Anciients – Beyond the Reach of the Sun 2024

Beyond the Reach of the Sun … was more streamlined and slithery, more chest-thumpingly direct, more epic and triumphant sounding. Riffs come in explosive layered packets. Leads, harmonies and melodies are more on par with wind-tussled mountain tops instead of sweaty bar shows and the band moves with finely honed, martial accuracy as conducted by Hannay’s rocket-in-the-pocket staccato swing and accents.

Songs like “The Torch” blaze with the shirtless glisten of ‘70s stadium rock power. “Cloak of the Vast and Black” swirls and whirls with a combination of hardcore intensity, grunge groove and expansive six-string parries. “In the Absence of Wisdom” is a hurricane-sized maelstrom of classic and prog rock elevated to grandiosity by a return to their growling sludge/death early years as the song/album concludes. The album’s first single, “Melt the Crown” mixes cues from legendary fellow hosers Rush and Harlequin, turn-of-the-millennium post-metal and the most psychedelic corners of the Rise Above Records roster.

Album opener “Forbidden Sanctuary” is the soundtrack to exploration, of new worlds and sonic arrangement as sine-wave guitars pull from vintage Mercyful Fate covens and Krautrock communes with synths opening up novel textural avenues, as they do on the ethereal wispiness and space rock/sci-fi soundscapes of the instrumental “Candescence.”

1. Forbidden Sanctuary (8:16)
2. Despoiled (5:19)
3. Is It Your God (7:07)
4. Melt the Crown (7:08)
5. Cloak of the Vast and Black (6:20)
6. Celestial Tyrant (5:52)
7. Beyond Our Minds (4:12)
8. The Torch (4:13)
9. Candescence (4:10)
10. In the Absence of Wisom (6:35)

Kenny Cook – Guitar, Vocals
Brock MacInnes – Guitar
Rory O’Brien – Bass
Mike Hannay – Drums
With
Justin Hagberg – Keyboards (1, 3, 4, 9, 10)
Jesse Gander – Synth (5, 9)