Vicinity - Recurrence (EN)

There is the next concept album to review. I have somehow a knack for something like this and here, too, you need to invest more time in listening and writing.

Vicinity (from Norway) is the name of the band and "Recurrence" is their concept album that will be released in April this year. The main topic of the album in a lyrical view is the cyclic nature of the human way. The initial question is whether the world would have been better without us and what remains once the human species is eradicated. This is something that has surely crossed the mind of anybody and Vicinity delivers the answer in their view.

Already after the first beats, it is clear that the music is more progressive and full of beats and well, this is indeed desired for progressive Metal. The first song is named "Unwritten Manifest" and is initiated by a guitar intro. The rest of the band gets in by and by. Until now everything is fine and one waits excitedly for the entry of the vocalist. That, however, is the first problem of the band. The voice of the singer is in need of getting used to and can be quite annoying in the long run. The drummer caps it all off as he knocks out the ten thousandth drum roll and with that he drives anybody out of their mind. It is really hard for me to invest the needed time for the album and to listen to the album several times above all.

The second song of the release is named "Phoenix". Here the guitar player proves his proficiency again and delivers an awesome guitar lick as intro. Everything fits until the vocalist enters and the verse starts because thereby the song loses its dynamic again. The verse is ruined with a complete powerless and bored manner and there are zero emotions. The drummer overstrains the drums here as well. However, the song with duration of more than 10 minutes can convince at no time.

In the next song "Mountainfall" the basses play a wonderful melody supported by the keyboarder. Unfortunately, even when I repeat myself, the great atmosphere is destroyed by onset of singing and the drummer is further on disturbing factor number two.

The rest of the release sounds more or less similar. However, the Norwegian can't score points or convince with the songs that have duration between five and 20 minutes.

Conclusion:
A concept album is still very difficult. One has a template which one has to follow when writing the songs. In this case, it was not the compositions. If the band had called reinforcements from guest vocoalists and the drummer had played his set more in accordance with the songs, the rating would have been more positive. At the end the result was: Potential is not used!

Rating: 4/10

Recommendation: The Unwritten Manifest, Phoenix