Divided By Design – The Fear of Being Forgotten
Release Date: 10th Februay 2023
Label: Self-Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Metal, Instrumental metal, Djent, Melodic Metal.
FFO: Haken, Animals as Leaders, Angel Vivaldi.
Review By: Andy Spoon
Prog duo Divided By Design is set to release The Fear of Being Forgotten, an LP-length instrumental album, on February 10th, 2023. The collaborative work of multi-instrumentalists Liam Stephenson and Tom Chambers, Divided By Design is a powerful take on the prog instrumental subgenre that has recently taken a new life in the metal community with the growing popularity of progressive elements in Metalcore and even mainstream rock. Many call the sound “Djent”, which can divide a whole room. We used to call it Mathcore, but even that term is becoming passé in some circles, as it seems to be limited to fewer and fewer bands almost daily.
Everything on the album seems to be following the wailing, virtuoso-level guitar playing, which makes sense for a rock/prog instrumental album. I think that going from the first track, Establish, to the dizzying mayhem of the second track, Construct, is a big jolt. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it absolutely shakes you once the track breaks down into a big brass section with saxophone solos, only to dive back into the “djenty” chugging guitar riff-land paradise. The first track felt like more of an Angel Vivaldo track, while the second one felt more like a Rivers of Nihil track (and I mean that in a good way).
Track 3, or Deconstruct, is a far departure from both tracks 1 and 2. It seems to be the “meat and potatoes” of The Fear of Being Forgotten, as it hits hard with the progressive, in-and-out-of-time bars followed by repetitive phrases that build in intensity over and over before the track switches to new elements. Frankly, it’s not expected, at any point, as it could have jumped from Middle-Eastern, to Vaudeville avant-garde sound at any point. The “djent” elements are just there to glue everything back together, or at least until there is a new phrase to hit on the synths again. Deconstruct is a wild ride between musical elements and components, not just stylistic changes. (and I’m not just talking about tempo and textural differences). It’s a spectacle to behold, for sure.
Finally, the last track, Legacy, starts with an upbeat multi-instrumental phrase that feels like a mix between Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Rush, and a tiny bit of Scale The Summit. This is a track where the solo on guitar leads the entire melody of the song, something that I thought would come in much earlier in the album. It creates an effect where it doesn’t feel like a single guitar artist jerking himself off on every track and naming the project after his own name. It simply offers the listener the knowledge that Stephenson can absolutely shred on the lead guitars, but is more committed to the rest of the tracks’ continuity before shoehorning additional guitar melody into the mix. I’m thankful for that. Legacy is more of an uplifting track, as the first part of the album seemed to resonate with chaos and heaviness. The second half was energetic and positive in tone and tempo. This is fun, in that, it offers a user experience that is almost interactive, rather than merely passive at every turn. Too-many artists spend time making what amount to mixtapes or “magazines”, when they ought to consider making an album work more like a novel, turning story and logical elements into musical movements that work towards a collective goal of creating a single art piece. That’s what Divided By Design has done with The Fear of Being Forgotten.
Equally uplifting as it is moody at times, The Fear of Being Forgotten is a pleasantly-brief, well-constructed prog album that ought to impress and entertain prog and non-prog fans, as it seems to lack little in the ways of artistic vision and execution.
(3 / 5)
