ALMO: Reconciliation

Reconciliation is the debut full-length from ALMO, a solo project from Swedish musician Benjamin Almö Thorsell. This project has been his main musical outlet since his previous band Frozen Realm disbanded in 2019. Reconciliation is proclaimed to be ‘a concept album and journey about coming to terms with, and accepting things in life while moving on and evolving as a person’.

With a run time of over 60 minutes this isn’t an album that can be easily digested, however, if bands like Haken & Between the Buried and Me are the type of modern heavy progressive music that you enjoy, then you’ll find this album worth the investment. The Haken influence is really clear to my ears, percussive, Djenty riffs, overlayed with slinky pattern- orientated lead work is on show in almost every track. In terms of song structure, there are a lot of heavy moments and softer, more mellow verse sections too. Vocally I hear the growled vocal style and cleans being quite similar to those used by Between the Buried and Me or Periphery, and the growls have that metalcore fry vocal style as opposed to the more guttural styles used by old- school death metal bands. The cleans are in the same vein too.

ALMO has released two singles in the lead-up to the album release on the 15th of March, "Winterhound" and "Bliss". Both a good examples of the range and style of the music on the album. My favourite tracks would be "Bliss", "PANIC ATTACK!!!" and the epic closing track "Reconciliation", which seems to be so Haken influenced that it could almost be called "Crystallized" 2.0, acapella vocal section and all!

All in all, it's hard not to be impressed by the scale of this release. It’s a high caliber album with great production and crisp musicianship. I’ve probably been a little harsh with the 3.5 star rating, but the lack of originality is probably an aspect that has contributed to this. For the record, I don’t have a problem with pure Haken worship, but when you’ve heard it done before it doesn’t hit quite the same way. A very strong debut and a band to keep an eye on no doubt.

Track Listing:

1. Rain
2. Vilsen
3. Hope
4. Bliss
5. In Dreams
6. Winterhound
7. PANIC ATACK!!!
8. Reconciliation

Added: March 12th 2024
Reviewer: Chris Reid
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 795
Language: english

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