Killer 2012 release from these Dutch Prog groove metallers. The super sad news is that they are no longer together. They split up after the release of the follow up album to this due to apathy and knocking on the door for far too long and getting nowhere.
I managed to catch them live once in support of this album with Periphery and The Contortionist. I know killer line up or what? If I were to describe Textures to anyone I would say listen to the first track Arms of The Sea as this has everything that you would associate with the band. Namely awesome clean and growl vocal, off time drum rhythm grooves, drop D and beyond guitars, and a crushing ending.
Things carry on nicely through Black Horse Stampede and beautiful Reaching Home until we reach the epic Sanguine Draws the Oath. Another great off time groove and riff from Jochem Jacobs and Bart Hennephofs dual guitars, some killer drumming courtesy of Stef Brooks and epic vocal from Daniel De Jong. Absolute killer stuff. The riffs go really low in full djentorama!! Buy this album for this track alone!! Side 1 closes out with the epic Consonant Hemispheres.
Over to Side 2 and the instrumental Burning the Midnight Oil gets things going nicely, and then into the mighty Singularity again with weird off time groves and killer drums. Minor Earth Major Skies, Stoic Resignation, and Foreclosure fly by and we get all too quickly to the close out track Sketches From A Motionless Statue, almost Dream Theateresque in its beginning.
It’s sad to say that the music business is littered with bands like Textures who burn brightly for a short period and then they are gone. I know it wasn’t for a lack of trying as they funded almost everything themselves. If I were to recommend one Textures album to purchase for your collection then it would be this monster.
9/10 from The Grooveman.
