Acid Empire Progressive/Symphonic/Orchestral Metal

 4th October marked the release of the debut album from Acid Empire, the self titled peice contains nearly an hour of engaging progginess, heavy riffs, orchestral interludes, melodic guitar solos and a diverse range of vocals.


Taken from the press release:

2 years in the making, an album covering a broad spectrum of sounds, classical and progressive, yet rooted in a foundation of Rock and Metal. Acid Empire is an album with many suprises and abundant diversity.

Acid Empire began as the solo project of Season’s End bassist Mike Bridge, an idea formed by the result of a one  off show with the band and a live symphonic orchestra, the idea was to include the orchestra as a more prominent part of the music, allowing the intricacy of orchestral score to add another dimension to the epic nature of the metal genre.

The music was to be a blend of dramatic film score styled orchestral passages and heavy, guitar focused metal with the freedom for solos and themes to develop throughout the album.

Vocally, it was to be just as diverse, with the lead role to be shared between the provoking male vocals of Jack Lipinski and the soulful female vocals of Hannah Bridge.

Coupled with the featured vocals of one of the most known and loved voices in the UK metal scene; Damian Wilson, the overall effect of this album is one of apocalyptic intensity, memorable melody lines develop into unsettling dissonances but resolve into invigorating endings.

 If anyone would like to review the album on MMA please email [email protected] for an advance preview copy. Alternatively you can listen to the whole album (Bar the intro track) on this soundcloud link: http://soundcloud.com/acid-empire/sets/acid-empire-full-album/

 The album is listed on the Metal Music Archives (wasn't considered prog enough by the guy it was submitted to for some bizarre reason), from what I gather, this uses the same database as the Prog Archives, so I thought this was OK to post on PA as well.