This hyper talented French crew from Toulouse just keeps on rolling onward, this third album surely consecrating composer, vocalist, keyboardist and programmer Aurélien Goude as the next wunderkind in atmospheric modern prog. Though both previous albums (the debut ‘The Awakening” in 2020 still a personal favourite) were critically celebrated by the global progressive media, this new release is certainly not ‘out of step’ but rather a large leap forward, as their skills are now even more refined and defined. With Porcupine Tree, the Pineapple Thief and Anathema all seemingly taking a rest or perhaps even vanishing forever, Esthesis can now legitimately usurp the vacant throne and claim dominion, at least for the time being. All the prerequisites are in place, a tremendous litany of moody atmospherics, well-rounded melodies wrapped in radiant variational vectors that surprise at every twist and turn, forging a kaleidoscope of emotions oozing from each and every note, with Aurélien’s voice in particular fine form. New recruit Rémi Geyer on lead guitars provides an opulent buzz to the arrangements, a harder edge that can become razor sharp when called upon, while bassist Marc Anguill and percussor extraordinaire Arnaud Nicolau cement the foundational structure with renewed vigor as well. On sulky tracks like “Connection”, “The Frame” and “Out of Step”, the evidence of synergic propulsion becomes overt and obvious, the title piece specifically showing little mercy towards the unprepared listener, devouring the speakers with insistent chaos.
A moment of reflective beauty beckons on the glimmering “City Lights”, as if looking down over an urban horizon, twinkling colorations of the beehive some of us choose to live in, comfort in numbers and social interface. Here the sifting mood appears as an opaque contemplation, heavily echoed in voice exhortations and hued in multi-coloured psychedelics. “Circus” maintains the soft fantasy as Aurelien reaches for higher registers, while Arnaud pounds the skins with acrobatic elegance, wall of sound guitar cascades shimmer with lion-taming thoroughness, as the clowns sit back and smile.
Then comes the epic leviathan, a nearly 11 minutes of rapturous melancholia on the turbulent “The Storm”, a watery adventure with sonic ‘waves crashing around’, cymbals splashing violently, and the white capped guitar gales slash through the rain-drenched keyboard orchestrations. A siren (Mathilde Collet) beckons the sailors to gamble away their trepidations and find solace in her enchanting embrace. Geyer does some serious six-string damage, an ebb and flow of unrelenting bravery, a definite highlight that deserves applause. Aurelien pleads for immediate salvation, a marooned voice desperately holding on to some wreckage, the fear of a slow and numbing drowning replaced by acceptance and eternal stillness.
It should come therefore as no surprise then that a bonus track follows with a title such “Abyss”, one can only surmise of an ultimate entrance into Poseidon’s realm, a subterranean darkness that knows no pain, no sorrow nor even happiness. Just silent peace.
Esthesis has arrived, a bright future awaits and hopefully more amazing music from this band.
4.5 misty tones