Having pre-ordered several months back, the second album by Cardiff-based six-piece was eagerly awaited. I’ve heard several songs live over the past few months; indeed a couple of songs have been in their live set for more than a year, which just heightened the anticipation all the more.
It was well worth the wait.
As is to be expected from anyone who’s seen them live recently, they’ve moved in a more metallic direction, with their twin guitars much heavier and dirtier in many places, but retain their strongly memorable melodies and often complex three-part vocal harmonies that made their debut such a powerful listen. The title track in particular is an absolute prog-metal monster, opening the album with a bang. Up to the point where Rachel’s sublime voice comes in it reminds me strongly of parts of Dream Theater’s dark and intense ‘Awake’. ‘Sharp Sea’, ‘Call Me God?’ and the closing epic ‘A Musing Dream’ are equally powerful, with some intriguing lyrics – I wonder if ‘Call Me God?’ is about any megalomaniac in particular?
It’s not all distorted guitars; several songs show a mellower side, I particularly like Dylan Thompson’s ‘In the Future’, and the ballad ‘Breaking the Fourth Wall’, one of the few songs where keyboard player Gareth Jones had a big hand in the writing. ‘Absolute Zero’ even has a jazzy element we haven’t heard before.
This is really an album where the composition and song arrangement is far more important than musos showing off their chops, which is exactly how it should be. But I have to say that new guitarist Owain Roberts excels himself with some superbly fluid soloing in places, the sort of restrained virtuosity that never descends into self-indulgence.
The Reasoning are certainly not the sort of band that does ‘difficult second albums’. If their debut, “Awakening” was one of the best albums of last year, “Dark Angel” has taken things a stage further. This is a band who I’m sure are heading to bigger and better things.
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