SUMMIT

I confess I never heard of SEVEN IMPALE before, but as SUMMIT shot up the ProgArchives 2023 rankings they became impossible to ignore. Yet another successful act from Norway, but as the first listen revealed, they do not live off of creating the familiar seventies sound. In fact the most surprising about SUMMIT is how fresh it sounds. Granted, the influences from VAN DE GRAFF GENERATOR or MAGMA are pretty obvious, but there is something here I feel I never heard before. A tight record, that consistently takes the listener through many soundscapes, including some one would not expect in a progressive rock album.

HUNTER - Starts somewhat mildly but always building up the tension. It draws you in and you guess something serious is about to happen. But nothing could prepare you for what is about to hit, a doomish wall of sound steamrolls over you, at the screams of "Hunter!". Now, that is something one wouldn't expect to hear in a progressive rock album, but it surely fits like a glove. As the song winds down it feels that wall of sound didn't actually solve anything, the tension is still all there.

HYDRA - Here the Zehul influences become more evident, with short melodic lines repeated ad infinitum. This track builds its particular kind of tension, however, instead of leading into a wall of sound it slowly morphs into a smooth song at the end. Whereas not obviously overwhelming as HUNTER, this track keeps the listener engaged throughout, there is no "let go" thus far.

IKAROS - This is perhaps the most straightforward (or rather, less intricate) track, and possibly the most Zehul influenced. It pretty much picks up where BIRDS & BUILDINGS left, with those familiar choruses interspersing different musical ideas. For a while a clear direction seems lacking, but as in HUNTER, something bigger is definitely afoot. The song culminates into another epic doomish finale, immersive, monumental, breathtaking. Something you need to experience again and again.

SISYPHUS - A proper roller-coaster unfolds at the close of this LP. It is one musical idea after another, in what is easily the most intricate track in the record. A Jazzy moods sets in the second half, but there is no obvious definition for a track that is more like a summary of the entire album. However, the track does not flow into a climax, rather to a smooth exit, slightly underwhelming after the preceding monumental summits. Even at the end the album had to surprise the listener.

As folk became more and more dependent on headphones to listen to music, the electronics industry became acutely aware of the predilection of human beings for the comfort in the bottom end of the spectrum. Devices increasingly boost artificially those longer wavelengths to appeal to consumers. That predilection has certainly influence popular music in recent years, with artists purposefully exploring that spectrum of warmth, made much easier by modern technologies. Somehow, SEVEN IMPALE manage to do exactly that, but in subtle way, combining the deep sounds found in Death Metal with the Jazz of a much opportune tenor saxophone and the Zehul and Eclectic aesthetics of the past.

SUMMIT is the finest album I listened to this side of Covid. Easily within the top 10 of the past decade or so. And above all, it shows there are still soundscapes out there to explore.