CHARCOAL GRACE

Australia's finest prog metal band surely has to be Caligula's Horse, having released their sixth studio album 'Charcoal Grace' via Inside Out Music in January of 2024, continuing their line of work of incorporating the aesthetics of djent into their signature style of melancholic yet powerful blend of heavy progressive music. Sam Vallen, Jim Grey and co. have this time organized their album around longer pieces, bookmarked by two longer epic tracks, while spreading the 25-minute-long title track over four parts in the middle of the album. While the band has done longer pieces throughout their discography, they have never before presented their work in such a way, which is an interesting decision, also making this album their longest running one to date, surpassing 2017's 'In Contact' by some seconds.

The sound of this album does not diverge too much from what the band did in the beginning of the decade with 'Rise Radiant', their pandemic album, whereas a stronger djent influence was becoming more prevalent, focusing a lot on technique and resulting in a more compressed and massive sounds, in comparison to their cleaner and more "stripped" dynamics from before (2015-17). It has to be mentioned that the vocals are as good as always, Jim Grey is undoubtedly a very powerful vocalist who is able to elevate the compositions and bring them a very eerie, majestic and emotive edge. Sam Vallen displays his signature guitar sounds serving the band just perfectly, while the rhythm section is mostly entirely delightful and well-done.

It is the compositional aspect of the tracks on 'Charcoal Grace', however, that seems to have been overshadowed by the more technical approach, as the two tracks bookmarking the album (and clocking in at ten and twelve minutes respectively) get slightly diluted over the course of their playtime, as if there was not a clear direction or a clear vision of where these songs should arrive. Surely they are packed with graceful riffs, intense hooks, and gorgeous vocal melodied, but they seem to be less focused than previous longer compositions done by C-Horse, who had cemented themselves as masters of suspenseful heavy progressive music, always leading you to a very powerful climax through the band members' manifold creative ways, as they had perfectly achieved that with 'In Contact'. This aspect of their music seems to be mostly missing here.

It is recaptured mainly and seemingly in the shorter tracks like 'Golem' or 'The Stormchaser', two highlight tracks. The title track, dissected into four pieces, as ambitious and powerful it may seem, fails to leave a lasting impression of a strong, oriented epic song, perhaps missing a very recognizable and memorable underlying thread or theme, perhaps being occasionally overplayed. While it has its highlights, whether it be the beautifully intricate introduction to 'Prey', or the acoustic tranquility of 'Vigil', or even the chorus build-up of 'Give Me Hell', it is too fragmented, which could also be why it was presented as four tracks rather than a continuous long piece.

In essence, 'Charcoal Grace' is a good and strong album, nicely ornamented, but mostly lacking the punch and focus that the band's usually got, and it will probably go on to be one of the more polarizing releases by Caligula's Horse.