Genres: progressive rock/metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Pain of Salvation, Fates Warning, Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater, Marillion, Queensryche
Country: Italy
Release date: 17 May 2010
The year is 2015. I was just about at the point where my first prog love, Dream Theater, started to wear on me and I started exploring the genre further. Digging for obscure groups was always something that I liked to do, but YouTube wasn’t very conducive to it, so when I stumbled upon review sites like sputnikmusic and metalstorm who were easily navigable, the habit went into a frenzy. The first truly underground prog metal I found and liked was Kingcrow’s Eidos. Initially, I wasn’t particularly impressed with their work as they were far less technical than the Dream Theater wankery I was used to, yet over time, their effective songwriting and profound emotional depth won me over.
Phlegethon is the first album of Kingcrow, or at least, as we know them today. The band actually started in 1996 as Earth Shaker, releasing three full length albums in the 00s that they now practically consider demos. Despite a solid level of technicality, both from a songwriting and from a production standpoint those CDs sound amateurish. I don’t know what changed besides the band replacing Mauro Gelsomini on vocals with Diego Marchesi, but Phelgethon sounds like a professional band ready to take on the world.
Kingcrow have a familiar, yet distinct sound that pulls from seemingly all over the prog metal and rock spectrum. Seriously, think of basically any major prog rock/metal band with a focus on emotion, atmosphere, or melancholy, and you can most likely find an accurate comparison with Kingcrow. From the atmospheric development and melancholy of Hogarth-era Marillion and Pink Floyd to the eclecticism and emotion driven songwriting of early Pain of Salvation to the upbeat rocker tracks of Porcupine Tree to the most technical Fates Warning type riffs, it’s very easy get lost in the comparisons with this band.
And what better way to announce yourself as a prog band than writing a concept album? Phlegethon, referring to the river of fire that surrounds the underworld Hades in Greek mythology,is the first installment of a conceptual trilogy about the three stages of life: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, something they would later follow up on with In Crescendo and Eidos. It talks about the childhood experiences that shape apersonality through a macabre non-sequential story. Two siblings live under a violent father, but one day, the older brother discovers that the father also sexually abuses his sister (earlier shown in “Numb”) so he kills him in a fit of rage (“Fading Out 3”), but at the cost of his own sanity as he becomes violent and abusive himself (“Washing Out Memories”). As they grow up, his sister tries to escape her past (“A New Life”) but the brother cannot handle the fear of abandonment (“Lovocaine”) and kills her as well by pushing her off a cliff into the sea (“Phlegethon”). I don’t know about you, but I definitely didn’t kill anyone growing up (although my fellow writer Andy and his takes on music make it an alluring prospect sometimes). Cool story though.
Fittingly so for its thriller concept, Phlegethon is an overwhelmingly foreboding album, but within that framework Kingcrow manage to hit a lot of different nuances. After “The Slide” dramatically sets the stage and “Timeshift Box” launched us back in time through an action-heavy instrumental, it is “Islands” that is the first real song on the album, and it’s an immediate winner, acting as a microcosm of everything that makes Phlegethon great. It’s got the moodiness, the drama, the tension, and the summerbreeze folk all packed into a catchy five minute experience with one of their best choruses to date and a thrilling, eclectic instrumental section with a stunning finish. Latin guitar influences also seep through every crack of the song for flavour. No wonder that “Islands” is a live staple to this day.
The next real song, “Lullaby for an Innocent,” leans fully into the atmosphere, centering around warm synths, piano, and a heartfelt vocal performance. The song showcases the band’s talent for guitar solos as well with multiple stunningly evocative solos, and the album just keeps on giving in that regard. Kingcrow is easily one of the best bands in prog I’ve heard when it comes to solos as Diego Cafolla is a master in feel and shred. Continuing on, “Evasion” is the most immediate, uptempo track on the album that highlights Thundra Cafolla’s chops on drums, and “Numb (Incipit, Climax, & Coda)” gradually builds up the tension until it explodes in a Dream Theater-esque instrumental section replete with sexy latin guitarwork and percussion, drastic mood shifts, and more mind blowing guitar solos. The following three tracks are slightly less inspired, suffering from occasionally meager vocal writing and following the same slow build structure as “Numb” and “Lullaby for an Innocent,” but when they get going magic happens without fail.
The final two songs on Phlegethon, though, make up for any prior missteps. “Fading Out 3” delves fully into the band’s latin influences and twists them into a dramatic prog metal piece that also makes great use of acapella vocal writing, while the title track might just be the best song the band has ever written, being a ritualistic epic with some of the hardest, most hypnotizing grooves known to man and a godly acapella chorus. It’s also simultaneously one of the heaviest songs on the album with heavily syncopated riffs as it’s one of the most naturally atmospheric and progressive thanks to seemingly every facet of their sound naturally coming together to form something hauntingly beautiful and melancholic. By the time the final chorus fades out into sea sampling and sparse piano keys, I’m thoroughly satisfied.
After this album, Kingcrow started to streamline their sound more. Seeing how the songwriting on Phlegethon had its formless moments, that was definitely for the better. But on the other hand, that same boundlessness gave rise to some absolutely brilliant prog metal showboatery that they sadly reined in as their career went on, going more in an atmospheric direction. I’ve been waiting for their upcoming album Hopium for a while now, but given that the band recently signed to Season of Mist, I imagine it won’t take long before we get a release date. In the meantime though, go experience Phlegethon for yourself, it’s brilliant.
Recommended tracks: Islands, Numb (Incipit, Climax, & Coda), Fading Out 3, Phlegethon
You may also like: Novena, The Anchoret, Hephystus, Beyond the Bridge
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Scarlet Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Kingcrow is:
– Diego Marchesi (vocals)
– Diego Cafolla (guitars)
– Ivan Nastasi (guitars)
– Cristian Della Polla (keyboards)
– Angelo Orlando (bass)
– Thundra Cafolla (drums, percussion)
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