Canvas Solaris continue to hammer away at their own style of instrumental metal.
Canvas Solaris have not wasted time in carving their own niche among the couple dozen instrumental metal bands that have begun cropping up since the turn of the century. Sublimation saw them introduce themselves as a combination of the grid-like rhythms of Don Caballero and the space-metal atmosphere of Cynic. Canvas Solaris's polished production, dense arrangements and focus on atmosphere separated them from the noisier, stripped down, more aggressive technical-metal of Behold the Arctopus, Trephine, or Collapsar. The band continued to refine their sound on Penumbra Diffuse, which featured much more mature songwriting, enhanced the "spacey" feel of their music with more synths, and even had an a full-on acoustic track.
Cortical Tectonics takes the elements that were on Penumbra Diffuse and arranges them in a new way; rather than changing their music, Canvas Solaris seem to be looking at it from a different angle. The trio open things up with all guns blazing for a shredtastic barrage of technical metal riffing on "Hypothesis" and then again on "Sinusoid Mirage" after two minute keyboard intro. After these two songs, which aren't truly anything unexpected from the band for those who have heard their previous releases, the music's atmospheric side takes hold of Cortical Tectonics and never really lets go. While "Gama Knife" is 8 minutes consisting entirely of Canvas Solaris's intricate metal guitarplay, it has a much more relaxed feel to it than the riffing on the first two tracks, as though the band were more concerned with the melody rather than the intensity of the song. Otherwise the quirky "Rhizome" starts of with some of the most thunderous riffage in Canvas Solaris's career but quiets down after the first five seconds and never hits the introductions intensity when it returns to crunchy metal riffing.
Cortical Tectonics is not a huge progression from Canvas Solaris's previous efforts, but it also shows the band focusing on their sense of melody and atmosphere rather than bombastic climaxes of Penumbra Diffuse. Either way the trio is still delivering some quality instrumental metal and for the most part the album is an enjoyable musical journey, though the last third could have used some sort of finale to wrap things up.
| Reviewer: Jeff Mcquiggan Added: July 11th 2007 |
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