Boil

Vessel

Written by: PP on 10/08/2007 15:59:00

Danish music scene can hardly be called vibrant, as the amount of noteworthy bands can probably be counted with two hands. Every now and then, however, a new band pops up which is both exciting and refreshing, as Danish bands don't have the tendency to recycle riffs from other bands (for the most part), and are usually decent at attempting to create their own signature sound. It is therefore with excitement I present you Boil, a Danish-Icelandic act that cannot be grouped into merely one genre, whose debut album "Vessel" sounds more professional than most Danish releases put together.

Straight from the captivating "Bound", Boil proves that they are a force to reckon with through the use of impressive instrumentation fine tuned to perfection. It is followed by an epic 10 minute progressive rock piece "So Many Men", which brings together a ton of influences making it impossible to pigeonhole the band into just one genre. Sounds and inspirations from A Perfect Circle's dark atmosphere are ever present throughout the song, which has enough passages and transitions to fill this entire review. The chord progressions are enormous, and vocalist Nielsen sounds monumental, morphing his voice from soft croons to raging yells that border screaming and growling. There's a sense of Tool-like perfection/unpredictability dynamics, where you know each note is perfectly placed but yet are not able to predict what comes next, keeping the listener interested even on the 9th minute of the track. It's good the band has only decided to include only one track as massive as this, because I could imagine myself being overwhelmed if the entire album was filled with similar tracks.

"Stupify" experiments with guitar melody and is the track that probably most sounds like A Perfect Circle. Both melody and melancholy have been blended together nicely into an accessible form, making it the ideal single candidate from the record given it's catchy riffs and memorable chorus, which there aren't many on the record. However, as pioneers like Tool have shown in the past, you don't necessarily need choruses at all to create incredible music. Nevertheless, "Abestemious" gives another go, and ends up sounding like a ten-times better version of Creed's balladic anthems. Don't take the Creed mention in a negative way, though, because "Abestemious" is a track that needs to be heard by all Danes. Together with "Stupify" and "So Many Man" it demonstrates that even in as small country as ours, it is possible to create music that evenly challenges and contests the bands from the other side of the pond. At the same time, however, these tracks cast a shadow on the rest of the album, even if the raging yells of "Capable" and the beautiful aggro-melodic composition of "Masters Of War" suggest otherwise. They are unmatched on the rest of the album, giving it an unbalanced feel which is completely undeserved.

With the help of Tue Madsen's magic touch, the instrumentation is tight at the same time that it is spacey and colossal, making every nuance of the recording easily audible, helping to create that sense of perfection I was talking about earlier. In the end, I suppose Boil leans most towards the progressive rock genre, even though we're not talking about anything like Dream Theater here. If Creed mixed with A Perfect Circle, the result could be "Vessel" - an album filled with progressive perfection fitted into a melodic, accessible form.

8

Download: Stupify, So Many Men, Abstemious
For the fans of: Tool, A Perfect Circle, Creed
Listen: Myspace

Release date 10.01.2007
Gateway Music

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.