Ascend The Hollow - Echoes Of Existence
The sound of Ascend The Hollow is a very unique one, the band is using 9 string guitars, 6 string bass guitars and electronic elements. This in combination with the female vocals creates a sound never heard before. The lyrics on their first album are about the darker things in the human existence and about opposing the social-political climate, the central message throughout the whole album is mental health and human rights awareness.
"Echoes Of Existence" kicks off with the song 'Polaris Calling', this song is a combination of very heavy guitar riffs and excellent vocals. The intro on this song has a very electronic sound and fits perfectly with 'Polaris Calling'. Also the song structure is very good and has a natural flow between the different riffs, breakdowns and vocals. The overall heavyness in this song and the whole album in general surprises me in a good way.
Another song that I liked is 'Sea Of Crises' this track begins with an electronic intro but after that heavy breakdowns, guitar riffs and growling\clean vocals take over. What I mostly like about this song is the variety between the heavy parts and lighter parts it also has a very groovy feeling and has again the song texture is very well fitting.
With a very strong message the music must be a very powerful contributing factor and it is. The overall performance on this album is amazing and the lyrics are not the kind of whining texts some bands have when they are (with al do respects) asking for attention or are talking about certain subjects. Also the sound mix on this album is very well done, the problem is that when there are a lot of very low and heavy frequencies in the music, the bass-guitar and kickdrum are almost melting together in their sound, this in fact is not happening on the album and it takes a lot of skill to not let this happen. The guitars are excellent and the drums and bass-guitar in combination with vocals really reinforce the whole musical spectrum on "Echoes Of Existence".
I rate this album 4 out of 5 stars because all of the subjects I already wrote about. The band has proven that you don't need to be very fast to have a heavy sound and I really would recommend listing to Ascend The Hollow.
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2. Vessels
3. Mother Of Morality
4. Sea Of Crisis
5. Into The Black Eye
6. This Dark Rage
7. Swarms Within
8. Prisoners Of The Storm
9. Repent Rewind Reset
10. C3LIs
