Empire Springs - Ascend - Song Review - Post Progressive Rock from Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Today I am writing about a promising post progressive rock project, Empire Springs, from Birmingham, Alabama, USA, with their single, Ascend.
Ascend (Studio Playthrough)
Empire Springs is: Brett BellomyMichael NaroChadwick McDowellEthan Standard
Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by John DouglassKeyboard production by Eric Guenther
Empire Springs is a special collective that caught my attention about a few months ago simply with their intelligence in Ascend, one of the singles off from their latest studio album, The Luminescence (2022). As a progressive rock fan, I think Empire Springs deserve all the appreciation for their taste in music above everything else.
The song, Ascend, has a modern approach to its sound design and production, working perfectly together with the band's specific music style, making the necessary impact on the listener with its established standards. I am often getting skeptical whenever it comes to listening to bands with modern characteristics, cause most of these bands sound almost the same. Empire Springs has an acceptable level of being too modern to my taste, I feel satisfied with the impact on Ascend.
The musical influences are mainly post and progressive rock, accompanied by a commercial and polished sound character. The collective is talented enough to make sure you don't get into those details but focus on the music. I feel like they have Dream Theater in the middle of their musical origins, accompanied by projects such as Devin Townsend, Animals as Leaders, and TesseracT. These American gentlemen are a fine combination of all these pioneers without a doubt.
On the other side of the coin, I also feel like the band needs to work on improving personality in their work. The sound design is simply great, yet was it recognizable enough? I'm afraid not. Great sounding song most of the time not enough to make good music, you also got to have something others don't.
Moreover, although I appreciate the personal touch in their professionally done visuals, the same thing came to my mind. They reminded me of TesseracT's spacy theme which doesn't belong to this planet, where you can also find similarities with their song/album titles and subjects. I personally would approach to their album if it had Metallica's And Justice For All artwork on it for instance, simply because I never listened to such specific music with such visuals before...
When I put all these into account, I'd like to say that I had a great time listening to Ascend, by Empire Springs. Simply a great progressive and post rock blend with a modern polished sound and easy listening character. Thanks for reading.
EMPIRE SPRINGS on the WEB
Facebook
Instagram
Spotify
Youtube
Listen to Metalhead Community's The Next Big Thing In Rock Playlist on Spotify
