SPHERES: Helios (PROGRESSIVE METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

With "Iono" released in 2019, Spheres had attracted the attention and interest of the public and critics. It must be said that although anchored in pure metal, the band developed an interesting alternative aspect that allowed Spheres to distinguish itself from its assumed influences such as Gojira, Mastodon or Opeth...

After the delicate period we knew, Spheres comes back to business with a title of album which rests once again on a certain mythology: "Helios", god of the Sun in Ancient Greece. Except that here the sun is replaced by a worrying eye as an analogy on the current society.

Spheres imposes itself from the first seconds of the album with a powerful, gripping and heavy introduction. 'Algorithmic: Sentience' sets the stage for an intense album in all senses of the term and mainly in the vocals of Jonathan Lino who interprets almost several characters between screamo, clear and growl vocals at the edge of the extreme. If sometimes this technique can put off some, here it passes rather well in particular thanks to the music which accompanies it, all in duality between melody (the synths) and asperity (the riffs of guitar and the robust rhythmic).

The band doesn't hesitate to sprinkle some electro notes on its tracks while keeping a metal base. 'Spiritual Journey' is the best example: the writing of the title all in progression succeeds in proposing a complex and epic piece. By amalgamating all its elements - theatricality, subjects relating to the relations with the others with all the excesses that this can cause - Spheres plays in the court of the big ones. The climax of the album, 'Pandemia' seems to be the expression of the frustration felt during the last two years. Rage is the common thread, embodied in Jonathan's eruptive outbursts, the rhythmically shredding blast beats and the devastating riffs. This fury is however compensated by relatively melodic passages, especially on the guitars which propose some nice harmonic soli.

Conscious (or not) of proposing a music perhaps a little too complex, Spheres offers in this album some simpler doors of entry so that the curious listener can discover, thanks to them, a very wide universe. 'SCS' is one of these songs which, without denaturing the work of the band, offers a moment of relative accessibility, constituting a kind of key allowing to open the pandora's box.

"Helios" is nevertheless uncompromising and goes further in the sound exploration than "Iono" could do. The album is technically successful and the musicians are all good (including the voice). The songs are solid but the record as a whole sometimes has trouble offering enough contrasts to convey a surplus of emotion that would allow Spheres to totally transform this new try. But don't let that stop you from enjoying this beautiful album. - Official website

SPHERES

HELIOS

M-O-MUSIC

PROGRESSIVE METAL