Review: Spheric Universe Experience – Back Home

Style: Prog Metal, Symphonic Metal, Power Metal (clean vocals)
Review by: Doug
Country: France
Release date: 20 May, 2022

Back Home is the fifth studio album by Spheric Universe Experience (SUE), a French progressive-symphonic-power metal quintet who occasionally flirt with neoclassical flourishes, coming off a ten-year hiatus since their last release. Despite a roughly twenty-year history of making music, the band has never garnered much acclaim. That said, this latest effort shows a lot of experience and a pretty mature talent for performance. The music may get ahead of itself at times, and slightly lost at others, but mostly those stumbles are symptoms of an album absolutely brimming with heart and energy, occasionally tripping over itself in an effort to deliver soaring solos and a vibrant, engaging musical experience.

The album’s opening suggests there will be a lot of showy instrumental work, and that impression is not totally wrong. None of the band members hold much back, but needless showing off is rare; there’s plenty of substance to the instrumental sections and most of them do drive the music forward. And most of the really showy sections – especially those headlined by heavy guitar riffs, more on that in a moment – are some of the best parts of the album, providing an emotional core that builds with each track and is very effective at drawing the listener into the music.

I think my biggest hangup with Back Home is its struggle with melodic writing. That’s not to say it’s bad by any means, but I think it’s what most often holds the music back from sounding really great. The album sounds very solid on a micro level, with enjoyable parts for each instrument that combine into well-crafted phrases of melody. But there are moments within some songs which don’t flow well into or out of their neighboring sections, instead standing alone and sounding disjointed. Maintaining this melodic through-line is something I notice a lot of mid-level bands struggle with, and to their credit SUE mostly do a good job with it. But where it falls flat, it does really interrupt my enjoyment of the music. I also think the middle of the album bogs down a little bit with trying to be different or fancy in songwriting. Both the dissonant “Senses Restored” and the softer, almost balladic “Legacy” are probably my least favorite parts of the album, and I think it would be stronger and feel more cohesive if those tracks had stuck closer to the power metal style which the band clearly knows so well.

In terms of individual elements, guitarist Vince Benaim’s playing is by far the standout. It’s technically excellent, and both in solos and rhythmic sections he achieves exactly the right sound for this kind of album – epic and lofty, but grounded with grit and intensity. And my overall favorite parts of the album, by far, are those where he really gets to let loose, like at the beginning of “Where We Belong.” It’s epic power metal shredding at its finest and it’s a ton of fun.

Bassist Julien Négro also deserves a strong shout-out – like most bass parts, his contribution to the album is largely subtle, but when he’s given the chance to shine through, such as at the start of “Transcending Real Life,” he shows a lot of talent and a capacity to make the bass more interesting than it often is in contemporary music, which I appreciate. The drums and keyboards are totally serviceable – never bad, rarely exceptional – but there are some moments of solo synth-piano (the most noteworthy of these is in the middle of “Where We Belong”), which are generally well done and add an ethereal, almost neoclassical feeling to let the listener take a break from the intensity for a moment.

Vocals are the instrument I have the most mixed feelings about on this album. In terms of style and performance I think they’re good – singer Franck Garcia swaps between a harsher, more aggressive tone and a softer, more operatic tone as needed, and displays a solid vocal range for the genre. The album maintains a good balance between vocals and instrumentals throughout, but once again I think the songwriting lets it down a bit; although the vocal part is not ignored, it feels like the instrumental parts are much more the focus of the album. This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially given how brightly the guitar parts do shine. But in prog-power offerings I usually want the vocals to drive the emotion of the music, and I don’t think that’s the case here. The emotion of the singing is fairly flat, while the instrumental sections are much more successful at conveying the tone of each song and the album as a whole, such that the vocals feel mostly like a necessary vehicle to deliver story while I’m really looking forward to the next instrumental break.

All in all, Back Home is a fun listen. Spheric Universe Experience aren’t breaking new ground by any means, but they don’t need to. This is a satisfying release that shows competence at the absolute least, and has many quite thrilling moments at its best. After this much time in the underground scene, it’s good to see that SUE have such a good grasp of fundamentals, and the moments of true excellence leave me excited for what this lesser-known veteran group will produce next.

Recommended tracks: Where We Belong, Absolution pt. 2, Dreams Will Survive
Recommended for fans of: Symphony X, Seventh Wonder
You may also like: DGM, Labyrinth, Sacred Outcry
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Uprising! Records – Website | Facebook

Spheric Universe Experience is:
– Vince Benaim (guitars)
– Fred Colombo (keyboards)
– Franck Garcia (vocals, additional synths)
– Romain Goulon (drums)
– Julien Négro (bass)