar driven lead, then the bass out of nowhere has a solo. This whole passage is hard to count as well. The it comes down to a very fulfilled sounding section with a sweet lead over top. This continues with singing and the lead guitar drops out to contribute to the sound in other ways.
Mending Arms is another track that I instantly gravitated to. It starts off with a mellow beginning before going towards shredding guitar lead over black metal inspired riffing. This changes into a proggy riff that is bouncy. This then stops out of nowhere and chanting builds into a pounding to the point riff with growls over it. Shortly after this there is a shear black metal section with blast beats and thrash beats. This changes into another bouncy progressive riff with organ over that, then singing is added to dramatically change. After this there is a little flourish with all of the members of the band taking the lead before a guitar solo plays over a trash inspired riff that has odd accents. It sounds like the guitarists are having a battle in this solo and taking turns. This ends with a Latin line that again turns into a guitar solo, but this time one player is doing his or her thing the whole time. This resolves into a slow plodding section with arpeggios in the lead. But just as we think the track is ending on a good note, an unsettling feeling comes back with singing and a Latin drum beat. One of the main riffs comes back with growling and black metal guitars before fading away. Then again comes back to fool us one more time and get heavy again.
This is one HELL of a debut for prog nerds like myself. The musicianship is out of control with every member of this band. The bass often plays right along with the guitars and even has some major counterpoint providing its own routes. The drumming is spot on and displays a ton of different techniques. The guitar players just have these crazy grooves, but also absolutely shred and lead like crazy. The only downfall(But still good) I think is the vocals, but I am not sure if it is a guitar player doing vocals, or another person altogether. But they do fit in, just not the way I would picture on an album like this.
Overall I was originally going to give this a 7.5 out of 10, but as I am writing to this and listening again I have to bump it up to an 8 out of 10! For a completely independent band with no followers this is unbelievable. When I say no followers I meant I was number 13 to like them on Facebook. I hope they can gain some traction so we can hear more of this proggy goodness.
https://comacontrol.bandcamp.com/album/perennial
https://www.facebook.com/comacontrol/
Categories: Album Review, Prog Metal, Uncategorized