Style: progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Haken, Earthside, Devin Townsend, Dream Theater
Country: US-NY
Release date: 13 September 2024
To work on improving yourself in any field, particularly those in the arts, is an act of diminishing returns. At the very beginning, there is a sensation of explosive growth, the basics becoming second nature one after the other. But once one reaches a certain level, the same amount of effort and practice starts to feel like it barely moves the needle. All the identifiable mistakes have been fixed, all the low-hanging fruit plucked, yet the true “it factor” that separates the great from the merely good is still perpetually out of reach. Both in name and execution, the newest album from Forever In Transit evokes a similar feeling for me: a journey whose destination is set yet never reached, a striving for improvement that knows perfection is impossible. The band have found themselves upon the ever-accelerating treadmill of artistic growth; the only question now is how fast they’re running.
Pretty fast, it turns out! Musically, A Coming to Terms is a clear exemplar of the sleek modern-day prog metal sound that bands like Haken have popularized over the past decade; understandable given that Diego Tejeida (TEMIC), an alumnus of said band, had a hand in production. Everything here is comfortingly familiar to any fan of the genre: crunchy, slightly djent-flavored guitars, synths that create spacey backing layers and noodly, in-your-face leads in equal measure, and songwriting that balances odd-time complexity with straightforward melodic hooks with exacting precision. There’s a satisfying sort of skill on display in the way the individual melodic and rhythmic threads tangle and weave together, with every percussive accent and keyboard flourish slotting into the main body of riffs and vocal lines like clockwork.
Bandleader Dan Sciolino handles drums and keyboards here, and puts in impressive performances on both, putting in just the right amount of show-offy complexity without sacrificing the groove or coming off as a spotlight hog. The intricate, fill-heavy grooves on opener “Let Go Your Earthly Tether” and the overdriven, pitch-bendy synth solo in “Streams of Thought” are particular highlights. Jeremy Schroeder’s guitar work is largely locked in on crafting riffs as opposed to showing off, though he does pull off a cool Porcupine Tree-esque solo in the otherwise slower, more meditative “I Cling to Threads”. Similarly, Daniel Ross’ bass is mainly focused on serving the song, but he has a clear presence in the mix and knows when to deviate from Schroeder’s lines. Finally, there is vocalist Chris Lamendola, whose smooth, clean tenor is punched up by some surprisingly raw screams, most notably in mid-album highlight “Enter the Void”. Overall, it’s clear these guys are professionals, and you can hear the effort and talent behind every note.
The one aspect that somewhat sets Forever In Transit apart from their prog metal contemporaries is the greater emphasis on softer, ambient passages that give the energetic riffs time to breathe. They vary in nature—from the shimmering, aquatic soundscapes that open “What Lies Beneath” to the stately faux-strings in “Empty and Become Wind”—but they generally tend to act as minute-long intros or outros, with the exception of “Streams of Thought”, which starts with punchy riffs right away and only ventures into layers of echoing guitar distortion and burbling synths a few minutes in. Their presence is a bit of a mixed bag for the album as a whole, though; while they’re competent works of sound design that fulfill their goal of adding space to the album, sometimes they feel just a bit too long, sapping the otherwise strong momentum that the heavier passages have imparted.
In fact, while the entirety of A Coming to Terms comes off as an extremely competent record, with everything in its right place, something about it didn’t 100% click with me. It’s what makes it so frustrating to write about– barring the somewhat-overwrought spoken word part that ends “I Cling to Threads”, this is an album with very few real flaws, nowhere that I can conclusively point to and say “Yeah, this part didn’t work”. And yet, something about it keeps much of the material from crossing the line from “like” to “love”. The melodies are well-written and catchy but fail to truly embed themselves in my psyche, in part due to Lamendola’s skilled yet somewhat generic clean vocal style. The lyrics exemplify this too; while there is a clear conceptual grounding in vaguely Buddhist themes of discarding our worldly limits in order to achieve self-actualization and inner peace, many lines come off as vague, overly general platitudes that could apply to anybody. The cover art feels oddly apropos here: a big clash of blobs of energy, in movie-theater-poster shades of orange and blue, with a tiny, anonymous human silhouette floating at their center.
To say that this album misses the mark would be unduly harsh; Forever In Transit know exactly where their aim is set and are determined to head towards it. Yet, much like Zeno’s arrow, they seem locked in a state of “almost there”: a projectile always halfway towards connecting with a bullseye. Still, there are moments here that give me genuine hope that they might reach their destination after all: the powerfully direct refrain of “What the hell am I?” during the opener and Ross’ refreshingly offbeat solo in the closing title track are both moments that stuck with me. And then there’s “Enter the Void”, which not only offers the heaviest, most aggressive riffs and screams on the album but also its strongest chorus hook, plus an absolutely killer keyboard solo from Tejeida. If they can deliver more tracks like that in future work, they may finally arrive at that “it factor” much of their work has been missing. For now, though, it looks like they’re still on their way.
Recommended tracks: Let Go Your Earthly Tether, Streams of Thought, Enter the Void
You may also like: TEMIC, Turbulence, Loch Vostok
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Forever in Transit is:
– Dan Sciolino (drums, keyboards, backing vocals, sound design)
– Chris Lamendola (lead vocals)
– Jeremy Schroeder (guitars, bass on “Enter the Void”)
– Daniel Ross (bass, guitar solo on “A Coming to Terms”)
With:
– Diego Tejeida (keyboard solo on “Enter the Void”)
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