Multinational ensemble ESCAPETHECULT was instigated back in 2008, and consists of four musicians with a fairly impressive background where drummer Alexander (Primus) and guitarist Wead (King Diamond) arguably are the most well known. Bassist Shallmin (Kamlath) and and vocalist Romarin (Uneven Structure) make up the rest of this quartet. “All You Want To” is their first album, and was self released in the fall of 2014.

A lot can be said about this production, and a lot has already been stated by others about this band too. When well known musicians decides to try to explore their respective talents as a collective unit this tends to create a bit of press, as those who work in that business obviously know that familiar names leads to higher interest and thus higher sales or more hits, depending on the medium they work for. The downside of this is that one may be taken in with the familiarity of the names of course, you don’t have to retrospectively check many star-spangled band constellations of the past to come across a fair few that just didn’t work out commercially and/or artistically.

In the case of Escapethcult, I’d say that the end result at this point is one that has a development potential. The vocals are great, the drumming impressive, the bass is tidy, strong and distinct, and the guitars (plural) add both a delicate touch, a darker, rough edge and a distinct chaotic element to the proceedings in a nice way. The individual elements are, basically, of a fairly high quality. But at least for me the sum of these individual parts collectively is less than the sum of them individually.

The instruments tends to oppose each other rather than to supplement each other, emphasizing the chaotic dimensions the guitars create themselves to a detrimental end result. Normally using contrasting elements as the guitars provides so elegantly throughout by alternating between light toned, frail details, harder and harsher riffs and harmony solo runs and overlays, also combining two or more of these elements fairly liberally, will create and maintain nerve and tension. But when you add elements that emphasize the chaotic impressions, as bass and drums do extensively in this case, it’s a challenging balancing act to make it work. In this case my personal impression is that the end result is unbalanced I’m afraid. That I get the impression of the lead vocals mainly taking it’s cues from the non-dominating aspects of the compositions, mainly underlying guitars or bass rather than the dominant guitar theme when present, adds a further chaotic element that for my ears becomes detrimental, the vocals appearing as halfway disconnected from the totality they are a part of.

The compositions themselves are fairly uniform affairs that doesn’t come across as all that inspired either I’m sorry to say. Alternative rock and grunge are the main associations I catch, with a few select details arguably closer to NWoBHM added for good measure. There are few alterations in pace and a fairly straight forward structure, the main alterations are in terms of intensity. Some brief moments of magic does appear on a regular basis, the manner in which a chaotic riff based  sequence smoothly and securely transforms into a dual harmony based guitar solo arrangement can be mentioned, but in sum none of these compositions are truly able to inspire me.

Escapethecult is a talented band, and you can’t question the skills and talents of the musicians involved. At this stage of the band’s career my main impression is that they still have a way to go to be able to create material greater than the sum of it’s parts however, and that their talents as a collective unit isn’t where it should be just yet. Much the same can be said about the compositions I’m afraid. It’s almost as if one might get the impression of an album consisting of material written for a different set of musicians, recorded individually by the musicians involved in separate locations and then assembled.

Overall this makes me conclude that Escapethecult as of 2014 will be something of an acquired taste. If you love to listen to quality musicians exploring a brand of music somewhere in between hard rock and metal, with what for me appears to be a distinct orientation towards alternative rock and grunge, then “All You Want To” is an album you most likely will find to be a pleasant and intriguing experience. On the other hand, if you are more concerned about the compositions as a total experience and not that concerned about the technical aspects as such, then chances are that this album will leave you somewhat cold. As Escapethecult use the Bandcamp service it should be fairly easy and quick to establish a first impression of course, and due to the novelty factor of the musicians involved I suspect many will use that opportunity to satisfy their curiosity anyhow.

My rating: 54/100