Album Review: Countless Skies – Glow (Willowtip Records)

UK-based melodic death metal band Countless Skies have joined forces with Willowtip Records for the release of their newest album, Glow.

The follow-up to 2016’s full-length debut New Dawn, Glow takes the band’s progressive brand of melodeth to new heights with richly-layered instrumentation, superb musicianship and raw emotion. Thematically, Glow is based on the album’s epic title track, a 20-minute opus split into three parts.

Willowtip Records will release Glow on November 6th on digipak CD, digital and vinyl formats.

Everything about Glow, before even hitting play, screams epic and then you hear it and that kind of thinking is confirmed. Glow is an epic, not just the three part title track but the entire thing and sees Countless Skies surpass their excellent debut with ease.

Time and experience has given this band new and improved talents and the end result is a progressive melo-death album that is incredibly grand. Beginning with the brilliant Tempest, a track that fills the soul up with light while staying impressively focused. One of the finest tracks Countless Skies have written to date.

How do they follow that? With the stunning Summit, a track that has a bite filled with rabid risk but is also transcendent with clever instrumentation. While dishing out these humongous clean singing segments that are just amazing.

It would be more of a surprise if Moon wasn’t as brilliant as those previous two tracks but surprise surprise, it is. With a much more urgent gambit of melo-death progressiveness, it’s one of the more super-heated efforts. Yet it still retains that grandiose feeling thanks once again to soaring highs.

Whereas Zephyr goes for a low and moody start to shake things up. Like a caterpillar going through its transformation into a butterfly, it really stands out when it changes tact. The rumble and melodramatic tone being the herald of what is about to come. Which is Countless Skies delivering a heavy burst that increases in intensity and tempo while dripping with detailed emotion.

10/10. Easily. Even before Countless Skies have dared to drop the three-parter that is the title track. There’s no doubting that it’s not going to be every bit the banger and it really is but there’s so much more to it that deserves mentioning.

Part 1 is made up of melodies with these exciting progressive bursts of heaviness and snarling intent. The soaring solo that helps transition things into Part 2 is phenomenal. Especially as Part 2 begins with such frantic and blood-pumping pace. As it evolves, it continues to eschew traditions for a wander into uplifting instrumentation. Which leads us to the end, Part 3 and the finale that is as lavish as everything heard up to this point.

It’s no surprise that Countless Skies are a great band but this album should be the thing that turns them into superstars.

Countless Skies – Glow Full Track Listing:

1. Tempest
2. Summit
3. Moon
4. Zephyr
5. Glow Part 1
6. Glow Part 2
7. Glow Part 3

Links

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