Review of Ember Guile - Ascendant [Underground Symphony]

There are albums where you know pretty quickly what you're dealing with. Ascendant wasn't one of them. Ember Guile obviously have their feet planted somewhere in the US power/prog metal tradition, but the longer this debut runs, the less useful those two words become as a description. There is simply too much going on.

The US quartet was put together around drummer and songwriter Michael Lukers, and that already tells you something about where the centre of gravity sits. The drums aren't just there to provide the obligatory metal machinery while the guitar player gets to show off. Lukers seems to be one of those musicians who actually thinks in arrangements. Rhythms change, little details appear in places where you don't expect them, and the songs have enough internal movement to make repeated listens worthwhile.

“End-all's Well” is a good opener for exactly that reason. It doesn't come crashing through the door with the usual US-metal fist in the face. There is something darker and slightly strange about the beginning, with keyboards helping to establish the mood before the heavier stuff takes over. Doom, progressive metal and classic American power metal are all somewhere in the picture, but none of them completely owns the song.

Then “Fate ReinKarma” comes along and starts making life considerably more complicated. The guitars become more restless, the rhythm section gets busier and there are enough changes happening underneath the vocals to keep you checking back in. This is where Ember Guile can easily lose a listener who wants his metal served in nice, recognizable blocks. They clearly don't care much about that.

What saves Ascendant from becoming a musicians' exercise is the fact that the melodies are usually strong enough to survive all this activity. Gavin Meagher has a big, clean voice, but Ember Guile don't use him merely as the guy who has to sing the chorus louder than the verse. There are layered vocal parts and choral harmonies throughout the album, sometimes giving the songs a surprisingly gloomy character.

“Mind Unsound” is probably the track where everything falls into place best. It's heavy, melodic, atmospheric and sufficiently busy without sounding like somebody has thrown every riff they've ever written into one song. The keyboards deserve attention here as well. They aren't just filling empty space behind the guitars. Every now and then they give the whole thing an almost floating quality, which is a nice contrast to the fairly muscular rhythm section.

And then you've got “World So Blue”, which for me is one of the album's strongest moments simply because the songwriting comes through so clearly. There is plenty of guitar work going on, but the refrain actually sticks. That's more important than another technically impressive solo.

“Let's BeDevil” takes things in a nastier direction. The rhythm guitar and bass have considerably more bite here, and there's an almost industrial edge hiding underneath the progressive-metal framework. Not enough to turn Ember Guile into an industrial band, obviously, but enough to make the song stand apart from the more traditional US power-metal material.

There is a downside to all this, though.

Sometimes they really don't know when to stop adding things.

A guitar part arrives, then another detail, then keyboards, then another rhythmic turn, then the vocals start stacking up. None of it is necessarily bad, but there are moments where I found myself appreciating the construction of a passage more than actually enjoying it. That's the danger with this kind of progressive metal. You can make a song increasingly sophisticated and, somewhere along the way, forget that the listener still needs something to grab onto.

Ember Guile don't fall into that hole completely, fortunately. “Wretch Allegiance” is comparatively direct, while “By Chance” and “Ghost of Your Patience” show that the band can still write something memorable without reducing everything to three riffs and a chorus.

There are obvious reference points here. If you've spent enough time with classic US progressive metal, you're going to recognize pieces of the family tree. Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, Metal Church and the broader American power-metal tradition are not exactly hidden influences. But Ascendant doesn't feel like a band sitting around trying to reconstruct The Spectre Within or Operation: Mindcrime. The ingredients are familiar; the way Ember Guile put them together is considerably less so.

That's probably the biggest surprise of the album.

For a debut recorded by a band that only came together in its present form during the making of the record, Ascendant sounds remarkably settled in its identity. It isn't flawless, and I'd happily cut a few of the more overloaded passages with a knife, but there is substance here beyond the usual “look, we can play progressive metal” routine.

And perhaps that's why this one gets better rather than worse with repeated listens. The first run is mostly about trying to work out where Ember Guile are coming from. After that, the smaller details start making more sense, and some of the melodies begin sticking around.

Not a retro US-metal record. Not a straight prog-metal workout either.

Just a rather ambitious debut from a Florida band that clearly has more ideas than it currently knows what to do with.

https://emberguile.bandcamp.com/album/ascendant