Hemina – Romancing the Ether
Release Date: 11th August 2023
Label: Bird’s Robe Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Metal, Prog, Metal.
FFO: Pain Of Salvation, Dream Theater, Symphony X, Circus Maximus.
Review By: Metal Miguel
I like a little bit of prog like the next man and have listened to many of the greats in my time, and still do. So, when the Boss Man sends me a new one for review, I’m always eager to see what’s new in that world, how the evolution of the genre has moved on, if at all and what might be making me nod my head in that classic combination of time signatures, melody, and heavy ass riffs.
I’ll just jump straight in and say when I opened my email only to find one track, I was a bit bemused but then to find out it is 35 minutes long, I was intrigued and a little bit apprehensive. I read the press release and the band seem to have decided they would attempt a whole marketing approach to their track, showcase their music that is in tandem with a visual representation of the track online, so it has a total and fully immersive experience. It’s great to see bands try a new approach in their marketing, and you can’t fault them for that. They are clearly taking stock of progressive bands from the past who have done similar things, like Queensryche for example or even Dream Theater.
The track encompasses many sections, riffs, soaring melodies, and vocals, and is no doubt packaged like a film with a beginning, middle and end, telling a story about this Ether that is being Romanced. I mean, I like it, there are sections within it that really stand out for me. There are so many well-written parts, vocal arrangements that are massive, syncopated grooves, and orchestral parts – it has everything! Maybe I’ll watch the accompanying visuals and see if that stirs me more, but I can’t help thinking that it’s over-engineered in its creation, but I’m basing that on the length and that the song probably could have been split up in tracks as there are 6 parts to it, so why not just allow the listener to access each of it? Yes, I agree you can’t watch a film masterpiece without its beginning and end context, but there are films as well as music that allow you just to select the bits you like; that riff, that section etc and I suppose with the digital world, you can do that, so maybe I’m being a little pedantic on that.
What I will say is that the female vocals provided by Jessica Martin, who is also the bass player, added some lovely relief to the LaBrie-style vocals throughout and added something more progressive to their sound that I enjoyed, which encapsulated world sounds and music to a variety of other styles towards back half of this track, which was great. It did veer off quick quickly again, so it is quite the roller-coaster of emotional sounds when you get into it, bits you like bits you enjoy and bits you could do without, but it would be unfair to judge the whole track on sections out of context because overall it’s a quality piece of music and musicianship, just not for everyone but you should certainly give it a whirl and definitely watch their visuals that is to accompany it.
(3 / 5)
