• Best of 2021
  • Monthly Missive
  • Columns
    • A Gift to Artwork
    • Cool People Column
    • Death’s Door
    • Doomsday
    • Editors’ Picks
    • Genre Genesis
    • Grind My Gears
    • Into the Pit
    • Kvlt Kolvmn
    • Post Rock Post
    • Rotten to the Core
    • Unmetal Monthly
  • Genres
    • Metal
      • Black Metal
      • Death Metal
      • Doom Metal
      • Grindcore
      • Metalcore
      • Post-Metal
      • Progressive Metal
      • Stoner Metal
      • Sludge Metal
      • Thrash Metal
      • Trad Metal
    • Rock
      • Art Rock
      • Hardcore
      • Indie Rock
      • Math Rock
      • Post-Rock
      • Progressive Rock
      • Psych Rock
      • Punk
      • Shoegaze
      • Stoner Rock
      • Synthwave
    • Classical
    • Electronic
    • Folk
    • Hip-Hop
    • Jazz
    • Pop
    • R&B
  • Reviews
  • Listen To This!
  • Podcast
  • Store
  • Contact
Search
Heavy Blog Is Heavy logo
  • Best of 2021
    Featured
    • Heavy Blog's Superlative List for 2021

      Eden Kupermintz
      January 17, 2022
      Best of 2021, Lists!
    Recent
    • Yearly Missive // 2021

      Eden Kupermintz
      January 17, 2022
    • Finding Meaning In Meaninglessness: A 2021 Survivor’s Guide

      Nick Cusworth
      January 17, 2022
    • Heavy Blog’s Top 50 Albums of 2021

      Heavy Blog
      January 17, 2022
    • A World In Which Music Exists – 2021 In Review

      Eden Kupermintz
      January 17, 2022
    • Post Rock Post // 2021 In Review

      Nick Cusworth
      January 17, 2022
    • Heavy Blog Staff’s Top 25 Albums of 2021

      Heavy Blog
      January 17, 2022
  • Monthly Missive
    Random
    • Monthly Missive // January 2021

      Eden Kupermintz
      January 4, 2021
      Monthly Missive
    Recent
    • Monthly Missive // June 2022

      Eden Kupermintz
      June 13, 2022
    • Monthly Missive // May 2022

      Heavy Blog
      May 5, 2022
    • Monthly Missive // April 2022

      Heavy Blog
      April 7, 2022
    • Monthly Missive // March 2022

      Heavy Blog
      March 3, 2022
    • Yearly Missive // 2021

      Eden Kupermintz
      January 17, 2022
    • Monthly Missive // December 2021

      Eden Kupermintz
      December 7, 2021
  • Columns

    Recent

    • Doomsday // June 2022

      Pete Williams
      June 13, 2022
      Doomsday
    • Post Rock Post // June 2022

      Eden Kupermintz
      June 13, 2022
      Post Rock Post
    • Kvlt Kolvmn // June 2022

      Jonathan Adams
      June 13, 2022
      Columns, Kvlt Kolvmn
    • Rotten to the Core // June 2022

      Calder Dougherty
      June 13, 2022
      Rotten to the Core
    • Death's Door // June 2022

      Jonathan Adams
      June 13, 2022
      Columns, Death's Door
    • Editors’ Picks // June 2022

      Heavy Blog
      June 13, 2022
      Editors' Picks
    • A Gift to Artwork
    • Cool People Column
    • Death’s Door
    • Doomsday
    • Editors’ Picks
    • Genre Genesis
    • Grind My Gears
    • Into the Pit
    • Kvlt Kolvmn
    • Post Rock Post
    • Rotten to the Core
    • Unmetal Monthly
  • Genres
    • Metal
      • Black Metal
      • Death Metal
      • Doom Metal
      • Grindcore
      • Metalcore
      • Post-Metal
      • Progressive Metal
      • Stoner Metal
      • Sludge Metal
      • Thrash Metal
      • Trad Metal
    • Rock
      • Art Rock
      • Hardcore
      • Indie Rock
      • Math Rock
      • Post-Rock
      • Progressive Rock
      • Psych Rock
      • Punk
      • Shoegaze
      • Stoner Rock
      • Synthwave
    • Classical
    • Electronic
    • Folk
    • Hip-Hop
    • Jazz
    • Pop
    • R&B
  • Reviews
    Random
    • Necrot - Mortal

      Pete Williams
      August 10, 2020
      Reviews
    Recent
    • Coheed & Cambria – Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind

      Jimmy Rowe
      June 13, 2022
    • Artificial Brain – Artificial Brain

      Ahmed Hasan
      June 3, 2022
    • Astronoid – Radiant Bloom

      Jimmy Rowe
      May 27, 2022
    • Moon Tooth – Phototroph

      Eden Kupermintz
      May 5, 2022
    • Path of Might – Deep Chrome

      Eden Kupermintz
      May 5, 2022
    • Atoll – Prepuce

      Bridget Hughes
      May 5, 2022
  • Listen To This!
    Featured
    • Hey! Listen to Let Us Prey!

      Joshua Bulleid
      July 28, 2020
      Listen To This!
    Recent
    • Release Day Roundup – 6/24/22

      Scott Murphy
      June 24, 2022
    • Hungarian Post-Rock Trio Torzs Return For Another Visual and Aural Feast With “Atfordul”

      David Zeidler
      June 22, 2022
    • What We’re Really Listening To – 6/17/22

      Scott Murphy
      June 17, 2022
    • Release Day Roundup – 6/17/22

      Scott Murphy
      June 17, 2022
    • Hey! Listen to This!

      Joshua Bulleid
      June 13, 2022
    • Release Day Roundup – 6/10/22

      Scott Murphy
      June 10, 2022
  • Podcast
  • Store
  • Contact
Home
Reviews

Night Verses – From the Gallery of Sleep

Ryan Castrati
June 28, 2018
Reviews

When a band loses a vocalist, there are times where it signals the end of that band. For better or worse, it’s over. Other times, they will find a new vocalist either within or outside of the group and soldier on, sometimes under the same name or a different moniker entirely. Then there’s the third option, which is arguably the most interesting of the three, in which the band decides they don’t need a vocalist. They believe their music has the ability to speak to the listener without words. When Tilian Pearson left Tides of Man, the post-hardcore outfit decided to take the third route and became a post-rock band, shattering expectations in doing so with their crowdfunded “debut” album Young & Courageous. Post-hardcore/progressive rock band Night Verses, after losing their vocalist Douglas Robinson, were faced with a similar choice. They too decided to become an instrumental group and test their musical mettle. After releasing a well-received three-song EP at the beginning of this year we now have From the Gallery of Sleep, a full album of their instrumental material (with the three songs from the EP included) to see if their decision holds up in the long form.

Where Tides of Man leaned heavily into the crescendo-core nature of post-rock, Night Verses embrace the heavier sides of progressive and post-metal to form their sound. The atmospheric nature of post-rock is an ever-present element, but there are more times than not where the record reflects a technically minded progressive metal band like Animals as Leaders. There are even times where the band wades into territory that’s a tad more sludge-y/murky in the low-end, ala post-metal veterans Pelican. Regardless of which end of the metal spectrum Night Verses dip their wick, the results are enthralling and impressive.

When Night Verses want to enrapture you with atmosphere, they might motion you closer with soft, vibraphone-esque keyboards, echoing clean-guitars and tug on your heartstrings with a vocal sample of a woman asking the listener “Who are you?” such as on the interlude, “Glitch in the You I Thought I Knew” or the gorgeous closer “Infinity Beach” If they want to enthrall and show that they can display both flash and substance, they’ll go for the gusto and work in more technical guitar work in and/or blast you with force when you might be least expecting it, this attribute is best displayed on the track “Vice Wave”. When they combine the two moods, such as on tracks like “No Moon”, “Earthless”, and the nearly ten-minute behemoth “Phoenix IV: Levitation” you get results that, funnily enough considering the situation, leave you speechless.

Vocals were not holding Night Verses back from being a great group by any means. However, vocals were holding them back from embodying a different form of greatness. The territories in which the group pushed into on From the Gallery of Sleep may have been present on previous works, but now the landscapes of those territories are all that’s left for us. Without a voice to guide us, the traveler on the musical journey, we can appreciate the landscape for what it is and not how it is presented to us. Without a word, we are swept away into lands beautiful, aggressive and altogether strange.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3765271164 size=large bgcol=333333 linkcol=e32c14 tracklist=false artwork=small]

…

From the Gallery of Sleep releases through Equal Vision Records on June 29th. You can order the album physically through the band’s MerchNow and digitally through their Bandcamp.

Animals As LeadersDouglas RobinsonFrom the Gallery of SleepNight Versespelicanpost metalPost-Hardcorepost-rockProgressive Metaltides of manTilian Pearson

About The Author

Ryan Castrati

Related Posts

  • Coheed & Cambria – Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind

    Jimmy Rowe
    June 13, 2022
  • Artificial Brain – Artificial Brain

    Ahmed Hasan
    June 3, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Patreon

Ko-fi

Podcast

All the Heavy Lifting

Latest Reviews

  • Coheed & Cambria – Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind

    Jimmy Rowe
    June 13, 2022
    New Jersey post-hardcore turned prog-infused pop punk giants Coheed & Cambria need no introduction at this point in... Read More...
  • Artificial Brain – Artificial Brain

    Ahmed Hasan
    June 3, 2022
    “In space no one can hear you scream” read the tagline for Ridley Scott’s Alien, as imposing as it was concise. Decades... Read More...
  • Astronoid – Radiant Bloom

    Jimmy Rowe
    May 27, 2022
    Established in 2012, Massachusetts-based at Astronoid built a cult following within a pocket of the prog metal communit... Read More...
  • Moon Tooth – Phototroph

    Eden Kupermintz
    May 5, 2022
    By now, Moon Tooth have garnered themselves quite a following in the progressive metal spaces. This is no accident; the scene is hungry for the kind of upbeat and unrestrained music that Moon Tooth is creating. Good news then: Phototroph is by far the band’s most energetic and “poppy” release, and I mean that in the best way possible.