TALIESIN – Faceless (2022)
Australian progressive acts rarely disappoints, and TALIESIN with their new album “Faceless” confirms there’s an interesting and talented scene. Taliesin is a progressive metal band that has been around for a few years, released an album eight years ago but faced an unimaginable run of bad luck that included studio fires and of course a savage lockdown.
Well, that gap gave the band to polish the new songs, and ”Faceless” is the sort of smorgasbord that melodic prog metal fans are going to soil themselves over. The music is definitely top notch Progressive Metal, no doubt about it. The one difference from the standard Prog Metal that is a big strength for this band is the very interesting vocal harmonies that they use. And short, song-format tracks.
There quite literally isn’t a moment wasted here as the band flit from Van Halenish melody (Climbing) all the way through to woozy, Floydian reverie (epic closer Widower’s Daughter), stopping at post-grunge crunch (Not Coming Home) and, perhaps most pertinent of all, the solidly metallic modern prog sound – and it’s all good indeed.
Vocalist Dave Howe is a cornerstone of all this – the band simply couldn’t cover this much ground musically if Howe wasn’t up to it vocally – and the constantly inventive guitars of Richard Moseley and Reuben Durham percolate endless riff-based permutations to keep the listener engaged at all times.
Repeated exposure to ”Faceless” will reveal the album to be almost completely bereft of any weak point whatsoever, and if this album catches a wave in the world’s metal media it’s easy to see Taliesin going on to bigger and better things in the prog metal arena.
Let’s hope the next one doesn’t take quite so long to make it into the public’s consciousness.
Highly Recommended
01 – Awakened by Darkness
02 – Climbing
03 – Faceless Women
04 – The Wilderness
05 – Reflection
06 – Not Coming Home
07 – My Sleeping Prize
08 – Turbulence
09 – Truth of the Hunter
10 – Widower’s Daughter
Dave Howe – Vocals
Richard Moseley, Reuben Durham – Guitar
Kristern Nunney – Bass
Wayne Bateup – Drums, Percussion
BUY
www.amazon.de/gp/product/B09XY45G9F
