The Blue Prison: The Blue Prison

Los Angeles based Instrumental Progressive metal duo The Blue Prison have partnered up with Metal Assault Records to deliver their debut self-titled album. Blue Prison contains four new pieces, two newly mastered singles and one track from each of their previously released EP’s. The Blue Prison has been working towards this goal for over 6 years and strives to present a diverse range of abilities and musical directions.

Guitarist Keigo Yoshida and Drummer Jamie Munoz explore familiar progressive metal territory with plenty of the requisite technical wizardry and heavy riffing expected from the genre these days. The symphonic atmosphere is also present throughout for example on songs like “Tyrant� and “Alchemist� with their mix of in-your-face riffing and drum pummeling along with the meditative arrangements floating in the background adding a spacey character to the music. The band also uses electronic beats and effects sporadically throughout the album like on “Shadows� and “River�. “Vengeance v2.0� even starts off sounding like a Trance track before exploding into the metal. Songs like “Artemis� have some great guitar melodies, with Keigo tapping and shredding his way through the arrangements. The production is also quite good, with a very modern sound that serves the musical well, conveying the technicality, emotion and heavy power. Some rawness is still here too, in the form of occasional looseness in the individual parts on both guitar and drums and personally I prefer that. The album doesn’t have the feel of being snapped to a grid, even if it may be. Musically the album while definitely being from the extreme metal family never feels overly harsh and in fact retains the melodic beauty through virtually the whole album.

The Blue Prison is a powerful showcase of progressive metal and its diverse abilities. The album is both heavy and beautiful and has a good amount of adventurousness without coming off as self indulgent or pretentious. While some of the cliches of technical and progressive extreme metal are certainly here, there is also a strength in the band's compositional skills that makes this a very enjoyable listen for any fans of instrumental extreme metal.

THE BLUE PRISON is:
Keigo Yoshida (guitar)
Jaime Munoz (drums)

Track Listing
1. Beacon (1:22)
2. Alchemist (4:57)
3. Shadows (5:27)
4. Artemis (3:34)
5. Kaleidoscope (4:28)
6. River (1:30)
7. Tyrant (4:16)
8. Vengeance v2.0 (5:35)
9. Los Angeles (3:23)
10. Rosetta (3:50)

Added: September 25th 2021
Reviewer: Benjamin Dudai
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 943
Language: english

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