Textures
Dualism
Rating
Style: Modern Progressive Metal
Release date: 23 September, 2011
Playing time: 56:18
 

Within Temptation and Legion of the Damned are bands that have a big fan base outside of Holland. Textures is another band that is rather well known abroad. They were one of the first metal bands that played in India, they tortured Russia with their music and in Germany thousands of fans visit their gigs. Signing a deal with Nuclear Blast will give the band even a bigger boost and the music on this album will certainly be no barrier.

After 'Silhouettes' the future looked very bright and nothing could stop the band from becoming bigger and bigger. Just when everything looked fine, vocalist Eric Kalsbeek decided that his daily job was the safe choice. How on earth can you find a new singer that has the same variety in styles like Eric has? He was a master in grunting and his clean singing style wasn't bad either. Fortunately it didn't take long to find someone who can take his place and has the same qualities. Daniël de Jongh (ex-Cilice) is the perfect man for this job. On the new album he easily changes from low grunts and raw screams into melodic clean singing parts. If you wouldn't know better, you probably would have thought that the band has 3 different vocalists.

Like on the other albums, there is still a musical link with a band like Meshuggah, especially Stef Broks's polyrhythmic drum parts see to that, but unlike Meshuggah it sounds less mechanical and Stef shows that he is indeed one of the best drummers around. Still a combination of thrash and death form the musical base for their music, but due to the clean melodic singing and the strange rhythms it can be defined as Textures for certain. The songs have a nice atmosphere and there are still enough aggressive musical explosions, but not as often as on the predecessor. They have put more focus on atmosphere and dreamy parts. The cozy keyboard parts and the strange rhythms are still a big trademark for the Textures style, but the emphasis lays more on good song writing and creating nice melodies than on playing the most difficult rhythms and showing what they are capable of. With "Reaching Home" they have even written a song without any grunt or growl in it; a beautiful melodic metal song however.

For fans that like a combination of Meshuggah, Devin Townsend, Gojira and Coheed and Cambria a must buy. With this fourth album Textures delivered one of the best Dutch albums this year, don't miss it!


Tracklist

01. Arms of the Sea
02. Black Horses Stampede
03. Reaching Home
04. Sanguine Draws the Oath
05. Consonant Hemispheres
06. Burning the Midnight Oil
07. Singularity
08. Minor Earth, Major Skies
09. Stoic Resignation
10. Foreclosure
11. Sketches From a Motionless Statue

Label: Nuclear Blast
Distribution: Warner Music (Denmark)
Reviewed by: Reinier de Vries
Date: 18 September, 2011
Website: www.myspace.com/textures