Sometimes, you just want to break stuff. That’s when you reach for something that goes fast and hard. However, those two qualities often come at the expense of variety: many of the heavier, faster albums are also insanely monotonous, rarely breaking their own limits or genre tropes. That’s why it’s a good thing we have bands like Benea Reach at hand. These guys deal in the kind of melodic hardcore/metalcore that’s been struggling to emerge from the “djent” tag for years now. Sure, it’s got some chugs but the focus is on vocal delivery and lead/rhythm guitar interplay rather than sheer volume and thickness of bass. However, it also has some interesting strong structure, female vocals and plenty of other innovations. Head on over the jump for a taste.
“Crown” is a pretty good example of what you can expect from Possession: it starts off pretty furiously but has that melodic passage near the end that gives it much more purpose and rationale. End of the day, it scratches two itches. The first for some rage and pain and the second for a song structure that doesn’t simply proceed from verse to chorus via a few breakdowns. The rest of the album mixes it up even more: female/male duets are present in two places, bass/string combinations can be found on the next track, “Empire”, and the entire thing just screams “we know what we’re about it but we’re not afraid to mix it up”.
This album might not find a permanent place in your rotation, especially not with 2014-15 being as good as they were/are, but it’s definitely a go to album when you’re in the special kind of place where you want to break something but also to enjoy yourself while doing so. And that’s perfectly fine: some albums just need to know their place and what they aim for. Possession does and it speaks volumes about the intent and professionalism that Benea Reach are capable of.
-EK