[Cover art by Alex Eckman-Lawn]
If you look at other pages and conversations about An Abstract Illusion, you’ll likely find that they are most often saddled with the progressive death metal genre tag. Surely, I’m being a bit pedantic here, but I’d argue that an overall progressive metal tag is more fitting. There are blast beats, harsh vocals, and whatnot, but the elements of death metal are just one of many yarns of musical styles woven into this varied tapestry. Much like Woe before it, The Sleeping City sees this Swedish quartet continue to experiment with far more than deathly trappings.
- A whole lot of building toward a climax with very effective, subtle layering to drive it forward
- A pulsing dance beat with synths and a smattering of drum notes that sound like it would take place in some sort of club scene in Bladerunner
- What essentially sounds like a keytar solo with the tone of something from an ’80s children’s adventure show
- An ominous choir of clean vocals
- Some brief stretches of tortured screaming and haunted wails
- Synths and guitars trading off exploratory notes and shredding barbs
- Hideously heavy drums that fall all over themselves like an avalanche of collapsing buildings
- Meshuggah-esque pummels and off-kilter riffing
- Vocoder cleans for a nice robot effect
- Beautiful, clean guitars accompanied by gorgeous, clean singing, making one reminisce of Irish folk songs
- Slowly strummed somber notes that should play during the part of the movie where the protagonist realizes everything has gone wrong and their life might be over
- Jamming Pink Floyd stretches of guitar exploration and soaring leads
- Heavy synths that could soundtrack some dramatic, dark romance
- Opethian stretches of clean notes that still somehow feel heavy
You’ll notice that not a whole lot of the above really screams death metal. An Abstract Illusion continues to expertly play its heaviest moments off against its lightest and deftly mix a great many instruments, tones and notes to create a powerful atmosphere. There are times when the guest violin sits in the mix in a way that you could potentially miss it without good headphones, and yet it manages to still make a significant impact. The Sleeping City is absolutely a fitting addition to this band’s discography and one that you would instantly recognize as coming from them. That said, the progressive label would be ill-fitting if they didn’t make some changes to their approach.
Three main components really help this feel like a different adventure than Woe. While guitar leads were present on the previous album, they were utilized more sparingly and implemented at seemingly very precise moments. The Sleeping City puts a much greater focus on letting the guitar feel like an exploratory tool during open, atmospheric passages as well as popping in a higher quantity of leads. Take a listen to “Emmett” and you’ll find those two modes of guitar dominate a significant portion of its 11-minute runtime. Next, clean vocals play a more important role, and there is a greater variety of them. The aforementioned lovely voice in Irish folk-style that opens “Frost Flower” is a brilliantly beautiful counterpoint to the aptly titled “Like A Geyser Ever Erupting” that comes before it, which may just be the heaviest thing this band has ever written. Finally, the keyboard has adopted a distinctly different style here. While it played an equally vital role in Woe, the keys often stayed more in a traditional piano or keyboard tone. On The Sleeping City, however, the keys are very often synths, creating much more of a sci-fi atmosphere than a classical sense of drama.
Just as their other works have, this new album will take more time to fully settle for me. Little details continue to pop out and grab me by the ear with each listen. Woe landed as my number three album in 2022. I’m not sure The Sleeping City will do the same, but it certainly keeps pulling me back in and I’m pleased that the experience feels so different despite the core approach to their music being the same. So, death, black, atmospheric, whatever – who gives a fuck? It’s progressive metal and it’s very interesting progressive metal at that.
