Taklit 2015
Commute
With direction firmly set, Israeli proggers gain the momentum of motion.
Their first two albums might have found favor with fans and colleagues, such as DREAM THEATER, but the crowdfunding campaign for SOLSTICE COIL’s next one raised only a third of its goal. Undeterred, the band moved forward, and “Commute” arrives at its destination as a signifier of a genuine progression: there’s a narrative in it and a tuneful route to follow. Even though it ends with the anxious “Nowhere” anthem, the piano and guitar riffs of “New Eyes” keep the listener riveted to this spacious, and soulful, place where tension subsides only to turn the music’s surface into a hard veneer again.
The journey has a quiet passage for every loud moment, yet “Her Silent Silhouette” builds the grief in dynamics-contrasting layers, and looking in can be dangerous, as the buzz of “Forget You Ever Saw Us” warns before its dance groove gets undercut with a guitar spurt. Once the anger and heaviness hijack the drift, the road map dissolves into a delicate interlude of “Anywhere,” and “The Bargain” marries Eastern strum to lively-but-stately ivories swirl spiked with sensitive percussion which gradually gains weight without losing that initial grace. It gently manifests itself in an endearing promise of “Meltdown” – the last station whence a new adventure might spring – but it’s the process that rules the game here, and the process is one of enjoyment.
****
