Album Review

Spires - Spiral of AscensionSpires – Spiral of Ascension

These Manchester based progressive rockers have brought some much needed honour back to the British progressive metal scene. This debut full length album is ram packed full of intricate riffs, mesmerising shifts in vocal work and a range of heavy tones waiting for any metal fan to whip their hear and necks around to. Whilst a range of different influences have quite clearly been drawn – most notably Opeth, Mastodon and sometimes hints of Dream Theater – they use them to produce their own distinctive sound as opposed to ripping off songs by each band which happens a fair bit these days.

Should you ever be presented with this album “Spiral of Ascension”, the name Spires for a start isn’t really much of an initial hint at the style and neither does this really nice piece of art that graces the cover, but once you’ve listened to even the opening track “Equilibrium”, those 6 minutes piece everything together. That particular track has very complex guitar work and is primarily a downright metal track but never fear, the talent isn’t just pinned to their heavier side, oh no; “Symmetry” is a break from the chaos with 4 minutes of gentle soothing guitar tones and shows that no matter what the pace these guys can produce something beautiful.

With me however the initial task of looking at their longer songs like “Broken Hourglass” or the title track “Spiral of Ascension” both of which hit the 14 minute mark, but again both of which are full of the good stuff. They keep you interested because it always spirals off somewhere new and interesting and instead of urging to skip you find yourself awaiting the next instalment.

I will come clean, because of the amount of CD’s I get sent that vary in style and sound, I do now and always have initially judged CD’s by the band’s name and the cover art. When I got this in a batch I left it till last because I wasn’t expecting the content to be so incredible, I was expecting some really slow depressing gothic natured stuff but instead I’ve been given some of Britain’s best prog metal. If you’re a fan of interesting guitar work and complex structures, get this album and look forward to the next!

4.5/5

Review by James Webb

 Band Members

Paul Sadler
Paul Cuthbert
Alex Jolley
Chris Barnard
 Track Listing
1. Equilibrium
2. The Infinite Descent
3. Nightfall
4. Broken Hourglass
5. Symmetry
6. Martyr
7. Spiral of Ascension
8. A New Prayer
 Band Related Links
Spires Facebook
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?