Style: Traditional prog metal (clean vocals, mixed on track 5&6)
Recommended for fans of: Pain of Salvation, Seventh Wonder, Dream Theater, Haken
Country: Sweden
Release date: 9 August 2024
I have a special fondness (let’s call it nostalgia) for bands I reviewed in the year I started this blog, and especially so for those I covered when I still posted everything on Reddit. In the last Reddit edition, August 2018, I wrote about this band called The Aphelion who impressed me by the sheer amount of ingredients they threw in their salad bowl of songwriting: from Pain of Salvation worship, to Dream Theater-esque instrumental wizardry, to even Enslaved-esque black metal parts. Obviously, they weren’t as good at doing their influences as the bands they took from, yet, nonetheless, I was very excited to see if they could find their own sound on their sophomore album because the technical ability was clearly there.
Safe to say, The Aphelion no longer sound like an amalgamation of worship; instead, Nascence proved to be frustrating for a different reason: an inability to always match their admirable ambition with their execution and composition. The Aphelion annoy me with how much potential they squander, and these frustrations are perhaps best embodied by singer Evan Haydon-Selkirk: technically accomplished, displaying an impressive range and a piercing belting ability while also evoking a young Daniel Gildenlow in his overt emotionality, yet he knows little restraint as he frequently over-sings by either abusing the vibrato or attempting too many things in one line. As a result, I find myself struggling to connect to his melodies and, on occasion, lose sight of the emotional core he is going for.
When it comes to the overall songwriting, similar issues arise. The Aphelion try to avoid your typical verse-chorus structures by only having two repetitions or none at all, but frankly, they don’t quite succeed at it, often leaving me confused instead of elated by their playing abilities. The title track is a good example of this, starting melodic with piano and vibrant strings in a 7/8 rhythm, tacks on some soothing (albeit slightly overdramatic) verses until it makes a u-turn in the second half with dark, almost death metal toned chugging to dramatically raise the tension before exploding into prog instrumental extravaganza. They then close out the song by repeating the first verse…just more dramatically (so I guess it was a chorus after all?). The result is something that sits in between an epic and a power ballad but succeeds at neither despite each individual section being well done on its own. For some reason, “The Seed of Doubt” and “Fragility” following the title track adhere to almost the exact same structure, starting with gentle piano/string parts for a few minutes before building up the tension. The former song at least commits to its chorus but loses sight of itself with an aimless atmospheric section in the bridge, while the latter I can’t make heads nor tails of compositionally even if—again—each individual part is good.
Because these dudes can play. James Cabral does a magnificent job on keyboard with vibrant (albeit slightly cheap sounding) string arrangements, melodic piano playing, and tasteful choice of synth patches. He’s pretty much all over the album, but in particular I love the Hammond solo in “The Seed of Doubt” and the dark, spacy synths that underpin the death metal-infused climax of “The Interloper”, which might very well be the best moment on Nascence. Death metal influences also arise in the climax of “The Heavy Mint” and throughout “Flight” in the form of double pedal drumming, muddier guitar riffs, and even harsh vocals. I must really commend The Aphelion for how smoothly they integrated that.
Nascence is in many ways a step forward, but in their enthusiasm and ambition, The Aphelion’s feet leave the ground at times as they struggle to maintain a logical progression in their compositions. I love the melodic prog metal sound they’re going for, and I’ll be following their career from the sidelines to see how they develop. They’re one of the few groups for which I can say that I’ve been covering them since the beginning, and they’ll always have a special place in my heart because of that.
Recommended tracks: The Heavy Mint, The Interloper, Deserter
You may also like: Nospun, The Pulse Theory, The Anchoret, Subterranean Masquerade (for the vocals)
Final verdict: 6.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
The Aphelion is:
– Evan Haydon-Selkirk (vocals, guitars, bass)
– Tyler Davis (guitars, backing vocals)
– James Cabral (keyboards, backing vocals)
– Nate Livingstone (drums, percussion)
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