Modebath - “#TheNewAeon” Review
"Searing, soaring melodic grunge melds with modern metalisms, resulting in a dark, brooding one-man masterpiece that fully sates the voracious appetite of one’s earworms.” - ZRS
1. “OZ”
For the opener, this “Every man is his own God” narrative by Mathew Forbes is draped over a tribal beat and a cinematic score.
2. “PHASES”
Immediate heaviness leads to and gives way to soaring vocal lines over fluid, bass-heavy permutations in this hard opener.
3. “THE ESPER”
Drums from the deep mesh intensely with mildly dissonant arpeggios and beefy, grinding bass which carries the beautifully haunting vocal melody, rich with lyrical mysticism.
4. “EYE ON YOU”
Unexpectedly, the prominence of a Telecaster in it’s near-natural state arrives, and bridges the gaps between smoky, slithering roadhouse-rock riffs, discoesque rhythms, and modern pop-metal sensibilities, which ultimately crashes the system.
5. “THE LOVER’S WALK”
Shimmering, lush dissonance with a technotic rhythmic feel merges with heavy nods to mature, brainy melodic grunge.
6. “CHAR”
Barn-burning chug right out of the gate, with sinuous and constantly fluid grace note melodies resolving into a heavy, anthemic groove.
7. “SEEING RED”
Sparse, skeletal, dissonant guitar lines lead in and land in the realm of grinding, doomy grungecore. Contained within are some of the most memorable choral melodies on the record, and the track bleeds seamlessly into:
8. “METAMORPHOSIS”
A transitive haunter of an intermissionary track.
9. “BENEATH YOU”
Hard-driven rhythms with an odd-meter feel and tense pauses meld neatly with ‘straight’ metered, fluid melodic vocal flow which tempers the surface tension.
10. “END OF DAYS”
Time division assumes a free-form feel and leaves you searching for the ‘one’. Melody and rhythm dance circuitously together until the guitar solo, which suddenly reins it all in, before returning to the jazzscape and beyond, ending in a slightly more normalized metal groove, severed by a haunting shaman’s cry.
11. “BOREALIS”
Chord changes slowly turn and burn over grinding rhythms, which then churn into a heavy groove-grunge feel, 'leslied’ and tethered to choral vocal lines that linger and echo long after the track and record have ended.
