SUMMIT

With their first album City Of The Sun from 2014, the fantastic Norwegians presented themselves as one of the strongest pillars that hold prog rock and brought various music styles, such as 1970s jazz, Scandinavian metal, and eclectic/avant-garde progressive sounds, with touch of classical influences. From the first seconds of their debut it was noticeable that Seven Impale have their own sound, which can be called quite unique. With "Contrapasso" from 2016, the band continues to fascinate and brings another fantastic release presented with a hypnotic and pounding flow of music, a capturing rhythm on which the vocal moves in a psychedelic style. A delirium or a sound nightmare capable of suddenly changing its skin towards a more wait-and-see phase, dramatic, theatrical, powerful, colorful and varied pieces with corners and edges, casual twists, surprises and vital, aggressive outbursts, the work that cemented the band's place as one of the best prog bands today.

As "monolithic" as the legendary debut, "Summit" actually crowns a revolution heralded by the records that preceded it. On this album, the band (perhaps more than ever) confirms that they are multi-faceted geniuses: on the one hand the cultured avant-garde pursues an "artistic" perspective, on the other the rock band that definitely knows how to hit the listener in the stomach with swirling sound, overloaded with energy. Add to all of this jazz-fusion heritage as one of the main aspects that give way to the real spearhead of this album, then psychedelia and moments where the band launches into improvisation at full speed and presents perfectly formed excursions followed by a shower of dissonances and ventures into tortuous pattern changes, and then you will understand why I said that they are geniuses.

The musical narration is trivial to follow, however, the numerous plays help to put together many different and seemingly unrelated ideas in some situations. The shifts between the various musical moods are connected by a thread of perennial musical tension, which lays its foundations in several dark breaks and in some borderline tonal choices. What is implemented in this work is boundless creativity, supreme ductility, superfine technique and, of course, incredible coordination, swinging instrumental and vocal presentation - without any or almost no snagging - rhythmic patterns of superior complexity, difficult even just to transcribe in black and white. A certain progressive aesthetic has not faded, although the band keeps its primary compositional structure, on this work they dig a little deeper and they are re-emerging in their own way: elegantly dressed in a jacket of their original vision, but this time presented in an even more fantastic and exciting sonic labyrinth.

Powerful organ tones, a penchant for majestic bombast and wild overturning guitar runs, controlled, and lively, leave plenty of room for instrumental spectacle in the style of classic Hammond-inspired rock, this is brilliantly presented in Hydra. Here we have two genres converge: heavy and progressive rock. In particular, the first is noted for the harshness of some passages and the always distorted guitars, and the other is noted in the experimentations, in the intense and prolonged instrumental parts with important organ and guitar parts, vocal and sound experiments. Open and suspended sound creates a perfect background with which compositions simply let your imagination go to distant worlds; a thin line between atmospheric spheres and explosive moments, which from time to time recall sounds and riffs that create a haunting mood. Seven Impale have perfect control of their instrumentation, effects, and atmospheres. Basically, the structures, even if varied, remain in the same light, moving more than anything else along crescendos of absolute bombast, which drag on in a sustained playing time that is enriched with every second that passes by further counterpoints and effects. What is particularly impressive is the fact that you can always make out a well-thought-out structure in the supposed chaos that has arisen in the meantime. They don't care about conventions and consistently live out their idea of music and through that, they have created an album that wants to be explored with concentration and devotion. Bass and drums provide a powerful rocking foundation over which guitar, keyboard and saxophone let off steam, creating densely interwoven, twisted, and slanted sound networks. This is an energetic and exciting mix of jazz fusion and angular avant-prog. Deep, menacing sounds in combination with the dissonant sax offer a wonderful counterbalance to the busy and frisky prog dances that form the basis of the music.

Almost hypnotically, the album captivates the listener and invites to listen intensively. Norwegians make prog that is not designed for euphony, but likes to tread avant-garde paths and is often designed with an uncanny force that will knock you off your stool. This is a true masterpiece of modern prog.