[Cover art by Caelan Stokkermans]
“Change–and everything is change; nothing can be held on to–to the degree that you go with a stream, you see, you are are still, you are flowing with it. But to the degree you resist the stream, then you notice that the current is rushing past you and fighting you. So swim with it, go with it, and you’re there.”
This bit of wisdom, provided by British philosopher Alan Watts, appears via soundbite early in the second side of Circadian Promise, the third full length release forthcoming from Connecticut’s Fires in Distance. Change is the iron law of life, Watts tells us, so we may as well roll with it. Sound advice in general, but you may find it particularly useful in grappling with the U.S. melodic death-doomers’ latest effort.
Circadian Promise finds the band changing in the ways life invariably does, with subtle shifts catalyzing significant impact. Consider the riffing approach the band employs here; the sound is pleasingly similar to what we heard on 2023’s mighty Air Not Meant for Us – mid-paced, melodic and rendered in a bruising baritone. But unlike on their previous effort, the band is no-longer composing the kind lyrical, multi-bar riffs that positioned them, at least in my mind, as a contemporary answer to Opeth’s first two albums. Here, instead, the rhythm guitar parts are compact and seem to be making room for more expressive lead work.
Track 2, “To You, the Author of My Fade,” begins with a tidy melodic death metal riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on Dark Tranquillity’s Damage Done album, but played a few steps down the neck. On its own, it’s about half as interesting as any of the standout guitar parts we got on Air Not Meant for Us, but as the band iterates, introduces some syncopated drums and builds to a triumphant post-bridge guitar solo, you come to appreciate the trade-off of virtuosic riffwork for matured songcraft.
Not all the changes Fires in the Distance display on Circadian Promise are quite so subtle. Those who’ve kept up with the band between releases surely know that vocalist Kristian Grimaldi was replaced by Brendan Hayter. Fans can debate the former front man’s significance relative to that of lead composer Yegor Savonin, but to my ears, Grimaldi’s absence is deeply felt. We’re squarely in the realm of subjective personal preference here, but Grimaldi’s baritone bark helped to ground the band’s sound in the style of early 2000s Gothic metal–think Finland’s Rapture and Italy’s Novembre–whereas Hayter’s Mikael Stanne-inspired high register delivery feels at odds with instrumentalists who do their best work on the low-end. Hayter also introduces some clean singing to the mix on Circadian Promise, and his performance is on time, in key and generally a worthwhile contribution to the band’s evolution as songwriters. But just as even really, ridiculously good-looking people need a distinctive beauty mark to truly catch our eye, I personally think Hayter could significantly benefit by adding a little ugly to his performance, rather than hewing safely to the middle ground.
But here I am, resisting the stream as it rushes past me. Give me a dose of truth-serum, and I’d be hard pressed to isolate an objective flaw in Hayter’s vocal performance. I’d just have to admit that it’s simply new–the lead indicator of Fires in the Distance both subtly and significantly becoming a different band than the one that made Air Not Meant for Us an album that ranks quite high on my list of the decade’s best. Change … everything is change. You can stand against the stream or go with its flow; I’ve done a bit of both with Circadian Promise, but I’ve ultimately found the moments where I’ve done the latter enriching enough to recommend fans of this style to dive in as well.
