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EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Sail Away With RIVIẼRE’s “New Cancer”

Progressive metal tends to move in circles. Along the way, as it revisits trends and ideas seemingly forgotten, it picks up influences from the genres surrounding it. Thus, drama was

7 years ago

Progressive metal tends to move in circles. Along the way, as it revisits trends and ideas seemingly forgotten, it picks up influences from the genres surrounding it. Thus, drama was added to the late period of 90’s prog from power metal for example, or heaviness and breakdowns to the resurgence of progressive metal after metalcore had its day in the sun. Nowadays, elements from post rock and metal are more and more heavily introduced into the genre as a new generation of bands springs up to take on the mantle of innovation. Which is where French RIVIẼRE come into play; their style of music can be described as introspective, gloomy progressive metal, replete with delayed guitars and chunky bass underlines direct from the most cinematic of post rocks. Check out their new track “New Cancer” below to get a taste!

These balances, between heartfelt vocals, prominent drums and dreamy guitars, should come as no surprise to fans of post rock but the added grandiose of progressive metal is a welcome addition to their styling. These progressive tendencies also lead to a more complex track structure, eschewing the rote “build up-release-build up” structures of post rock in favor of more tight, varied and surprising directions. The long run-time, a staple of both genres, is well utilized here, exploring fully the different ideas and leads nascent within the track’s basic expressions. These iterations create, for example, the moving and catchy outro, with the vocals delivering on their aural promise through out the track.

Overall, this is an insanely promising tidbit from their upcoming album, Heal, which sees release on January 20th, 2017, via our good friends at Basick Records. We suggest you head on over to them to pre-order this bad boy and sit tight as more tracks unveil themselves nearer to release. 2017, here we come.

Eden Kupermintz

Published 7 years ago