Genre(s): Modern Progressive Metal
Starter Tracks: Disillusion, A Parellel Reflection I
Label: Independent
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Review: Owing to the group’s relative obscurity, there ain’t all that much info or history on Transcend out there on the ol’ inter-webs. Transcend is, apparently, primarily the brain child of Canadish multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer Costa Damoulianos and a few of his long-time mates. Costa’s other musical project of note, Zoungla, appears to focus on ambient and compositionally progressive psychedelic music while Transcend is Costa’s outlet for producing heavier music of a similar vein.
As the ambient djent boom of the last decade has, by 2020, more or less crashed and burned, as all excessive cultural trends do eventually, the genuinely inspired and novel among these musical acts soldier on proving that the for all the fad’s excesses, it still provided a novel framework for making adventurous progressive metal. And man are Transcend adventurous on Balance I!
Despite formally being an “EP,” Balance I is more of a lean LP that makes the absolute most of its “short” 36-minute run time packing in beautiful melodies, ethnic world music influences, and ambience with punchy riffs and instrumentals. The Devin Townsend worship at the eight-and-a-half-minute mark on “A Parellel Reflection I” followed by a mashup of a muezzin’s adhan (i.e. Islamic call to prayer) and some envelope filter synth bass are a real highlight.
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