Continuo Renacer - The Great Escape

2011 seems to be quite the year for instrumental Metal bands to be making releases. Animals as Leaders, Francesco Artusato, and Evan Brewer all have made strong releases of rather 'Technical Metal' that have high expectations. Continuo Renacer is a band from Spain who draw on a strong Progressive Metal structure that can sometimes be all over the place, as proved in their debut album back in 2005. The sampling was split between numerous tracks which heaped everything in small doses so fans to could get adjusted to the technical wizardry behind each track, and it worked wonderfully. Now, with a sophomore effort, Continuo are changing things again, aiming for fewer, longer tracks, and some stretch the patience of being an epic fifteen minutes. Fortunately, fifteen minutes is a cakewalk for listeners because the band keeps everything as highly jazzy as they can. Every instrument does their best not to overshadow the other, such as on "The Great Escape," with an aggressive Death Metal sounding output lined with plenty of short bursts from the bass and plenty of changing melodies from seamless solos to deep, segmented sections that rumble with the guitar and bass in unison right before the guitars set off again. Sometimes samples are used, but very rarely will one hear a drop of vocals throughout the album.

Many of the tracks are fast paced rather than the usual alternation between 'fast and soft' sections. Some parts of "Give Up Tomorrow" are quieter than others with less cohesion between the instruments, such as when the guitar performs a solo and then the bass jumps in while the drums hang back a bit, but the rhythm is always rushed, preventing any moments of feeling a need to relax or skip forward to more 'exciting parts.' Most of the tracks stay within range of each other from five to six minutes, but "The Newborn" stretches past fifteen minutes, offering the most complex and original offering Continuo Renacer have done yet. It takes a lot to keep an attention for fifteen minutes straight, and the band do everything from bass solos to including background samples to sudden just crashing moments from the guitars along with machine gun-esque drumming. The solos play off each other, but never against the other instruments; as said before, the bass is always surprisingly clear which is rare on instrumental albums unless things are quiet. Admittedly, "The Newborn" does feature some quiet moments, but not slow, such as when the bass and drums 3/4 into the song just tear things up.

Some fans might feel cheated that they only got five tracks worth of music from the band as opposed to more on their debut, but the music is still solid and touches on new heights that Continuo haven't really explored before. The epic is the highlight of the album of course, almost on par with something Dream Theater could come up with. The only downside is- like most instrumental albums- unless one is really into the technical beauty of music, a lot of the songs can tend to sound all the same with the 'look how fast I can play and still make sense' attitude. A lack of lyrics and vocals tends to destroy the storytelling aspect of music, and also opens up the performers to a lot more scrutiny, making them either fall into 'damn good' or 'completely suck' on their instruments. However, Continuo are still 'damn good' as far as their sophomore effort goes, avoiding the infamous 'slump.'

  1. The Great Escape
  2. Give Up Tomorrow
  3. For Those Things To Come
  4. Facing Fears
  5. The Newborn