GREY SKIES FALLEN – The Many Sides of Truth
- Posted on 30-06-2014
The fourth studio album for New York’s Grey Skies Fallen, "The Many Sides of Truth" contains 4 long vocal songs and 3 instrumentals. As far as what to expect stylistically, the quintet meld the best aspects of progressive, doom, and extreme metal to create a sound quite unique. All 3 aspects can be heard for instance in the 9:45 opener "Ritual of the Exiter", opening very quietly and building into this doom/death boxing match that should keep your ears pinned for anticipation. Guitarist Rick Habeeb has a multi-faceted melancholic to growly nature depending solely on the mood and texture the band conveys at any given time – along similar lines as Novembers Doom.
The keyboards give material like the instrumental "Unroot Transparent Being" and "Of the Ancients" exotic or funeral meets classical nuances, adding layers that make this material thicker and richer upon subsequence exposures. You get the sense that Grey Skies Fallen would be just as likely to hail from the UK instead of NY – translating misery into beauty, weaving in the right twin guitar harmonies to accent certain hooks from melodic to the darkest metal sub-genres.
I do feel that the shorter instrumentals offer a brief respite from the heady proceedings of the 4 main songs – progressive doom/death is not a genre for the weak, the impatient, or those that can’t handle arrangements that usually exceed the 6 minute mark. Already at work on the follow up, "The Many Sides of Truth" is a fine release to calm fears, offer introspection, or just allow emotions to flood humanity safely, as all the best thought-provoking underground metal releases can (and should) accomplish.
www.facebook.com/greyskiesfallen