Instrumental proggressive metal for the spring
This instrumental debut EP by the Swiss trio Pollen, Mutualism, will give you the right dose of hard-hitting progressive metal, mathcore and djent among other styles. The music shifts effortless and fearless between different styles throughout the album in an impressive way. And the band shows through their pure musicianship that they are not new to the scene, although their new band is.
Each member of the trio has played in different Swiss bands throughout the years, all immersed in deathcore, djent and progressive metal. Now these three musicians have joined forces and released an EP where the pure joy of playing together is easy to catch for the listener.
For many of us pollen is something we sneeze from in the springtime, but this release has a wider message. The band are obviously inspired of the symbiose between bees and flowers, the mutualism of those two species. And that is clear in the music – behind the often hard and heavy guitar, the drum blasts and rolling bass you can clearly hear the string picking. synth and piano resembling the bees flying from flower to flower, pollinating. A perfect album for spring and summer.
The EP starts out with the track Symbiosis that sets the theme of the album, starts out with spoken words over lurking dark guitar and string picking before the drums kick in and the music starts, fast and hard hitting. Throughout the track, there are many shifts in tempo and styles. The bass and drums give an immense drive with swirling guitars. And suddenly it quiets down to give room for the spoken words that gives the theme for the album.
The next track Fleur is a quieter track that naturally follows the theme of the first track. Although there is harshness here too, it is more mellow and melody driven than the other tracks on the EP, the mellow guitar, soft drumming and bass is given more room to breathe, to let the pollinated flower grow.
The band do not hold back on the next track, Crevasse. This is almost a mathcore rollercoaster of a track and is hard, dark and deep as a crevasse can be – especially when the music takes a pause to let us feel the abyss through ambient drums, bass and synths before it picks up again and runs hard to the end.
The last track Oak starts out with a guitar swirl and then hits hard and massive as an oak can be. But a mighty oak also reaches for the sky with the branches and foliage and the guitar beautifully describes this as the drum and bass give a musical description of the tree trunk.
Although this EP clocks in short of 18 minutes, it seems much longer because of the constant shifts between styles and the roller coaster feeling the listener is left with at the end. Let us just hope that the symbiosis between these skilled musicians will bring us more soon and bring this kind of music further with their creativity.
