Stellar Circuits – Sight To Sound
Release Date: 9th June 2023
Label: Nuclear Blast
Order/Stream
Genre: Progressive Metal
FFO: Kadinja, Vola, Karnivool, Klone.
Review By: Metal Miguel
I like it. It has good grooves and pace. Lovely melodies and clinically placed metal sequences seem to balance everything out. I say seem, but it’s clearly not an accident and the band know exactly what they are doing as they deliver a powerhouse of songs one after the other. Carefully thought-out melodies over lovely guitar pieces that compliment a well-balanced rhythm section.
The whole album sits perfectly like a fulcrum point in the metal universe that engages its progressive routes and takes you on a rewarding and interesting journey for the listener. There is a story to tell with the lyrics, but there is a separate story with the music, and they run in parallel, crossing over at certain sections allowing the two to perform in harmony like a well-engineered piece of machinery that is stylish and sleek in design but has form and function as well and isn’t a brash design to scratch the itch of creativity. It is creative and deservingly so of its own unique place in the music world and while it clearly shows and sounds like they have influences that are wide-ranging, they haven’t gone down the old fanboy route, but has carefully applied the formula of history gone by and allowed the organic flow of progression to splice with their own passion of what they want to achieve.
The big surprise for me is that, and this isn’t meant as a slight on the band, but that they hail from North Carolina. This album has all the chops of many European bands as I have listed in the FFO section above, although I will concede now that I am aware that Karnivool is from Australia, the rest still stand and as far as I’m concerned, they can hold their own and will stand proudly with these other progressive types. Sure, it’s easy to through a few other household names for similarity, but I’d rather pit them against quality musicianship and stand-out bands within the genre and not too far into the Djent territory, which is easily done but not in this case – this album has all the hallmarks of proper progressive genius and anyone who listens to the modern version will be pleased if not stoked to have this album as a part of their progressive metal collection – this is an album you can easily chill and reflect on, but equally can adorn the “the onion-face” of appreciation.
(4 / 5)
