ARTIST: Riddlebreak
ALBUM NAME: Collapsar
RELEASE DATE: January 2016
COUNTRY: South Africa
CITY: Johannesburg
GENRE – Progressive Metal
MEMBERS:
Vox – Jade Osner
Drums – Gordon Bosma
Rhythm Guitar – Gareth Reed
Lead Guitar – Julian Vosloo
Bass – Roushan van Niekerk
The scrubbed clean production values of Riddlebreak’s Collapsar makes this seven track album tight and tidy – perfect for those long days stuck in tedious traffic.
Production values aside, the album punctuates with solid rhythmic guitars and pummeling drums. This is best demonstrated on the third track of Collapsar titled Dreamer’s End. However, it is on the fifth track Zero Point Energy that listeners get to taste the progressive tendencies of the Joburg based metal band and experience the complexity of its compositional structure. Furthermore Something Sick has a great stylistic variation that shows the band isn’t afraid to experiment and add different elements to their sound. Keeping within the progressive genre though, the tracks are lengthy with Rogue clocking in at seven minutes and dragging for roughly three minutes too long.
The debut album is well crafted and the sound is sharp with intense not-so-clean vocals. Just like the vox, the lyrics are powerful and concentrated on escapism and space. All this echoes on the album cover art designed by Riddlebreak’s bass player, Roushan Van Niekerk.
In a nutshell, the five-piece band has earned their place in the local metal industry with a high quality debut album and relatively progressive sound. Riddlebreak’s Collapsar will hurt and terrify but there is salvation.
Reviewed by: Lav Nandlall (more from Lav)
Shots fired by: Sammy SF (more from Sammy)
Date: 14 March 2016
(More from The Metalist za on RIDDLEBREAK)
Follow RIDDLEBREAK on:
