Upon my annual search for new bands, new sounds and new musical enjoyment I came across a band called Astral Display. I had not heard of them before but their name and artwork from their initial work “Prometheus” took my fancy so I downloaded their album from a bandcamp supported site. This was before they seem to have been picked up by Rogue Records America who seem to be picking up a lot of overseas Djent/Math/Progressive Metal bands such as Astral Display.
The boys hail from Moscow, Russia. The “motherland” sounds true as I have recently found a well of great bands coming out of Russia of late and it’s a pleasure in comparison to the over saturated mediocrity that comes out of America these days.
Bands Astral Display like: Periphery, Tesseract, Meshuggah, Textures, Monuments, Twelve Foot Ninja, I-Exist, Siamese Fighting Fish, Mnemic, After the Burial, Monuments, Volumes, Heart Of A Coward, Solace
What has stuck with me is their melodic vocals, atmospheric tones, grooves, memorable riffage. The experience isn’t just a round of tracks but to me feels like an audible journey with their priorly mentioned ambience checked in between tracks. I highly recommed checking out their debut outing “Prometheus” with “Standing on a Precipice” and “Ignorance” giving me all kinds of giddiness. Their first EP via Rouge Records America has 3 tracks and can be purchased through bandcamp, I will link it at the end of this article. Via their Facebook page they noted that this 3 track EP was their way of showing us their sound and what they’re wanting to give out there, and great sample of what they’re capable of and they don’t disappoint. Yes it’s 3 tracks but it really plays like 1 overall experience with “Conception” leading into the amazing “Breath” then finishing with “Perception”. It’s like taking the best parts of “Prometheus” into a tidy package. I am hoping they follow up with a full album after this tease.
Being in Australia not many bands come down this way that I’m interested in, and early days yet but I would love these guys to do a tour here. I would go out of my way to see them. I don’t normally big note many bands, but I want more of what I like and what I like, they have. Bring on more Astral Display!
Here are some links if you want to know more about this very enjoyable band.
Buy “Prometheus”: http://roguerecordsamerica.bandcamp.com/album/prometheus
Buy “Breath” EP: http://roguerecordsamerica.bandcamp.com/album/breath
Website: http://www.astraldisplay.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AstralDisplay
– Chunt
