You might recall that Countless Skies's Glow was my album of the year for 2020. A lot of that was the band's ability to create powerful tension between tenderness and heaviness, owing a lot to their compositional ideas but also to their excellent use of cello on the album. Now, the band have returned to the studio with Arianna Mahsayeh, who contributed that cello, to re-record and enhance tracks from that album and from their earlier release, New Dawn. It's a really cool idea, bringing to these tracks a great "live from the studio" verve but also expanding on their core ideas with new melodies and sounds from the cello. The end result is quite beautiful as you can hear for yourself on "Wanderer" from New Dawn, down below!
Damn, I love this band! This track was already fantastic but the new cello parts around the quiet segment near the outro of the track are fantastic. They do such a good job of setting up the explosive return of the guitars which ushers in that aforementioned outro, revisiting the core composition of the track and adding in that unique melancholy that the cello is so good for. In general, the usage of that mournful timbre works exceptionally well for Countless Skies' melodic death metal sound, here as it did on Glow. It also enhances the verses, making the main riff of the track even more impactful and moving.
Resonance is set for release on May 5th 2023 through the indomitable Willowtip Records. You guys keep sending us great music and we'll keep premiering it, deal? You can head on over to the band's Bandcamp to pre-order this one; it's sure to be one of the prettier releases of 2023.