THERAPHOSA: Transcendence (PROGRESSIVE METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Mired in a legal problem, the Theraphosa spider was close to giving up everything. Thanks to the perseverance and sacred union of his trio, the lawsuit that pitted him against an American clothing brand was half won: the French group will be able to use its logo along with its name. If this episode was costly in money and energy, it was the violence necessary to unite these three young boys around their new project, this time recorded in France: ''Transcendence''.

Far from the self-serving justice of men, "Transcendence" is an inner descent into the well of our being. While the first EP was an awareness of the God within us, Theraphosa is here looking for the path to the beyond towards which man, freed from his defects and regaining an original purity, could tend. If the concept may seem sententious at first sight, it's not the case with the music. 'Stigmata Of The Purest Pain' opens the album with the synthetic spirit of the previous EP: growls and sharp guitar riffs articulate the heaviness. But we suddenly switch to a more unexpected direction: the voice is clearer and the lines more melodic. If conceptually, the idea that we have to tame the Beast finds here a direct application, musically, the band will pursue this search for a balance between heaviness and melody. The trio also uses a new ingredient in their quest: celestial choruses from orchestra samples, like the voice of the Angel from After Crying, light a lantern in the middle of the darkness.

Looking at his first EP, Theraphosa seems to trust himself more and more, the guitar solos are more varied, more melodic and always bring an added value to the track. But it's especially at the composition level that our Frenchmen stand out. If they often are categorized for lack of better in metalcore, the band successfully accomplishes its progressive mutation, as the very complex 'Mother Night' shows, on which the melancholy flows without ever sinking in with the different changes of direction. 'The Legacy Of Arachne', the final step of this monumental staircase, characterized by the tribal/angelical union, ends the album in apotheosis, summarizing its different moments.

Theraphosa has surpassed itself and delivers a rich concept album in which each of its chapters has been cleverly thought out. There is no stone to be removed from this transcendent cathedral that is swarming with emotions of contradictory appearances but which have the human being as a common denominator. After this ascent with a finale in apotheosis, who knows how high our trio will go? - Official website

THERAPHOSA

TRANSCENDENCE

SEASON OF MIST

PROGRESSIVE METAL