HEAVY CROWNS

"Protomythos" is a crossover prog project of Tom Treivish from Isreal and living in London, who plays most of the instruments on his releases. He released his debut album in 2013 called "In Human Sight" with the help of some session musicians. His second album, "Heavy Crowns" was released in January 2019, and features only him on vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass and effects, along with Chris Allen on drums and Itay Kashty playing piano on tracks 4 and 5.

"Walking the Plank" has a nice solid beat and guitar opening that has a dark edge to it, that resides in the same vein of dark sound and heavy guitar prog of Porcupine Tree and Dream Theater, with decent vocals. This is a great rousing opening. "Bury Your Head" opens with drums and moves on with the dark and heavy guitar style driving the music. The music softens as the vocals start, but intensify on the chorus. The approach to the instrumental break lets you know that something good is coming, and it does. The vocals almost remind me a bit of Devin Townsend, but without the extremities. This is another great track with lots of power.

"Evolve" begins with dark synths and a churning guitar. The tempo is slower here, but the mood is still dark and heavy. At the end, you can hear a bit of the Israeli influence in the guitar and the cool keyboard riff. "Fragile Fallacy" retains the dark feel, but is quite a bit softer and accessible. The vocals come across a bit weaker on the verses and the overall feel has less impact as previous tracks. "Bitter Truth" moves to a slow march rhythm with a bit more intensity that the previous track, and in this case, is a good thing as the vocals are stronger. There are some dark harmonies in the layered vocals and the keys are well utilized here to help generate the intensity. There is also an impressive, melodic guitar solo in the instrumental break and at the end.

"Flip of a Coin" gets the fast tempo going again in a return to the heavy feel of the first tracks. After a few verses, the rhythm and tempo changes to a more solid beat. I find the vocal melody of this one less interesting, but the music itself is great, heavy and has progressive leanings. "The Candle" starts off seeming a bit pretentious, but it has a promising sounding middle section and ending.

The longest track is saved until last. "A Shadow Play" gets going with some heavy riffs and progressive leanings. The instrumental sections are blistering, hot progressive rock. At the 3:30 mark, things calm quite a bit with an acoustic guitar and vocals, this time the softer part doesn't sound weak like before and the nice guitar solo here makes it even more interesting. Soon, the heavy section returns, as expected. The heavy and soft sections on this track are effective and keep things interesting.

This is a decent album, and for the most part, is a heavy and dark affair. There are two tracks that weaken the album, namely "Fragile Fallacy" and "The Candle", but at least the latter one has some great instrumental sections. I found myself wishing that some of the instrumental sections were a bit longer and that there was more progressive-ness present, but it is still an excellent album and those that like their prog on the heavy side will enjoy this one.