The Fallen Divine
The Binding Cycle

From our neighbours in the west who have yet to discover the magic of roads hails this band who consists of divine fallout who are stuck in the cycle of a vicious black hole which is on its way of swallowing some stuff. It looks interesting I would have to say although the band’s logotype looks as it is an uninteresting band and it is rather ugly as well. It is the first and self financed album of this band, they recorded it to get their music to the people and probably attract attention from the labels which might be a good way to go as they have used an established producer in Andy LaRocque which can be seen as rather clever and a maximising of what they can achieve. But what can we expect from these norwegians then? more than from most of their fellow landsmen that are in the metal business you most likely hope. If you want to make up your own opinion and not take my word for it, you can always buy the album from the band’s bandcamp site which we have linked to on the left.

POR is what it is said to be, Progressive Oriented Rock which is rooted in the extreme. It is quite complicated music which goes from the classical progressive oriented rock the more extreme metallic stuff, but it is not only the heaviness that is varied as the music shifts in tempo and style. It is complicated and varied but without getting stuck on a certain path for any extended period of time which gives a dynamic impression and this happens despite the fact that the singer remains in the growling way of singing for the entire album. The production is as you could expect top notch and a very professional product and the fact is that this entire album showcase a lot of professionalism, something that will show them in a favourable light when viewed by label bosses or whoever decides what bands to sign. The album has eight tracks which on average play for six minutes almost to the second which means that it is slightly past the 48 minute mark when it ends. Some songs are over seven minutes long but the average is quite long songs all way through with the shortest song being 3:56, but that is quite typical of the genre I would say.

I would say that this album is a very good one, it is complex but yet the melodies are quite accessible and it has a flow, it never ends up being static as many progressive oriented bands seem to end up being. It feels as though it is more about the melodies than about being extremely advanced and complicated as some progressive bands ends up being, especially new and inexperienced bands. The Fallen Divine manage to keep my interest for more or less the entire album with their clever range of music which sometimes is beautiful and sometimes it is brutal, sometimes it is slow and sometimes it is fast and the changes happen seamlessly throughout the album, it is a very mature debut and this band really deserves a record label if this is what they can present when doing everything by themselves. I would say that the entire album is really good and that it is difficult to pick any favourites but if I were to I would say that the first three songs are probably just a little better than what follows.

There are not many weaknesses in this album but the vocals is one slight weakness being quite monotonous and there are a few dull parts on the latter half of the album but these niggles are not that big and they are not that many but if those were sorted it would be really interesting to hear this band. I would say that this promises a lot for this band’s future, with such a mature debut which feels thought through and well made. I think it is just a matter of time before they are picked up by a label and imagine what they can achieve with the correct backing if this is what they do with no backing, they show a whole lot of promise so it is probably wise to remember their name, The Fallen Divine.