#subliminal fear

Après les Suisses de Clawerfield, voici le deuxième groupe découvert via l’article de Clair & Obscur sur le cybermetal. Subliminal Fear est une formation italienne qui propose, avec Escape from Leviathan, un troisième album très élaboré, jouant sur les équilibres.

Il se caractérise par un metal qui, s’il a les caractéristiques habituelles du cybermetal – indus et gros synthés – emprunte également au metal progressif, avec des constructions complexes, ainsi qu’au metal symphonique. Le tout s’accorde plutôt bien ensemble, avec un classique duo de voix death et claire (et quelques virgules au vocodeur).

Escape from Leviathan est un album de dix pistes, chacune faisant entre quatre et six minutes et titrée en majuscules parce que CYBER (je suppose), ce qui agace quelque peu mon typographe intérieur. Le tout fait un peu moins de cinquante minutes.

Un des défauts du cybermetal, c’est que, comme pour tous les genres un peu typés musicalement, il a vite tendance à tourner en rond. C’est un écueil que Subliminal Fear semble éviter: Escape from Leviathan incorpore suffisamment d’éléments extérieurs pour que la lassitude ne s’installe pas.

C’est aussi un album qui, malgré ses thèmes très noirs, garde un aspect lumineux, voire positif, notamment sur « ESCAPE FROM LEVIATHAN » et sa grosse composante symphonique ou sur « LIVING IN ANOTHER WORLD ».

Si je devais le comparer à l’album de Clawerfield, je dirais qu’Escape from Leviathan est moins rentre-dedans, plus subtil et peut-être un peu plus élaboré, aussi. C’est aussi un album qui intègre plus d’influences extérieures à la sphère indus-électro et qui les intègre d’ailleurs de façon plus élégante.

Vous pouvez l’écouter et le télécharger sur la page Bandcamp du groupe et je vous recommande d’y jeter une oreille, surtout si cette branche « futuriste » (ou rétro-futuriste, techniquement) du metal vous intéresse ou, plus largement, si vous aimez les trucs qui bougent mais qui restent un peu subtils et mélodiques.

Now, calm down. I know introducing a band like this always seems a bit unfair to their individual profile and personal creativity. But I actually don’t think that it does in this particular case. Which has a lot to do with my experience with their new album. Which I will obviously get to.

In a sec. Let’s get some setup out of the way first. As can be seen from the title, the band I’m talking about here are Subliminal Fear, an Italian outfit that has been around since as early as 2001, but became visibly active only in 2005. Their just released third album “Escape From Leviathan” hit me as a bit of a surprise. Because, even though I did know of their existence prior to that, they never really sprung out to me as a band that makes music that interests me too much. I’m by no means saying that their first two albums were bad but what they played by then was a pretty typical strain of Newschool Melodic Death Metal along the somewhat harsher lines of mid-career In Flames. So, if you’re into that, you might want to check those records out, actually. Here’s their debut (also for comparison purposes):

Uncoloured World Dying by Subliminal Fear

My personal interest for that exact style of music had already declined significantly at that point, after the mid-2000s had seen a huge wave of artists that played it. So I checked out their first offering, didn’t get too much out of it and probably finally saved them under “good, but not interested” when their second album hit in 2012, not really doing much different.   

All the greater the surprise when I saw their new album labelled under tags like “modern metal” and “industrial” and wondered what happened there. And definitely didn’t expect what I heard there. They had some larger lineup changes between their albums, but guitar and bass are, as far as I could find out, actually in the hands of their original personnel from their debut album. The biggest change would be their new dual-vocalist setup. Considering their comparably huge stylistic change, I would think that that is probably really due to a change in their personal stylistic leanings. 

What they went to from Newschool Melodic Death Metal with “Escape From Leviathan”, is basically prototypical Modern Metal in the vein of Sybreed. And I’m not just saying articulate groovy riffs with a technical air, huge presence of synth backdrops and harsh/clean vocal dynamics. No, I’m saying similar song structures with the later-career Sybreed pattern of a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus -organisation, broken up by an adventurous middle part. I’m saying similar sequencing and song types with a catchy-as-hell opener, a slow pattern-repeating buildup to a huge harsh, semi-symphonic beast of a banger of a song and a second half riding that momentum out with a bit of heightened variation. Seriously, “Evilution” is basically a combination of “Lucifer Effect” and “Dynamic”. And to be honest, I actually think that some tracks on this are actually on the edge of uncomfortably close to single specific Sybreed songs. I’m not entirely sure, but “Escape From Leviathan”s (the song) main riff and chorus sound a lot like “No Wisdom Brings Solace” and I hear bit more combined DNA of “Neurodrive” and “Challenger” in “Dark Star Renaissance” than I would like to. But I’m not saying they are plagiarising or copying, they are just really REALLY close to Sybreed at times.

So much so that it astonishes me that I saw those similarities go mostly unmentioned in a lot of reviews. So, you might aski, am I saying that Subliminal Fear, as far as this album is concerned, are derivative of Sybreed? Yes. Somewhat. But if you’ve read some of this blog, you might remember that is not necessarily a value judgement when it comes from me. Yes, they are extremely close to Sybreed in a lot of aspect. Basically every element of their rifing style, structuring, vocal dynamics, directly remind of them. But that does not mean that they are bad for it. 

Actually, quite the opposite. For multiple reasons:

1. Seriously, when it comes to exactly Sybreeds style of doing the Modern Metal, there’s not exactly a lot of bands playing that. Still active, we have Clawerfield, Nakaruga, Decode The Design and then some more that I can’t remember off the top of my hat. But, really, not a lot. To have Subliminal Fear as a new entry in that small circle of bands that play pretty much exactly the style of music I’ve been in love with for years is really something I welcome.

2. I get the feeling they know it. I mean, even besides the Sybreed similarities, this album is just overall Modern Metal as fuck. The sound, the production, the lyrical themes, the artwork. They even have vocal contributions by Gillaume Bideau (Mnemic, One Way Mirror, ex-Scarve), John Howard (Threat Signal and quite some others) and even Lawrence Mackrory (ex-Darkane and Scarve), for gods sake. I found this album charming for the very outward and open commitment to this style of music alone.   

3. They are really good at it. Plain and simple. Their riffs are cool and very very catchy, most of their choruses hit the mark, their synth backdrops are expansive but not overbearing and well-interwoven with the rest of the music, A lot of the tracks are actually quite memorable and extremely catchy without being so simple that they’d burn out any fast.These guys don’t just very openly like this style of Metal, they also very clearly know what they’re doing.

So, yes, descriptively I’d qalify this album as somewhat derivative but when it comes to a  value judgement about it, I can only ask “so what, really?”. It is a great album for fans of bands like Sybreed, Breach The Void, Nakaruga or Clawerfield and you should definitely check it out. Here’s three sample songs:

Album Review: Subliminal Fear – Escape from Leviathan

Band: Subliminal Fear Album: Escape from Leviathan Release Date: May 13th, 2016 Label: Inverse Records Italian metal heads Subliminal Fear are knocking at our gates of review frenzy here at Metal Nation Radio with their third album, Escape from Leviathan. I will come to the details of the album, yes, but let me just start by saying my wife is tapping her foot to the music. That is always a good…

SUBLIMINAL FEAR To Release A Third Album ‘Escape From Leviathan’

SUBLIMINAL FEAR‘s new album title is “ESCAPE FROM LEVIATHAN“. After 2 years and a half working in studio, the third album is finally ready, with 10 tracks and they show several innovations about past musical style with a greater attention to melodies and with a modern sound. The early sound has evolved in a “cyber metal” with extreme and melodic vocals, djent guitars, a huge groove and with…