Effloresce
Coma Ghosts

This work by Effloresce came into my hands a bit by chance. I didn't know the group before, and as often happens when you have a new metal band with a female singer in your hands, expectations aren't very high. Not because I think the band isn't skilled, but because I think they might sound like something I've already heard a thousand times. The Prog credentials and Dan Swanö's work behind the glass give some hope, but nothing more. Let's listen.

The album starts with Crib, a keyboard carpet that gradually brings everything else along. We are not in front of a group that is in a hurry. Quite the opposite. Everything is measured and substantial at the same time. You understand what the band is made of when Nicki Weber's voice enters: a cold and warm timbre at the same time, perfectly in tune with the rest of the band. The solos are well executed and inspired, Sebastian's bass pounds and makes itself heard, a rare commodity. 8 minutes and 12 seconds flew by, while you have the impression of having something good in your hands.

Spectre Pt. I (Zorya’s Dawn) moves with the same solemnity: another good 2 and a half minutes of intro in which the band's prog vein seems to take over, then turns into a well-crafted metal where Tobi's double bass is appreciated and where Nicki's growl makes its first appearance. When at the seventh minute Nicki picks up the flute to accompany Dave's arpeggio, you realize that these five guys from Nuremberg have many cards to play, and almost all of them good. An explosion closes the piece after 10 minutes and 25 seconds: with Effloresce on a roll like this, they could have gone on for another 20 minutes easily.

Let's move to the third track of the album after almost 20 minutes that have flown by. Pavement Canvas opens with the usual class. Dan Swanö's work is greatly appreciated: the sounds are both clean and enveloping. The structure of the piece is chilling, and by now the style is defined: a total metal, with no compromises, where you can glimpse not only technical preparation but also a taste and harmony that is uncommon. Here Nicki enters after three minutes, more straightforward than ever. The alternation of clean voice and growl almost gives the impression of light diffraction through a crystal. The last tile in the right place is Dave's solo: perfect.

Undercoat, a gem of guitar and keyboard, serves as a watershed between the first and second part of the album. Simple, essential, right, with a solo reminiscent of Gilmour to complete the circle.

We turn the page and enter the waters (or sands?) of Swimming Through Deserts, an almost labyrinthine ballad in which, besides Nicki's lyrics and singing and a particular choir, the work of the guitars and fretless bass can be greatly appreciated for a piece of pure melancholic disillusionment.

Track five has just slipped away when Nicki's growl kicks off Shuteye Wanderer, the last 16.29-minute track, perhaps the most ambitious. It leaves a pleasant impression with the mastery with which Effloresce dominate moments of blind fury with delicate refinement bursts, as if to make it their trademark. Nothing to say. You couldn't ask for more from a track that is compact and varied at the same time, square and asymmetrical like few others.

If there was a need for a proof of maturity, the proof was passed. Well done. Really well done.