Style: Traditional Prog Metal (clean vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: Austria
Release date: January 12, 2021
One of the most difficult things about reviewing is the speed at which you have to absorb an album and come a proper to judgement. Even listening to an album five times in a single week frequently is not enough to come up with an accurate assessment, since it’s simply impossible to judge its longevity. Another thing that makes this difficult is that it’s hard to shake the opinion of others in such a short time. With Need I took part in the new releases listening party on the r/progmetal Discord server, where the reception was mostly lukewarm. With that in mind, I wrote a pretty lukewarm review on them. The only thing I still needed to do (hah!) before posting was to come up with an excerpt, but with inspiration being flat, and the 2020 album of the year list being a ton of work, I ended up forgetting about it. And luckily for Need (and my own conscious), my impression of this album improved greatly over time.
Now Need is a band I have a history with. Sometimes I like to do Metal-Archives searches for obscure progressive metal outside of the periods this blog is active in. Granted I won’t be reviewing those releases, my standards for saving something are a lot higher than usual. One such time I searched 2017 releases. I was looking for long songs, so I filtered out everything without them. It only took me the January list to find two very fine releases. One of them was the comedy-laden epicness of Ethmebb’s very symphonic genre-bending debut masterpiece La Quête du Saint Grind (please do yourself a favor and look up the lyrics (and put them in Google Translate if you’re not French-speaking), they’re hilarious), and the other was the more traditional progressive metal sound of Need’s third album Hegaiamas: A Song for Freedom. With a band name prime for puns, and a 21 minute epic at the end of the record, I couldn’t resist. Turns out that, silly spoken word track aside, the music was good too! They were clearly influenced by lots of different bands, but managed to create their own sound out of it with great skill. With all this in mind, I obviously couldn’t resist reviewing their new album.
Apologies for the long introduction, but I had to get it off my chest. Let’s get to the music. The sound of Norchestrion should be familiar to most prog metal listeners: soaring vocals, chunky riffs, complex structures, high on technicality, plenty of melodic hooks, etc. You get it. What Need do is nothing new, but man is it done well. Imagine the prog metal landscape from the late 00s: the djent movement was still on the fringes, and Dream Theater clones galore. Need takes a ton of influences from bands around that time, and molds it into a sound of their own. Ironically enough though, the closest comparison I can make is modern Fates Warning who were still on a hiatus back then. Both bands write very vocally driven songs, and the singer Jon Voyager sounds a ton like Alder in terms of delivery. Beyond that though, there’s not much linking the bands together. Need have a much less straightforward songwriting style, and their guitarwork is very distinct from Fates’, being a lot more reminiscent of the chunky style of the 00s than the 80s. Maybe the fact that both George Ravaya and Jim Matheos can do absolutely everything on guitar is a similarity, but I’ll gladly take that. Not to mention the use of lead keyboards setting the bands apart.
Influences aside though, let’s get to the songs. Good God this band knows how to write. I feel like I could point to each track as a highlight. They’re dynamic, have amazing vocal hooks, varied guitarwork, etc. Just take the opener, the sheer passion in the delivery in the chorus is awe-inspiring. Or take “Nemmortal” that despite its mediocre chorus lyrics “I’m so dark and sinister” has again so much passion behind the delivery that you just can’t help but sing along from the top of your lungs. And the tribal build-up in the bridge is just breathtaking. Then “Bloodlux” rolls around with the most groovy riffs on the album making for another banger song. The spoken word “V.A.D.I.S.” is just as on-the-nose with the dialogue as all its predecessors were, but it has a nice atmosphere in the background that makes it serve as a welcome breather that rolls nicely into the title track (beware of severe cringe though the first few times around). The next few tracks are no less stellar. The title track for its dynamics, “Circadian” for its hooks, and the elephant in the room 19-minuet epic “Ananke” for just being plain awesome. From its Green Carnation-styled intro, to the uplifting 80s inspired section hallway through, to the softer melodic parts with piano, to its grandiose finale, it’s all so damn well done. It constantly kept me on my toes with all its twists and turns, and not once did it feel like they were losing the plot.
And that’s just the thing. It all just works. There’s a few things you could point to as detractors on this album such as the cringy spoken word song or the synths getting a bit lost in the louder sections, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t dent the album all that much. This album grew a crazy amount on me as I listened to it more. So to those who aren’t immediately wowed, give it some more time. It’ll pay off for sure. I would not recommend this record for those who have a preference for the modern prog metal sound, but if you’re like me and prefer the “pre-djent” (for the lack of a better term) sound of the genre, most certainly give it a listen (or ten!). An early album of the year contender for me for sure.
Recommended tracks: Beckethead, Circadian, Ananke
Recommended for fans of: Fates Warning, Dream Theater, Nevermore, Green Carnation, Pain of Salvation
Final verdict: 9/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Need is:
– Jon V. (vocals)
– Ravaya (guitars)
– Stelios (drums)
– Victor (bass)
– Anthony (keyboard)
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